Chapter Summaries

Chisongzi and Wu Luo arrived at Gao Village Town and saw how far the mountain folk had advanced, prompting Chisongzi to reconsider their potential. At Nüman Temple, Nüman told Nü E that the Great Xia witches had come to choose the tenth Witch King and were likely seeking her.

• Chisongzi learned that the mountain folk had developed steam power and electricity through their own wisdom, and began to look forward to their future.
• Wu Luo and Chisongzi reached Gao Village Town, where Chisongzi marveled at its scale and Wu Luo described the Three-Eyed Holy Demons as formidable people.
• Chisongzi warned Wu Luo not to provoke the mountain folk, and Wu Luo withdrew his hostile gaze.
• Nü E noticed the two Great Xia witches approaching Nüman Temple, and Nüman explained that they had first sought Yinglong but Deception Rabbit had driven them away.
• Nüman told Nü E that she might be Great Xia's candidate for the tenth Witch King and praised her steady character and potential.

Chisongzi and Wu Luo met Nü E at Nüman Temple, where she exposed their attempt to test her and explained what she had learned from the prophet about negotiation. Chisongzi asked how she would save a village threatened by a flood and an evil god, and Nü E outlined a strategy before asking what he had done in that situation.

• Chisongzi and Wu Luo entered Nüman Temple’s rear courtyard, where Nü E welcomed them despite the mountain folk’s hostility.
• Nü E recognized that Chisongzi and Wu Luo had made their search public to test her, and warned that their tactic would anger someone with the advantage.
• Nü E explained that the prophet taught her to treat negotiation as a contest of strategy and to learn from everything.
• Chisongzi asked how Nü E would help a numb village facing an approaching flood and an evil god.
• Nü E said she would awaken the villagers’ hope, defeat or study the evil god according to its strength, and rally the people to survive the flood.
• Nü E asked Chisongzi what he had done when he faced such a village.

Chisongzi and Wu Luo questioned Nü E about becoming Great Xia’s next Witch King, but she revealed that her power came from the people of the Hundred Lands Mountain Range and refused to leave them. She offered another candidate, and Chisongzi wondered if she meant Li Jingshu before realizing Li was unsuitable because of her closeness to the Dao Ancestor.

• Chisongzi told Nü E that he had come to judge whether she was fit to become the next Witch King and explained why Great Xia needed a stable ruler.
• Nü E said she had no intention of becoming their king, then used her Primordial Spirit to suppress Wu Luo.
• Nü E explained that the land and its people had bestowed her power, and Chisongzi recognized her as an Ancestor God.
• Wu Luo concluded that Nü E already had her own Great Xia in the Hundred Lands Mountain Range.
• Nü E refused to abandon Gao Village Town and the mountain range, but offered another candidate for Great Xia’s Witch King.
• Chisongzi asked whether she meant Li Jingshu, then said Li was unsuitable because of her close relationship with the Dao Ancestor.

Nü E revealed Fu Kui, a benevolent thunder god from Kunlun, as a possible Witch King candidate in the Hundred Lands Mountain Range. Chisongzi resolved to nominate him despite the threat of opposition and sacrifice, and learned Fu Kui was at the border of the mountain range and the South Sea.

• Nü E told Chisongzi and Wu Luo that Fu Kui’s ideals and character made him a suitable Witch King candidate.
• Wu Luo warned that neither the great witches nor the gods would accept an unfamiliar deity as a candidate.
• Chisongzi argued that breaking the old rules could weaken the great witches’ monopoly over Witch King authority and change Great Xia’s order.
• Chisongzi asked Nü E for the deity’s name and location, prepared to face the consequences of nominating him.
• Nü E identified the deity as Fu Kui and said he was likely at the boundary between the Hundred Lands Mountain Range and the South Sea.

Fu Kui and Miaoshan discussed how Mount Putuo could become self-sufficient by cultivating purple bamboo for the mountain folk and for making Law Treasures. Fu Kui grew concerned as Miaoshan's control over Buyan Huyu and Tian Wu weakened, but she brushed off his questions and he offered to help.

