Chapter Summaries

Hu Mang followed Zhou Yu into the Demon-Subduing Well and seized a divine spear that unleashed the thunder pool, while a one-armed You Lin'er appeared behind them. As Hu Mang absorbed the spear’s thunder power, his cultivation surged and the pure Spiritual Qi began cleansing his damaged acupoints.

• Zhou Yu explained that cultivators trapped inside Demon-Subduing City had found treasures, and gave Hu Mang a thunder crystal.
• Zhou Yu led Hu Mang through the Demon-Subduing Well to a thunder pool where a damaged heavenly soldier guarded a divine spear.
• Hu Mang grabbed the spear, activating the thunder pool, while Zhou Yu watched with a complicated expression.
• You Lin'er appeared behind Zhou Yu, missing an arm, as Hu Mang struggled to control the spear’s power.
• Hu Mang used his fragment to absorb the thunder, advanced to Qi Refining Great Perfection, opened two qi meridians, and purified more than twenty contaminated acupoints.

Hu Mang killed You Lin'er with the Immortal Spear, Shattering Thunder, and learned that Zhou Yu had been recruiting people into a corrupt group exploiting Demon-Subduing City's Good and Evil Mechanism. After sparing Zhou Yu and learning he knew a formation eye, Hu Mang set out to find the rest of the group, while three unorthodox-path cultivators entered a Demon-Subduing Well to pursue Zhen'ezi.

• Hu Mang discovered that special Spiritual Power might heal his damaged foundation, then charged toward Zhou Yu and You Lin'er.
• Hu Mang used Shattering Thunder to pierce You Lin'er's Mysterious Yin Great Grappling and kill him with a spear thrust.
• Zhou Yu admitted that his group had exploited the Good and Evil Mechanism, and Hu Mang spared him because he had already paid for his life with a thunder crystal.
• Zhou Yu told Hu Mang he knew a formation eye, and Hu Mang studied his survey map before ordering him to lead the way to the others.
• Daoist Xuanyin learned You Lin'er had been killed and suspected someone had awakened a relic of the divine dynasty.
• Daoist Xuanyin, Old Woman Thousand Poisons, and a cultivator wreathed in putrid Qi entered a Demon-Subduing Well to find Zhen'ezi.

An elderly cultivator stole Evil-Sealing Divine Lightning from the Evil-Sealing Platform, but a gang tricked and captured him while posing as a wounded girl. Hu Mang saw through their deception and killed their fake Min Yao, then battled Zhang Ping and severed his arm.

• The old cultivator used his guise as a good person to retrieve three pieces of Evil-Sealing Divine Lightning and headed toward the Cat Garden.
• He answered Min Yao's plea for help and gave her Sha-Dissolving Talismans, but her Word Spirit Technique exposed his location.
• Min Yao and her companions ambushed the old cultivator, identified his Law Artifact and captured him to interrogate him.
• The gang used Min Yao as bait again, but Hu Mang saw through her Ghost Makeup and killed her with Shattering Thunder.
• Zhang Ping attacked Hu Mang with his copper-coin sword, but Hu Mang disrupted his spellcasting with a Dragon-Suppressing Stake and cut off his arm.

Hu Mang used the weakness in Zhang Ping’s defensive array to kill him and defeat his companions, but ran out of Law Power before he could catch the last survivor. Xu Gu fled toward the Thunder God’s Shrine, only to be confronted by Zhou Yu, whom he accused of bringing Hu Mang and revealing the array’s weakness.

• Hu Mang drove back the group’s Law Artifacts with the Layered Peaks Spirit-Suppressing Spear and pressed Zhang Ping with Shattering Thunder.
• Hu Mang spotted the gap Zhang Ping exposed while switching to his non-dominant hand, then killed him with a claw strike to the throat.
• Hu Mang killed two more attackers, but the last one escaped after Hu Mang ran out of Law Power.
• Xu Gu fled toward the Thunder God’s Shrine, believing its ban on fighting would keep him safe from Hu Mang.
• Zhou Yu blocked Xu Gu’s escape with a plum blossom flying sword, and Xu Gu accused him of leading Hu Mang to them and revealing their array’s weakness.

