NovelPantheon

Eldest Senior Brother

Tian Xie Zi's eldest discipleLord of Nine Liheadless Xing Gan warrior

Eldest Senior Brother is Tian Xie Zi's first disciple, the Shaman Lord of Nine Li, and the quiet protector at the head of the Ninth Summit's four brothers. He spends much of his early life in isolation to clear his mind and cultivate the Sound of Creation, but his withdrawal never becomes indifference. He watches the mountain with divine sense, sends Shaman Souls to guard his junior brothers, and repeatedly places himself between the family and enemies strong enough to destroy it.

His transformation into a headless Xing Gan warrior is both an ancestral return and an act of resistance. Di Tian captures and attempts to turn him into a clone; Eldest Senior Brother instead cuts off his own head, breaks the imposed identity, summons the Axe of Execution, and chooses a path driven by fighting spirit and murder. Later he helps lead the rebuilt Ninth Summit while refusing its highest administrative title. Even after the dying aeon reduces him to a mark, Su Ming recognizes that mark as the fighting spirit sustaining beasts in the Vast Expanse and eventually restores him beside his brothers.

Biography

Freezing Sky and the Ninth Summit

Before Su Ming meets him directly, Eldest Senior Brother is the sleeping foundation beneath the Ninth Summit. Hu Zi describes a cultivator almost constantly in isolation who emerges on the Day of Eternal Creation with enough noise to wake the entire mountain. The comic description conceals a deliberate discipline: when Tian Xie Zi told him to clear his mind, he chose long isolation, joining silence and sound until his path became the Sound of Creation. Even while withdrawn, he monitors outsiders approaching Su Ming and is prepared to act if the younger disciple is harmed. (Chapters 219–229)

His care is expressed through proxies rather than conversation. During the Ninth Summit's conflict with Phantom Dais Tribe, he sends one of his Shaman Souls with an order to protect the junior brothers even at the cost of its life. He later gives Su Ming a bracelet that can become a female Nine Li Shaman Soul, enabling both protection and communication over great distance. The gift eventually reveals his concealed standing: the Shamans recognize him as the generation's Lord of Nine Li, and powerful elders save Su Ming partly to obtain an audience with him. That political value complicates the aid Su Ming receives, but Eldest Senior Brother uses the channel only to warn him away from danger. (Chapters 268–297, 369–371)

The early arc therefore establishes two identities without forcing a choice between them. To Nine Li he is a Shaman Lord with authority over three hundred souls; to the Ninth Summit he is simply the elder brother who will stand in front of the others. His reticence keeps the scale of the first identity hidden, while the second determines how he uses it. When calamity scatters the family, Su Ming remembers not proclamations of affection but the divine sense that had covered him and the silent, continuous care that made the summit a home. (Chapters 321, 369–371, 538–542)

South Morning and the Immortal conflict

After Tian Xie Zi disappears, Eldest Senior Brother leaves isolation and searches the Eastern Wastelands for his master and junior brothers. The search leaves fresh scars across his body before Di Tian captures him alive and tries to turn him into a new clone. By the time Su Ming finds him, the captive has lost a hand, bears a cross-shaped scar deliberately prevented from healing, and has nine steel needles driven into his skull. His own Shaman Souls have been placed under outside control. The physical mutilation reflects a larger assault: Di Tian intends to weaponize the person whose defining instinct is to protect the Ninth Summit against the family itself. (Chapters 519–526, 650–671)

Eldest Senior Brother resists by returning to the bloodline beneath the imposed body. He explains that he descends not from Nine Li's direct line but from the three clones of its Shaman Lord, Xing Gan, whose descendants are headless. He cuts through his own neck with the hook replacing his hand; his face emerges on his chest, the controlled head crumbles into an imperial illusion, and he declares himself Xing Gan while summoning the Axe of Execution. The act is neither an ordinary injury nor a simple power increase. It sacrifices the familiar human form to break Di Tian's use of him and recover an ancestral mode of existence. (Chapters 671–676, 725)

As Xing Gan, he wields Nine Li blood, Shaman Spells, Shaman Souls, the axe, and a shield made from those souls against the Immortal forces. He fights Ji An without retreat and helps prevent the Immortals' greater average power from deciding the war. A gray stone deployed against him then explodes into petrifying light, turning his headless body and weapon into stone. The apparent victory therefore carries another period of helplessness: Su Ming can drive back the invaders, but he cannot simply undo the Enchanted Vessel's effect through force. (Chapters 674–695)

