Chapter Summaries

A man living as Fu Chuan was secretly identified as Qian Jin, a chiliarch from the Spirit Realm, by the Shencheng Special Investigation Bureau. Wei Qidong confronted him at home and demanded that he reveal everything he knew.

• The man acting as Fu Chuan improved the restaurant kitchens and cooked lobster for Fu Chuan's daughter, whose behavior he had been disciplining.
• Fu Chuan's daughter told him that Xu Jiayi had tutored her, and he responded with unexpected warmth.
• The Shencheng Special Investigation Bureau surveilled the household and confirmed that the man had a Spirit Realm creature's magnetic field.
• Wei Qidong broke into the man's bedroom and disrupted his attempt to form a hand seal.
• Wei Qidong identified him as Qian Jin, a chiliarch of the Nineteenth Battalion of the Hearth Guard in the Long Continent Kingdom, and demanded the truth.

Chu Tianshu trained underwater, studied Bubai and Xiao Zuo’s abilities, and asked about getting a permit to keep the two-headed snake. Helai then revealed that captured Fangfeng Clan members had entered Shencheng from Long Continent Kingdom, whose surrounding mists had recently begun to disperse, and asked Chu Tianshu to investigate with him.

• Chu Tianshu practiced the Mountain Collapse and Water Extinction Palm underwater, then returned to shore and found Bubai and Xiao Zuo holding Sanqi.
• Chu Tianshu questioned the two-headed snake about treasured glow and its abilities, fed Bubai a droplet of Sky-Spanning essence, and wondered whether keeping the snake required a permit.
• Chu Tianshu asked his group chat about a snake-keeping permit, and Helai praised his Heart and Blood Martial Dao manual as a useful next stage for spreading martial arts.
• Helai told Chu Tianshu that more than a dozen captured Spirit Realm creatures had claimed to be Fangfeng Clan members from Long Continent Kingdom and had taken the identities of missing people in Shencheng.
• Chu Tianshu read the captured Fangfeng members’ statements about Long Continent’s surrounding mist thinning, and Helai asked him to enter the Spirit Realm and help investigate.

Chu Tianshu and Helai crossed the mist into the Long Continent Kingdom, where they discovered advanced industry and a kingdom fighting a war against water demons. The chapter ended with Chu Tianshu examining strange winged missiles as they raced toward the battlefield.

• Chu Tianshu disguised himself and rode Helai’s white crane toward the mist separating Zhenze from the Long Continent.
• Chu Tianshu put Bubai and the others in a pouch after they became dizzy from staring at the Spirit Realm’s black deep sea.
• Helai flew into the mist along the coast while Chu Tianshu used his Heavenly Eye to keep them on course and conceal them.
• They emerged above a densely built region and saw extensive roads, tall classical buildings, and workers producing glowing materials in hilltop ponds.
• Workers launched more than a hundred strange, fast-moving bird-shaped weapons toward the horizon after a warning about clansmen dying in battle against water demons.

Chu Tianshu and his companions learned about the Spirit Realm’s Curse Ore industry and spotted a Mountain-Crossing Centipede train as they flew toward the Nineteenth Battalion. When a Hollow Radiance White Ape attacked the train, Chu Tianshu landed to confront him and recognized him as an enemy tied to the dead Mirror Ape.

• Helai explained that Curse Ore and its byproducts powered the Spirit Realm’s development, and that Qian Jin could guide them to the Hearth Guard’s Nineteenth Battalion.
• Chu Tianshu saw a black Mountain-Crossing Centipede train crossing the wilderness, with soldiers chanting aboard.
• A white ape burst from a lake, wrecked several carriages with his iron cudgel, and twisted the railway until the train slid off the tracks.
• The train’s soldiers attacked with wind-blade spears, but the white ape swept their blades aside and mocked their weakness.
• Chu Tianshu descended beside the wrecked train, and Helai identified the attacker as a Hollow Radiance White Ape under the God of Vengeance.
• Chu Tianshu recognized the ape as connected to the dead Mirror Ape and declared him doubly deserving of death.

