Patriarch Reliance

Patriarch Reliance is the hidden founder and namesake of the Reliance Sect. An ancient, immensely powerful but miserly cultivator, he manipulates disciples and outside experts to restore himself, only to meet his match in Meng Hao's ingenuity and the authority of the Demon Sealing Jade.

Biography

Awakening beneath the sect

Patriarch Reliance awakens in a sealed chamber when Meng Hao's duplicated Blood Crystals return life force to him. He is bewildered by the impossible surplus, then regrets that Meng Hao reaches enlightenment before producing more. To lure powerful outsiders, he raises a false Sublime Spirit Scripture stele and projects a false heavenly sign. (Chapters 39–40)

When Zhao Shanling tries to seize Meng Hao, the Patriarch thunders a warning. He later manifests a gigantic face, drives away the Southern Domain and State of Zhao experts, declares Meng Hao his sole heir, and gives him a spear with orders to lure strong cultivators back after one year. (Chapters 42–43)

Great Art of Demonic Life

When Meng Hao returns with the three sects and Lord Revelation, the Patriarch secretly weakens his own seven sealing lamps. Once the invaders extinguish them, he emerges and uses the Great Art of Demonic Life to consume Foundation Establishment and Core Formation cultivators, restoring his body and lighting demonic lamps with their Cores. He recognizes Revelation as a Nascent Soul clone and absorbs it as the seventh lamp's fuel. (Chapters 81–83)

Contest with Meng Hao

The Patriarch refuses to cure Meng Hao promptly and rewards him with only a low-grade Spirit Stone. Meng Hao retaliates by using the Bag of the Cosmos to steal his Spirit Stones, gardens, lightning treasures, Demon Sealing Jade, and eventually a demonic lamp. Reliance rages, bargains, threatens, and explains the ancient Qi Condensation levels while watching Meng Hao force his way to the thirteenth level. Despite losing vast wealth, he grudgingly admires Meng Hao. (Chapters 84–89)

True form and Demon Sealer bond

When Lord Revelation's true self attacks, the Patriarch recounts how Demon Sealing Sect members lured him from the Milky Way Sea and sealed him. His Reliance Sect identity was only a cultivated sliver of will. He lifts the entire State of Zhao and reveals his true form: a black turtle as large as the country. After swallowing Lord Revelation and the Revelation Bell, he is forced by Meng Hao's Demon Sealing mark to recognize him as the ninth Demon Sealer and become his Dao protector. He throws Meng Hao clear and departs toward the Milky Way Sea carrying Zhao. (Chapters 94–95)

Black Lands, Crow Divinity, and the Demon Immortal Sect

Still carrying the State of Zhao as his island-like shell, Patriarch Reliance senses the extraordinary disturbance caused by the Eyeless Larva and looks into the sky in shock. His thunderous voice is heard again over the Milky Way Sea in Chapter 425. (Chapters 383 and 425)

Southern Domain War and Dao Seeking

By the time Meng Hao reaches Saint's Island, the old Reliance Sect and the cultivators carried away with State Zhao have become the Footloose Sect. Reliance has even changed his own title to Patriarch Footloose. The reinvention is less a new calling than a long attempt to hide from Meng Hao: the Demon Sealing mark still prevents him from harming the ninth Demon Sealer and compels him to serve as Dao Protector. (Chapter 635)

He conceals the island and tries to bribe Meng Hao into leaving by sending a divine-sense eagle to drop a Spirit Fruit in his path. When the parrot humiliates the projection, Reliance nearly reveals himself in anger, but Guyiding Tri-rain warns that doing so would undo years of hiding. He swallows his pride and lets Meng Hao depart without learning who rules the island. (Chapters 635 and 642)

When Meng Hao's aura later vanishes, Reliance initially treats the apparent death as liberation from the unwanted bond. The relief does not last: grief breaks through the celebration, exposing an attachment that his complaints and evasions have never erased. (Chapter 683)

The Wider Ninth Mountain and Sea

Patriarch Reliance is present as Meng Hao prepares to leave the Southern Domain, then repeatedly watches the Ancient Roads and arena tournament from the starry sky. He reacts to Meng Hao taking first place, curses upon discovering his Eternal stratum, recognizes something familiar about the half-headed cultivator who abducts him, and refuses to believe the “little bastard” will die so easily. (Chapters 801–881)

During the Fang Clan rebellion, Patriarch Reliance is stunned by the upheaval and later appears physically on Planet East Victory with Guyiding Tri-rain riding on his back. He has carried State Zhao all the way there in another attempt to place distance between himself and Meng Hao. (Chapters 994–997 and 1016–1019)

Nine Seas and the Windswept Realm

Meng Hao catches Reliance on Planet East Victory with the Revelation Bell and uses Demon Sealing Hexing to test his obedience. Reliance admits that he fled there to hide, then carries Meng Hao toward the Ninth Sea while repeatedly looking for a route of escape. When he steers into the Ruins of Immortality, an ancient outsider identifies him as a Dao Protector; a mysterious strand of hair kills that opponent before Reliance can be forced into a decisive battle. (Chapters 1016–1024)

Reliance swallows the nearby ship, pretends to pursue Meng Hao and Yi Fazi, and deliberately slows until he can flee. The escape restores his preferred freedom, but it also leaves the State of Zhao and the hidden Demon Sealing legacy on his shell moving through the same conflicts that keep drawing him back to Meng Hao. He later reacts from afar to Meng Hao's Allheaven breakthrough and remains active through the South Heaven family crisis. (Chapters 1024, 1114, 1141 and 1196)