After Zhou Yu and Hu Mang defeated Zhang Ping's group, Hu Mang gained valuable spoils and learned how to use the Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder from Chen Sheng. As Hu Mang and Zhou Yu prepared to hunt other lone cultivators and head for the Thunder God's Shrine, Chen Sheng returned and offered his knowledge of Demon-Subduing City and the Divine Dynasty.

• Zhou Yu gave Hu Mang Xu Gu's Storage Bag as payment for Hu Mang's sister's life, and Hu Mang examined the group's valuable spoils.
• Chen Sheng explained the Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder's power and taught Hu Mang a Divine Dynasty method for using it quickly.
• Hu Mang let Chen Sheng leave with his Storage Bag, then told Zhou Yu they would hunt the remaining lone cultivators before going to the Thunder God's Shrine.
• Chen Sheng returned and introduced himself as Zhou Sheng, a four-Qi cultivator with many practical skills and knowledge of Demon-Subduing City's sites and treasure caches.
• Chen Sheng asked Hu Mang whether he wanted to learn what qualifications he had gained by obtaining an Immortal Weapon, including the chance to compete for an official post in the Divine Dynasty.

Hu Mang and Chen Sheng confronted He Chang at the Thunder God's Shrine after Zhou Yu seized control from the gang that had held it. Xu Qing revealed that his master might have become a Prison Warden, raising the possibility of another remnant of the divine dynasty.

• Hu Mang gained a third teammate, an old cultivator who reminded him of an unusually aged version of Uncle Ma.
• He Chang waited inside the Thunder God's Shrine with several guards and captives until the doors opened and Zhang Ping, Min Yao, and others were thrown in dead.
• Zhou Yu entered and challenged He Chang, while Chen Sheng exposed He Chang's plan to use hidden nails and lightning to make the Thunder God kill the people inside.
• Hu Mang arrived carrying severed heads and Shattering Thunder, offered He Chang a fight to the death, and forced him to surrender the shrine and leave.
• Zhou Yu reunited with his sister Zhou Tong, who identified the remaining captives as Xu Qing and Gong Lei.
• Xu Qing explained that his master, Turbid Sha Old Man, might have gone to become a Prison Warden, prompting Hu Mang and Chen Sheng to suspect another remnant of the divine dynasty.

Hu Mang and his companions secured the Thunder God's Shrine, left the mysterious Gong Lei alone, and rested inside. After waking from a strange dream of his mother as King Yama, Hu Mang ate with the group and asked Chen Sheng to explain the cultivation world and Demon-Subduing City.

• Chen Sheng explained Turbid Sha Old Man's Five Turbidities cultivation and suggested that protecting Xu Qing could earn them goodwill if his master became the Prison Warden.
• Hu Mang and the others decided to leave Gong Lei alone because her contradictory features suggested an unusual fate tied to Demon-Subduing City.
• The group rested after the Thunder God's Shrine's gates closed, and Hu Mang dreamed that his mother, dressed as King Yama, condemned him for refusing marriage and children.
• Hu Mang woke from the nightmare, joined the others for congee, and learned that Gong Lei never seemed to eat.
• Hu Mang asked Chen Sheng to teach him about cultivation, the world's powers, and the situation around Demon-Subduing City.

Hu Mang listened as Chen Sheng explained the Azure Mysterious Realm’s cultivation stages and learned that Golden Cores were unknown there. He then shared looted cultivation manuals with the local cultivators, while two figures watched Demon-Subduing City from above the thunderclouds.

• Chen Sheng explained the Dao Ancestor, the Three Pure Ones, and the four major cultivation realms to Hu Mang, Zhou Yu, and Zhou Tong.
• Chen Sheng described Yin Spirits, Yang Spirits, reincarnation, and the lineages that had inherited cultivation methods from the Upper Pure One.
• Hu Mang asked Chen Sheng about Golden Cores and recited poems about them, but Chen Sheng said he had never heard of them as a cultivation realm.
• Hu Mang compared the realm’s cultivation system with the Heavenly Gate’s and wondered whether the two worlds had related but different traditions.
• Hu Mang took out cultivation manuals looted from the dead and offered them to the gathered cultivators for study.
• Two figures watched Demon-Subduing City from above the thunderclouds.

