Zhang Haobo

Zhang Haobo is a Liuli Island fisherman and captain whose instinct for natural danger prompts Li Fan to make him the subject of a manufactured rebirth. What begins as another person's scheme becomes Zhang Haobo's sincere mission to save the Cong Yun Sea, producing both a calamity-slaying sword cultivator and, in another cycle, a steady guardian of the Rebirth Immortals.

Biography

The fisherman made into a reborn warning

Before cultivation, Zhang Haobo is a capable, socially shrewd captain who can stir his crew while maintaining plausible courtesy. More importantly to Li Fan, he has an unusual instinct for changes in the sea: in an earlier life he senses the approaching disaster, leaves the Cong Yun region, and later returns as a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Li Fan exploits that potential by entering the sleeping captain's mind with the Cloud Water Illusory Dream Art. He supplies false memories of a previous cultivation life and a future in which Crimson Flame burns the sea, then strengthens Zhang's responsibility toward his family and companions so that flight will feel like a moral failure. (Chapters 30–60 and 94–95)

Zhang does not know that his rebirth is constructed, but he makes the imposed duty his own. The dream directs him to a corpse on the seabed and the truncated Sea Fixing Sword Technique; finding both convinces him that the remembered future is real. He clears his Immortal-Mortal Miasma, reaches Qi Condensation within a year, and repeatedly challenges the seventeen mechanisms in Tianyang's cave rather than cultivating in safety. Those public trials teach him to sustain and coordinate his water swords under pressure, attract other opportunists to the cave, and replace the jovial captain his crew remembers with a grave, tireless cultivator focused on the coming calamity. (Chapters 98–104)

Heavenly Calamity sword cultivator

At late Qi Condensation, Zhang lacks a suitable Foundation Treasure and follows the Cong Yun Sea's recurring wind disasters toward their hidden source. The sea's will protects and guides him into Green Wind's concealed space, where he watches a black sword handle contest the calamity. From that confrontation he comprehends the intangible Heavenly Calamity Sword Intent and uses it as his Foundation Treasure. The choice changes more than his realm: an originally vast and upright water-sword style acquires a concealed madness, ruthlessness, and killing power. His mission is no longer simply an implanted warning, because his own will now resonates with the sea's determination to resist destruction from heaven. (Chapters 112–120 and 207–225)

In the manipulated-rebirth outcome, Zhang develops a Golden Core combining Water, Wind, and Sword and becomes famous for the Twenty-Eight Cong Yun Swords. When Crimson Flame descends, the Cong Yun Sea and the Canghai Pearl sustain his resistance, allowing him to overcome the Heavenly Spirit and integrate its power. That victory makes him an exceptionally young Dao Integration cultivator, but it also triggers the world's execution mechanism: Ink Death manifests immediately and kills him along with the surrounding region. Later study confirms the speed of that response. Zhang therefore succeeds at the duty Li Fan planted in him, yet the achievement exposes a harsher limit—the world itself will not tolerate the cultivator who overturns its appointed calamity. (Chapters 137–145, 224–225, 304–312, and 1376)

Chaoyuan and the Rebirth Immortals

Another cycle does not carry Zhang through the same Crimson Flame victory. He instead travels with Su Xiaomei toward the Chaoyuan ruins, where his patience balances her attraction to direct confrontation. He watches opponents carefully, recognizes the danger behind Shuo Feng's counterattacks, and restrains unnecessary killing when concealment matters more than pride. The pair disappear inside Chaoyuan for ten years and return with power Li Fan estimates at Nascent Soul. Zhang's acquisition of the Blood Sea Cave Heaven belongs to this alternate path: its countless blood swords extend his earlier sword practice, but the corpus does not show the ten-year acquisition process or make it a sequel to his fatal Dao Integration outcome. (Chapters 278–284 and 368)

In the future recorded by the Xuanhuang calendar, Zhang returns to the vanished Cong Yun Sea and grieves over the abyss left behind. He joins Xiao Heng, Su Xiaomei, and the other displaced cultivators, uses the Blood Sea Cave Heaven during their Medicine King True Cauldron expedition, and eventually supports the Rebirth Immortals against the Heavenly Alliance. When Sky Warlocks discover the resistance base in year 273, he and Su Xiaomei stay behind so their companions can escape. Both die in the rearguard. Unlike the outcome in which heaven kills him at the instant of victory, this death is a conscious protective choice by the cautious captain who has spent the cycle keeping more impulsive companions alive. (Chapters 396–398)

Appearance and personality

Zhang Haobo is introduced as a sturdy seafaring captain accustomed to physical work and command aboard the Cangyuan. During the Jiushan journey he is explicitly bronze-skinned and middle-aged in appearance, which makes him a visual counterpoint to the teenaged Su Xiaomei's six- or seven-year-old build. His later cultivation scenes are marked by deep-blue water swords, storm wind, an intangible black sword shadow, and—only in the Chaoyuan timeline—the blood-red sea of his Nascent Soul domain. The corpus does not establish fixed details such as eye color or ceremonial clothing. (Chapters 30–31, 94–100, and 281–284)

He begins jovial, persuasive, and willing to manipulate a crowd, but the supposed rebirth makes him serious and relentlessly responsible. Zhang is patient with Su Xiaomei, cautious around unknown opponents, and quick to notice when a pursuit or opportunity is unsafe. That restraint coexists with extraordinary willpower: he repeatedly fights seventeen puppets for training and accepts terrifying sword intent because he believes the sea must be saved. His harshest combat power is therefore not evidence of casual cruelty. Across both principal outcomes, it emerges when his perceived responsibility to a community outweighs his desire to survive. (Chapters 30–31, 98–104, 112–145, and 278–398)

Abilities and cultivation

Zhang Haobo follows post-calamity immortal cultivation through a water-aligned sword path. His documented milestones split after Golden Core: the Crimson Flame outcome advances to Dao Integration and ends immediately, whereas the Chaoyuan outcome returns at an observer-estimated Nascent Soul stage with a different Cave Heaven. Abilities from those endpoints are not a single cumulative loadout.

