Chapter Summaries

After An Sixian failed to return, Elder Sui discovered that An Sixian's Life Tablet had cracked and produced a strange violet phantom, seemingly supporting Zhang Jin's warnings. Elder Sui and a Jade Firmament Sect True Person went to question Zhang Jin, who panicked and begged to be released from the dungeon.

• A disciple reported that An Sixian had not returned, and Elder Sui assumed he was searching the former site of the Candle Shadow Sect.
• The disciple returned to report that An Sixian's Life Tablet had become abnormal, so Elder Sui hurried to the ancestral hall.
• Elder Sui saw that nearly half the Life Tablet had shattered while a violet phantom remained, and its strange attraction nearly pulled at his soul.
• Elder Sui reported the discovery to the remaining True Person, who took the Life Tablet and decided they should question Zhang Jin before informing the ancestor.
• Elder Sui revived Zhang Jin in the dungeon, and Zhang Jin begged the two elders to release him before the ghosts of the dead arrived.

Zhang Jin’s cultivation and soul power surged after a mysterious transformation, but the Jade Firmament Sect True Person trapped him with the prison’s Spirit-Calming Grand Formation. As Elder Sui went to summon the ancestor, Zhang Jin tore off his own head, leaving the two cultivators baffled by his sudden death.

• The Jade Firmament Sect True Person tried to soul-search Zhang Jin, but Zhang Jin’s transformed soul power struck back and disrupted his consciousness.
• Zhang Jin taunted the True Person, who activated the Spirit-Calming Grand Formation and suppressed his rising soul power.
• The True Person told Elder Sui to summon the ancestor while he stayed to watch Zhang Jin.
• Zhang Jin tore off his own head before the True Person could stop him, and his body and soul dispersed.
• Elder Sui asked whether Zhang Jin had committed suicide, while the True Person wondered why he had died.

A pregnant ghost spirit and the surrounding spirits sacrificed themselves to restore the little girl in white to the True Intent Realm. She learned how the Corpse Dao cultivator had preserved her soul and vowed to avenge their shared grievances, while the Jade Firmament Sect ancestor confronted her from above.

• The pregnant ghost spirit and the other ghost spirits sacrificed themselves, condensing into the little girl in white.
• Zhang Jin, An Sixian, and the Corpse Dao cultivator welcomed her return, and she recognized the Corpse Dao cultivator as the rogue cultivator she had once saved.
• The Corpse Dao cultivator explained that he had seized a damaged portrait of her from a Wind Thunder Temple cultivator and used it to preserve her remnant soul.
• The little girl in white promised to settle the Candle Shadow Sect's grudge, her own grudge, and the Corpse Dao cultivator's grudge, then recalled the young Confucian cultivator who had painted her portrait.
• The Jade Firmament Sect ancestor sensed the disturbance and confronted the little girl in white, who challenged her to inspect her pure aura.

The wounded Jade Firmament Sect ancestor accepted the white-robed little girl’s help to stabilize his injuries, despite knowing she had her own motives. In return, he took her to the sect’s graveyard, where she chose a Spiritual Connection cultivator’s body and inhabited it.

• Violet Water Abbey and Heaven-Burning Pavilion retained the advantage in the Bodhi Air Mountain Range, though most of their True Intent cultivators had been summoned to Demon Suppression Pass.
• The Jade Firmament Sect ancestor decided to cooperate with the white-robed little girl because his injuries were too severe to risk delaying treatment.
• The white-robed little girl gave the ancestor some of the meditation cushion’s soul-restoring power to help stabilize his injuries.
• The ancestor led the white-robed little girl to the graveyard where the Jade Firmament Sect kept the bodies of cultivators who had failed their breakthroughs.
• The white-robed little girl chose a female Spiritual Connection cultivator’s body and inhabited it, bringing its cultivation to Spiritual Connection Perfection.

The Jade Firmament Sect's patriarch considered using a Candle Shadow Sect survivor to stir conflict between the Violet Water Abbey and Heaven-Burning Pavilion, while the righteous factions struggled to decide how to handle the dead restored by the Soul-Returning Method. The chapter left Ming Fang facing Kongjing and Daozhen's question about when they would disperse their souls.