Chu Tianshu defeated the white ape with Mountain Collapse Palm and sent Helai to interrogate him for war intelligence. He introduced himself to the train officials as Ye Kun, a Night Wandering Lad, and asked to ride with them.

• Chu Tianshu challenged the white ape and stopped its iron staff with a palm strike.
• Chu Tianshu shattered the ape's arms through its Thousand Transformations Ice Shield, then threw it into the air for Helai to capture.
• Helai carried off the wounded ape to interrogate him and obtain war intelligence.
• The train officials Fang Liang and Fang Zhen thanked Chu Tianshu and offered him a reward for helping them.
• Chu Tianshu called himself Ye Kun, claimed to be a Night Wandering Lad seeking stories, and asked to travel with the train officials.

Chu Tianshu helped the Fangfeng Clan soldiers recover from the train wreck and used his strength to return the carriages to the tracks. As the train sped onward through an ancient spirit hymn, Helai identified it as a mobile ritual altar and warned that Long Continent’s war with the water demons was more perilous than expected.

• Chu Tianshu helped the soldiers rescue their comrades and learned that their cargo was curse-ore sand used for construction and makeshift explosives.
• Chu Tianshu dragged the stranded front half of the train back onto the tracks while Fang Liang and Fang Zhen moved the rear section and repaired the coupling.
• Fang Xun restarted the train as Fang Liang fed its boiler and Fang Zhen led the soldiers in a hymn invoking the mountain-crossing centipede.
• Chu Tianshu realized the hymn borrowed power from a spirit race, allowing the train to accelerate with reduced wind resistance.
• Helai explained that the train was a mobile ritual altar rather than a magical artifact and warned that Long Continent’s war with the water demons was more complicated than they had expected.
• Chu Tianshu asked Helai what he had learned about the water demons.

Chu Tianshu learned how the water demon alliance invaded the Long Continent Kingdom and how the Two Palaces checked its advance. As the train continued toward the Eighteen Camps, its operators described the devastation nearby and their fear of living close to the battlefield.

• Bai He relayed the white ape's account of the ape spirits, domesticated sea monsters, and Ghost Mother Clan experts whose joint sacrifice enabled the invasion.
• Bai He explained that the Two Palaces had halted the invasion with military equipment and Divine Thunder production, despite a surprise attack that severely injured the Fangfeng Clan's Heavenly Official.
• Chu Tianshu connected the earlier disturbance in the mist to the invasion preparations but doubted that either the three great Ghost Gods or the Two Palaces had created the mist.
• Fang Liang described the Eighteen Camps as a prosperous destination built around Feng Baili's farming and feed-making innovations.
• Fang Xun told Chu Tianshu that the Nineteenth Battalion had suffered heavy losses while evacuating clanspeople to the Eighteen Camps under pursuit by water apes.
• Fang Liang admitted that the battlefield's proximity had discouraged the operators from moving their families to the Eighteen Camps, and the operators fell silent.

Chu Tianshu arrived with the cargo at the Eighteen Camps and observed how its people endured the war with determination. After explaining that he had wandered into the Long Continent Kingdom from Zhenze, he learned from Feng Baili that the Eighteen Camps had a place for night wanderers to gather inspiration.

• The Mountain-Crossing Centipede reached the ruined freight station, where Feng Baili welcomed the train and the cargo was loaded onto carts and beasts.
• Chu Tianshu traveled into town with Fang Liang and Fang Zhen, watching the residents work together amid the damage and strains of war.
• Feng Baili thanked Chu Tianshu for saving Fang Liang and asked when he had come to the Long Continent.
• Chu Tianshu said he had arrived a little over a month earlier after following a two-headed snake through strange fog near Zhenze.
• Feng Baili explained that the Long Continent had been cut off from the outside world for nearly a hundred years and said the Eighteen Camps had a place where Chu Tianshu could gather inspiration.

Chu Tianshu visited a camp for wounded soldiers, put dozens of them to sleep with silver needles, and was taken to the Earth Beam Palace branch academy to examine its injured head, Fang Tai. He sensed formidable, sinister Saber Intent surging from Fang Tai’s bandaged left hand.

