Chapter Summaries

Xiluo and Shang Yang learned the history of the Giant Kun and discovered that the dragon turtle was Zhenwu, who suspected the Primordial Beginning Heavenly Demon might be his master's incarnation. At the Northern Dark Sea’s polar edge, Lu Huaijin found Zhuang Zhou’s preserved body, but demanded compensation before helping him return to it.

• The Giant Kun explained how Zhuang Zhou awakened their intelligence, created their collective dream, and left a contingency that drove back Boshun after his death.
• Xiluo and Shang Yang questioned the dragon turtle about the Primordial Beginning Heavenly Demon, and he identified himself as Zhenwu, also known as Xuanwu.
• Zhenwu said he had studied under the Primordial Beginning Heavenly King and suspected the Primordial Beginning Heavenly Demon was his master’s incarnation in this era.
• Lu Huaijin reached the Northern Dark Sea’s polar edge and found a dead-looking Giant Kun with fins developing into wings, preserved in permafrost.
• Zhuang Zhou told Lu Huaijin that unsealing his preserved body would let him return to life, but she demanded compensation despite his appeal.

Lu Huaijin demanded the truth about Zhuang Zhou’s origins and plans, and he explained how he had rewritten his origins to pursue the Dao of Great Freedom. He revealed that Boshun, his Heart Demon, had appeared early and followed a rival path, while Lu Huaijin remained wary of how Zhuang Zhou had inherited her Dao lineage.

• Lu Huaijin asked Zhuang Zhou to explain his predicament, his fallback plans, and how he had obtained her Dao lineage.
• Zhuang Zhou insisted that he was her disciple and explained that he had traveled back through time to rewrite his origins in the Dao Ancestor’s era.
• Zhuang Zhou said that the unusual conditions of the era had caused Boshun, his Heart Demon, to appear before he reached Refining Spirit and Returning to Emptiness.
• Zhuang Zhou explained that repeated attempts to prove his Dao had produced Boshun from his failures, attachments, and unwillingness to accept defeat.
• Lu Huaijin questioned why Boshun was stronger than Zhuang Zhou, and Zhuang Zhou said they pursued opposing paths: his Dao of Great Freedom sought personal transcendence, while Boshun’s Dao of Sovereignty over Others’ Transformations sought to make all living beings become himself.

Zhuang Zhou explained that he used Attaining the Dao in Dreams to turn dreams into reality, pulling versions of himself and events from past dreams into existence. He revealed that one dream created the Butterfly People and that another may have reshaped Great Sovereign Heaven with the Witch Mountain Cauldron’s power.

• Zhuang Zhou told Lu Huaijin how his dream of becoming a butterfly taught him the Dao of Great Freedom and led him to devise Attaining the Dao in Dreams.
• Zhuang Zhou explained that before becoming a giant kun, he had dreamed of being humans, spirits, and gods, but failed to make those dreams real.
• After Boshun killed him and took Great Sovereign Heaven, Zhuang Zhou used his Divine Ability to pull things from his past dreams into reality.
• Lu Huaijin realized that the Zhuang Zhou within her was a dream made real, and Zhuang Zhou reassured her that only he remembered his other identities.
• Zhuang Zhou revealed that an earlier dream of becoming a butterfly had created the Butterfly People and that this dream-Zhuang Zhou had perfected his Divine Ability.
• Zhuang Zhou said that dream-Zhuang Zhou had seized part of the Witch Mountain Cauldron’s power, possibly transforming Great Sovereign Heaven and bringing Freedom Through Others into reality.

Li Boyang used Great Sovereign Heaven as an opportunity to create a third world that could buffer the mortal world and the Netherworld. He trapped Boju in the Eight Trigrams Furnace and exposed his attempt to become Great Sovereign Heaven’s Dao, leaving Boju to answer Li Boyang’s accusation.

