Chapter Summaries

The emperor offered Chen Qing an alliance to overthrow the guilds and lead humanity beyond the world, but Chen Qing refused, determined to pursue his own goals and win people over himself. The emperor departed, leaving Chen Qing excited by the prospect of confronting an NPC with ambitions beyond the game world.

• The emperor accused Chen Qing of seeing the people as outsiders and explained that he had opposed the King of Qin for the same reason.
• The emperor asked why Chen Qing had risked his life to save Murong Yunji, and Chen Qing said that once he had acted, he did not regret it.
• The emperor offered Chen Qing an alliance to overthrow the guilds and create a world where humans and demons could coexist, revealing that he wanted to conquer the lands of the gods.
• Ziyue urged Chen Qing to consider the emperor's proposal, but Chen Qing refused and declared that he would accomplish his goals himself.
• The emperor left with King Xiang, while Chen Qing watched him go with renewed excitement about facing his dangerous ambitions.

Chen Qing ordered Ziyue to gather A Li and Ghost Child so they could withdraw from King Xiang Palace, admitting that the players had lost the round. In the Fourth Guild’s abyss, the Divine Martial Guild leader warned that the emperor of the Xiao Household would soon command a huge army of ghost soldiers, and the players considered turning to the King of Qin in Jiangnan.

• Chen Qing explained that Ghost Child had survived through regeneration and ordered Ziyue to meet him at the palace gates within an hour.
• The Divine Martial Guild leader showed the abyss factions evidence that the emperor had burned the players with Golden Crow Flame, including an image captured by Wang Shiyu’s Heavenly Secrets Eye.
• The red-clad woman reported that the guilds had lost many Transcendents and that revived evil spirits had inherited the players’ powers, items, and talents.
• She learned that the Ghost Temple forces now obeyed the emperor of the Xiao Household, who was expected to command two hundred thousand first-rank ghost soldiers and over a hundred Transcendent ghost generals by next spring.
• The abyss factions proposed that the King of Qin in Jiangnan might be the only mortal-world force able to confront the emperor.

Chen Qing received Abe Ayaka’s offer of cooperation as Northern Wolf City remained under the Black Lantern and faced an uncertain future. Abe asked him to send troops against the emperor of the Central Plains, and Chen Qing had yet to answer.

• Chen Qing and Ziyue discussed Nezha’s recovery, how long the Black Lantern might last, and the risk that the noble families’ followers could cause trouble.
• Yuchi Feihong brought Abe Ayaka, a representative of the Divine Martial Guild, to meet Chen Qing.
• Abe Ayaka said the Divine Martial Guild wanted to cooperate because the emperor of the Central Plains was gaining power and had taken the Heavenly Ghost Host and the Four Great Guilds’ treasures.
• Chen Qing agreed to hear Abe Ayaka’s terms after she explained that the emperor’s rise threatened the guilds’ influence in the mortal world.
• Abe Ayaka offered security for North Sea City and Northern Yan in exchange for Chen Qing sending troops to help defend the northern lands before spring.

After the Divine Martial Guild’s envoy demanded support for the northern demons, Chen Qing weighed the political cost against the danger of losing North Sea City. With his forces depleted and no troops available to spare, he decided to seek time by negotiating with the so-called evil dragons himself.

• Shen Qi warned Chen Qing that openly aiding the northern demons would alienate northerners, Jiangnan residents, and the Fighter Army, while refusing the guild could invite unrest and pressure.
• Ziyue agreed they could not openly shelter the demons and explained that the Fighter Army had suffered heavy losses, including more than half its strongest combat troops.
• Shen Qi pointed out that the Jiangnan defenses and other fronts could not spare troops, leaving Xu Hu with only about thirty thousand fighters able to fight.
• Chen Qing refused to abandon North Sea City, arguing that losing the northern route would waste lives and undermine the trust of other forces.
• Chen Qing announced that he would go speak with the so-called evil dragons to buy time.

