All spoilers are unmarked.
Ghost Bridegroom Arc
- The forest of upside down corpses...
- The troublesome young man who was leading the hunt for the Ghost Bridegroom gets his skull torn out of his head from the back.
- Xuan Ji's self mutilation of her legs, purposefully breaking them in hopes it would get General Pei's attention. Even as a ghost, she still moves terrifyingly fast with the stumps thumping on the ground loudly.
- Woe onto those who dare hurt Xie Lian in any way when Hua Cheng is around.
Ban Yue Arc
- The Human Face disease. Xie Lian describing it as little bumps that initially appear on the host's skin, but after a while they start to form faces that scream endlessly. He remembers the ways people tried to treat it, by burning or cutting it off. Some ended up accidentally killing themselves by cutting too deep or dying of blood loss. Even if the faces were successfully removed, the scars left behind would horribly disfigure the person forever.
- After a Scorpion snake bites Xie Lian, Hua Cheng (as San Lang) immediately stops the swelling and glares at the snake, causing it to explode. Every other snake that comes after them afterwards either backs down when they notice San Lang's Death Glare or explode violently.
- The way the cure for the snake scorpion poison is cultivated. The flowers are planted over humans who are buried alive up until their heads. Even more horrifying is how the one face the group meets has turned into a monster where he can stretch his tongue out to catch his prey. He demonstrates by penetrating the ear of a merchant who got too close and eats his brains. The man also believes he can still go home, but when his head is pulled out, the rest of his body had long become a skeleton. Needless to say, he doesn't take this new information well as he starts screaming that he's still a human.
- Lan Qianqiu remembers Xie Lian used to be his teacher and how he killed all of his family with only these words to say when Lan Qianqiu demands to know why he slaughtered all of them.Xie Lian: You all deserve it.
Xian Le Flashback Arc
- As Hong Hong er cries in the shrine, he yells that he wishes to kill everyone in this world, including himself, and how his life has been nothing but agony. While Feng Xin and Mu Qing believe Hong Hong er is too young and just isn't aware that life is cruel to everyone, Xie Lian notices, "hidden inside this tiny body was something explosive; something that nurtured his rage and roar."
- A different Lang Ying traveled from Yong'an to pray to the prince's palace for rain. When Xie Lian meets him disguised as a cultivator, he finds out that the satchel on his back was his infant son, who had long since died. The man recalls as he fled Yong'an how his son cried probably from the fever, then from hunger, and then... he just didn't cry anymore. When he checked to feed him, he realized his son had died.Lang Ying: I don't know how to take care of children. If my wife knew our son died she'd yell at me to death. I really wish my wife could still yell at me.
- The Yong'an refugees camp outside the palace as they ask for a doctor. Yet when they don't receive help four hours later, a father carrying his child on his back decides to try and scale the wall. However, once the guards notice, they cut the rope and he falls to his death, crushing his child as well. When the refugees stare on in shock, the man's wife rushes to the doors and bashes her head against it until she dies as well.
- Lang Ying quickly scaling the wall and killing the soldier who cut the rope with his bare hands.
- Xie Lian despite knowing he had killed many mortals before, even likening them to ants, he isolates himself from the party the Xie Lian soldiers were having as he tries to control the tremors in his hand.
- A Yong'an girl essentially kamikaze's herself to lure Xie Lian in and then allows the flower demons to make their move. The demons chase Xie Lian to "taint" him, with one even yelling how their roots were hard.
- Xie Lian removing the mask of the mysterious white-masked man and finding his face staring back at him.
- Xie Lian tries to stop the Human Face Disease from spreading, and attempts it by chopping off the leg of a man. While he knew they'd have to wait to see if this was an actual cure, later on, the man's other leg starts growing faces on it. Many people growing desperate even went to the extreme of burning and cutting themselves just to be free of the faces for even a moment, leading many to die quietly. Despite all of his efforts, the spread of the disease continued. And those faces are actually the spirits of Yong'an who died in the drought — so instead, they were convinced to possess the people of Xie Lian's kingdom to survive.
- White Mask makes an appearance in what could have been his true form at the bottom of the Xian Le palace, so Xie Lian jumps down from the top of the palace steps. However, despite every other time where he had enough energy and martial skills to land safely, this was the first time "he was no longer a legend" and broke his leg after he lands.
Ghost Fetus Arc
- As Xie Lian hears a merchant screaming for someone to help his wife, Xie Lian draws Fang Xin, drives it towards the woman's stomach and it starts to writhe and move. After the ghost fetus runs off, it turns out it entered the woman's body in a dream and ate her baby.
- In his dream, Xie Lian wakes up on a bed and when he looks down it's covered in a large pool of blood. As he investigates the rest of the room, he realizes that the mother was probably one of his worshippers in the past and had miscarried. Thus the fetus spirit looks like shriveled flesh.Rather than say it was a fetus, it was nore like a deformed little monster. Its skin was blanched white like it was brushed with a layer of poweder, its eyes were abnormally big, shining a peculiar light, and on top of its head were a few yellowing strands. (...) Then a long, dark red tongue like that of a snake slithered out of its mouth like it was making provocations.