• Li Boyang entered Great Sovereign Heaven with [Roaming Spirit and Controlling Qi] and found an opening to expose the dormant Boju Heavenly Demon.
• Li Boyang manifested Great Sovereign Heaven as a potential third world, explaining how the [Witch Mountain Cauldron], Zhuang Zhou’s fall, and his own intervention had made its evolution possible.
• Li Boyang summoned the Eight Trigrams Furnace and used the Samadhi True Fire to draw Boju out of hiding.
• Boju appeared within the furnace, and Li Boyang accused him of spreading his will through Great Sovereign Heaven to become its Great Dao.
• Boju claimed he was following the path Li Boyang had left unfinished, while Li Boyang condemned his imitation of Zhuang Zhou and his attempt to impose rigid order without leaving room for change.

Li Boyang revealed that Boshun was not Zhuang Zhou’s Heart Demon but an independent Dao attainer, then explained how he would use Great Sovereign Heaven to repair the Six Paths of Reincarnation and begin creating the myriad worlds. Boshun’s many avatars resisted from within the Heaven, but Li Boyang had already started the process.

• Li Boyang deduced that Boshun’s Dao of the Heavenly Demon was independent of Zhuang Zhou’s Dao of Carefree Wandering because Boshun knew things Zhuang Zhou did not.
• Boshun argued that he could not be killed without destroying the Sea of Alaya Consciousness, since his avatars existed throughout Great Sovereign Heaven.
• Li Boyang activated the Eight Trigrams Furnace and revealed that he planned to use Great Sovereign Heaven to perfect the Six Paths of Reincarnation and evolve the myriad worlds.
• Li Boyang declared that the Dao of Primordial Beginning began with creating heaven and earth, and Boshun’s demon king avatars struggled as power flowed into them.

Li Boyang used the Eight Trigrams Furnace to refine Boshun’s will and reshape Great Sovereign Heaven into the Six Desire Heavens. As the new world entered reality, he declared that all beings, including gods and Celestial Persons, would be subject to reincarnation.

• Wangshu transformed and fought Boshun’s avatars while Buddhas and demon kings born from righteous thoughts joined the battle, converting or defeating many of Boshun’s forces.
• The Eight Trigrams Furnace began refining not only Boshun’s avatar but everything in Great Sovereign Heaven that carried his will, terrifying Boshun.
• Li Boyang explained that gods and Celestial Persons must also enter the Six Paths of Reincarnation and began dividing Great Sovereign Heaven into the Six Desire Heavens.
• As Li Boyang named the heavens and assigned them their purposes, Great Sovereign Heaven entered reality and a new world opened through the Dao of Primordial Beginning.
• Li Boyang decreed that gods, demons, ghosts, monsters, and all other beings of the three realms would be subject to reincarnation.

Li Boyang created the Heavenly Realm as a refuge for gods and Celestial Persons unwilling to reincarnate, completing a Three Realms cycle that protected the Six Paths of Reincarnation. Boshun attained the Dao of the Heavenly Demon through the Sixth Heaven, only to discover that his Dao had become bound to Li Boyang’s Dao of Primordial Beginning.

• Li Boyang declared that all living beings in the Three Realms would enter reincarnation, while the Great Emperor of Fengdu helped the Primordial Beginning Heavenly Demon stabilize the forming realms.
• The Heavenly Realm emerged between Yin and Yang, offering gods and Celestial Persons a place to exhaust their desires before returning to reincarnation.
• The Netherworld Lord saw that the Six Desire Heavens had increasingly slower time and longer lifespans, with the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others' Transformations above the other five heavens.
• Chang'e watched the Three Realms take shape, while Boshun observed Buddhas and demon kings creating kingdoms within the Six Desire Heavens.
• Boshun transformed the Sixth Heaven into the vessel of his Dao attainment and realized that his Heavenly Demon Dao was now part of Li Boyang’s Dao of Primordial Beginning.

Zhuang Zhou broke free from the frozen glacier as a Giant Kun and transformed into a Peng, setting off to visit the newly manifested Great Sovereign Heaven. He flew into the Six Desire Heavens and arrived at the battlefield where the Primordial Beginning Heavenly Demon faced the Boshun Heavenly Demon.