Chen Qing asked to meet the three great guilds, and Kagura argued that they should hear him out and consider an alliance. Meanwhile, the emperor and King Xiang prepared the Flying Dragon Army for spring, confident their ghost-empowered troops could defeat the northern forces.

• Chen Qing asked Abe Ayaka to arrange a meeting with the guild leaders, and she promised an answer by dusk.
• Kagura told the gathered guild leaders that Chen Qing could be their best partner, and they agreed to meet him despite their misgivings.
• The emperor and King Xiang discussed Chen Qing’s dilemma: protecting the northern demons could ruin his reputation, while refusing to act could cost him his strongholds.
• The emperor reported that the Flying Dragon Army was being converted through a pact that let Heavenly Ghost Guard spirits temporarily possess the soldiers.
• King Xiang predicted that the two hundred thousand ghost-empowered soldiers would be ready by spring and could wipe out the northern beasts.

Dahu told the people of North Wild Goose City that the King of Qin had made travel to Jiangnan safe through North Sea City and described the Duke of Wei’s sacrifice to help northerners escape. The crowd wanted to leave for Jiangnan, but they feared the Nether Moon Sect would not let them go.

• Dahu arrived in North Wild Goose City with goods from Jiangnan, astonishing the northerners who questioned how he had crossed the snake-infested lands.
• Dahu said the King of Qin had sent troops to rescue northerners and that North Sea City was now under his control, with soldiers escorting travelers safely.
• Dahu recounted how the Duke of Wei had become an ice road across the North Sea so northerners could flee to Jiangnan, moving the crowd and shaming the deserters.
• Dahu explained that he had come to collect his family and said northerners could settle in Jiangnan or reclaim land in the West Sea island kingdoms.
• The crowd considered leaving for Jiangnan, but realized they needed the Nether Moon Sect’s Black Lanterns and feared the sect might refuse to let them go.

The Nether Moon envoy told the people of North Wild Goose City that she could escort them to safer regions in batches, explaining that her sect secretly protected humanity during recurring demonic upheavals. She left the crowd alarmed by revealing that the Central Plains held something more terrifying than snake demons.

• The envoy announced that North Sea City had been taken and offered to escort the people to Northern Yan or Jiangnan in groups of up to a thousand.
• The envoy addressed the crowd’s suspicions by summoning a giant black python and explaining that the Nether Moon Sect controlled some Heavenly Python Palace demons to protect humanity.
• The envoy described repeated Ancient Revivals and said several major sects worked to preserve humanity through each crisis.
• The envoy offered people a choice to remain in North Wild Goose City or seek refuge in Northern Yan or Jiangnan, prompting many to request places in the first group.
• The envoy explained that the sect had scouted the Central Plains but found something there more terrifying than snake demons.

Rumors about the Central Plains drove families to weigh the dangers of returning there against fleeing to Jiangnan, while Abe Ayaka and a guild leader discussed how the nobles’ choices could weaken the emperor’s campaign. The guild leader ended by vowing revenge on the Xiao Household and everyone loyal to the emperor.

• A Grand Elder told his family that Chen Qing might have engineered past disasters to make himself a savior, and argued they should return to the Central Plains to protect their holdings.
• The family decided to split, sending some members to Jiangnan and others to the Central Plains to reclaim property and assess the danger.
• A Nether Moon disciple reported to Abe Ayaka that commoners favored Jiangnan or the Northern Wasteland, while many noble families wanted to return to the Central Plains.
• Abe Ayaka said the nobles would learn the truth from their elders and might move their assets to Jiangnan, undermining the Central Plains emperor’s campaign.
• The burly man resented Chen Qing’s power and vowed that the Four Great Guilds would torture the Xiao Household and the emperor’s supporters once the guild leaders revived.

Chen Qing’s forces welcomed displaced northerners into North Sea City with shelter, food, and assurances of safe passage to Jiangnan, where a peddler described the region’s prosperity. Meanwhile, noble clansmen who chose the route toward the Central Plains entered a border city and began to regret their decision.