Sea Fixing Sword Technique

Zhang retrieves the Sea Fixing Sword Technique from a seabed corpse after Li Fan plants its location in his false memories. The method condenses Divine Sea Swords that can defend, pursue, and form coordinated assaults; Dragon's Roar sends them through accelerating cycles until the sequence becomes a continuous water-sword barrage. His Water Spirit Body and the surrounding Cong Yun Sea replenish the enormous spiritual-energy expenditure on home waters, letting a middle Qi Condensation cultivator suppress seventeen mechanisms for a limited period. The supplied manual ends at Foundation Establishment, however, and unlimited replenishment is not demonstrated away from the sea. Zhang must develop the path himself at higher stages, and its alternate-cycle expression eventually becomes blood-colored sword formations. (Chapters 98–104, 114–120, and 398)

Heavenly Calamity Sword Intent

The Heavenly Calamity Sword Intent is an intangible, apparently conscious sword shadow Zhang comprehends while observing a black sword handle oppose Green Wind. He makes the intent his Foundation Treasure rather than acquiring a conventional physical artifact. When incorporated into the Sea Fixing Sword Technique, it adds madness, cruelty, and decisive lethality beneath the water swords' grand appearance; later Water, Wind, and Sword laws support the Twenty-Eight Cong Yun Swords used against Crimson Flame. Its precise origin and relationship to the higher heavenly execution represented by Ink Death remain later subjects of inquiry rather than settled mechanics. Its latest confirmed result in that timeline is the fatal Dao Integration strike, after which no further mastery is possible. (Chapters 116–120, 137–145, 304–312, and 1376)

Cong Yun Sea resonance

Zhang possesses a strong natural affinity for water and an unusual resonance with the Cong Yun Sea's will. On its waters, ambient water spiritual energy restores what his sword formations consume; when he searches for Green Wind, the sea shields and guides him through the hidden danger. During the Crimson Flame battle, that affinity develops into active support from the sea and the Canghai Pearl. This is cooperation with a vast natural consciousness, not proof that Zhang privately owns or can command the sea's treasure at will. Its geographic limitation is important: the corpus does not grant the same inexhaustible recovery elsewhere, and the later Cong Yun Abyss leaves him mourning a source of identity and power that no longer exists. (Chapters 101–102, 116–120, 140–145, and 396)

Blood Sea Cave Heaven

Zhang returns from the ten-year Chaoyuan disappearance with the Blood Sea Cave Heaven, a terrifying Nascent Soul domain whose waves contain innumerable blood-colored swords, recombining blood faces, and rotten hands rising from its depths. It can sustain a broad assault and resist another Nascent Soul cultivator's treasures, and Zhang describes the associated path as having the characteristic “Cave Heaven Indestructible, Cultivator Immortal.” The acquisition, costs, underlying subworld, and ultimate limits are not narrated; Linghu Chang's defenses withstand it, so the domain is not absolute. This ability belongs to the Chaoyuan and Rebirth Immortal outcome and remains Zhang's latest demonstrated cultivation state before his year-273 death. (Chapters 368 and 398)

Power progression

Relationships

• Li Fan: Li Fan secretly manufactures Zhang's rebirth, supplies the Sea Fixing Sword Technique, and monitors him as a pawn against Crimson Flame. Zhang never learns the full manipulation in the covered outcomes, yet the responsibility planted in him becomes genuine resolve with consequences far beyond Li Fan's initial experiment.
• Su Xiaomei: Zhang is her patient travel companion, tactical counterweight, and Chaoyuan partner. He respects the judgment beneath her temper, shares her unexplained ten-year advancement, and dies beside her while covering the Rebirth Immortals' retreat.
• Xiao Heng: Their connection begins among Li Fan's island-group beneficiaries and culminates in the Rebirth Immortals. Zhang accepts Xiao Heng's leadership and gives his life to secure the leader's escape.
• Crimson Flame: The Heavenly Spirit is the target around which Li Fan constructs Zhang's supposed second life. Zhang eventually kills it in one timeline and integrates its power, completing his mission at the cost of triggering immediate execution.
• Ink Death: Ink Death kills Zhang the instant he reaches Dao Integration through Crimson Flame, enforcing the world's response to his defiance.
• Tianyang: Zhang does not train under Tianyang personally; he uses the seventeen mechanisms left in Tianyang Cave as repeated sparring partners, turning their durability and coordination into a public test of his sword control.

Items

• Sea Fixing Sword Technique manual: Zhang retrieves this water-resistant book from a corpse on the seabed, following a location implanted by Li Fan. It becomes his cultivation inheritance, but the surviving text only reaches Foundation Establishment and cannot supply his complete later path. (Chapters 94–100)
• Heavenly Calamity Sword Intent: Although it serves as his Foundation Treasure, the intent is not an owned physical weapon; Zhang comprehends and internalizes it from the black sword handle's confrontation with Green Wind. It remains incorporated into his cultivation in the Crimson Flame timeline. (Chapters 116–120)
• Canghai Pearl: The pearl is the Cong Yun Sea's heavenly treasure and source of support, not Zhang's ordinary private possession. In the Crimson Flame outcome it protects and empowers the sea's chosen defender; its custody should therefore be understood as the sea's agency and temporary alignment with Zhang rather than unrestricted ownership. (Chapters 118–145 and 224–225)