Chapter Summaries

Shangguan Tianque explained why the Broken Army Sect could not accuse the Donglin Lineage of Li Yan’s disappearance, while suspecting Li Yan had fought and killed a powerful woman in the Heavenly Demon Grassland. Elsewhere, a masked woman wondered where Li Yan had gone, as Li Yan secretly tested soul attacks on a Soul-Slaying Sect cultivator in his cave.

• Ren Yanyu questioned whether the Broken Army Sect should let the Donglin Lineage go, but Shangguan Tianque said they lacked evidence and risked drawing the Blood Lamp Sect’s suspicion.
• Shangguan Tianque proposed that Li Yan had killed the golden-eyed woman, been badly injured, and become the target of the Great-Winged Golden Roc clan’s search.
• A masked woman on an island of the Donglin Lineage wondered whether Li Yan was alive and where he had gone.
• Li Yan attacked a short, sturdy Soul-Slaying Sect cultivator with basic soul techniques inside an array, overpowering his defenses by adding soul force to the attacks.

Li Yan tested his Soul Cultivator techniques on a trapped Golden Core Realm cultivator and concluded that his basic arts needed more practice and stronger manuals. After another ten years of secluded cultivation, Li Yan departed, while the man he had trapped found himself in a strange forest.

• Li Yan attacked the short, sturdy man inside the Mirror Flower illusion array, using the encounter to assess his soul arts and the limits of his strength.
• Li Yan reflected that his soul power had reached the late Nascent Soul stage, but his techniques remained crude and his Condensing Soul Art was no longer bringing rapid improvement.
• Li Yan decided to renew his cave dwelling lease and spend another ten years mastering his basic soul arts for the sect assessment.
• After ten years of seclusion, Li Yan left his mountain residence and flew away.
• The short, sturdy man emerged from disorienting clouds into a forest with no sign of human habitation.

A stocky cultivator escaped a mysterious forest after ten years, but his sect could not find the cave or explain how he had returned. Li Yan arrived near the Soul Suppressing Palace after using the cultivator to learn his sect’s cultivation method and soul techniques.

• The stocky cultivator fled a giant turtle into mist, emerged from a cave beside the Huiming River, and broke down in relief after recognizing familiar places and other cultivators.
• The stocky cultivator returned to his sect with unfamiliar medicinal herbs and severe injuries, prompting its elders to investigate the cave and his disappearance without finding an explanation.
• The chapter described the Soul Suppressing Palace’s territory and its dominance over the surrounding Dizhen Domain.
• Li Yan flew toward the Soul Suppressing Palace while disguising his cultivation as early-stage Nascent Soul and avoiding stronger cultivators.
• Li Yan released the stocky cultivator near the place where he had captured him, altered his memories, left him herbs, and used searches, illusions, and a contract to obtain his cultivation method and soul techniques.

Li Yan reached Soul-Suppressing Palace and sought to join, using his claimed connection to Spirit-Slaying Sect to explain his background. After entering the assessment array, he found himself on a snowy plain where the cold began to affect his consciousness before any visible attack appeared.

• Li Yan obtained Spirit-Slaying Sect's cultivation methods from the short, sturdy man and trained until his soul strength reached the Spirit Transformation Realm and some of his soul arts achieved minor accomplishment.
• Li Yan traveled to Soul-Suppressing Palace and approached its enormous mountain gate, where its restrictions forced him to land before reaching the entrance.
• Li Yan told a gate guard that he was a rogue cultivator descended from former Spirit-Slaying Sect disciples and asked to join Soul-Suppressing Palace; she registered him for assessment in the Hall of Strange Sparrows.
• A gloomy young Nascent Soul Realm cultivator explained that Li Yan had one incense stick to break as many array restrictions as he could, then led him into the assessment formation.
• Li Yan appeared on a frozen plain and waited for the array's attacks, but the cold and snow instead began to slow his consciousness and make his protective barrier ripple.

Li Yan overcame the Soul-Subduing Palace’s soul-targeting ice trial and advanced deep into a second formation resembling an underground alley. The examiner was astonished by Li Yan’s pure spirit power and uncanny precision, and began to regard him as a rare Soul Cultivator genius.

• Li Yan recognized that the ice and snow were silently attacking his soul and spirit, then used crimson spirit power to melt them and break through the first trial.
• The young examiner saw Li Yan’s unusually pure spirit power and suspected he had acquired a secret technique or a heavenly treasure, while considering whether to befriend or eventually rob him.
• The first formation transformed into a gloomy alley that reminded Li Yan of an underground passage, and he cautiously began advancing through it.
• After fifteen minutes, Li Yan emerged pale after reaching one hundred and seventy zhang into the alley formation.
• The young examiner compared Li Yan’s progress with his own and concluded that Li Yan’s precise, economical responses showed extraordinary soul-and-spirit perception and talent.