Daoist Yun Shuo and Bai Ningjie reached Demon-Subduing City and learned that Zhang Zhixian had tried to weaken and kill its unformed Thunder Duke to claim the divine office. When Zhang’s plan apparently failed and contact with their hidden allies was lost, Yun Shuo headed into the city, while Bai Ningjie realized he had left a third possibility unexplained.

• Daoist Yun Shuo used his Bagua diagram to determine that Zhang Zhixian had reached Demon-Subduing City before them.
• Daoist Yun Shuo explained that Zhang Zhixian had drawn Rogue Cultivators to the city and sent captured families suspected of Devil Cultivation into it to weaken the Thunder Duke before claiming his divine office.
• Daoist Yun Shuo told Bai Ningjie that Zhang Zhixian’s plan had apparently gone wrong because the city was calm and their three hidden allies had lost contact with him.
• Daoist Yun Shuo said the Thunder Duke might contain the will of the Five-Thunder Demon-Subduing General, or an old monster might be hidden in the former prison; he hesitated to name a third possibility.
• Daoist Yun Shuo flew toward Demon-Subduing City to find his allies, and Bai Ningjie realized that his third possibility had not been the devil path.

Hu Mang shared the seized manuals with his companions, then learned why the most powerful techniques among them were difficult or dangerous to practice. As the group prepared to seek the Cat Garden’s inheritance, Hu Mang said they would first find out tomorrow whether the others were good or evil.

• Hu Mang shared the cultivation manuals and treasures he had seized, and the group studied them together.
• Hu Mang considered the Nine-Character Great Hand Seal and the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique, but Chen Sheng explained that the former required Buddhist practice and the latter had a deadly failure rate.
• Chen Sheng described the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique’s dangers and its need for corpse-refining methods and a three-yin living corpse, discouraging Xu Qing and Zhou Yu from trying it.
• Chen Sheng said the Cat Garden was reliable and suggested that Hu Mang’s heavenly soldier’s spear and its inheritance could make him a divine dynasty heavenly soldier.
• Chen Sheng asked Hu Mang to save a Ding Fire Cat for his granddaughter, while Zhou Yu and Xu Qing hoped to seek an opportunity there too.
• Hu Mang said they would first see the next day whether the others were good or evil.

Hu Mang studied the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique and formed the Mysterious Yin Devil Moon, then combined the method with his Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art through the night. The next morning, he learned he had been judged a good person again, while old man Chen, Zhou Yu, and Xu Qing were together at Thunder God's Shrine.

• Hu Mang mapped the city's spiritual power routes and studied the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique atop Thunder God's Shrine.
• Hu Mang realized the Mysterious Yin Devil Moon was rooted in the abyss, formed it in his middle Dantian, and drew Profound Yin Black Sha into his body.
• Hu Mang circulated the Profound Yin method alongside the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art, enduring freezing cold and blood heat as both methods advanced.
• Hu Mang practiced through the night and concluded that he was exceptionally gifted at cultivating Devil Cultivation Methods.
• A divine lightning figure appeared to Hu Mang again, and he learned he had been judged a good person; old man Chen boasted while Zhou Yu and Xu Qing looked grim.

Hu Mang, Zhou Yu, and Zhou Tong reached the Spirit-Taming Cat Garden after Hu Mang reflected on the Azure Mysterious Realm’s cultivation system and his newly attained state of mind. Hu Mang and old Chen Sheng warned Zhou Tong to take the dangers seriously, then led the group inside as other cultivators followed close behind.

• Zhou Tong joined Hu Mang and old Chen Sheng, and the group chose Law Artifacts before setting out for the Cat Garden.
• Hu Mang compared the realm’s cultivation of essence, Qi, and spirit with the Heavenly Gate’s methods and considered how natural Spiritual Qi shaped each path.
• Zhou Tong told Hu Mang they were nearing the Cat Garden, where he recognized a strange familiarity in the evil-suppressing cat statues.
• Old Chen Sheng revealed that Hu Mang had already driven off watchers and warned Zhou Tong that the Cat Garden was dangerous; Zhou Tong promised to be more careful.
• Hu Mang crossed the bridge into the Cat Garden as his demonic markings and Sha Qi emerged, followed by old Chen Sheng and Zhou Tong.
• Several cultivators arrived after them and rushed into the Cat Garden.