• The envoy accepted wine and hospitality from a Fighter Army captain, while the captain praised the envoy’s efforts to protect people from demons.
• The captain led northern refugees into North Sea City, where they saw powerful Jiangnan soldiers and thriving merchants.
• A Jiangnan peddler told the refugees that Mountain Gods and sorcerers had made Jiangnan prosperous and its people unusually strong.
• Soldiers served the refugees generous portions of meat congee, and the peddler contrasted Jiangnan’s welcome with the harsher prospects in Northern Wolf City and the Northern Wasteland.
• Noble clansmen who had taken the route toward the Central Plains reached a border city, where many regretted their choice.

A group of great families reached Guanzhong expecting safety, but found Zijing Pass and Luyang City abandoned and strewn with bones. A surviving steward revealed that residents had fled and the Taiyuan Prefectural Government had also been deserted.

• The great families arrived at Zijing Pass and found its gates unguarded and its entrance overgrown with weeds.
• They burned the weeds and discovered the remains of at least ten thousand people beneath them.
• The group entered Luyang City and found it dark, deserted, and prowled by dog demons.
• The travelers found an old steward and his young grandson hiding in the Su Family residence cellar.
• The steward explained that many residents had fled, while those unable to escape had become prey to demons.
• The steward told the group that the Taiyuan Prefectural Government had also been abandoned.

The emperor declared that he would send troops north in spring to defeat the demons and rescue the surviving people, while the Yuchi patriarch challenged his motives and the court’s transformation. The emperor vowed that all responsible, including himself, would pay, and Yuchi accepted the blood wine and joined the ghostly ranks.

• A clansman in Taiyuan heard that people had fled Guanzhong after children vanished and rumors spread of the court sacrificing them in Ghost and God Temples.
• The emperor announced that he would dispatch troops in spring to reclaim the north, defeat the demons, and avenge his northern subjects.
• The Yuchi patriarch questioned whether a northern campaign still mattered as the transformed ministers watched him hungrily.
• The emperor argued that humanity should rule its own fate and asked Yuchi whether he still believed in him.
• A man from the Chen Household offered Yuchi black blood wine, and Yuchi drank it, transforming his eyes to the eerie green of the others.
• The emperor helped Yuchi up and promised that everyone responsible for the suffering, including himself, would pay.

The Ge Family discovered that the court had seized its Guanzhong supplies while the northern cities were destroyed, and its grand elder reconsidered an old betrayal as he weighed whether to join Chen Qing. Chen Qing announced an alliance requiring Jiangnan to send troops in three months, warning that King Xiang and the emperor could become unstoppable if they gained control of the far north.

• The Ge Family found its Guanzhong holdings deserted and discovered that the court had gathered its hidden supplies near the capital.
• The grand elder reflected on his past betrayal of a young man who had sought coexistence between humans and demons, then considered whether the Ge Family should go to the capital or Jiangnan.
• The grand elder asked why Chen Qing had been granted the title King of Qin, prompting the elders to consider whether Chen Qing resembled the young man from the past.
• Chen Qing summoned Jiangnan’s senior leaders and announced that they had three months to prepare to send troops when the court attacked the north.
• Chen Qing told Shen Er and the others that King Xiang could regain his former strength by monopolizing the far north’s resources, while the northern lands currently lacked a master because many individual contract holders had died.

Chen Qing revealed that he planned to use the court’s campaign against the snake demons to seize northern territory, then met the players secretly controlling the Heavenly Python Palace. The players warned him that King Xiang’s Ghost Domain threatened them all, and Chen Qing’s response to their plea for help remained unstated.

