Chapter Summaries

The young Jiang Zhuoxue accepted Sang Ying’s help while secretly planning to use her to escape the Hidden Nether Realm. As Sang Ying offered Spirit-Stabilizing Pearls for his empty eye sockets, the city lord of Corpse Soul City ordered another search for the missing black dragon.

• The young Jiang Zhuoxue changed into clean black robes and decided to take the real Jiang Zhuoxue’s place until he could escape with Sang Ying’s help.
• He caught Green Vine’s avatar, then soothed it when Sang Ying explained that it was sad because its master would not acknowledge it.
• Sang Ying offered two Spirit-Stabilizing Pearls to fill Jiang Zhuoxue’s eye sockets, and he quietly agreed.
• The city lord of Corpse Soul City sensed that the Dragon Pearl wanted to return to its master and insisted the black dragon was still in the city.
• The city lord ordered his guards to search every place again and investigate everyone in Corpse Soul City.

With Duan Yuan’s citywide investigation threatening to expose the Demon Cultivators hiding in Corpse Soul City, they debated escaping and decided instead to raid his estate for his treasures. Their plan gained an unexpected guide: a young woman whose presence revealed she was a human cultivator.

• Duan Yuan’s investigation and the closed city gates drove hidden members of other races to gather in a house in the mortal district.
• The burly man proposed killing the guards, but Liu Sanniang warned that attacking them would draw more attention to the Demon Cultivators.
• A man in the corner suggested the gathered races join forces to break out of the city, then urged them to attack Duan Yuan’s estate and steal his Storage Bag and treasures.
• Elder Xuan worried that the estate’s layout would make the raid difficult, but a young woman offered to lead them through it.
• The Demon Cultivators realized from the woman’s presence that she was a human cultivator.

A female cultivator offered a group of Demon Race members a way to reach the city lord and safely escape Corpse Soul City, leaving them a terrain map to investigate. After one demon volunteered to scout the manor, she returned to her rented courtyard, where a young man asked whether the group had agreed.

• The Demon Race members accused Chen Ci of betraying them by bringing a human cultivator to their gathering, but the woman said he wanted to help them survive.
• The female cultivator offered to guide them safely to the city lord and out of Corpse Soul City, then left a terrain map of the city lord's manor behind.
• Elder Xuan decided to investigate the map, and a lizard demon volunteered to infiltrate the manor in hopes of claiming a treasure from Duan Yuan's Storage Bag.
• The female cultivator left the mortal district, changed her appearance and clothes, and returned to her rented courtyard.
• A young man asked the female cultivator whether the Demon Race members had agreed to her offer.

Sang Ying and Jiang Zhuoxue waited for the Demon Race to respond to their offer of cooperation while Duan Yuan began inspecting the City Lord’s Manor. Sang Ying met with the Demon Race, convinced them of her identity, and revealed that heavenly lightning could disrupt Corpse Soul City’s Yin Qi.

• Sang Ying told Jiang Zhuoxue that the Demon Race had received his map and seemed interested, while he worried Duan Yuan might find them first.
• Jiang Zhuoxue secretly prepared another plan in case the Demon Race could not be trusted.
• Chen Ci sent word, and Sang Ying left to meet the Demon Race while Jiang Zhuoxue told her to watch out for herself.
• Elder Xuan and Liu Sanniang questioned Sang Ying’s motives, and she explained that she had escaped from Duan Yuan’s dungeon.
• Sang Ying told the Demon Race that heavenly lightning could suppress the city’s Yin Qi and throw Corpse Soul City into chaos.

Sang Ying convinced Elder Xuan and the Demon Race cultivators to join forces against Duan Yuan, offering Lightning Spirit Root Sword Qi Balls to create a diversion in Corpse Soul City. The alliance launched its attack the next night, plunging the city into chaos as hidden figures began to move.

• Sang Ying revealed that she had Sword Qi Balls made by Lightning Spirit Root cultivators, which could disrupt Corpse Soul City and distract its guards.
• Elder Xuan and the Demon Race cultivators agreed to cooperate with Sang Ying after learning other races had also been targeted and killed.
• Sang Ying offered more than two hundred Sword Qi Balls in exchange for their promise to kill Duan Yuan, keeping thirty for herself.
• The Demon Race cultivators continued planning through the night, then launched their operation the following night.
• Lightning-charged Sword Qi Balls exploded throughout Corpse Soul City, damaging corpse puppets and injuring guards as figures hidden in the shadows made their move.