Li Yan passed the Soul-Suppressing Palace’s assessment and was admitted as a disciple of the Exotic Sparrow Hall, while Wang Chengfeng grew suspicious of his exceptional performance. After learning about the sect and receiving his new disciple supplies, Li Yan set his sights on the Dharma Transmission Pavilion to obtain cultivation arts.

• Wang Chengfeng praised Li Yan’s assessment and arranged for a Golden Core disciple to escort him to the Exotic Sparrow Hall, then decided to report Li Yan’s unusual performance to Master Lan.
• As he traveled through the sect, Li Yan reflected on the assessment and concluded that its formation imitated the Soul Prison Clan’s long alley but was considerably weaker.
• The Golden Core disciple explained that the peaceful inner mountain gate lay within deadly Miasma harnessed by the sect’s protective formation, and described the Soul-Suppressing Palace’s three halls and central peak.
• Li Yan reached the Exotic Sparrow Hall’s Affairs Hall, where Fellow Daoist Gao explained the sect’s precepts and requirement that each disciple complete five tasks every hundred years.
• Li Yan received his disciple supplies and resolved to seek the Soul-Suppressing Palace’s cultivation arts at the Dharma Transmission Pavilion.

Li Yan was confronted by Grandmaster Lan, a powerful Fuchen Hall expert who had watched his entry assessment and questioned his uncanny performance in the formation. After probing his soul power, she concluded he had exceptional innate perception and promised to keep his unusual cultivation secret, but she still had more questions for him.

• Grandmaster Lan burst into the administrative hall and ordered the fat middle-aged cultivator to leave so she could question Li Yan alone.
• Grandmaster Lan asked how Li Yan had sensed where the soul spirits would appear and anticipated their attacks during the assessment.
• Li Yan claimed that fear and oppressive soul power had given him directional feedback, though he privately connected his instincts to years of surviving the same trials.
• Grandmaster Lan examined Li Yan's soul power and discovered it had reached the Spirit Transformation Realm despite his Nascent Soul cultivation.
• Grandmaster Lan attributed Li Yan's perceptions to rare innate talent, assured him she would keep his circumstances private, and then said she still had more questions.

Li Yan declined Master Lan’s offer to spend fifty years researching her formation, choosing instead to focus on stabilizing his Soul Cultivator abilities and avoid exposing his flaws. After she left, he went to the Scripture Transmission Pavilion to search for a cultivation technique that could address the weaknesses in his foundation.

• Master Lan questioned Li Yan about his experiences in the formation and offered him a mission that would let him research it with her for fifty years.
• Li Yan politely refused for now, explaining that he needed to improve his strength, and Master Lan told him to seek her out within the next hundred years.
• After Master Lan left, Li Yan calmed himself and gave Fellow Daoist Gao a guarded answer before leaving the main hall.
• Li Yan traveled to the Scripture Transmission Pavilion and entered the second floor, where new sect members could inspect ordinary or incomplete techniques.
• Li Yan searched the shelves for a technique that could remedy his cultivation deficiencies and read descriptions of soul arts such as the Soul Rending Art and Seven Souls Rainbow Light.

Li Yan examined Soul Cultivators’ arts and chose the incomplete Sacred Soul Transformation after Tang Feng explained its slow progress and potential defenses. At his new residence in the Exotic Sparrow Hall, Li Yan met Tang Feng again and pondered the connection between Soul-Suppressing Palace and the Soul Prison Clan.

• Li Yan rejected several extreme soul arts, then studied Sacred Soul Transformation and questioned its claims of immortality.
• Tang Feng told Li Yan that Sacred Soul Transformation was an incomplete, difficult art that could strengthen the soul and eventually form a defensive light film.
• Li Yan chose Sacred Soul Transformation and paid for it before leaving the Scripture Transmission Pavilion.
• Li Yan found Tang Feng near his new courtyard, learned that Tang lived nearby, and invited him to visit another time.
• Li Yan settled into the courtyard and considered how Soul-Suppressing Palace’s underground corridor might relate to the Soul Prison Clan and Strategist Ji’s chosen valley.

Li Yan investigated the broken clay jar, then entered deep meditation to cultivate Sacred Soul Transformation. After decades of searching for his natal Soul Lodging Star, he connected with it and began absorbing stellar power, greatly strengthening his soul arts.

• Li Yan failed to learn anything new from the broken clay jar and prepared to cultivate, arranging for his Gu insects to wake him after eighty years.
• Li Yan chose Sacred Soul Transformation and spent thirty years cultivating until he united his three souls into a Gloom Essence body.
• Li Yan searched the star-filled meditation space for his natal Soul Lodging Star for years, growing physically emaciated as he remained in deep meditation.
• Li Yan finally sensed his Soul Lodging Star, returned his three souls to his body, and began drawing stellar power into his Nascent Soul.
• Three months later, Li Yan tested Soul-Splitting Slash and found that his connection to the star had more than doubled the technique's power.