Awakening him requires the whole family. Su Ming obtains sufficiently pure Nine Li blood, Second Senior Brother disperses himself to cast the Great Heavenly Phantom Art, and Hu Zi guards Eldest Senior Brother's fading consciousness. Any interruption could leave the eldest disciple a mindless statue and destroy the other two brothers as well. After months of protected casting, he returns and immediately resumes his role as the family's shield. Before Su Ming departs, Eldest Senior Brother and the others accept responsibility for continuing the search for Tian Xie Zi. (Chapters 727–747)

Divine Essence and Ecang

While Su Ming crosses the Barren Lands of Divine Essence, the image of Eldest Senior Brother persists as both wound and standard. Visions of the Ninth Summit show him as a statue at the mountain's foot, training without a head and blaming himself because Su Ming was lost while trying to save him. That guilt turns isolation from a chosen path of clear thought into an attempt to contain pain. Su Ming's own memories answer it differently: the rescue did not create a debt, because Eldest Senior Brother had always risked himself for the younger disciples without asking for repayment. (Chapters 819–823)

Tian Xie Zi's traces in Divine Essence Star Ocean identify him as the Lord of Nine Li when Su Ming recites the extraordinary identities of the four disciples. The title authenticates the master's account for Dijiu Mo Sha, but it also highlights what Su Ming values beyond rank. He calls himself the most ordinary disciple while placing Eldest Senior Brother's Lordship first, yet the relationship's emotional force comes from the elder brother's protection, not his authority over Shamans. The Divine Essence arc consequently develops Eldest Senior Brother through absence: his remembered example keeps the scattered Ninth Summit coherent while Su Ming follows Tian Xie Zi's trail. (Chapters 920, 931–932)

The Fifth Furnace and Morning Dao

The brothers reunite in True Morning Dao World after more than a thousand years. Eldest Senior Brother remains headless and carries a murderous aura formed by years in a sea of blood. He recounts that the three brothers could leave Yin Death Region only by accepting the Dark Dawn's Ghost Brand and serving its ancient will as generals in campaigns across other continents. He calls his cultivation during those years a path of murder and a river of souls. The Brand is therefore a cost of escape and search, not evidence of allegiance freely chosen for its own sake. (Chapters 1049, 1135, 1164–1168)

Once outside, Eldest Senior Brother orders the three to separate and use different methods to locate a route to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence and Su Ming. He directs Second Senior Brother to enter a sect suited to perfecting the Phantom Dao and sends Hu Zi through hardship in the Immortals' Union. Their later complaints do not displace his authority; even Hu Zi admits he would not dare direct his anger at Eldest Senior Brother. When Su Ming reveals an ambition to take Arid Triad, the elder brother promises to join him without hesitation. His leadership remains personal and operational rather than ceremonial. (Chapters 1164–1176)

That distinction governs the rebuilt Ninth Summit. Eldest Senior Brother refuses to become its first Sect Master, leaving the administrative office to Second Senior Brother, but accepts the position of Great Sect Master responsible for punishments. His murderous aura intimidates the expanding sect while the brothers and Su Ming's Ecang clone gather displaced cultivators into a new home. He is later heavily injured when three yellow-robed cultivators upset the balance with New Dao Sect, showing that his fighting spirit and authority do not make the Ninth Summit invulnerable. The corpus records these mature roles but not a complete ladder of formal realm breakthroughs connecting them. (Chapters 1180–1206)

Ancient Zang and the final truth

The dying aeon destroys Eldest Senior Brother with the rest of Su Ming's family. Ancient Zang then presents echoes rather than a straightforward continuation. Titles such as “eldest senior brother” recur among Seven Moons Sect disciples, while a powerful headless figure accompanying the second prince most closely resembles the Xing Gan form Su Ming remembers. Su Ming watches that figure but refuses to interrupt its cultivation or accept resemblance as proof that the lost brother has simply returned. Doing so would mean choosing a comforting world he regards as false rather than continuing toward the truth. (Chapters 1373, 1385–1390, 1434–1458)

Beyond Ancient Zang, Su Ming searches the cycles of life and death for marks corresponding to the people he lost. The first feeble souls are only traces, not yet the versions he wants. Eldest Senior Brother's deeper mark is not dust or an ordinary soul-form but fighting spirit: a vision living among a pride of beasts in the cosmic fog and keeping their will to fight at its peak. This form preserves the quality that defined Xing Gan without claiming that the beasts themselves are the original person. Su Ming gathers it with other compatible traces to reconstruct his family. (Chapters 1478–1480)

