The world-class top assassin Brian Clark, weary of killing and a life controlled by the organization, deliberately failed a mission and was killed, only to be reborn in a modernized xianxia world...

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The campus intrigues of a cultivation world.

A Daoist system modeled after Western magic systems.

Clashes between cold weapons and firearms.

Peak Daoist duels atop high-speed trains.

Unrestrained battles with monsters in modern metropolises.

This is a fantasy novel cloaked in the trappings of xianxia.

Book One: Growth

Prologue

Legend has it that at the dawn of the universe, when chaos reigned and all was primordial, the so-called cosmos was like an egg. No one knows in which year or month, but within it was born the first living being in the world, called Pangu. Pangu grew weary of the eternal chaos, so he took up the axe at his side and split open the chaotic world with a single blow! The heavy and turbid elements gradually sank to become the earth, while the light and pure elements floated upward to become the sky.

After Pangu split heaven and earth, fearing they might merge again, he held the sky up with his head and supported the earth with his feet, growing ever taller as the distance between heaven and earth increased. No one knows how much time passed, but eventually the gap between sky and earth reached 108,000 li, and they could never again close, nor return to darkness and chaos. But by then, Pangu was utterly exhausted. He lay down and fell asleep, and in his slumber, he died.

After Pangu's death, his voice became rolling thunder, his breath became wind and clouds, his left eye became the sun, his right eye the moon, his body and limbs became the four corners of the earth and the Five Sacred Mountains, his blood became rivers, lakes, and seas, his veins became roads, his muscles became fields, his hair and beard became the stars in the sky, his skin and body hair became flowers, grass, and trees, his teeth and bones became shining metals, hard stones, and round, bright pearls and jade, and his sweat became rain and dew. The various parasites on his body, nourished by sunlight and rain, became the common people of the earth. Thus, after Pangu created heaven and earth, he used his entire body to nurture all things in the world.

This is the creation myth passed down in the Central Plains, but the truth of the myth can no longer be verified, as the earliest writing in the Central Plains only records up to ancient times.

According to the earliest "Classic of Mountains and Seas," in ancient times, all living beings in the Central Plains were incomparably powerful. The strongest among them were the Wu and Yao races, who could shoulder mountains, create land, split the seas, fly through the sky and burrow through the earth, summon wind and rain, and overturn heaven and earth. Moreover, they possessed endless lifespans and were immortal.

At that time, the Yao ruled the heavens, and the Wu ruled the earth. Though there were occasional frictions between the two races, they generally coexisted peacefully, feasting on clouds and mist, roaming the world, living carefree lives.

One day, the ten three-legged Golden Crows, sons of the Eastern Emperor Taiyi, were playing and destroyed the residence of the Wu god Kuafu. Kuafu, enraged, fought with the ten Golden Crows. Although his accumulated power over tens of thousands of years gave him the upper hand, he could not overcome the ten Golden Crows, who could fly ten thousand li in an instant, and eventually died of exhaustion. This incident enraged Kuafu's friend Hou Yi, who, in his fury, shot down nine of the Golden Crows with his bow, triggering the great war between the Wu and Yao.

That was the most chaotic era in the Central Plains. Led by Gong Gong, Zhu Rong, and Hou Yi, twelve Wu gods fought dozens of battles against the four Yao Saints, causing heaven and earth to collapse. Rivers flowed backward, mountains sank, plains became marshes, and the landscape of the Central Plains was forever changed to its current form. Many powerful, immortal beings vanished into the vastness of heaven and earth.

This war lasted for ten thousand years and ended with a tragic victory for the Wu. Four of the twelve Wu gods and the Eastern Emperor Taiyi were slain, while the remaining Wu gods and Yao Saints, gravely wounded, fell into endless slumber.

But the end of the Wu-Yao war did not mean the end of conflict. During the war, the human race, which possessed the bloodlines of both Wu and Yao but had not participated in the fighting, began to rise.

At that time, two peerless human heroes emerged, no less powerful than the Wu gods and Yao Saints— the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan and the Flame Emperor Lieshan. Under their leadership, humanity gradually broke free from the control of the Wu and Yao.

This aroused the displeasure of the Wu, the overlords of the continent, who, sensing a great threat, dispatched their strongest warriors. Led by the new generation Wu gods Chiyou and Xingtian, they fought the two emperors at Zhuolu Plain. All living beings at the time doubted humanity's chances, but the outcome was unexpected: Chiyou was slain by the Yellow Emperor, his body cut into five pieces and buried separately, while Xingtian, after being decapitated by the Flame Emperor, fought on until his death. This great war established humanity's dominance over the continent, but their position was not yet secure. The unwilling Wu and Yao retreated to the south and west of the Central Plains, ever ready to rise again.

For tens of thousands of years thereafter, for reasons unknown, the vital energy of heaven and earth grew ever thinner. The beings of the Central Plains no longer possessed the world-shattering powers of ancient times, nor the ability to live as long as heaven and earth. In exchange, however, their ability to reproduce increased greatly.