Volume One: Martial Student of the Borderlands

A true man should dine at the table of five cauldrons in life, and be cooked in five cauldrons in death!

Prologue: The Destruction and Beginning of an Epoch

The dark sky was torn open, bolts of lightning as thick as an arm crashed down through twisted rifts, followed by a raging wind filled with dense smoke, acrid brass, and pungent sulfur.

These gales swirled across the land, letting out piercing, mournful howls. Wherever they passed, towering mountains silently crumbled, turning into the finest particles and vanishing into thin air.

"We're finished... this world is finished!"

At the center of a world on the verge of annihilation, a solitary mountain, spanning over ten li, floated alone in the void. Atop the peak, several middle-aged Daoists with five-willow beards and jade crowns stood silently, as imposing as mountains and deep as abysses, their faces pale and filled with sorrow.

In this ancient world, which had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, countless lives had once flourished, countless brilliant civilizations and mighty dynasties had risen, and thousands upon thousands of martial saints, martial gods, and other superpowerful beings had been born.

Yet now, everything had come to an end. The world was collapsing, and the scent of destruction was everywhere.

On the mountain, the group slowly raised their heads, gazing up at the sky, where the battle still raged on:

In midair, countless times and spaces were being born and destroyed. From these opened dimensional rifts, innumerable powerful beings continuously emerged.

Among them were ancient giants of immense strength, able to shake mountains and split peaks; towering witch-beasts, hundreds of zhang tall, their white bones stacked together; terrifying great demons with wings on their ribs and six arms smashing through the void... All these, and more, appeared in an endless stream.

Even higher above, the battle grew ever fiercer. Tens of thousands of overwhelming wills, enough to make heaven and earth pale, shot out from the depths of the void, crashing together with thunderous booms. Each collision shattered the heavens and split the earth, causing countless times and spaces nearby to be annihilated.

But the most terrifying sight was above the dark clouds, at the very top—a multitude of gigantic hands, blotting out the sky and sun, radiating auras of destruction, decay, withering, masculinity, antiquity, vastness, holiness, or darkness, ceaselessly struck forth from unknown depths of time and space. With a mere grasp, countless living beings were crushed into pulp, reduced to dust...

This was a truly brutal battlefield—everything turned to ash, flesh and blood to mud!

Yet no one retreated. Yakshas, Rakshasas, Asuras, martial saints, martial gods, celestial gods, evil gods, demon clans... countless superpowerful beings charged forward one after another, leaping into the sky, only to fall like raindrops, severed limbs and broken bodies filling the void...

Watching these scenes, the eyes of the middle-aged Daoists turned blood-red.

"Fight! Only by fighting can we win!"

"It's impossible, this world is already doomed to perish!"

"Then should we just do nothing?"

...

They clenched their fists tightly, hearts writhing, wanting to act but powerless to struggle. In this war, their strength was simply too insignificant.

"Unwilling! This is a war of gods and demons—why must it destroy our world?"

They all gripped their fists tightly. Facing the world's destruction, they were utterly powerless.

"Let it go."

At the front, a middle-aged Daoist who seemed quite authoritative suddenly turned around, looking at his companions with deep, pained eyes:

"Our fate is already sealed. Life or death no longer matters. But this world has developed for hundreds of thousands of years to give rise to a civilization at our level. These mighty powers, the martial arts and Daoist legacies forged from the efforts of countless people, should not perish with our deaths. They must be passed on."

"The world will be destroyed again and again, but on the ruins of the old, new life will always be born—just as we once were. As long as our Daoist legacy can be passed down, then this world will not truly be extinct."

Everyone nodded. On the eve of doomsday, this was their shared wish.

"But how can the Daoist legacy be preserved and passed on? The life of the next world will surely be born from ignorance and unawareness, starting from nothing. The scriptures we write in the language of this world—how will they understand them? How can they inherit them?"

Another middle-aged Daoist spoke loudly.