• Feng Baili led Chu Tianshu through the wounded soldiers’ camp and asked him to tell the soldiers stories.
• Chu Tianshu used silver needles to put dozens of wounded Fangfeng soldiers into a deep sleep.
• Chu Tianshu asked Feng Baili to introduce him to leaders from the Seventeenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Battalions.
• Feng Baili brought Chu Tianshu to the Earth Beam Palace branch academy to examine its academy head, Fang Tai.
• Chu Tianshu saw that Fang Tai was a Taboo-level expert and sensed sinister Saber Intent and an illusion of desolate graves and rivers of blood around his injured left hand.

Chu Tianshu examined Fang Tai’s Ghost Mother Clan saber wound and began treating it with needles after discovering how its Saber Intent poisoned Mind Power. Meanwhile, Feng Baili’s companions challenged Fang Tai’s refusal to use the authority to prepare Eighteen Camps, and Chu Tianshu and the white crane discovered that Fang Tai had no counterpart in reality.

• Fang Tai invited Chu Tianshu to treat his wound, and Chu Tianshu eased the pain briefly before asking how he had been injured.
• Fang Tai explained that a Ghost Mother Clan commander had wounded him, and Chu Tianshu identified how the Saber Intent turned Mind Power into corpse poison.
• Chu Tianshu studied the Saber Qi by probing Fang Tai’s wound, then inserted needles into his hand and head after Feng Baili left to handle a visitor.
• Feng Baili’s companions argued that Fang Tai was withholding the authority needed to activate Eighteen Camps’ hearths and increase production, while Feng Baili defended the two palaces’ oversight.
• Chu Tianshu asked the white crane to find Fang Tai’s counterpart in reality, and the search found none.
• Chu Tianshu opened the Great Void Heavenly Eye as Fang Tai lowered his head.

Chu Tianshu discovered that Fang Tai was an evil spirit disguised as the Earth Beam Palace’s Court Master and struck him while Senior He disrupted the ritual altar’s communications. Fang Tai’s iron ruler counterattacked, but Chu Tianshu seized it and attacked Fang Tai’s temples, leaving the fight unresolved.

• Chu Tianshu used his Heavenly Eye and discovered that Fang Tai’s human appearance concealed an evil spirit.
• Chu Tianshu asked the white crane to block the ritual altar’s communications, and Senior He began a brief disruption.
• Chu Tianshu flicked a silver needle into Fang Tai’s forehead as Fang Tai’s iron ruler merged with his body and counterattacked.
• Chu Tianshu struck the iron ruler, disrupted the surrounding ritual altar field, and caught the ruler in his left hand.
• Chu Tianshu jabbed Fang Tai’s temples with the ruler’s handle and his right thumb, sending jade-green ripples into Fang Tai’s mind.

Chu Tianshu suppressed Fang Tai’s evil spirit while the white crane claimed the iron ruler and used it to draw out Fang Tai’s memories. The memory revealed that the Wangliang Divine Lord planned to exchange living beings between the Spirit Realm and Human World, and his followers hoped to become immortals.

• Chu Tianshu revealed that Fang Tai’s old injuries had healed, then sent the Golden Spear Guards away while keeping Fang Tai’s evil spirit suppressed.
• The white crane deciphered the iron ruler’s incantations, claimed control of the ritual artifact, and used it to create an illusion for interrogating Fang Tai.
• The illusion showed Fang Tai meeting the Earth Governor, who explained that academy heads and other senior officials had to worship the Wangliang Divine Lord.
• The Earth Governor said the Wangliang Divine Lord planned to exchange living beings between the Spirit Realm and Human World so he could enter the Human World in his true body.
• The Earth Governor promised that believers could gain the favor of both worlds and cultivate into immortals, or perhaps even gods.

Bai He and Chu Tianshu learned that twelve Heaven and Earth Palaces deacons had infiltrated the real world with spell jade slips and prepared the two-headed snake to search for their treasure light. Fang Tai’s memories then showed Yu Huangfen fighting Feng Jue, the Celestial Official of Long Continent, amid the destruction of a city.