Meng Clan and the Mountain and Sea War

Patriarch Reliance crosses into the Eighth Mountain and Sea carrying State Zhao and Guyiding Tri-rain, only for Meng Hao to find him again. He burns soul quintessence to accelerate, breaks one of Meng Hao's restraining hands with his golden body, and alternates between bluffing resistance and fleeing. Meng Hao finally immobilizes him with Hexing and uncovers the old inscription on his back—“Meng Hao's turtle”—along with Lord Li's Third Demon Sealer legacy hidden there. (Chapters 1280 and 1304–1306)

After Meng Hao receives the legacy, he releases Reliance instead of tightening the compulsion and merely asks him to come when needed. The mercy unsettles the turtle's habitual calculation. During the war he eventually agrees of his own will to serve as Meng Hao's mount and Dao Protector, telling Guyiding Tri-rain that he has no regrets after seeing what Meng Hao is willing to do for the Realm. (Chapters 1309 and 1340)

Reliance then becomes part of the Realm's mobile defense. His enormous body can carry State Zhao through the war and physically collide with the First Heaven during its destruction, but even that durability does not place him beyond the losses surrounding the Mountain and Sea Realm. He and the surviving population are taken into the Mountain and Sea Butterfly when the old Realm falls. (Chapters 1342, 1344, 1350, 1368, 1372, 1384, 1387, 1396 and 1404)

Vast Expanse and Transcendence

Patriarch Reliance survives the destruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm and reappears among its remaining cultivators when Meng Hao returns as the Demon Sovereign. He participates in the mobilization and reunion, then joins the campaign of vengeance against the 33 Heavens. His continued survival preserves the same shameless, evasive ancient turtle who founded Meng Hao's first sect. (Chapters 1544–1557)

Beyond Allheaven

After rebuilding the Mountain and Sea Realm, Meng Hao offers Reliance a role that turns their coerced bond into an honored office: sole Xuanwu of the Realm, guardian of its qi flow, and keeper of Mount Daqing as the “Mountain among Mountains.” Reliance accepts because the office grants the Realm's converging qi flow, a unique rank, and access to Demon Sealing enlightenment. Meng Hao's Righteous Bestowal then removes the old seals and joins him to the reconstructed Realm. (Chapters 1561–1562)

When Allheaven's final curse later reduces him to an empty shell, Shui Dongliu's soul-seed plan restores life throughout the Mountain and Sea Realm. Reliance's head emerges from the shell, State Zhao revives on his back, and his first response is the familiar declaration that “the Patriarch is back.” The recovery is part of the realm-wide restoration, not an ability Reliance performs by himself. (Chapters 1610–1611)

Appearance and personality

The Patriarch appears through voices, projections, a gigantic face, a restored humanoid body, and finally a colossal Xuan Wu-like black turtle. He is cunning, theatrical, suspicious, proud, and spectacularly miserly. Greed formed the Dao of his first Spirit Severing. Yet his anger toward Meng Hao repeatedly shades into reluctant respect for the younger man's audacity and resolve. (Chapters 43, 82, 85, and 89)

Abilities and cultivation

Spirit Severing

He seeks restoration sufficient to pursue a second Spirit Severing. (Chapters 81–82)

Great Art of Demonic Life

Absorbs cultivators and uses their Cores to fuel seven demonic lamps. (Chapters 82–83)

Seals and manifestations

Projects a gigantic face, suppresses outside experts, manipulates his cave's restrictions, and can extend divine sense through animal-shaped manifestations. His true Xuanwu body carries an entire country, crosses between Mountains and Seas, and can strike a Heaven through direct collision. Concealing such a body requires formations, false identities, and misdirection, while extreme acceleration can consume soul quintessence. (Chapters 43, 94–95, 635–642, 1304 and 1350)

Knowledge of ancient cultivation

Explains levels beyond the ninth and recognizes Meng Hao's stolen luck and changed latent talent. (Chapters 86–88)

Demon Sealing connection

He knows Demon Sealing arts and bears Lord Li's Third Demon Sealer legacy on his shell, but the ninth Demon Sealer's mark initially makes his own service compulsory: he cannot harm Meng Hao and is bound as Dao Protector. That constraint explains his repeated flight rather than simple cowardice. His later voluntary return during the war changes the relationship morally without erasing the mark, and Righteous Bestowal ultimately makes him the reborn Realm's sole Xuanwu and qi-flow guardian. (Chapters 94–95, 635, 1304–1309, 1340 and 1561–1562)

His Great Art restores cultivation by consuming living cultivators and using their Cores as lamp fuel; it is effective but resource-hungry and morally indiscriminate. The Demon Sealing mark provides the decisive counter: once Meng Hao invokes ninth-generation authority, Reliance's knowledge cannot prevent compulsory Dao Protector status. His colossal Xuanwu body supplies longevity, transport, and impact sufficient to carry Zhao or collide with a Heaven, while its size makes concealment depend on formations and deception. (Chapters 81–95, 635–642 and 1340–1350)

Power progression

Relationships

• Meng Hao: Sole heir, recurrent thief, reluctant object of admiration, and ultimately the Demon Sealer whom Reliance must protect.
• Lord Revelation: He destroys Revelation's clone and later swallows the vengeful true self.
• Grand Elder Ouyang, Xu Qing, and Chen Fan: Reliance manipulates their meditation-zone trial; only Meng Hao receives the true scripture enlightenment.
• He Luohua: Sect Leader of the institution built around Reliance's sealed presence.

Items

• Meng Hao takes or receives the Demon Sealing Jade, one demonic lamp, a spear, Spirit Stones, gardens, Thunder Rattans, a Lightning Flag, and other sealed resources; no additional separate item article is assigned here.