Li Yan broke through to late Nascent Soul by cultivating the Sacred Soul Transformation, then emerged from decades of seclusion to gather information about routes out of the Dizhen Domain. He found no promising leads through Tang Feng and was preparing to accept a mission when Tang Feng arrived and invited him to visit a place in the sect.

• Li Yan confirmed that thirty-three years of cultivation had brought his Sacred Soul Transformation to its fifth layer and raised his soul cultivation to late Nascent Soul.
• Li Yan studied how his new soul cultivation deepened his understanding of the five elements and the Undying Nether Phoenix’s laws of metal and wood, then rested after sensing an elusive barrier to further progress.
• After waking, Li Yan reviewed missions at the Mission Hall and began asking sect members about routes leading outside the Dizhen Domain.
• Li Yan discussed cultivation with Tang Feng, learned that other cultivators who switched to the Sacred Soul Transformation often stalled at late Nascent Soul, and received no useful leads about an exit route.
• As Li Yan prepared to visit the Mission Hall, Tang Feng arrived and invited him to visit a place in the sect.

Tang Feng invited Li Yan to watch the Soul-Suppressing Palace’s Spirit Arena, where captured foreign cultivators fought as soul slaves, and explained how its matches and gambling worked. Li Yan agreed, and the two entered the arena and took seats as spectators gathered.

• Tang Feng asked Li Yan to visit the Spirit Arena, and Li Yan hesitated after recalling the brutal fights held there.
• Tang Feng argued that watching the once-in-a-decade matches would help Li Yan learn foreign cultivators’ methods and prepare for missions, so Li Yan agreed.
• Tang Feng and Li Yan traveled to the Spirit Arena, where matches were divided into Golden Core, Nascent Soul, and Spirit Transformation levels, with death matches and surrender-ending matches.
• Tang Feng paid the entrance fee for both of them in soul crystal buds and led Li Yan inside.
• Tang Feng selected two adjacent seats in the arena, and he and Li Yan sat down among the arriving Soul Cultivators.

Li Yan attended a spirit-fighting arena with Tang Feng and learned that spectators could bet on the matches. He recognized a female devil general from his past walking behind Master Lan, leaving him worried that she would expose his identity within the Soul-Subduing Palace.

• Li Yan surveyed the arena while Tang Feng explained that a distant seating area was reserved for Spirit Transformation and Void Refinement cultivators.
• A Golden Core cultivator offered Li Yan and Tang Feng a bone tablet listing the fighters in the first match, and Li Yan declined to bet before watching a match.
• Tang Feng placed a substantial wager, while spectators noticed Master Lan arriving with her attendants.
• Li Yan recognized the woman behind Master Lan as the female devil general he had encountered in an underwater cave estate.
• Li Yan realized the woman remembered his past and might recognize him, making his concealed identity and place in the Soul-Subduing Palace precarious.

Li Yan learned that Mu Guyue was a Devil Race soul slave serving Master Lan, while Mu Guyue recalled how she and Tinglan had been captured in the Dizhen Domain after being attacked by Soul Cultivators. The chapter left Mu Guyue and Tinglan gathering information and seeking a way out of the strange realm.

• Tang Feng told Li Yan that Mu Guyue was an Evil Spirit Cultivator and one of Master Lan's soul slaves, and explained that Master Lan had disciples of his own.
• Li Yan stopped fearing that Mu Guyue could expose him, but grew troubled by her enslavement and wondered whether she had entered the Dizhen Domain around the same time he had.
• Mu Guyue recalled that white mist had transported her demon-hunting squad into the realm more than a hundred and twenty years earlier, where Soul Cultivators attacked and nearly wiped them out.
• Mu Guyue broke through the attackers and escaped with Tinglan, while the rest of their squad, including its two Spirit Transformation captains, disappeared.
• Mu Guyue and Tinglan fled repeated pursuit, survived by relying on Tinglan's jade pendant, and eventually hid in a remote place.
• After recovering, Mu Guyue and Tinglan cautiously questioned mortals and began learning about the realm as they searched for a way to leave.

Mu Guyue’s past as a captive soul slave was revealed as Master Lan brought her to fight in the Spirit Fighting Arena for a wager. As the match approached, Xiong Tianba arrived and reacted to Mu Guyue, while the woman accompanying him showed her jealousy.