• Chen Qing told the Shen Family that he would send troops to help the court while secretly competing for northern territory, and said the mysterious northern forces would have no choice but to agree.
• Three days earlier, Chen Qing entered the Land of the Void and recognized it as the barrier of the Nine Heavens, where players had advanced to the brink of the fourth version.
• A woman in red asked whether Chen Qing was Mr. Pu Yunchuan, and he said he was no longer certain who he was.
• Chen Qing explained that the players controlled the Heavenly Python Palace through bloodline contracts, leaving the organization vulnerable if the contracted players died.
• The woman in red warned Chen Qing that King Xiang must not take the north, or the Ghost Domain could destroy the players’ power and threaten humanity.

Chen Qing negotiated with the Heavenly Python Palace’s guild leaders to occupy most of the northern lands while they retreated to the Northern Wasteland, but his forces were too stretched to secure the territory. After hearing the troop counts, Chen Qing was left facing the near-impossible task of holding the north with the soldiers he could spare.

• Chen Qing demanded that the guild leaders serve as his informants while he occupied most of the north in the imperial court’s name, and argued that they had little choice but to accept.
• The Fourth Guild stopped the guild leaders from intimidating Chen Qing, then questioned whether his forces could take the northern territory.
• Tian Heng and the Shen Family warned Chen Qing that Jiangnan’s expanding fronts had left its military stretched thin.
• Tian Heng reported that the West Sea Army had three hundred thousand combat-ready troops, but most were low-ranked and needed to guard other fronts.
• Xu Hu said they could muster fifty thousand elites and a hundred thousand lower-ranked troops for the northern campaign, leaving Chen Qing to recognize that this force could not hold such a vast territory.

Ziyue persuaded the young emperor of Great Yan to lend Jiangnan five hundred thousand ordinary soldiers for three years, while he sought help with the soldiers’ livestock losses. After leaving the palace, she remained concerned about Jiangnan’s preparations for a possible spring invasion and the need to find blood qi in the far north.

• The young emperor hesitated to lend troops because Northern Yan had already lost many elite bloodline soldiers, but Ziyue reminded him that she had fulfilled her promises to secure his imperial authority.
• Ziyue explained that Jiangnan needed ordinary soldiers to defend against the court’s planned northward campaign and asked Great Yan for five hundred thousand troops.
• The young emperor worried Jiangnan might keep the soldiers, so Ziyue offered a spell covenant with the King of Qin requiring their return after three years.
• The young emperor agreed in principle, but raised the soldiers’ livestock losses as a condition for their service in Jiangnan.
• Ziyue left the palace and worried that Jiangnan’s forces might be overstretched if the court invaded in spring, while finding a far-north source of blood qi remained essential.

Word spread that Jiangnan was recruiting five hundred thousand men from Northern Yan’s tribes, and common herdsmen debated whether leaving the grasslands might offer them a better life. At a tribe’s selection, Han Lin revealed that he had not come to recruit auxiliary soldiers, leaving the purpose of his bone examinations unclear.

• News that Jiangnan was borrowing troops reached the tribes, and young herdsmen discussed the chance to go south despite their concerns about abandoning their livestock and finding hardship there.
• Brother Chao’er cautioned Hanzi and the others not to volunteer rashly, but Hanzi privately resisted the prospect of spending his life herding cattle and sheep.
• The tribal elder assembled several hundred men and introduced Han Lin, a squad leader from Jiangnan’s Fighter Army, who said he would choose ten volunteers.
• Han Lin examined the men’s bones, puzzling the elder and Brother Chao’er, who asked why he was examining ordinary recruits.
• Han Lin stopped and asked who had said he had come to select auxiliary soldiers.

Han Lin recruited Northern Wasteland veterans for Jiangnan's Fighter Army, explaining that people without bloodlines could gain extraordinary abilities through secret methods. News that Chen Qing planned to train five hundred thousand borrowed soldiers as combat troops left the guild leaders wondering where Jiangnan would find the resources.