Chen Sheng led Hu Mang and Zhou Tong through the Cat Garden’s formations into a safe courtyard filled with cats, while the pursuing cultivators entered deadly traps and were forced into a beast courtyard. Hu Mang’s returning Divine Sense and the cats’ unusual affection for him left Chen Sheng suspecting the source of his demon blood.

• Chen Sheng used the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams and Eight Mansions to guide Hu Mang and Zhou Tong into the Cat Garden’s safe courtyard, where Hu Mang’s Divine Sense returned and resonated with the formation.
• The cultivators following them were caught in the Li Fire, and a blind middle-aged man used his Eye of Devil Subjugation to lead the survivors through a passage into a beast courtyard.
• The beast courtyard’s white tiger statues began coming to life and fixing their eyes on the surviving cultivators.
• Zhou Tong admired the cats while Chen Sheng explained the formation’s dangers and identified several cat breeds; Hu Mang sketched the formation’s circuits.
• The cats flocked to Hu Mang and ignored Zhou Tong, prompting Chen Sheng to suspect that Hu Mang’s demon blood came from the wildcat family.

Hu Mang explored the Cat Garden, where his fox nature won him the attention of its demon-subduing cats and led him through trials hidden in their homes. He gained three life-saving tails and awakened a Yin Eye in the Night Eye Studio, then accepted a proud black cat as his companion.

• Chen Sheng explained that Hu Mang could earn a demon-subduing cat by winning its recognition, while he and Zhou Tong planned to offer cats food and serve as their scoopers.
• Hu Mang noticed the garden’s buildings reflected the spirit cats’ nature, and a three-tailed white cat led him into the Nine Lives Grotto.
• The white cat retrieved three life-saving cat tails from the bronze mirrors, and Hu Mang gained three fluffy tails by touching them to his body.
• Hu Mang followed a black cat into the Night Eye Studio, where the darkness transformed his Fox Sight into a Yin Eye.
• The black cat leaped onto Hu Mang’s shoulder, and he stroked it as it maintained its proud, tsundere air.

Hu Mang chose a fierce Ding Fire Cat that seemed connected to the Shattered Star Spear and entered the Cat Garden’s promotion trial, while Chen Sheng warned that Demon-Subduing City and its Thunder God might conceal a conspiracy. The chapter ended with Chen Sheng applying yin makeup to a heavenly soldier’s corpse and realizing the dead figure had been a female general.

• Hu Mang obtained a blank divine dynasty official seal from an official cat and stopped taking treasures after sensing the Cat Garden would expel him.
• Old Chen and Zhou Tong each bonded with a demon-subduing cat, and Chen Sheng determined that the other group had either died in the eight houses or escaped the Cat Garden.
• Chen Sheng warned Hu Mang that his promotion trial would likely send him to Calamity House and raised suspicions about the Thunder God, He Chang, and the strange events in Demon-Subduing City.
• Hu Mang chose a fierce red Ding Fire Cat because it stared at the Shattered Star Spear, then entered the trial with it after Zhou Tong returned from the Wind-Catching Corridor.
• Chen Sheng treated Zhou Tong’s wounds, then worked on a heavenly soldier’s corpse and recognized from its bones that the dead soldier had been a female general.

Hu Mang broke through several formations in the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams as his divine office as a Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier awakened. Meanwhile, Chen Sheng used Ghost Makeup to prepare a dead female general as a means of survival, and Hu Mang’s growing power left him poised to surpass his former peak.

• Hu Mang crossed the Kan Trigram by sensing and killing its water ghosts, then broke the formation with a strike that split its spiritual web.
• Chen Sheng finished painting a female heavenly general’s face onto her bones and used Ghost Makeup to draw the ghost’s likeness onto a removable sheet of human skin.
• Chen Sheng explained to Zhou Tong that the Ghost Makeup could temporarily let a ghost possess whoever wore the skin, while concealing that a greater ritual could cost him his remaining lifespan.
• Hu Mang passed through the Kun, Zhen, and Xun Trigrams, suffering severe injuries and blood loss as a different, majestic presence began to rise within him.
• Hu Mang’s awakened divine office revealed him as a Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier, a Divine Dao Law Enforcer whose spear carried the force of wind, thunder, and order.