• The Jade Firmament Sect's patriarch decided the Candle Shadow Sect survivor could be useful and began discussing her proposal to intensify the conflict between the Violet Water Abbey and Heaven-Burning Pavilion.
• The Lingxiao Dao Academy and Kudhan Temple traced the returned dead to the Myriad Corpses Demon Lord's Soul-Return Dao Art and joined the righteous factions' efforts to purge them.
• The righteous factions struggled because many returned souls were beloved family members, Dao companions, teachers, and disciples who had not committed evil.
• Ming Fang brought tea to Daozhen and Kongjing, who praised his progress and asked about Wen Hui's prospects.
• Ming Fang reported that Wen Hui had Golden Roll potential and that his Zen intent and True Intent had returned.
• Kongjing asked Ming Fang when the temple would decide to disperse his and Daozhen's souls.

Seven Mystic Insight Venerables met to discuss the returning souls spreading through the Central Region and realized that killing them could harm the righteous cultivators as well as serve the Myriad Corpses Demon Lord's scheme. Sea Suppressing Venerable urged them to focus on a solution, leaving the meeting poised to decide how to handle the souls.

• Souls returned across the Central Region in growing numbers, eventually affecting mortals and forcing the righteous factions to act.
• The seven Mystic Insight Venerables compared reports of returned souls and recognized that some held senior positions within their former factions.
• The venerables concluded that killing the souls would be hard to justify and could damage the Dao hearts of those forced to destroy their loved ones.
• The Kudhan Temple venerable condemned the Myriad Corpses Demon Lord's scheme, while the seven acknowledged that his Soul-Return Dao Art had achieved an unprecedented feat.
• Sea Suppressing Venerable of Penglai Palace told the others to stop lamenting and discuss how to resolve the crisis.

The Mystic Insight Venerables learned that Sword Ancestor Wuduan had returned to life through Ten Thousand Corpses Old Devil's sorcery, and Yuehan Venerable ordered them to act while she spoke with him. Wuduan appeared in the Dao Academy hall and laughed with Yuehan about how they had both died during attempts to ascend.

• The Venerables reasoned that the resurrected cultivators had preserved remnants of their souls in objects, and Meishan's care of Sword Ancestor Wuduan's sword may have allowed his soul to endure.
• Yuehan Venerable ordered Azure Bamboo Venerable to awaken Wuduan's soul and directed the others to provide power to the Apex of the Firmament, count the returned dead, and establish resettlement areas.
• Venerable Xuansheng thanked his master, Yuehan Venerable, for stepping forward, and reported that his avatar guarded Fuyao Sect while Sea Suppressing's avatar watched the northeast.
• Sword Ancestor Wuduan appeared in the Dao Academy hall and asked Yuehan how she had died.
• Yuehan Venerable said the Void-Stepping Lightning Tribulation had blasted her apart as she attempted to ascend, and Wuduan laughed that her fate had been like his own.

Yuehan Venerable showed Sword Ancestor Wuduan a recording of Zhuang Xuanji tearing through the Sky Curtain and ascending without facing the tribulation, leaving him humbled by her power. Xuansheng then explained that Zhuang Xuanji had singled out the Ten Thousand Corpses Old Devil as an exception among the great experts she mentioned.

• Yuehan Venerable summoned Venerable Xuansheng, who used a Shadow-Tracing Glazed Vessel to reveal Zhuang Xuanji's image.
• Sword Ancestor Wuduan recognized Zhuang Xuanji's extraordinary aura and praised her as a peerless genius.
• The recording showed Zhuang Xuanji reach the Apex of the Firmament and tear open the Sky Curtain without stopping to undergo the tribulation.
• Sword Ancestor Wuduan admitted he had been narrow-minded and asked Yuehan Venerable what else he wanted to tell him.
• Xuansheng told Sword Ancestor Wuduan that Zhuang Xuanji had mentioned the Ten Thousand Corpses Old Devil twice, though she rarely spoke of other powerful figures.