Jiang Zhuoxue and the foreign races unleashed Sword Qi orbs across Corpse Soul City, crippling its Yin Qi cultivators and corpse puppets as Duan Yuan prepared to defend his residence. The foreign races attacked the residence, and the first explosions marked the beginning of its destruction.

• Sword Qi orbs exploded throughout Corpse Soul City, dispersing the Yin Qi of corpse keepers and guards and destroying many corpse puppets.
• The city’s cultivators blamed Duan Yuan for provoking Jiang Zhuoxue and feared the foreign races’ attack.
• Duan Yuan learned of the chaos through a two-winged moth and ordered his remaining guards to surround the city lord’s residence.
• The foreign races attacked the residence, where Sang Ying and Jiang Zhuoxue watched the battle against Duan Yuan’s corpse puppets.
• A giant black eagle struck down two corpse puppets, and the foreign races threw Sword Qi orbs at the residence, beginning its destruction.

Duan Yuan overwhelmed the Demon Cultivators after swallowing the Dragon Pearl and transforming into a scaled monster. Sang Ying recognized the pearl as the youth’s and sent him to try to control it while she leaped into the battle to help reclaim it.

• The Sword Qi Balls destroyed the city lord’s manor and Duan Yuan’s corpse puppets, but Duan Yuan turned the battle by summoning venomous creatures with his flute.
• Liu Sanniang turned Duan Yuan’s snakes against his other creatures, while Elder Xuan attacked Duan Yuan and eventually knocked his jade flute away.
• Duan Yuan swallowed a crystal pearl and transformed into a powerful scaled monster with vertical pupils and deer antlers.
• Duan Yuan knocked back the Demon Cultivators attacking him, and the youth revealed that the pearl was his Dragon Pearl.
• Sang Ying told the youth to try to control the Dragon Pearl, then drew her sword and leaped down to help him reclaim it.

Sang Ying and the demons fought Duan Yuan after he swallowed the Dragon Pearl and became a monster, while Jiang Zhuoxue began drawing the Pearl out of him. Duan Yuan died beneath a storm of lightning, and Elder Xuan decided the demons would take control of Corpse Soul City.

• Duan Yuan’s dragon-like presence paralyzed Liu Sanniang until Sang Ying blocked his claw with her sword and urged the demons to fight alongside her.
• Sang Ying led the demons against Duan Yuan, while Jiang Zhuoxue reestablished his connection to the Dragon Pearl and began pulling it from Duan Yuan’s body.
• Sang Ying drove Duan Yuan into the city lord’s manor ruins and unleashed Sword Qi Balls as purple lightning filled the dust and smoke.
• A Lie swept away the smoke, revealing Duan Yuan’s dead, blood-soaked body and no sign of Sang Ying.
• Elder Xuan realized the female cultivator had helped the young dragon and told the wounded man that the demons would proceed with their plan to take Corpse Soul City.

Sang Ying and Jiang Zhuoxue escaped Corpse Soul City with the Dragon Pearl and traveled to Moonless City, where they took refuge under disguises. After Sang Ying told Gu Shu they had arrived ten thousand years in the past, he realized Gu Wangchuan might still be alive and had not yet ascended.

• Jiang Zhuoxue reclaimed the dragon blood scattered through Corpse Soul City, and Sang Ying led him out before their identities were discovered.
• Sang Ying disguised herself and Jiang Zhuoxue, and they traveled for three days before settling in Moonless City as sister and brother.
• Sang Ying booked separate rooms at an inn and warned the still-injured Jiang Zhuoxue not to run away before he had recovered.
• Sang Ying told Gu Shu about her recent experiences, and Gu Shu said Gu Wangchuan might still be traveling in the world if they were ten thousand years in the past.

Sang Ying learned that Jiang Zhuoxue had used an array to bring them ten thousand years into the past, though Gu Shu did not know how they could return. As Sang Ying prepared her room, she found something alive and covered in fine scales inside her Storage Bag.

• Gu Shu told Sang Ying about Gu Wangchuan and explained that he did not know where the Sword Master was now.
• Sang Ying decided not to search for Gu Wangchuan and focused on staying safe while stranded in the past with Jiang Zhuoxue.
• Gu Shu explained that Jiang Zhuoxue had used an array powered by treasures containing space and time, but its method of returning to the present was unknown.
• Gu Shu urged Sang Ying to make Jiang Zhuoxue kneel and apologize if she saw him again.
• Sang Ying began setting up an array in her room and felt a cold, smooth length of scales move inside her Storage Bag.

