I’ve almost caught up to the raws by reading machine translated text. Martial Peak is one of my favorite novels currently, although it does get somewhat formulaic as it goes on, but it does add some twists and turns that I appreciate. Plenty of plot armor, but not too many arrogant young masters that I can remember. Plenty of perverted young masters. The author usually does a decent job of tying things together. Not great at romance. One thing I appreciate is that there’s usually a final boss of some sort for the end of each arc. It’s kind of like a shonen manga, which I like.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Everything going forward will be spoilers as I summarize what happens next in the novel. There may be inaccuracies due to imperfect memory.
~Chapters 600-980
After Immortal Ascension is the Transcendent Boundary. Above that is the Saint boundary. Transcendent and Saint only have 3 layers each.
After the Yang Bai, the demon lord, is defeated, the Tian Yuan continent is mostly a mess. Many of the patriarchs are dead. Earth Demon (Old Demon), Meng Wuya, Xia Ningchang, and Su Yan were transported to the higher world that Meng Wuya and Shui Ling originally came from. Yang Kai (YK) finds a new portal in order to reach the new world and bring Shui Ling with him. He leaves Shan Qingluo behind. Cya waifu. Gotta chase main baes lol.
They explore around a bit then split up as Shui Ling goes home. YK wanders around, meets some ladies, and then gets kidnapped by the “Coffin Man” due to having divine consciousness fire – the hot stuff in his divine consciousness sea. It’s a rare variation and very useful for refining pills and also for offensive purposes. The Coffin Man’s coffin is a mini-world filled with ancient demons that are all stronger than people of the same rank due to their bloodline. The demons are all trapped within the mini-world and need a person with divine fire to refine a particular pill for them. In order to refine the pill, they need to be at least a certain level. To raise YK’s level, the lead demon Li Rong, provides YK with plenty of resources and manuals. YK’s pill refining abilities rapidly rise. Once Li Rong discovers that YK has some of the ancient demon leader’s bloodline (from the black book), she also gives him a training manual to allow for demon transformation, which is convenient since he’s already got demon inside of him.
The ancient demon world is split into three factions. Two of them are cooperating to raise YK up. The third one has given up on leaving and wants to just rule the world. Many demons from the two factions join the third since it better suits their tastes for violence. He causes trouble and eventually winds up fighting with the two factions. He tries killing YK but fails.
YK is allowed to go back out since the mini-world’s resources are limited based on a promise that he’ll be back to free them. YK joins the Pill Expert Association. When YK has reappeared to the world, some factions deduce the general location of the Coffin Man and begin trying to hunt him down. Whenever the Coffin Man bleeds, he releases corrosive acid everywhere and then drops resources and manuals as compensation for making the place devoid of life.
YK winds up getting roped in by the Firmament Heaven Sect to explore a cave where disciples of the sect have died. He’s brought along since his divine consciousness fire can help kill the insects. YK winds up getting to keep a bunch of the Soul Devouring Insects due to his five-colored lotus in his divine consciousness. The Soul Devouring Insects can insta-kill weaker martial artists by consuming their divine consciousness. Stronger martial artists can usually resist them, but can become overwhelmed. So now YK can fight weaker armies. The Firmament Heaven Sect leader winds up helping YK kill the leader of a sect that he had become enemies with and knew that YK had divine consciousness fire. It turns out the sect leader of the Firmament Heaven Sect was actually the founder of the High Heaven Sect. The sect had been founded when him and others were fighting a demon lord. The corpse in the valley was that demon lord’s corpse. The reason for so many random high level inheritances is because a lot of strong people died fighting the demon lord.
Under the Firmament Heaven Sect and Pill Expert Association’s umbrella, YK travels to his next lucky chance which is in outer space. Him and the Pill Expert Association want to obtain the Thousand Year Demon Flower. The effects of the flower’s liquid helps Immortal Ascension break into Transcendent stage. Most people have treasures to help them survive in space, but YK winds up using his body to handle it. He levels up to the transcendent stage and also tempers his body. By the time he’s done, most people have gone home. The best alchemist around stays to pass on some divine consciousness fire tips and tricks to YK before departing too. Before leaving, he mentions that he saw Meng Wuya and Xia Ningchang.
Alone again, YK resumes his search for Su Yan base on the alchemist’s clues. He eventually finds Su Yan in the Ice Sect. She’s doing okay, but the sect doesn’t like YK since he’s the one who made Su Yan lose her purity and also can’t get rid of her emotions. Meng Wuya dropped her off here so she could get stronger. Meng Wuya and Xia Ningchang are nowhere to be found. YK leaves Su Yan there since he can’t see her and she’s currently cultivating where she can’t be disturbed. While looking around, YK sees the corpse of something called the Bone Race which the Ice Sect warns may be a future calamity. To deal with them, you should burn them completely to ashes so they can revive.