• Zhuang Zhou emerged from the glacier and told Lu Huaijin he wanted to visit Great Sovereign Heaven, which he had created.
• Zhuang Zhou transformed from a Giant Kun into a vast Peng and soared into the sky with Lu Huaijin on his head.
• Xiluo, Shang Yang, and the dragon turtle recognized Zhuang Zhou and Lu Huaijin as the Kun Peng passed overhead.
• The sky cracked open, revealing events in the Six Desire Heavens, including the battle between the Primordial Beginning Heavenly Demon and the Boshun Heavenly Demon.
• Zhuang Zhou flew at tremendous speed into the spacetime rifts, split into countless forms, then reunited at the center of the demons' battlefield.

Fu Kui resisted the Heart Demon’s demand to return to Great Sovereign Heaven and watched the battle through the Sea of Alaya Consciousness. In the starry sky, Boshun escaped Zhuang Zhou’s attack and raced toward the Great Yin Star, while Zhuang Zhou was sent after him.

• Fu Kui warned the Heart Demon that returning to Great Sovereign Heaven would mean certain doom, then opened his mind’s gate to watch the battle.
• Boshun abandoned his incarnations and emerged in the starry sky as a demonic god made of countless fire dragons.
• Chang'e struck Boshun with the Shot of No Shooting, but Boshun dismissed her and charged toward the Great Yin Star.
• Boshun’s flames made the Great Yin Star shine during the day, so people on earth saw the sun and moon together in the sky.
• Li Boyang blamed Zhuang Zhou for causing Boshun’s escape, and Lu Huaijin ordered Zhuang Zhou to stop him.
• Zhuang Zhou sheepishly turned and charged after Boshun into the starry sky.

Zhuang Zhou and Chang'e fought Boshun as he tried to assimilate the Divine Laurel Tree and turn the Great Yin Star into his Dao domain. While Li Boyang warned Wangshu not to intervene, Wu Gang appeared and began chopping Boshun’s faces and roots from the tree.

• Zhuang Zhou emerged from the spacetime rift and joined Chang'e in attacking Boshun.
• Boshun sent fire dragons toward the Great Yin Star and spread his faces across the Divine Laurel Tree to assimilate it.
• Zhuang Zhou recognized Boshun’s plan as an attempt to recreate Wangshu’s Moon Demon Dao attainment.
• Wangshu saw Boshun’s assault, but Li Boyang warned that intervening would play into his hands, so she watched.
• Wu Gang appeared with an enormous axe, and Chang'e and Zhuang Zhou held off Boshun as he chopped through the tree’s roots.

Boshun gambled everything on assimilating the Great Yin Star, but Wangshu separated its shadow and banished it as a pitch-black moon. She left Boshun bound to the stars as the Black Baleful Intent Star God, Luohou, unable to descend into the mortal world.

• Boshun spread his roots across the Great Yin Star and endured attacks from Wu Gang, Chang'e, Zhuang Zhou, and Lu Huaijin as demon palaces and demon kings appeared.
• Lu Huaijin asked Zhuang Zhou for a way to stop Boshun, but Zhuang Zhou admitted that keeping him in check would be difficult outside Great Sovereign Heaven.
• Lu Huaijin called for help, and shadows swallowed Boshun, the demon kings, and the devil palaces before separating from the Great Yin Star as a pitch-black moon.
• Wangshu appeared and used the Seven Stars Treasured Sword to sever the dark moon's connection to the Great Yin Star and cast it into the starry sky.
• Wangshu invested Boshun as the Black Baleful Intent Star God, Luohou, and decreed that he would wander among the stars and could descend to the mortal world only once every eighteen years to gaze upon it.

Wangshu rejected the authority of the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others' Transformations and declared that she would seek a Dao of her own. On Dragon Turtle Island, Xiluo and Zhenwu discussed whether Boshun had truly proved his Dao after being sealed as the Luohou Star.