• Mu Guyue and Tinglan searched for an exit from the Dizhen Domain with other cultivators, but Soul Cultivators eventually captured their group of six.
• Master Lan took Mu Guyue and Tinglan away, branded them with Soul Seals, and repeatedly used Mu Guyue to test formations and magical treasures.
• Master Lan ordered Mu Guyue to recover for a month before competing in the Spirit Fighting Arena, where she had to win a wager against Elder Ning.
• Elder Ning questioned Mu Guyue’s strength, and Master Lan said she was the strongest Nascent Soul-level soul slave under her command.
• Xiong Tianba arrived with a white-robed woman, noticed Mu Guyue, and caused the woman to respond with jealousy and killing intent.

Xiong Tianba lusted after Mu Guyue while watching her prepare to fight Storm Tiger, and Li Yan recognized her as the Moon Devil when she entered the arena. Mu Guyue faced the undefeated body cultivator with little known information about her abilities, and the battle began with both fighters assessing each other.

• Xiong Tianba arrived with You Su Qianqian and questioned Master Lan about Mu Guyue's spirit fight, while Master Lan refused to entertain his interest in trading for her.
• Li Yan sat apart from Tang Feng and watched the matches list until Mu Guyue appeared as Moon Devil, matched against the formidable Storm Tiger.
• Mu Guyue entered the arena's formation, which cut off sound, and assessed Storm Tiger's speed and body-refinement skills.
• Storm Tiger studied Mu Guyue and told her that she was very strong.

Mu Guyue and the beast-clothed young man Storm Tiger fought a fierce Spirit Battle, each relying on exceptional close-combat skill and speed. After half an hour, Mu Guyue remained standing despite severe wounds, while Storm Tiger had lost an arm and was hurled into the ground by her final attack.

• Storm Tiger launched a surprise tiger-claw attack, but Mu Guyue deflected it and counterattacked, forcing both fighters to recognize the danger of their opponent.
• Mu Guyue and Storm Tiger exchanged rapid attacks, and she used her physical prowess to evade his short awl and block his strikes with her crescent hand-guard blades.
• The fighters charged again and traded a prolonged series of close-range blows as Elder Ning, Master Lan, Xiong Tianba, Tang Feng, and Li Yan watched the battle.
• After half an hour, Mu Guyue stood bloodied and exhausted, while Storm Tiger trembled with one arm missing and struggled to gather his remaining spiritual power.
• Mu Guyue vanished and struck Storm Tiger, hurling him several hundred zhang before he crashed into the ground in a cloud of dust.

Mu Guyue won the spirit battle, allowing Master Lan to claim Elder Ning’s Azure Vast Stone, but Xiong Tianba then sought to trade another piece for Mu Guyue as a soul slave. Master Lan accepted the prospect of a future negotiation and punished Mu Guyue for pleading against it.

• Mu Guyue defeated the beast-clad young man, and Master Lan collected the Azure Vast Stone from Elder Ning after the wager.
• Xiong Tianba offered to obtain a similarly sized Azure Vast Stone in exchange for Mu Guyue as a soul slave.
• Master Lan proposed a spirit battle for Mu Guyue, but Xiong Tianba refused because she might deliberately lose her life.
• Master Lan told Xiong Tianba to return once he had obtained the Azure Vast Stone, and Mu Guyue pleaded against the proposed trade.
• Master Lan activated Mu Guyue’s slave mark, hurled her to the ground, and threatened to destroy her consciousness if she spoke recklessly again.

Li Yan recognized Mu Guyue as the woman from his past and, after recalling their encounters and noticing blood on her robe, went to see Master Lan. Master Lan asked whether he had come to accept her offer to study a formation for fifty years.

• Master Lan punished Mu Guyue for resisting her transfer to Xiong Tianba, and You Su Qianqian mocked her.
• Li Yan watched Mu Guyue leave injured, then remembered their earlier encounters and the bloodstained robe he had seen after waking beside her.
• Mu Guyue was stripped of her cultivation and confined, where she wept over losing her freedom and hope of escape.
• Master Lan was studying the Azure Vast Stone when Li Yan arrived at her courtyard late at night.
• Li Yan asked Master Lan if she remembered her offer to work together on a formation, and Master Lan asked whether he had decided to accept.

Li Yan negotiated with Master Lan to assist with researching an array on a flexible schedule in exchange for Mu Guyue becoming his soul slave. Master Lan agreed, and Li Yan asked her to seal Mu Guyue’s powers before he placed his soul imprint on her.

• Li Yan offered to help Master Lan test the array intermittently and continue until his assistance was no longer needed.
• Master Lan offered to waive a thousand years of tasks, but Li Yan requested Mu Guyue as his soul slave so he could study her Devil Race markings.
• Li Yan explained that he wanted to research the markings’ defenses against soul attacks, and Master Lan considered his request.
• Master Lan agreed to give Mu Guyue to Li Yan, choosing the array research over keeping her as a bargaining chip for Xiong Tianba.
• Li Yan asked Master Lan to remove Mu Guyue’s soul imprint, seal her powers, and leave her unconscious so he could imprint her safely.