Eldest Senior Brother awakens in the restored world with a head and a powerful body. When he walks up behind Second Senior Brother and Hu Zi, his strength seems to leave him as soon as he notices the absent youngest disciple. His first words ask where Su Ming is, but no answer comes. The ending restores the elder brother to the family he protected while reversing his lifelong role: Su Ming has shielded all three senior brothers through death and rebirth, then removed himself from the home so they can live. (Chapter 1481)

Appearance and personality

Eldest Senior Brother is first associated with a large, strong body and a reserved presence hidden beneath the Ninth Summit. After Di Tian's captivity, he is bald and heavily scarred, with a missing right hand replaced by a hook, nine steel needles in his skull, and a cross-shaped mark carved across his face. When he embraces the Xing Gan bloodline, he cuts off his head, develops a face on his chest, and fights bareheaded in the literal ancestral sense. His final restored form again has a head and a strong body. (Chapters 219–223, 670–676, 1481)

He is slow-spoken, inexpressive, and unwilling to advertise his care. Su Ming understands him as the older brother who notices danger, places himself in front of it, and asks for nothing afterward. This reserve can appear severe, especially once years of warfare turn his cultivation toward murder and he administers punishment for the rebuilt Ninth Summit. Yet he remains capable of immediate trust in his brothers' impossible aims; when Su Ming proposes taking Arid Triad, he offers support before debating whether it can be done. (Chapters 670–676, 1167–1180)

Responsibility is both his strength and his burden. He coordinates the brothers' searches, protects Su Ming through Shaman Souls, and accepts mutilation rather than let Di Tian turn him against the family. When he fails to prevent Su Ming's disappearance, that same responsibility becomes guilt severe enough to drive ceaseless training. His final question about the absent youngest brother shows that resurrection restores the attachment as well as the warrior: power and fighting spirit never replace the family he fought to preserve. (Chapters 268–371, 670–747, 821, 1481)

Abilities and cultivation

The corpus establishes Eldest Senior Brother as a Creation cultivator, Nine Li Shaman Lord, headless Xing Gan warrior, and later a Great Sect Master, but does not dramatize a complete sequence of formal Berserker, Second-/Third-Step, or Ancient Zang realm advancements. His known lineage, Arts, conditions, and setbacks are more reliable than an inferred progression table.

Sound of Creation

Eldest Senior Brother's chosen response to Tian Xie Zi's instruction to clear the mind is prolonged isolation. His resulting Sound of Creation joins opposites: isolation is silence, while sound is noise, and the Art creates through their union. The dossier identifies it as the counterpart to Second Senior Brother's Hands of Creation and Su Ming's Picture Creation, but supplies fewer direct mechanics for its combat application. It should therefore be treated as his learned foundational Art, not expanded into undocumented sound control. (Chapters 222, 264, 272)

Nine Li blood and Shaman Souls

As the generation's Lord of Nine Li, Eldest Senior Brother commands three hundred Shaman Souls. A soul can take the form of a bracelet, protect a junior brother, carry his voice across great distance at noticeable cost, or join others in battle. Nearly one hundred souls later combine into a shield, and their presence helps the Berserkers withstand the Immortals' otherwise superior forces. When enemies seize control of the souls, however, they become a trail leading back to their captured lord and can be weaponized apart from his intent. (Chapters 268–371, 538, 650–651, 681–695)

His Nine Li blood enables named Shaman workings including Blood Swamp, the Song of Heavenly Worship, and Earth's Burial. It can also lead a Nine Li treasure to manifest a purplish-black skull and crushing hand. These Arts depend on lineage rather than on Tian Xie Zi's Creation teaching. Eldest Senior Brother explicitly says he is not the direct descendant others assume, but a scion of the three clones of the former Shaman Lord Xing Gan; the distinction becomes central to his self-decapitation and ancestral return. (Chapters 671–676)

Xing Gan body and Axe of Execution

By cutting off his own head, Eldest Senior Brother rejects Di Tian's controlled head and returns to the headless form of Xing Gan's descendants. His face moves to his chest, his headless body remains alive, and he summons the gigantic bronze Axe of Execution. Combined with a Shaman-Soul shield, primal presence, and extreme fighting spirit, this form lets him battle Ji An and press forward through numerous attacks. The transformation is self-mutilating and lineage-bound; it is not presented as a temporary cosmetic form available to unrelated cultivators. (Chapters 675–695)