YK moves along and stumbles across an opportunity to explore some ruins that is controlled by a few local hegemons. YK blends in with the wandering cultivator crowd to explore and gets a few good pills. A saintess from the Nine Heavens Holy Land has also snuck into the exploration and accompanies YK since she knows he’s strong and has a strong divine consciousness. They get into some trouble and she foists a couple of divine soul techniques onto YK. The purpose of the saintesses from the Nine Heavens Holy Land is exclusively to find successors for the Holy Land and then protect them. Since he learns them, he’s obligated to become a Nine Heavens Holy Land possible successor Holy Master. YK doesn’t want to though since that’ll be binding and all Holy Land sect masters grow in strength quickly to Saint 3rd layer, but they also die much quicker than the average high-level martial artist. From his lucky chances in the ruins, YK’s soul lotus upgrades to six colors, one away from completion.
As the two of them come out, they’re attacked by a former saintess. When a Nine Heavens Holy Land saintess dies, if they’re not disposed of properly, their corpses wind up going crazy and trying to kill anyone that has learned the Nine Heavens divine skills and are generally destructive. Normally, they’re disposed of before that happens, but this one was not. The saintess corpse has already killed a different saintess and is on the way to kill YK and his saintess An Ling’er. This is the second example of living corpses, since Coffin Man was also one. All of An Ling’er’s guards are quickly killed. Before they’re killed YK manages to escape into a mini-world by the ruins.
In the ruins, YK and An Ling’er are captured by the Sun Clan to use their blood to feed their Divine Tree which has yang properties. YK convinces them he’s worth more alive than dead because of his yang attribute cultivation. Eventually, he awakens the spirit within the divine tree and has it join him. He whisks the divine tree into the black book’s space and then escapes with An Ling’er and Gou Che, a demon that the Sun Clan had captured and had been planning to use as feed. They wind up in demon territory and are captured by demon commander Xue Li. Gou Che tries to help YK but gets sent home to his dad who is another demon commander. Demon commanders are all Saint 3rd layer.
YK fights as a gladiator for a little while and Xue Li notices that he’s got some ancient demon bloodline. He wins his freedom and escapes back to the human domain. Gou Che’s dad sets up an ambush to kill YK since it’s embarrassing that his son was saved by a human. YK and An Ling’er get close enough to the more that the saintess corpse rushes over to kill them. The pursuing demons win up mistaking the corpse as a rescuer and wind up fighting her, allowing YK and An Ling’er to escape back to the Nine Heavens Holy Land. The Holy Land has a barrier which the saintess corpse cannot enter.
As he has entered the Nine Heavens Holy Land, YK has to take up the mantle of the Holy Lord, but he does not choose to accept the quick power up to Saint 3rd tier that shortens the lifespan of the Holy Lord. The Holy Land has no choice but to accept him as their Holy Lord since the other saintesses and their candidates were killed by the saintess corpse. Typically, Holy Lord candidates are trained and then sent into the Saint’s Tomb, which is where all the previous Holy Lords are buried. From within that trial of fire, the successor is chosen. YK doesn’t get trained but doesn’t have any competitors and enters the Saint’s Tomb. Within the tomb, YK learns the Nine Heavens divine skills which he had already learned two of. The importance of that is he finally has some divine consciousness techniques to use with his powerful divine consciousness. He also uses the energy within the tomb to level up his cultivation and the leftover spirits of the previous Holy Lords to level up his divine consciousness. The spirits also leave behind their understandings of the martial dao which also helps for leveling up YK. One of the Holy Lords also had a remnant piece of the Great Demon God, the progenitor demon that YK has the bloodline of. YK uses that to level up too. Since he doesn’t use the saintess as a living furnace, he doesn’t get his lifespan shortened.
(Martial Peak is interesting in that there doesn’t seem to be a focus in a directional dao. You kind of just have a 0%-100% completion of dao and then level up kind of. You can have a specialty, but it doesn’t seem to have relation to your level.)
In the outside world, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the Nine Heavens Holy Land. 1. Because they’re rich and powerful, but the don’t have a Saint 3rd level anymore, and 2. the saintess corpse has still been going around causing damage.