Luo Qianchou arrived at the main battlefield and broke Lang Xiao and his companions’ spatial technique, allowing the righteous cultivators to turn the fight around. He captured Hu Pengxiao and sealed Cui Shenyoo, but Lang Xiao escaped through the barrier into the righteous lands and planned to restore his cultivation.

• Luo Qianchou stopped Lang Xiao, Cui Shenyoo, and Hu Pengxiao from manipulating space, giving the eight righteous cultivators a chance to fight back.
• Luo Qianchou identified the three old demons and attacked them with his imitation Heaven-Reaching Pagoda.
• Luo Qianchou and the righteous cultivators imprisoned Hu Pengxiao in the pagoda and sealed Cui Shenyoo in a pocket of space.
• Lang Xiao escaped through the spatial barrier into the righteous lands within Demon Suppression Pass.
• Three days later, Lang Xiao emerged from the barrier, hid in the mountains, and planned to recover his cultivation.

Zhuang Xuanji questioned Cui Shenyoo about his illicit descent into the lower realm and learned that his soul fragment had fused with a local body, leaving him bound by Azure Waves Dao laws. The chapter contrasted the three cultivators’ failed shortcut with Nangong Jinghe’s exceptional spatial Daoist Magic, then ended with Cui Shenyoo claiming Luo Wanqing had suppressed his fragment.

• Cui Shenyoo admitted that he and Hu Pengxiao had sent soul fragments to find Lang Xiao and secretly descended to the lower realm.
• Cui Shenyoo explained that his fragment had fused with a lower-realm body and could not currently be recalled or destroyed.
• Zhuang Xuanji connected the trio’s descent to a disturbance that had opened a crack in the realm wall.
• The chapter established that Nangong Jinghe had sent his soul fragment and the Gold Ring into Canglan Continent without breaching the Heaven Sealing Great Formation, earning the Void Realm’s foremost figures’ recognition.
• Cui Shenyoo told Zhuang Xuanji that Luo Wanqing had suppressed his soul fragment and that it had caused no further disturbances in Azure Waves.

Zhuang Xuanji stopped Nangong Jinghe from killing Lang Xiao and the other two, then joined him to repair a breach in the realm barrier. While they worked, Nangong reported that Lang Xiao’s lower-realm soul fragment was rapidly growing stronger, but Zhuang Xuanji refused to let him execute the prisoners.

• Nangong Jinghe nearly killed Lang Xiao before Zhuang Xuanji intervened and reminded him that the Void Realm Tribunal should judge the prisoners.
• Zhuang Xuanji bound Lang Xiao and the other two, using a magic treasure to sever their connection to their lower-realm soul fragments.
• Zhuang Xuanji and Nangong Jinghe went to investigate the breach, where she recognized the Azure Flame Demon Venerable’s involvement and learned of the Demonic Path Young Master connected to lotuses.
• Nangong Jinghe told Zhuang Xuanji that Lang Xiao’s lower-realm soul fragment was gaining cultivation and again proposed killing the prisoners.
• Zhuang Xuanji rejected Nangong Jinghe’s proposal and warned that his own crime of privately descending to the lower realm had yet to be addressed.

Bai Di sacrificed Bai Ming to gain insight into eight Dao patterns, while Lang Xiao’s soul fragment grew stronger and offered Nangong Jinghe an alliance. Nangong demanded to know what lay in the Demon Soil, and Lang Xiao described the Creation Origin while concealing that it had developed a mind of its own.

• Bai Di sacrificed Bai Ming, sending the eight Dao patterns into his heart and leaving seven for him to comprehend before he could reach the Profound Insight realm.
• Lang Xiao’s soul fragment drew on Azure Flame’s remains and advanced toward True Intent Perfection, while Nangong Jinghe struggled to suppress him.
• Lang Xiao proposed that he and Nangong join forces to seek opportunities for Creation, and Nangong agreed on the condition that Lang Xiao reveal what was hidden in the Demon Soil.
• Lang Xiao told Nangong that the Demon Soil contained spatial Creation Origin and explained how Bai Di’s sacrifice opened a passage to Azure Waves.
• Lang Xiao claimed Cui Shenyoo and Hu Pengxiao had threatened to expose his discovery unless he shared it with them.