• Han Lin told the tribal elder that he had come to recruit combat troops, not auxiliaries, and explained why Northern Wasteland veterans could be trained quickly.
• Han Lin demonstrated his Fourth Rank strength and said ordinary people like him could gain abilities without bloodline power.
• A young man knelt to enlist, and others followed as Han Lin promised fair prices for their livestock and said commanders would recruit five hundred thousand soldiers from Northern Yan.
• The tribal elder questioned how Jiangnan could afford the resources to train so many troops.
• Players from major guilds reported Chen Qing's plan, and their leaders doubted that Jiangnan could train five hundred thousand soldiers into combat troops.

Ziyue explained how Yuchi Feihong would use a three-year loan of soldiers to build his army and draw recruits to Jiangnan, while she worried that Chen Qing might not win the battle that would make their plans possible. In the southeast, Murong Bingyun learned that his teacher had deliberately kept him from overseeing a city’s Underworld, but he did not yet know why.

• Yuchi Feihong questioned why Ziyue had arranged to borrow five hundred thousand soldiers for three years, and she explained that the emperor would agree to a loan when he would not hand over troops outright.
• Ziyue told Yuchi Feihong that soldiers trained in the Divine Path Style would likely choose to return to Jiangnan rather than give up its benefits, and their strength would attract more recruits from the grasslands.
• Ziyue described how Yuchi Feihong’s reputation and the Underworld could bind the grassland people and clan forces to Jiangnan, but she worried that Chen Qing might lose to the dangerous player from the Xiao Household.
• Yuchi Feihong asked Ziyue whom she planned to appoint to oversee Northern Yan’s Underworld, and she said he knew the person she had in mind.
• Murong Bingyun, newly appointed Grand Underworld Official of the southeast, asked his teacher why he had never been assigned to oversee a city’s Underworld.

The old gentleman explained that Murong Bingyun had been trained for a much higher post than a county Underworld office and outlined how Jiangnan planned to use the Underworld to gain influence in Northern Yan. Shen Qi arrived to meet Murong Bingyun, suggesting his appointment as Northern Yan’s Grand Underworld Official was imminent.

• The old gentleman told Murong Bingyun that his background was not holding him back and that he had been trained for a position beyond a small county.
• The old gentleman explained that Jiangnan could use the Underworld’s authority and benefits to draw Northern Yan’s great families and ministers away from the young emperor’s influence.
• Murong Bingyun realized that Northern Yan’s allegiance might have already created an Underworld administration in Northern Wolf City, where he could potentially hold authority over the entire kingdom.
• Shen Qi requested an audience with the Grand Underworld Official, and the old gentleman brought Murong Bingyun into the mortal world to meet him.
• Shen Qi greeted Murong Bingyun warmly and recognized that the old gentleman had been training him for the role of a provincial Grand Underworld Official.

Shen Qi confronted Mr. Five Poisons over the fate of the people from beyond the heavens and began to suspect that the Grand Underworld Lord shared Chen Qing’s otherworldly nature. The chapter ended with Shen Qi shaken by the possibility that people like Chen Qing had caused the world’s suffering from the start.

• Mr. Five Poisons recalled how his poisonous nature had forced him to kill those around him in each life, and how Chen Qing’s appointment had given him hope of living longer.
• Shen Qi distrusted Mr. Five Poisons and worried that appointing him Grand Underworld Lord was connected to the arriving people from beyond the heavens, some of whom would retain their memories.
• Mr. Five Poisons sent Murong Bingyun to leave with Shen Qi, but Shen Qi stopped him to ask about arrangements for the people from beyond the heavens.
• Mr. Five Poisons rejected Shen Qi’s question, and Shen Qi said he was asking on Chen Qing’s behalf.
• Shen Qi asked whether Mr. Five Poisons and Chen Qing were the same kind of person, and Mr. Five Poisons’s astonished reaction confirmed Shen Qi’s suspicion.
• Shen Qi grew pale as he considered whether people like Chen Qing had caused the world’s misfortunes and whether Chen Qing truly wanted to improve humanity’s lot.