• Fu Kui said Mount Putuo could not keep relying on aid from the mountain folk, and Miaoshan explained that her purple bamboo would become the peninsula's specialty.
• Fu Kui questioned whether the bamboo could compete with Talisman Bamboo, while Miaoshan stopped Buyan Huyu from mocking her and kept Tian Wu's anger contained.
• Fu Kui asked why Miaoshan was increasingly unable to suppress Buyan Huyu and Tian Wu, but Miaoshan blamed a mishap in her cultivation.
• Miaoshan explained that her purple bamboo could only grow on Mount Putuo and that she planned to sell ordinary bamboo as a Talisman Bamboo substitute and refine high-quality bamboo into Law Treasures.
• Fu Kui accepted Miaoshan's plan and offered to help if she needed it.

Li Boyang, Jinjiao, and Yinjiao contained a powerful being that burst from the Eight Trigrams Furnace, then used the Diagram of Mountains, Rivers, and the Land to witness Xiluo’s dream of a future timeline. They saw Hao Jun, the Golden Crow and Heavenly Emperor, besieging Xiluo, and wondered how she had survived the gaze of an awakened Great Heavenly Deity.

• The Eight Trigrams Furnace exploded, and Jinjiao absorbed its force into the Purple-Gold Red Gourd, suppressing the entity inside.
• Li Boyang restored the furnace with the Taiji Diagram and unfurled the Diagram of Mountains, Rivers, and the Land to reveal Xiluo’s dream.
• Yinjiao and Jinjiao saw Xiluo withstand a host of Heavenly Deities transformed into natural disasters on Mount Kunlun.
• Jinjiao recognized Hao Jun, the Golden Crow and Heavenly Emperor, as the source of the descending sun and questioned how he had escaped the past.
• Jinjiao realized that Hao Jun was an awakened Great Heavenly Deity seeking to enter the present through Xiluo, and the three observers wondered how she had endured his gaze.

Li Boyang identified the golden-armored youth as a surviving Golden Crow in Xiluo’s dream, while the Heavenly Deities tried to wear Xiluo down. Xiluo restored her power, exposed the youth as an impostor rather than a true Great Heavenly Deity, and trapped Mount Kunlun in her Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams · Two Forms Microdust Grand Formation.

• Li Boyang explained that a Golden Crow had survived the War of Shooting the Suns in Xiluo’s dream and inherited Wu Jun’s place as Heavenly Emperor.
• Jinjiao questioned how the Great Golden Crow could have survived and warned that Xiluo was losing ground against the Heavenly Deities.
• Xiluo ate a Peach of Immortality and swallowed pills, unleashing enough Yuan Qi to kill nearby Heavenly Deities and shake the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
• Xiluo’s Primordial Spirit appeared at Mount Kunlun and used The Ends of the Earth Within Reach to confront the golden-armored youth.
• Xiluo recognized the youth as an impostor who was not a true Great Heavenly Deity, then surrounded Mount Kunlun with compasses and Primordial Spirits to form the Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams · Two Forms Microdust Grand Formation.
• Xiluo used the formation to cut off the Heavenly Emperor’s Capital from Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi and declared that the youth could not quell the resulting Heavenly Punishment.

Xiluo revealed the gold-armored youth’s cowardice, provoking him to transform into a Three-Legged Golden Crow and attack her. As the gods clashed, Li Boyang assessed Xiluo’s exceptional power and the unusual path she had chosen to cultivate.