Sang Ying treated an injured black snake that had hidden in her Storage Bag, then prepared protective formations in Jiang Zhuoxue’s room. The next morning, a customer’s angry outburst downstairs threatened to draw them into new trouble.

• Sang Ying trapped the black snake, treated its wounds, and released it from the inn; the snake reconsidered its distrust of humans before slipping away into the grass.
• Sang Ying set up formations in Jiang Zhuoxue’s room and said she would take him out of the Hidden Nether Realm after learning what was happening outside.
• Jiang Zhuoxue’s young form watched Sang Ying work, while the young man inwardly resented how kindly she treated him.
• Sang Ying went downstairs the next morning but rejected the inn’s food as unsuitable for Jiang Zhuoxue.
• A customer pounded the table and shouted about the food, and Gu Shu persuaded Sang Ying to stay and watch the commotion, which led them toward fresh trouble.

Sang Ying defended the Hidden Nether Realm’s spirit algae from two insulting outsiders and recognized the boy who joined her as Gu Wangchuan in his youth. The troublemakers left after memorizing their faces, while Sang Ying regarded the young future Sword Master with complicated feelings.

• A bronze-skinned outsider mocked the spirit algae and insulted the Hidden Nether Realm, prompting a young cultivator to praise the food and challenge him.
• The outsiders belittled the boy for not having reached the Golden Core stage and disparaged cultivators from the Hidden Nether Realm.
• Sang Ying ordered spirit algae, praised its taste, and challenged the outsiders by asserting her own qualifications as a Golden Core cultivator.
• The male outsider nearly attacked Sang Ying, but his companion stopped him, and the two left after giving Sang Ying and the boy searching looks.
• Gu Shu told Sang Ying that the boy was Gu Wangchuan in his youth, and Sang Ying reconsidered her image of the future Sword Master.

Sang Ying confirmed that the young sword cultivator who had joined her was Gu Wangchuan, though Gu Shu urged her to ask why he had abandoned his sword spirit and bonded sword. After hearing about the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm’s trial ground outside Moonless City, Sang Ying and Gu Wangchuan decided to visit it, unaware that someone was watching them with a knowing smile.

• Sang Ying introduced herself to Gu Wangchuan and confirmed his identity, while Gu Shu urged her to question him about abandoning his sword spirit and bonded sword.
• The innkeeper and other patrons told Sang Ying and Gu Wangchuan about the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm and its trial ground.
• Sang Ying learned that entry cost ten low-grade Spirit Stones and that two rival factions jointly managed the mystic realm.
• Sang Ying and Gu Wangchuan decided to visit the mystic realm while a hidden observer watched them from behind the counter.

The shopkeeper reported that a spy had left the inn for the household opposing them and told the sect master that two outside cultivators had helped defend the inn. The sect master approved the shopkeeper’s plan to recruit them, then told his son that their contest with the Moonless Household was about to begin again.

• After the bells rang, a group of newly refined ferocious corpses crossed Moonless City, and a concealed man slipped out of the inn’s back door.
• The shopkeeper watched the man leave and used a communication talisman to tell the sect master that he was heading toward the household behind the inn trouble.
• The shopkeeper told the sect master that two outside cultivators had defended the inn and asked to win them over; the sect master approved and suggested telling Tong'er about them if they proved capable.
• The sect master sighed at the moonless sky until his son, hanging upside down from a beam, teased him and asked what was wrong.
• The sect master told his son that their contest with the Moonless Household was about to begin again, and the young man’s expression turned cold.

An old cultivator recounted how Sect Master Liu was betrayed by the Moonless Household, escaped, and founded the Yin Mountain Sect, beginning the feud between the two powers. As Sang Ying defended Gu Wangchuan from a hostile cultivator, a white-clad woman intervened to stop a fight near the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm.

• An old cultivator told the crowd that the Moonless Household tried to steal Sect Master Liu’s corpse-refining talent, but Liu escaped after the Secret Method damaged him.
• The old cultivator explained that Liu’s wife helped him recover and develop a method of nurturing corpses, allowing him to return to Moonless City and battle the Moonless Household.
• A hostile cultivator argued that the Moonless Household should have crippled Liu, prompting Gu Wangchuan to mock him for never founding a sect himself.
• The hostile cultivator prepared to attack Gu Wangchuan, and Sang Ying stepped in front of him while Jiang Zhuoxue showed killing intent toward Gu Wangchuan.
• A white-clad young woman descended between the cultivators and warned them that fighting was forbidden in front of the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm.