- Xie Lian's initial plan for capturing the ghost fetus? Opening his mouth to allow it to enter his body and then swallow his sword so it will impale the spirit while it's in his stomach. An effective idea? Probably. Possibly incredibly painful for Xie Lian? Most definitely.
Venerable of Empty Words Arc
- The Venerable of Empty Words curses anyone it possesses to be met with a terrible outcome from whatever it says. From misfortune to losing someone close to them. It's no wonder Shi Wudu did everything he could to ascend and take his brother along with him as soon as he could.
- Shi Qingxuan is found passed out after Xie Lian calls down Ling Wen and Shi Wudu. When Shi Wudu goes to his brother to shake up Shi Qingxuan wakes up, but then screams in terror when he sees his brother and begs Xie Lian and Ming Yi to keep Shi Wudu away from him.
Black Water Arc
- As Xie Lian and the others investigate He Xuan's manor, they come across a skeleton that was chained to the wall. When Shi Qingxuan gets close, it jumps out as if to grab them, but they're pulled away in time. However, the truly terrifying thing that Xie Lian realizes later, was that the skeleton was the original Ming Yi whom He Xuan had captured and tortured for years to learn everything about him. And the reason it jumped out at Shi Qingxuan was because he mentioned the "Earth Master", which lead to Ming Yi's corpse trying to warn them. Not even Heavenly Officials are exempt of cruel deaths like this and can be killed in similar ways to mortals, if the person they're up against is strong enough.
- Xie Lian hypothesizes that the distress signal he had seen when investigating Ghost City was the real Ming Yi who had escaped, but was likely recaptured and finally killed by He Xuan.
- All of the events that lead to Shi Wudu's gory death. He realizes that although He Xuan isn't giving him or Shi Qingxuan a third option, he decides to choke Shi Qingxuan which then leads He Xuan to tear his arms off. But Shi Wudu has to have the last laugh as he goads that he had won since He Xuan's family members could never be brought back while he and his brother were able to live for 800 years. He Xuan gets so furious he grabs Shi Wudu and tears his head off, leaving a shocked Shi Qingxuan to witness it all before he mentally starts to shut down.
Brocade Immortal Arc
- The creation of the brocade is a terrifying story on its own, with the girl tricking the boy whom she gifted the brocade to cutting off all of his limbs and eventually his head. Also, anyone wearing it will can be controlled by the owner of the brocade.
- The cultivators chasing Xie Lian into an inn and ordering food. On closer inspection when they try to point out how strange some of the meat looks, the servants try to brush off their concerns. While they don't eat the food, they soon find out it was human flesh.
Mt. Tong'lu
- As Xie Lian and Hua Cheng mingle around the demons, they start suspecting Xie Lian is not who he says he is and a demon takes out a talisman to prove it. When the other demons back away and ask if he was cultivator in disguise, he scoffs and replies he killed a group of cultivators down the road not too long ago and took all of their items.
- The many ghosts arrive at Mt. Tong'lu in hopes of becoming a Calamity ghost, many even killing off their own to get stronger.
- Ling Wen and a mysterious figure pass through, scaring some of the ghosts to the point they try to leave and beg for mercy when Xie Lian and the others comes across them.
- Pei Ming notes how reliable Ruo Ye is as a spiritual weapon and wishes he had one like it. Xie Lian internally notes that if Pei Ming found out how Ruo Ye was really created, he wouldn't want it as a spiritual weapon.
- Yin Yu gets so angered and frustrated with Quan Yizhen that he yells at the other to go kill himself. Due to the other wearing the brocade, he nearly does a he puts a sword to his throat but is stopped by Jun Wu who broke the bones in his arms before knocking him out.
First Fall
- Xie Lian starts hallucinating the White-Clothed Calamity's mask over his face and that his clothes are white funerary clothes.
- Xie Lian is lured by the White-Clothed Calamity to a decrepit Crown Prince of Xianle temple. A hundred people are then lured inside, where the White-Clothed Calamity reveals to all of them that a) they have been infected with the Human Face Disease, and that b) the Human Face Disease can only be cured by spilling blood. And Xie Lian can't be killed by fatal strikes. It doesn't take long before everyone starts stabbing Xie Lian. The book's narration quickly reverts to repetions of "it hurts it hurts" and "why can't I die?!". And Hua Cheng is Forced to Watch. Xie Lian can barely walk afterwards and on the way home has a hard time looking at his reflection.
- ...and because Hua Cheng becomes a wrath-level ghost there and burns everyone to death, it ends up being All for Nothing.
- Building off the above, the creation of Ruo Ye. After Xie Lian commits a theft to feed his family and drives Feng Xin off, he wakes up the next morning to find his parents have hanged himself with the white band of cloth which had bound him to the altar in the temple. He attempts to join them, but the cloth has come to life and become a spiritual weapon.
- To see Xie Lian, who throughout the story has been a kind, gentle person, lose his faith in humanity and begin acting as the White-Clothed Calamity, is very disturbing.