Hu Mang advanced through the Cat Garden’s increasingly dangerous formation and faced the original Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier. After Hu Mang survived her first two spear strikes, she paused before her final attack and beckoned the fire cat, which leaped to her.

• Hu Mang’s presence activated the remaining trigram formations, while divine-office inheritors sensed the disturbance and the Devil-Slaying Saber Wielder rushed toward the Cat Garden.
• The fire cat swallowed the flames in the Fire House, allowing Hu Mang to break through the Dui trigram’s Shattered Mirror Wall and awaken eighteen thunder patterns and the Shattered Star Spear’s Yang Spear ability.
• The original Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier emerged and thrust at Hu Mang, but he redirected her first strike with his Mysterious Yin force while the fire cat countered her flaming hair.
• Hu Mang used the Moon Arc Linking Life Instruction to evade her second spear attack, though the effort burned away one of his fox tails and left him badly scorched.
• As the silver-armored woman gathered her flames into a final, potentially fatal strike, she paused, beckoned to the fire cat, and watched it leap affectionately to her.

Hu Mang acquired the Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier divine office and escaped the Cat Garden with Chen Sheng and Zhou Tong, but the Devil-Slaying Bladesman began hunting them. Hu Mang sent his companions away and vanished to choose a battlefield, leaving the confrontation imminent.

• The mature heavenly soldier demonstrated the Three Devil-Subduing Forms, and Hu Mang absorbed her remaining intent and gained the Heavenly Soldier Imprint and its authorities.
• The fiery cat entered Hu Mang’s imprint and formed a cocoon as Hu Mang left the collapsing Fire House with it.
• Chen Sheng and Zhou Tong helped Hu Mang toward Thunder God's Shrine, but Hu Mang led them through the Cat Garden’s back exit using his new knowledge of the city.
• The Devil-Slaying Bladesman killed the one-eyed man outside the Cat Garden, and Hu Mang sensed the danger as the Heavenly Eye Technique revealed their position.
• Hu Mang used his divine office to send Chen Sheng and Zhou Tong back to the Cat Garden’s front gate, then left alone to find a suitable battlefield as the Devil-Slaying Bladesman arrived.

Hu Mang reached the Hundred-Well Abyss and confronted Madman Jiang, whose Saber Domain shattered the Heavenly Soldier’s assault and nearly overwhelmed him. Hu Mang broke through to the third level of the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art and turned the fight around, pinning his spear against Jiang’s Yin Saber.

• Hu Mang used Armored Horse Talismans to reach the Hundred-Well Abyss, a formation of Demon-Subduing Wells centered on a damaged Demon-Suppressing Seal.
• Madman Jiang arrived, and Hu Mang’s Star-Following Great Spear awakened its Heavenly Soldier imprint, drawing power from the wells to unleash the Heavenly Gang Net.
• Madman Jiang’s Saber Domain split Hu Mang’s attack, and Jiang declared that Hu Mang was not the person he had expected.
• Madman Jiang filled the abyss with phantom bladesmen and attacked Hu Mang with the ghostly nature of the Yin Saber.
• Hu Mang broke through to the third level of the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art, combined spear and sword techniques, and forced Madman Jiang’s saber back.

Hu Mang used Xie Xianyu’s sword techniques and the Demon-Subduing site’s mechanisms to turn Madman Jiang’s Saber Domain against him. After surviving the site’s thunder and nets, Hu Mang launched two Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder at his frozen opponent.

• Hu Mang used Wind Cuts the Black Curtain to weather Madman Jiang’s Saber Domain and transform his spear into a bow.
• Hu Mang fired lightning arrows into the spiritual conduits, summoning three thunderclouds that Madman Jiang cut apart at the cost of damaging his Yin Saber.
• Hu Mang triggered the Demon-Subduing Wells, which unleashed Qianyang Devil-Subduing Nets and then Taiyin Divine Thunder against both fighters.
• Hu Mang endured the lightning in a broken well, while the Demon-Subduing Wells exploded and left Madman Jiang trapped in ice and a golden lightning net.
• Hu Mang armed two Evil-Subduing Divine Thunder, shot them at Madman Jiang, and retreated.