Nangong Jinghe concluded that Canglan Immortal Intent’s contingency was likely Yang Yuanhong’s reclusive master in the Northwest and considered using the crisis to build ties with him. Meanwhile, Yang Yuanhong’s arrival shifted the True Intent battle in the isolated region, putting the demonic cultivators on the defensive.

• Nangong Jinghe rejected Lang Xiao’s proposed alliance and reasoned that Canglan Immortal Intent’s final trump card had to be a living peak expert.
• Nangong Jinghe identified Yang Yuanhong’s master, the Northwest’s reclusive cultivator, as the likely contingency and considered approaching him.
• Yang Yuanhong joined the righteous side’s True Intent battle in the isolated region and quickly seized the initiative with his force-based use of spatial Daoist Magic.
• Yang Yuanhong broke through the demonic cultivators’ spatial defenses, confinement, and escape routes, disrupting their tactics and forcing them onto the defensive.

Chen Yang emerged with a peak-level Dao foundation and corporeal form, forged through the Canglan Immortal Dao and the gods of the Canglan Divine Palace. As three Upper Realm foes neared the Profound Insight Realm, he trusted his strength and Xu Cang’s Zhen Xuan power to face them, while planning to pass Xu Cang’s supreme methods to Yang Clan cultivators later.

• Chen Yang tested his newly forged body and realized he had become a genuine peak expert.
• Xu Cang warned Chen Yang that the three Upper Realm cultivators were approaching the Profound Insight Realm and would be difficult to defeat.
• Chen Yang told Xu Cang he did not need to study more Daoist Magics because he could not understand or master them in time.
• Chen Yang decided that Yang Clan cultivators, including Yang Lingrui, Yang Yuanhong, and Chen Huai'an, might learn Xu Cang’s methods in the future.
• Chen Yang assured Xu Cang that enough Zhen Xuan power would let him overwhelm any opponent with repeated attacks.

Chen Yang learned from Xu Cang how the Myriad Corpses Demon Lord’s Soul-Return Dao Art worked and how it differed from true reincarnation. Xu Cang revealed that restoring his true body might let him comprehend the Power of Time and escape the realm’s constraints.

• Chen Yang saw Soul Spirit Settlement Courts filled with souls and marveled that the Soul-Return Dao Art restored their memories.
• Xu Cang explained that the Sea of Corpse Souls held the dead and that the Myriad Corpses Demon Lord’s technique salvaged souls from it rather than reversing life and death.
• Xu Cang told Chen Yang that souls refined into Arcane Corpses would vanish completely if they died again, and that Luo Qianchou’s so-called reincarnation was actually body seizure and recultivation.
• Chen Yang asked about true reincarnation, and Xu Cang said it required True Immortals who had comprehended the True Meaning of Time and could not be practiced in Azure Waves without collapsing its Dao Principles.
• Xu Cang said that if Chen Yang helped restore his true body, he might comprehend the Power of Time, complete the Dao Principles, and break free of the realm to roam the Outer Domain.

Chen Yang reached Meishan and spoke with Sword Ancestor Wuduan and Azure Bamboo Venerable about the Soul-Returning upheaval. He learned that the Central Region had contained the crisis but had not found a way to break the Myriad Corpses Demon Lord’s art.

• Chen Yang and Sword Ancestor Wuduan exchanged greetings across the jade lake, each addressing the other as Senior.
• Azure Bamboo Venerable sensed Chen Yang’s immense power, then approached him after Sword Ancestor Wuduan reassured him.
• Chen Yang asked Azure Bamboo Venerable about the Central Region, and Azure Bamboo reported that the seal had slowed the Soul-Returning art and that returned dead had been placed under guard.
• Azure Bamboo told Chen Yang that disturbances in the Bodhi Air Mountain Range and Icefield Wild Realm had been contained, though the dead soul from Bodhi Air had fled north into the Hundred Thousand Mountains.
• Chen Yang asked whether the cultivators had discovered how to break the Soul-Returning art, and Azure Bamboo admitted they could only contain it and had made little progress.