• Xiluo taunted the gold-armored youth for hiding in the Heavenly Emperor’s Capital and relying on the remains of Heavenly Emperor Wu Jun and the Netherworld Lord.
• The enraged gold-armored youth revealed his Three-Legged Golden Crow form, and the Heavenly Deities followed him into battle against Xiluo.
• Xiluo used Six Jia and Mysterious Gates with the Jade Pool Heavenly Book to summon projections of recorded gods, including Heavenly Deities she had subdued.
• Jinjiao asked Li Boyang whether they should join the battle, but Li Boyang said Xiluo could still handle it.
• Li Boyang judged that Xiluo’s Primordial Spirit had crossed the Divine Gate and her body neared the Heavenly Pass, while her Yuan Qi had been advanced with pills.

Xiluo fought the Three-Legged Golden Crow and gained the upper hand with pills and Law Treasures. When he split into two and charged her, she used her hairpin to open a spacetime rift and sever his head.

• Xiluo began battling the Three-Legged Golden Crow as nearby Heavenly Deities moved away.
• Xiluo overwhelmed the Golden Crow with pills and Law Treasures, including Weak Water that extinguished part of his True Solar Fire.
• The Golden Crow forced Xiluo back with Solar Divine Light, split into two, and attacked from both sides.
• Xiluo drew her hairpin and opened a spacetime rift, severing the head of the Golden Crow charging at her.

Xiluo beheaded the Great Golden Crow avatar and exposed the Golden Crow’s use of his elder brother’s body to survive. As the Golden Crow split into nine and raised ten suns, Yinjiao sent Li Boyang’s flying swords into the dream, where they overwhelmed the gods and began tearing the Golden Crows apart.

• Xiluo recognized the falling headless Golden Crow as the real Great Golden Crow and accused the surviving Golden Crow of refining his elder brother into an avatar.
• The Golden Crow lost his composure and unleashed nine more Golden Crows, filling the sky with ten suns.
• Li Boyang declared it was time, and Yinjiao uncapped his gourd to send countless flying swords from reality into the dream.
• Yinjiao used “Please turn around, treasure!” to sweep away the Heavenly Deities who charged at the swords.
• Yinjiao unleashed “Ten Thousand Swords Return to One,” forming the swords into a silver dragon that shredded the first Golden Crow and tore apart the second after it tried to melt the swords with True Solar Fire.

Yinjiao’s Immortal-Slaying Flying Knife destroyed all nine Golden Crows in Xiluo’s dream, but the dream began collapsing as a real Sun Star took shape. Li Boyang confronted Hao Jun, who revealed himself and asked that his children be spared in exchange for allowing the Six Paths of Reincarnation to be established in his era.

• Yinjiao used the Immortal-Slaying Flying Knife and its doll-like figure to kill the Golden Crows, then the flying swords annihilated the survivors.
• Xiluo recognized the weapon and objected that she could have handled the fight herself.
• Li Boyang appeared behind Xiluo as the dream collapsed and explained that someone was turning its illusory sun into a real Sun Star.
• Li Boyang addressed Hao Jun, and a giant face appeared on the sun.
• Hao Jun admitted that he had left an incarnation in the dream and asked Li Boyang to spare his children, offering to permit the Six Paths of Reincarnation in his era.

Little Six died believing he was free from the dream that had shaped his life, then awoke reborn inside a Garuda egg in Renli Heaven. Indra named him a Garuda, blessed him against harm from flames, and left his new mother to raise him.

• Little Six remembered his timid life as the sixth Golden Crow, his survival of the War of Shooting the Suns, and his death at Yinjiao's hands.
• Little Six awoke confined in an egg and broke through its shell, revealing his rebirth as a fledgling.
• A female Garuda wondered whether the unusual hatchling was truly her child as his True Solar Fire blazed around him.
• Indra arrived and assured the Garuda that Little Six was her child, while offering to take him away if she did not wish to raise him.
• The female Garuda agreed to raise Little Six and promised he would become a valiant general when Indra needed her branch's strength.
• Indra named Little Six a Garuda, blessed him against all flames on Mount Sumeru, and gave him a new bird-faced, human-bodied form.

Xiluo questioned why Li Boyang accepted Hao Jun’s terms, and he revealed that the ancient sun might let him open a third Dao Path. Xiluo planned to settle in the Six Desire Heavens to digest her recent gains, while Li Boyang warned her not to trust her Heavenly Mandate Divine Ability too completely.