By the time YK comes out of the Saint’s Tomb after taking every good opportunity away, leaving it completely useless for any future generations. Feeling guilty, he takes on the mantle of Holy Lord without really committing to being the Holy Lord. His first order of business is to visit the neighboring monster race territory to resume trade with them since they only had a deal with the previous Holy Lord. He meets some of the local Saint 3rd layers and gets their help after fixing their transformation growth pond.
As outside pressure mounts on the holy land, YK decides to give up trying to protect it directly. Instead, he offers up the holy land’s crystal mines to the monster race so they can occupy the holy land until he returns. In the meantime, the holy land disciples all hide in the Saint’s Tomb. The outside influences are frustrated but can’t beat the monsters.
YK leaves the area to get stronger. He starts improving his understanding of space. He finds a hidden sect that seems like it was responsible for the Yin Yang Joyous Cultivation Art that YK and Su Yan have. He ends up making friends with a disciple there, gets the dragon portion and takes the pheonix portion away to give to Su Yan. By taking the dragon portion, YK levels up to Transcendent 3rd layer. He also conveniently defeats a Saint level local enemy of the sect.
YK is done leveling up for a little while and focuses on alchemy. He gets good enough to make the pills that the ancient demons need to get out of the coffin mini-world. He kills off the rebel ancient demons and brings the rest out. Demons are happy to follow since YK has the Great Demon God’s bloodline.
He relocates everyone to Nine Heavens Holy Land where they can live more out in the open. Since he now has the backing of Saint 3rd layer ancient demons, he doesn’t need the monsters there anymore and they all go home. YK goes to space and picks up a few useful things, including a flying shuttle that can travel in outer space.
After the monsters are gone, pressure remounts on the Holy Land, especially since it’s rumored that he’s been cavorting with demons. YK starts up some pill refining business. Shui Ling and some other alchemist experts come over. YK ropes the alchemist experts into working with him to improve their pill dao.
Once the business is going and the old men are doing the work he was doing, YK wanders and winds up stumbling upon where Meng Wuya and Xia Ningchang are. He rescues them. In the process, he winds up unleashing something, though it’s not quite clear what, but the Great Demon God’s spirit seemed to be holding it back.
YK finds out that a portal to the Tian Yuan continent has been found. Since they’re super weak, the Free and Unfettered Sect has been enslaving the people there. YK gets pissed and winds up killing a bunch of people. He rescues the High Heaven pavilion people and anyone else he cares about there and brings them up to the Tong Xuan continent. The demons also have a portal there. YK meets with the leader of the demons, the strongest demon commander, Zhang Yuan. Zhang Yuan explains that YK is the Great Demon God’s successor because he has the black book. The Great Demon God left the black book because something terrible is coming. Zhang Yuan wants to become friends with YK since he’s the successor and will become much stronger in the future. At Transcendent 3rd layer, he’s already capable of fighting Saint 2nd layer and killing Saint 1st layer. He promises YK that if he comes to the demon capital, Zhang Yuan will give YK some good stuff.
YK brings the Tian Yuan peeps out and takes some to the Firmament Heaven Sect since the sect leader founded the High Heavens Sect. The rest he brings back to Nine Heavens Holy Land. As an aside, Su Mu is now the High Heavens sect leader.
After coming back, there have been mysterious disappearances. The Bone Race has reappeared. The Bone Race has been sealed for a while in ice near the snowy mountains where the Coffin Man was and by the Ice Sect. Worried, YK checks on the Ice Sect, but everyone’s gone, including Su Yan. The resurging Bone Race have killed off most of the local residents or converted them into the Bone Race. Ke Luo is their leader an is quickly regaining strength by using sacrifices of the human locals. The Bone Race is from space and Ke Luo sees YK’s shuttle and recognizes that it’s capable of traveling through space. He wants it. YK runs away.
Some of the Great Demon God’s backstory is revealed. YK merges the Great Demon God’s eye into his own. It’s called the Demon Extermination Eye. In the past, many of the strongest The spirit of the Great Demon God was actually protecting the Tong Xuan continent from any other space invaders from finding their planet.
YK gathers up the three races and then they confront Ke Luo in a final battle. Ke Luo is on the verge of moving onto the next stage, Saint King. While YK is fighting Ke Luo, the rest of the fighters fight the rest of the Bone Race army. The Bone Race army is losing, so Ke Luo consumes them all and jumps into the Saint King stage. In the end, everyone works together to defeat Ke Luo, ending the Bone Race menace. After winning, YK breaks through to the Saint stage by absorbing Ke Luo’s energy using his Demon Extermination Eye.
beehugger 
Hey bro, would you mind doing more of this and particularly for the Shadowed Star Arc?
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