Sang Ying and the others watched Wuyue Qing clash with a Yin Mountain Sect disciple over the Moonless Household’s past, then reached the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm and paid the Yin Mountain Sect’s entrance fee. The disciple noticed them afterward, apparently reminded of something.

• Wuyue Qing introduced herself as the Moonless Clan’s temporary manager of the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm and offered to explain the trials.
• A Yin Mountain Sect disciple named Liu mocked Wuyue Qing and accused the Moonless Household of courting cultivators, while she defended herself.
• A male cultivator tried to defend Wuyue Qing by bringing up the old grudge between the Moonless Household and the Yin Mountain Sect, worsening her discomfort.
• Liu insulted the Moonless Household and left with his followers, while Wuyue Qing returned to her residence and the visiting cultivators discussed her resemblance to Su Fuyun.
• Sang Ying and the others paid their Spirit Stones to the Yin Mountain Sect at the mystic realm entrance, and Liu glanced at them as if he had remembered something.

Liu Duanyue learned that the three cultivators who entered the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm were staying at a familiar inn, while Sang Ying, Gu Wangchuan, and Jiang Zhuoxue faced the realm's trial. Outside, Wuyue Qing and Liu Duanyue discussed the contest that would determine who governed Moonless City, which the Moonless Clan had won last time.

• Liu Duanyue learned the three cultivators' inn and told a disciple to notify him when they left the mystic realm.
• Sang Ying, Gu Wangchuan, and Jiang Zhuoxue crossed a dark passage filled with bats, insects, and rats before reaching the trial grounds.
• Sang Ying entered the white radiance and found herself facing a black version of herself wielding a black Floating River Sword.
• Wuyue Qing approached Liu Duanyue as he packed up his stall, and he acknowledged that her efforts had drawn cultivators to the Moonless Household.
• Wuyue Qing and Liu Duanyue discussed their sides' five-year contest for control of Moonless City, which the Moonless Clan had won most recently.

Sang Ying defeated her trial-ground double by unleashing a new sword move, then entered a second trial against two Demon Beasts. Meanwhile, Wuyue Qing and Liu Duanyue argued about the trial ground until nine bell tolls announced that someone had completely cleared it.

• Sang Ying bound her wounded arm and used the swordsmanship she had learned from Gu Wangchuan to destroy Black Sang Ying.
• Sang Ying completed the first trial and hurried into the second, where two Demon Beasts appeared.
• Wuyue Qing and Liu Duanyue argued over the Moonless Household's outside help and the difficulty of clearing all seven trials.
• A bell rang nine times, revealing that someone had completely cleared the trial ground.

After three nine-bell peals announced that three people had completely cleared the Severed Vitality Minor Secret Realm, Liu Duanyue and Wuyue Qing scrambled to recruit them for their rival factions. The Yin Mountain Sect’s disciples rushed to the cave, while Wuyue Qing waited for help from her clan and learned that her brother had ignored her message.

• Liu Duanyue and Wuyue Qing both summoned their people after the bells announced multiple complete clears, and Liu Duanyue sent his junior brother back to the Yin Mountain Sect for reinforcements.
• The Yin Mountain Sect disciples eagerly followed Liu Duanyue’s junior brother toward the secret realm before he had even told Sect Master Liu.
• Wuyue Qing’s steward sought help from Wuyue Hao, but he dismissed her message and went to sleep.
• Wuyue Qing mistook the many arriving flying artifacts for her clan’s reinforcements and smugly greeted them.
• Liu Duanyue discovered that his junior brother had returned with the Yin Mountain Sect’s disciples, and Wuyue Qing’s smile vanished.

Sang Ying, Gu Wangchuan, and Jiang Zhuoxue passed all seven stages of the trial ground and received the mystic realm’s rewards. After they emerged, the Yin Mountain Sect and the Moonless Household competed to recruit them, leaving the three outsiders caught between the rival powers.

• Sang Ying survived the trial ground’s final stage, passed all seven stages, and reunited with Gu Wangchuan and Jiang Zhuoxue.
• The three left the Severed Vitality Mystic Realm, received golden light that restored their strength, and learned they could enter the realm freely and visit Pagoda Mountain in ten days.
• Cultivators crowded around the three and urged them to stay in Moonless City, prompting Sang Ying to say they were only visiting.
• Liu Duanyue introduced himself as the Yin Mountain Sect’s young sect master and invited the three to visit his sect.
• Wuyue Qing offered a more generous invitation on behalf of the Moonless Household, exposing the rivalry between the two powers and leaving Sang Ying and her companions unable to avoid getting involved.