• Wangshu explained that she had learned the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others' Transformations belonged to someone who had used it to prove his Dao, and refused to claim its authority.
• Wangshu said Boshun had relied on shortcuts and lacked the heart to seek the Dao, while she would pursue a path belonging only to herself, however long it took.
• On Dragon Turtle Island, Xiluo watched the Luohou Star disappear from view and asked Zhenwu whether it had existed in his era.
• Zhenwu explained that Boshun had rewritten his origins so the Luohou Star would exist in every future timeline, but questioned whether being sealed as the Black Baleful Intent Star God counted as proving his Dao.
• Zhenwu said Boshun had become unique to the present time and could die if the Luohou Star were destroyed, unlike a true Dao that endured across all times and spaces.

Boshun was trapped in the fixed history of becoming the Black Baleful Intent Star God, leaving him with little hope of changing his fate. Wangshu asked Zhuang Zhou to manage the Six Desire Heavens, and he agreed on the condition that he become the Heavenly Emperor of this era.

• Boshun realized that Wangshu’s control of the Heaven of Sovereignty over Others' Transformations had trapped his origin in established history and left him unable to retrace time.
• Zhuang Zhou surveyed the demons and Buddhas in the Six Desire Heavens as Wangshu offered him temporary rule over the realm.
• Wangshu explained that the Six Desire Heavens would serve as a place for cultivators who refused reincarnation to use their strength and support the Three Realms.
• Zhuang Zhou accepted Wangshu’s invitation but insisted that he could not manage future cultivators under his current identity.
• Zhuang Zhou declared that he would become lord of the Heavenly Realm and the Heavenly Emperor of this era.

Zhuang Zhou took the identity of Indra, or Śakra, and met Xiluo to ask her to help govern the Six Desire Heavens. He offered to assist her in holding a Jade Pool Grand Assembly and attaining immortal longevity, leaving her to weigh his proposal.

• Li Boyang learned that Zhuang Zhou had chosen to become Śakra and asked Wangshu whether she had finished the register of demon kings and Buddhas in the Six Desire Heavens.
• Wangshu gave Li Boyang the completed register, and he decided it would help bring Xiluo home from the North Sea.
• Indra met Xiluo with Lu Huaijin and asked her to send an avatar to help govern the Thirty-Three Heavens.
• Xiluo challenged Indra’s motives and questioned why someone pursuing carefree freedom had mastered the methods of power.
• Indra argued that entering the world and experiencing its constraints were necessary to seek true freedom, and offered to help Xiluo attain immortal longevity.

Fu Kui discussed the dangers of the Sea of Consciousness of All Beings while restraining his Heart Demon, and Jialuo helped Yun Xiu break free from a dream in which he had lived as Boshun. Yun Xiu began transforming as the dream affected reality, and Xiluo arrived to take over.

• The Dao Ancestor explained the Sea of Consciousness of All Beings and warned that Heart Demons and the Six Desire Heavens posed risks to cultivators.
• Fu Kui rejected the Heart Demon's interest in the Mind-Reading Divine Ability and suggested it cultivate the Pure Heart Holding to Oneness · Lucid Dreaming Spirit Transformation Method.
• Yun Xiu told Jialuo about dreaming continuously that he was Boshun and had experienced Boshun's life.
• Jialuo used the Mind-Reading Divine Ability to remind Yun Xiu that he was a Butterfly Person and that Boshun was part of a dream.
• Yun Xiu began growing taller as his dream influenced reality, and Xiluo arrived and offered to handle his condition.

Xiluo returned to Li Household Village and reunited with Li Xi, then marveled at how much the village had grown and modernized. She promised to get Li Xi a scaled-down bicycle, but Li Xi refused to bother her busy brother for one.

• Xiluo teased Single Horn Si at the village entrance before recognizing Li Xi and picking her up.
• Li Xi confirmed she had foreseen Xiluo’s return through [Knowledge of Past Lives].
• The old village chief sensed Xiluo’s return and recognized it from Single Horn Si’s claw marks.
• Xiluo saw that Li Household Village had expanded into a self-sufficient town-like settlement with paved roads, streetlights, and bicycle lanes.
• Xiluo explained that Li Boyang had designed bicycles, promised to get Li Xi a children's bike, and learned that Li Xi did not want to disturb her busy brother.