The form is powerful but not invulnerable. A gray Immortal stone releases light that petrifies him and the axe before he can stop it. Waking him requires rare Nine Li source blood, Hu Zi's protection, Second Senior Brother's Great Heavenly Phantom Art, months of uninterrupted casting, and Su Ming's defense. Without those conditions his consciousness could disperse permanently. His later heavy injury against New Dao Sect further confirms that fighting spirit and ancestral form do not nullify stronger or unexpected techniques. (Chapters 695, 727–735, 1204–1206)

Path of murder and Dark Dawn Brand

To leave Yin Death Region, Eldest Senior Brother accepts the Dark Dawn's Ghost Brand and serves an ancient will as a general. Years of campaigning produce the monstrous murderous aura he calls a path of murder and a river of souls. This is learned experience and accumulated slaughter rather than an innate Nine Li ability. The Brand carries a coercive cost: he and the other brothers submit to demands they cannot resist in exchange for passage, and its presence records that compromise on his body. (Chapters 1167–1168, 1240)

Leadership and combat judgment

Eldest Senior Brother coordinates searches, assigns the brothers different cultivation routes, and governs punishments in the rebuilt Ninth Summit. These are developments in judgment and authority, not confirmed realm promotions. He is at his most effective when his separate systems reinforce one another—Creation supplies a stable heart, Nine Li blood supplies Shaman Arts, the Xing Gan form supplies ancestral combat power, and the river of souls supplies hard-earned murderous intent. Each system also has a distinct limit, preventing his later strength from being reduced to a single undocumented cultivation rank. (Chapters 1164–1180)

Relationships

  • Tian Xie Zi: As Tian Xie Zi's first disciple, Eldest Senior Brother follows his instruction by entering isolation and developing Sound of Creation. After the master vanishes, he searches Eastern Wastelands and later leads the brothers' wider hunt beyond Yin Death Region. (Chapters 219–222, 519–526, 725–727)

  • Su Ming: Eldest Senior Brother protects Su Ming through divine sense and Shaman Souls long before they speak at length. Su Ming later refuses to attack him while he is controlled, helps restore him from petrification, and ultimately reconstructs his fighting-spirit mark from the cycles of life and death. Their bond is that of an older protector eventually protected by the youngest brother. (Chapters 268–371, 650–747, 1478–1481)

  • Second Senior Brother: Eldest Senior Brother entrusts him with difficult routes and later shares leadership of the rebuilt Ninth Summit. Second Senior Brother, in return, accepts the risk of becoming a mindless Phantom to awaken him from petrification. Their contrasting styles—silent authority and elegant humor—do not weaken their mutual trust. (Chapters 727–735, 1164–1180)

  • Hu Zi: Hu Zi jokes about Eldest Senior Brother's endless isolation but treats his authority as unquestionable. He guards the elder brother's consciousness during the awakening and later follows his order to assist Su Ming. Their relationship combines household irreverence with complete operational trust. (Chapters 219–223, 727–735, 1164–1176)

  • Di Tian: Di Tian captures, mutilates, and attempts to transform Eldest Senior Brother into a clone. Eldest Senior Brother's self-decapitation as Xing Gan breaks that imposed identity and turns the intended weapon back into a major force against the Immortal invasion. (Chapters 650–695, 725)

  • Zong Ze and Nine Li: Zong Ze and other Shamans recognize Eldest Senior Brother as their generation's Shaman Lord and use Su Ming's bracelet to seek his decision. Eldest Senior Brother's lineage gives him political and spiritual authority, though he uses it chiefly to warn and protect his junior brother. (Chapters 369–371)

Items

  • Nine Li Shaman Soul bracelet: One of Eldest Senior Brother's three hundred souls can contract into this bracelet. He gives it to Su Ming as protection and a communication channel; using it to carry his distant voice dims the bracelet, showing that the connection has a cost. (Chapters 268–371, 538)

  • Axe of Execution: A gigantic bronze battle axe summoned when Eldest Senior Brother assumes the Xing Gan identity. It focuses his headless form's primal combat power but can be petrified along with him by the Immortal gray stone. (Chapters 675–695)

  • Shaman-Soul shield: Nearly one hundred Shaman Souls combine into a huge shield during the war against the Immortals. It is a collective formation of bound souls rather than an ordinary forged object. (Chapters 681–695)

  • Dark Dawn's Ghost Brand: A laughing ghost-face Brand cut into his chest as the price of leaving Yin Death Region. It marks compulsory service to the ancient will and is not described as a freely removable equipment item. (Chapters 1167–1168)