• Xiluo asked why Li Boyang agreed to Hao Jun’s terms, and he said the Six Paths of Reincarnation appearing ten thousand years earlier benefited him and the Netherworld Lord.
• Xiluo suggested Li Boyang had accepted because the ancient sun completed the Yunmeng Jade Pool Realm’s day-and-night cycle, and he admitted it might let him open a third Dao Path.
• Li Boyang said he could use the sun to pursue the Dao of the Sun, while Xiluo suspected Hao Jun hoped to prove his Dao through Li Boyang and rewrite his fate.
• Li Boyang said he could perfect the new Dao Path through Wu Jun if Wu Jun intended to prove his Dao through him, but he did not reveal everything he was thinking.
• Xiluo said she was one step from Refining Spirit and Returning to Emptiness and would stop entering dreams for a while, then move to the Six Desire Heavens to digest her gains.
• Li Boyang asked whether Xiluo’s plan came from her Heavenly Mandate Divine Ability and warned her not to trust fate blindly, citing her elder sister’s death.

At the Bridge of Helplessness, Wu Yao told the Heaven-Eroding Lord that she had abandoned her Heavenly Mandate Divine Ability after becoming Meng Po. He realized that the Divine Stone of Three Lives was the divine artifact formed from that ability.

• Wu Yao sneezed while brewing Meng Po's Soup, and the Heaven-Eroding Lord fussed over her and urged her to rest.
• Wu Yao said someone had been talking about her, probably Xiluo, and explained that she could no longer know things in advance.
• Wu Yao said she gave up the Heavenly Mandate Divine Ability when she took on the duties of Meng Po.
• Wu Yao explained that she had rejected the heavenly mandate that led her to accept death, after the Celestial Person Descended into the World resurrected her and changed the age.
• The Heaven-Eroding Lord recognized the Divine Stone of Three Lives as a supreme divine artifact formed from Wu Yao's Heavenly Mandate Divine Ability.

Wu Yao and the Heaven-Eroding Lord encountered a Buddha from the Six Desire Heavens who sought reincarnation to investigate the mysteries of his realm. Despite Wu Yao warning him that he would lose his identity and memories, the Buddha chose to become the first Buddha to enter reincarnation.

• The Heaven-Eroding Lord worried that the Three Lives Stone, Wu Yao's Heavenly Mandate Divine Ability, could be stolen or misused, but Wu Yao defended its use in understanding fate and resolving mortal ties.
• Wu Yao teased the Heaven-Eroding Lord and then revealed that a Buddha from the Six Desire Heavens was waiting to be reincarnated.
• The Buddha explained that he wanted to enter the present world because his Buddhist realm felt unreal and he wished to understand its unanswered mysteries.
• Wu Yao warned the Buddha that reincarnation would cost him his identity, abilities, and memories, and that recovering those memories would not make him the same person.
• The Buddha declared that he would become the first Buddha to enter reincarnation and hoped his future self could uncover the truth about the Six Desire Heavens.

The Buddha stood before the Three Lives Stone and witnessed the memories of his birth and fragments of all living beings’ happiest moments. As the Netherworld’s ghosts bowed, a beast emerged from the stone and transformed into a large white dog, leaving the Heaven-Eroding Lord convinced Li Boyang had shaped it after himself.

• Wu Yao explained that the Buddha would have to pass the Three Lives Stone’s trial and relinquish his obsession with rebirth to reach the Bridge of Helplessness and drink Meng Po’s Soup.
• The Buddha stepped up to the Three Lives Stone, which showed him the events of his life in reverse, including the extraordinary signs surrounding his birth.
• The stone continued to reveal fragments of the happiest moments shared by all living beings, leaving the Buddha and Wu Yao uncertain about what he was seeing.
• Wu Yao sensed the Great Emperor of Fengdu’s incarnation in the clouds as the Three Lives Stone trembled.
• The Buddha saw a fierce, nine-featured beast emerge from the stone, and it transformed into a large white dog that the Heaven-Eroding Lord recognized as modeled after himself.