• Bai He identified twelve deacons who had entered the real world and proposed using Bubai and Xiao Zuo to track their spell jade slips by their treasure light.
• Chu Tianshu fed the two-headed snake essence drops and told it to memorize the iron ruler’s treasure light for the search ahead.
• Fang Tai’s memory showed a high-rise splitting apart as the wounded Dean Li and other victims fell from the ruins.
• Yu Huangfen introduced himself and faced Feng Jue, who attacked with powerful, precisely controlled currents of air.
• Yu Huangfen’s saber flickered through the currents as Feng Jue’s wind tore through damaged buildings while sparing nearby intact structures.

Chu Tianshu studied the ritual altar’s power and decided to infiltrate the Heavenly King Palace by posing as a physician who could treat the wounded Heavenly Officer. As the Earth Governor received news of a possible physician, a sea-monster emissary arrived to propose peace talks on behalf of General Yuan.

• Fang Tai fled during the battle between Yu Huangfen and Feng Jue, was knocked unconscious by the aftershock, and Chu Tianshu complained that he had missed the rest of the fight.
• Helai warned Chu Tianshu that the exchange ritual’s accumulated inertia might make the coming disaster impossible to prevent, while Chu Tianshu resolved to destroy the Heaven and Earth Palaces and obstruct the Wangliang Divine Lord’s plan.
• Helai returned to reality with Xiao Zuo and Bubai, while Chu Tianshu trained by drawing power from the ritual altars and asked Helai to search for missing humans and control Fang Tai.
• Chu Tianshu arranged for Fang Tai to recommend him as a physician to the Heavenly King Palace, and the Earth Minister summoned him to treat the wounded Heavenly Officer.
• A sea-monster emissary told the Earth Governor that Yu Huangfen and General Yuan were willing to negotiate peace, and the Heavenly Official agreed to receive General Yuan’s representative.

Chu Tianshu treated a puppet standing in for the Heavenly Official, while the real Heavenly Official secretly learned the acupuncture technique. Yuan Buyu then revealed Wangliang Divine Lord’s invasion plan and warned that the Yinglong Banner could stop him, leaving Chu Tianshu stunned by what he had overheard.

• Chu Tianshu traveled from the Eighteen Camps to the Heaven and Earth Palaces in a Dangkang Carriage and sensed a powerful white ape nearby.
• Chu Tianshu examined and treated the apparent Heavenly Official, realizing that the patient was a peachwood puppet but concealing his discovery.
• After Chu Tianshu left, the Heavenly Official used the puppet’s reflected sensations to reproduce the acupuncture on his true body and decided to meet the white ape.
• Yuan Buyu entered the palace and explained Wangliang Divine Lord’s three-stage plan to reach the mortal world through the Fangfeng Clan and the palace leaders.
• Yuan Buyu warned that the Yinglong Banner and the human Taboos could thwart Wangliang Divine Lord, while Chu Tianshu listened from the medicine hall and learned of the weapon.

Yuan Buyu persuaded the Heavenly Official and Earth Chancellor to join a grand alliance of Spirit Realm clans and alter the ritual so they would not serve as beacons for the Wangliang Divine Lord. Facing the expanded threat, Chu Tianshu called on allies in the real world to help him prepare, and they began coordinating a response.

• Yuan Buyu explained that the Ghost Mother Clan had failed to bring the Great Yu Dragon Stele after the supreme gods forced a poorly timed attack on a human Grotto-Heaven.
• Yuan Buyu convinced the Heavenly Official and Earth Chancellor that they could avoid serving as beacons, then revealed that seventeen other clans were being invited to join a grand alliance.
• The Heavenly Official agreed to discuss changing the ritual, while Yuan Buyu described the clans’ plan to enter the real world, spread out, and support one another.
• Chu Tianshu abandoned his plan to kill the Heavenly Official and Earth Chancellor and decided to seek help developing poisons.
• Fang Tai received Chu Tianshu’s message, and allies including Lin Chucheng and Helai responded by offering their knowledge and warning that the Yinglong Banner’s secrets must be investigated.