Lang Xiao broke through to the Mystic Insight Realm and fled toward a hidden space, but the Nine-Thousand-Year-Old of the Xuanhuang Dynasty intercepted him. The two began fighting in the heavens, where Lang Xiao’s spatial technique met the venerable’s unusual blade formation.

• Nangong Jinghe stopped suppressing Lang Xiao after sensing the Nine-Thousand-Year-Old approaching from the northeast.
• Lang Xiao gathered his Zhen Xuan, broke through to the Mystic Insight Realm, and rushed toward a hidden space.
• The Nine-Thousand-Year-Old arrived and challenged Lang Xiao, who chose him as a test opponent.
• Lang Xiao used “Demons Arise from the Heart,” and the venerable drew the attack into himself before transferring both fighters into the heavens.
• The venerable transformed his flying-fish robe into over a hundred black-clad figures, whose blades shattered Lang Xiao’s forming spatial technique.

Lang Xiao was ambushed by an unseen expert and badly battered while trying to escape, as the injured royal dynasty Venerable struggled to keep their battle from harming Azure Waves. The Venerable received healing from a senior, while Lang Xiao remained in a miserable condition.

• After the royal dynasty Venerable weakened Lang Xiao, Lang Xiao prepared another spatial attack but was struck in the face by unseen Zhen Xuan power.
• Lang Xiao realized a peak expert had attacked him and used Vortex Void Concealment to escape and hide.
• The unseen attacker hit Lang Xiao with five more blasts, shaking the fighting space.
• The royal dynasty Venerable spent his remaining strength stabilizing the space, worsening his injuries and coughing up black blood.
• A senior healed the royal dynasty Venerable with pale-green spell-light and told him to rest while the senior handled the rest.
• Lang Xiao was left badly battered by the repeated Zhen Xuan bombardment.

Chen Yang used Xu Cang’s power to defeat Lang Xiao and questioned him about the fortune that had brought him back to Azure Waves. He exposed the watching Nangong Jinghe as well, leaving the Upper Realm cultivators astonished by Chen Yang’s mastery of spatial Daoist Magic.

• Lang Xiao convinced himself that Chen Yang’s power came from an immortal art lineage and submitted to him.
• Chen Yang asked Lang Xiao what fortune had driven him to violate the Great Dao’s laws and return to Azure Waves.
• Lang Xiao acknowledged his defeat and asked Chen Yang how he planned to deal with him.
• Chen Yang said the Great Dao would judge Lang Xiao, then pulled Nangong Jinghe from his hiding place in a crack in space.
• Nangong Jinghe and the Upper Realm cultivators were shocked that Chen Yang had mastered walking through the air before ascending.

Chen Yang left the Central Region with Nangong Jinghe and Lang Xiao, leaving the seven venerables to deal with the Soul-Returning crisis. Guided by Chen Yang’s advice, the venerables identified the need to trace the souls’ source and sever their connection to the world, but still had to determine who could accomplish it.

• Chen Yang took Nangong Jinghe and Lang Xiao with him, told Chiheng Venerable to resolve the Soul-Returning disturbance with Azure Bamboo Venerable, and departed.
• Chiheng Venerable reported Chen Yang’s feat and the mysterious demonic cultivator to the Dao Academy, and the seven Central Region venerables gathered to discuss what they had learned.
• Sea Suppressing Venerable suggested Nangong Jinghe’s origins and the demonic cultivator’s strange methods might point to a connection with the Upper Realm.
• Azure Bamboo Venerable shared Chen Yang’s guidance that the Soul-Returning Method depended on the connection between souls and the world, and the seven venerables agreed to seek the souls’ source and sever that connection.
• The seven venerables concluded that solving the crisis would require someone with an intangible killing force capable of severing the void and cultivation at least at the True Intent realm.