Chisongzi and Wu Luo traveled from the Hundred Lands Mountain Range toward the South Sea, where Wu Luo explained Lord Lingguang’s rule and seven subordinate gods. They witnessed those gods and a vermilion firebird suppress a malicious black mist, though the threat remained beneath the sea.

• Chisongzi and Wu Luo crossed the mountain range and observed how undeveloped the southern coast and the Spring God’s territory remained.
• Wu Luo told Chisongzi that Lord Lingguang was a newly born Spring God tied to the Four Spirits of Heaven and Earth and destined to become a Great Heavenly Deity.
• Wu Luo explained that Lord Lingguang’s seven subordinate gods maintained the balance between the South Sea and the mountain range.
• Chisongzi and Wu Luo saw Wings Fire Serpent battle a black mist that began imitating its form.
• Well Wood Hound, Ghost Metal Goat, Willow Earth Roe Deer, Star Sun Horse, Extended Net Moon Deer, Chariot Water Earthworm, and a vermilion firebird appeared and suppressed the mist, but the danger remained in the ocean depths.

After her nirvana, Lord Lingguang discussed the South Sea’s mysterious black mist with the Great Chun Tree God, who suggested it resembled the mist of Black Cloud Marsh. Meanwhile, Fu Kui resisted his Heart Demon’s urging to suspect Miaoshan, but the demon pressed him to seize a powerful South Sea artifact.

• Lord Lingguang asked whether the origin of the black mist had been discovered, while the Great Chun Tree God noted that it resembled the mist associated with Black Cloud Marsh.
• The Great Chun Tree God suggested someone might be trying to use Guifang methods to become a ghost god, and Lord Lingguang questioned why anyone would do so in the present era.
• On Mount Putuo, Fu Kui’s Heart Demon accused him of suspecting Miaoshan because she had left the South Sea and retained her anger and hatred.
• Fu Kui admitted he felt doubt but said he trusted Miaoshan’s choices and believed she had her own plans.
• The Heart Demon claimed Miaoshan was ideal prey for demon kings and urged Fu Kui to seize the South Sea divine artifact, a vase forged by the Dao Ancestor that could swallow the waters of the Four Seas.

Ox-Head and Horse-Face realized that a monster had trapped them in the Mutton-Fat Jade Purifying Vase to steal their page of the Book of Life and Death. Ye Ming asked Wu Yao and Diting for help finding the missing page, and Diting located it in the South Sea with an unborn Heavenly Demon ghost god.

• Ox-Head and Horse-Face argued inside the vase, then realized the monster had deliberately lured them in to take their page of the Book of Life and Death.
• Ye Ming told the Heaven-Eroding Lord that Ox-Head and Horse-Face had been missing for nearly half a month and that Fengdu had lost contact with their page.
• Ye Ming visited Wu Yao and asked whether Diting could find the missing page.
• Diting said the page was in the South Sea, held by a Heavenly Demon ghost god who had yet to be born.

Mara trapped Miaoshan and revealed his plan to enter the Netherworld, become a Yin Deity, and steal the Yin Son of Heaven’s power. Miaoshan refused to yield as Mara prepared to wear her down and kill more living beings.

• Mara watched his name appear in the Book of Life and Death, which would grant him access to the Netherworld and the right to reincarnate.
• Mara accused Miaoshan of disrupting his ritual, while Miaoshan condemned him for turning the South Sea nonhumans into a ghost god body despite promising to spare them.
• Mara explained that he had trapped Ox-Head and Horse-Face and intended to replace Miaoshan, pose as her, and join the Ghost City of Fengdu as a Yin Deity.
• Miaoshan said Mara would fail, but he declared that no one else could interfere and vowed to wear her down.