Feng Jianhua, Lin Chucheng, Wei Qidong, and Master White Horse ambushed envoys from rival kingdoms and took their places using soul-hosting bodies. After confirming that all four had succeeded, Master White Horse called them to proceed to the gathering.

• Feng Jianhua killed the Miemeng Kingdom's War Champion and the Miemeng Bird King, then reshaped his body to look like the champion.
• Lin Chucheng killed the tiger-toothed dwarf from the Zhu Mountain Kingdom.
• Wei Qidong picked up snake-shaped earrings from the corpse of an expert from the Rain Master Kingdom.
• Master White Horse used a poisoned iron nail to weaken Heichi Mountain Hermit's Mind Power, then killed him with a palm strike and checked that he was dead.
• Master White Horse explained how his divination had helped the four experts choose suitable targets, then told them to go to the gathering.

Chu Tianshu and his companions prepared poisons for the gathering of seventeen Spirit Realm races, while Feng Jianhua urged him to escape if the fight became hopeless. At the Heaven and Earth Palaces’ welcoming feast, a Great Brown Bear Kingdom attendee insulted Chu Tianshu and eyed him as a potential captive, giving Chu Tianshu a reason to target him.

• Chu Tianshu secretly studied poison arts with Bai He and his companions while the Earth Steward spied on his nightly work.
• Feng Jianhua told Chu Tianshu that the group wanted him to retreat if the battle became hopeless, and Chu Tianshu agreed while asking them to trust his poisoning skills.
• Chu Tianshu prepared a blue-green medicinal liquid and went to the grand feast beside Nine Bends Stream after the Heavenly Official invited him.
• The Great Brown Bear Kingdom attendee challenged Chu Tianshu’s right to attend and secretly considered capturing and enslaving him.
• Chu Tianshu sensed the bear’s malice and decided to leave his corpse intact when the time came.

Chu Tianshu poisoned the assembled monster clans through their vision and revealed that he had set a trap during the gathering. As the poisoned guests fought back and Bai He arrived, Yu Huangfen confronted Chu Tianshu, leaving the battle unresolved.

• Chu Tianshu used poison and a dazzling crystal tree to provoke the great bear, while the assembled guests discussed sacrificing humans.
• Chu Tianshu signaled Bai He to approach, and Yu Huangfen sensed something wrong before attacking Chu Tianshu with his saber.
• Chu Tianshu repelled Yu Huangfen with the Great Void Heavenly Eye and revealed that he had poisoned the guests through their vision.
• The poisoned clans unleashed their powers, while Lin Chucheng broke the Rongxuan Kingdom envoy's legs and the gathering descended into chaos.
• Bai He arrived carrying an iron ruler as Yu Huangfen accused Chu Tianshu and his allies of being human, and Chu Tianshu prepared to fight.

Chu Tianshu killed the Heavenly Official with a calculated sword strike while Yu Huangfen intercepted him at Nine Bends Stream. At the Earth Beam Palace, Bai He confronted the Earth Official, while Chu Tianshu and Yu Huangfen continued their fierce battle.

• Chu Tianshu pierced Yu Huangfen's sleeve with the Sanqi Divine Sword, disrupting his movements, then rushed toward the Heavenly Official.
• The Heavenly Official cast the One-Character Spell "Physician," but Chu Tianshu's sword attack triggered a chain reaction that shattered the Heavenly Official's body and Evil Spirit.
• The Earth Official was left stunned as Yu Huangfen intercepted Chu Tianshu and the two plunged into Nine Bends Stream, tearing up the stream and its banks in their battle.
• Bai He arrived at the Earth Beam Palace on an iron ruler and awakened spells hidden in its building materials, challenging the Earth Official's claim to the altar.
• Yu Huangfen praised his saber arts and threatened to make Chu Tianshu a corpse, while Chu Tianshu prepared to continue fighting amid the ruined landscape.