Li Boyang gave Li Xi a custom bicycle and explained to Xiluo that he had been saving Yun Xiu’s situation as a trial run for her attempt to attain the Dao through dreams. Xiluo understood his plan but remained wary, and their conversation ended with her jokingly threatening to summon her divine backers against him.

• Li Boyang gave Li Xi a custom children's bicycle, and villagers soon visited his home to ask how they could obtain one.
• Xiluo realized Li Boyang had known about Yun Xiu and explained that Yun Xiu was a dream of Boshun that might eventually become him.
• Li Boyang assured Xiluo that Yun Xiu would remain herself and revealed he had saved the situation for Xiluo to practice Attaining the Dao in Dreams.
• Xiluo questioned whether changing Boshun's origin could help him escape his predicament, and Li Boyang explained that the dream would only be a trial run unless she drew it into reality.
• Li Boyang teased Xiluo about how much she had learned from him, and Xiluo replied that she had powerful backers she could summon against him.

Gao Village Town’s newly completed Heaven and Earth Grand Formation created a vast, semi-open grotto-heaven that regulated the climate and expanded the mountain people’s living space more than tenfold. The chapter showed how the new land accelerated industrial and agricultural development, ending with the reveal of Li Jingshu’s artificial satellite, Heavenly Palace No. 2.

• Nü E and other divine beings used Chi Fou’s Heaven and Earth Formation Diagram to create a grand formation spanning Gao Village Town and much of the surrounding region, while Li Boyang stabilized the resulting upheaval in Primordial Qi.
• The formation regulated weather and seasons and compressed space and time, greatly expanding the mountain people’s available land.
• The mountain people used Bronze Beasts and large machines to develop industrial-scale farming, while Flying Sky Stockade’s drone technology remained protected by an emerging respect for patents.
• The mountain people built roads, factories, mines, bridges, and other infrastructure across the new lands, creating a bustling industrial region.
• The chapter revealed that Li Jingshu had built a low-altitude artificial satellite called Heavenly Palace No. 2 with help from Li Household Village and Flying Sky Stockade.

An unnamed Great Xia man and Wu Luo entered the Hundred Lands Mountain Range and saw how Heavenly Palace No. 2 and the navigation map monitored and controlled access to the region. Their discussion of Great Xia’s resistance to such technologies ended with Wu Luo arguing that outside forces must bring change and that the tenth Witch King should emerge from the mountain range.

• The unnamed man entered the grotto-heaven and examined Heavenly Palace No. 2’s surveillance network of high-altitude wind turbines.
• Wu Luo joined him and used his navigation map, which verified his identity and tracked his location, to pass through the Hundred Lands Mountain Range.
• The man wondered whether Great Xia could adopt living maps, and Wu Luo dismissed the idea because Great Xia’s rulers and gods opposed even Talisman Seal Script launchers.
• The man recognized that navigation maps enabled population-wide tracking and questioned whether Great Xia should continue to exist.
• Wu Luo said they had come to bring outside forces to Great Xia and backed the Divine Witch’s judgment that the tenth Witch King should emerge from the Hundred Lands Mountain Range.

Chisongzi, the former Witch King successor now known as the Left Sage, traveled with Wu Luo into the Hundred Lands Mountain Range to see the Dao Ancestor’s chosen candidate and the mountain folk’s achievements. As they approached Gao Village Town, Chisongzi witnessed powerful steam locomotives and learned how they compared with Bronze Beasts.

• Chisongzi reminded Wu Luo that he had abandoned the name Wu Song and came only to inspect the Divine Witch’s chosen candidate.
• Wu Luo recalled how Chisongzi had yielded the Witch King succession to Wu Yi and later became renowned as the Left Sage for saving lives across the lands.
• Chisongzi explained that he had followed the Dao Ancestor and practiced the Way of the Celestial Person instead of becoming a god.
• Chisongzi and Wu Luo traveled along the river toward Gao Village Town, where Chisongzi observed the mountain folk’s farmland and factories.
• Chisongzi saw steam locomotives hauling immense loads, and Wu Luo explained their power, coal fuel, and potential limits without electrical technology.