*"Heroes rise amidst storm and fire—Once bound to the Jianghu, time becomes a merciless tide.Dreams of empire born from wine and laughter,Life itself, a drunken lie.
Swords raised high in ghostly rain,White bones piled like mountains beneath startled wings.The mortal world is but a restless sea,And few ever return from its waves."*
"I used to wonder," he murmured as the wind tore at his long hair and azure robe, "if all the evil I did would eventually catch up to me. But the more I did, the less I cared."
Plummeting through the mist-shrouded sky, the cliffs below veiled in clouds as thick as purgatory smoke, he felt a strange serenity—a lightness, almost divine.
In his arms was a girl, her delicate body stiff with terror, clutching to him as if her last breath depended on it. Her eyes were shut tight, pale lashes damp with tears. But his face—sharp, handsome, unafraid—wore a faint smile as he looked straight down into the abyss.
"Debts always come due, sins are always paid," he continued, as if the rocks below didn't exist. "I knew that. Long ago. But then I saw a good man get struck dead by lightning—just because the god of punishment was drunk at his birthday feast. That's when I realized: virtue guarantees nothing."
His voice was calm, eerie against the howling wind.
"So I made a vow: if I ever lived again, I'd become the worst kind of man. And now—" he chuckled, "now it seems the reckoning has come."
The girl didn't answer. She couldn't. Fear had silenced her.
"You should be happy. Isn't this what you wanted? Your revenge is almost complete. One final drop—and it's done. Why cry now? Are you afraid of death? Or is it... something else? Could it be you don't actually want me to die?"
He sighed. "Revenge always demands a price. The heavens, for all their cruelty, are fair. I died wronged—but in return, I was reborn brighter than ever."
A pause.
"Then again," he said, his tone lifting with sudden absurd hope, "maybe we won't die. Maybe some ancient tree will catch us, or we'll stumble into a lost cave filled with secret martial scrolls. Or we'll slay a monster by accident and claim its thousand-year-old core. Or maybe... just maybe... we'll find a divine herb, become immortal, gain power beyond all men!"
He laughed.
"In this world, nothing is truly impossible—right?"
The wind didn't laugh back. It shrieked past the jagged cliffs of Sky-Balance Mountain, whose sheer stone faces cut through the heavens like blades. No trees jutted from its walls. No caves gaped open. Only merciless rock.
And below that cliff—just outside the walls of Sky-Balance Manor—lay the end of the world.
Three years passed.
Time flowed like a silent river—swift, relentless. But age brought no wisdom, only wrinkles at the corners of eyes, and silver at the temples. It could not halt the endless bloodshed.
Ambition still drove men to war, building thrones atop mountains of corpses. Power was seized by those with enough blood on their hands to grasp it.
And those once great? They faded—into indulgence, into irrelevance. Even emperors.
The empire of Great Qin, forged by sword and fire, had begun to rot. Justice no longer ruled. Righteous sects fell silent, evil ran rampant, and the world descended into chaos.
It began—truly began—on the fifth day of the fifth month, in the year 782 of the Qin calendar.
A thunderclap split the skies above Lingnan, yet it could not silence a single voice.
A short man stood atop a platform built of scrap wood. His voice boomed:"Why should Wang Ben and Hou Meng be Prime Minister and General? Did they plow fields at birth?"
The crowd below—thousands of ragged farmers, eyes burning with rage—roared back:"No! They were tenants once! They fought for Qin and were rewarded by the Emperor!"
The short man's eyes burned. He raised a clenched fist."Then let us rebel! Take back the land! Tear down the Emperor's throne! Pull Wang Ben and Hou Meng off their pedestals!"
And the masses screamed with him, their voices a tidal wave crashing over mountains:"No land? We'll seize it. No title? We'll fight for it!"
From that moment on, one name blazed into history—not for the length of his life, but the brilliance of his spark.
Xiang Qi — the first peasant rebel.
In the southern region of Lingnan, a retired war hero heard the call.
Song Wu, former general, one of the Emperor's oldest comrades, now guardian of Lingnan's fragile peace, sighed as he read the report.
"Do what we must, and leave the rest to fate," he murmured.
He had sworn never to return to the Jianghu. His martial prowess was legend, yet he remained in the shadows, maintaining order in a land of thieves and fire.
If not for him, Lingnan would've burned years ago.
"Send word to the Commander," he told his steward. "Let him prepare. The storm's begun."
Rain pattered against the windows. Song Wu looked out, voice heavy with grief.
"They say commoners are but ants. But if enough ants rise up—they can hollow out a mountain."
He sighed.
"Shengjun... old friend... you've grown senile."
Tianjing, capital of the Great Qin Empire.Heavenly Saint Palace, the grandest palace in all the known world.
No one truly knew how many lives had been spent building this palace. Some whispered that beneath every stone lay the bones of a hundred peasants.
A monument to glory—and to tyranny.
In recent years, the Emperor Ying Shengjun had become obsessed with immortality. As he expanded his tomb and rebuilt his palace with divine ambitions, the people's hatred simmered. One unspoken thought grew louder with each lash of rain:
Burn the palace. Burn the tomb. Burn the Emperor.
Then, on the twenty-ninth of May, just past midnight—
A storm raged.
A squadron of black-armored cavalry thundered into the city.
No one stopped them.
For at their head rode General Meng Qi, the greatest warrior of the realm—who by law should've been at the northern frontier, guarding against barbarians.
He held no royal decree. His return was illegal. Treasonous.
But in his hand gleamed a golden blade.
A gift from the Emperor himself.
Heaven's Gifted Sword—a blade said to hold divine judgment: to slay tyrants and traitors alike.
Even the elite palace guards shrank from its shine.
Meng Qi charged with eighteen riders, hooves cracking like thunder across the sacred grounds of the Heavenly Saint Palace—a place where even walking too loudly could mean death.
They rode straight toward the Emperor's personal chambers.
And waiting outside, beneath the eaves of the Hall of Tranquility, stood a plump, clean-shaven eunuch with a silver dust-whisk in hand.
Ning Zhaohou, Grand Chamberlain of the Inner Court.
When word reached him, he merely raised a brow.
"So," he whispered, "the Northern Wolf dares return?"
He turned and whispered to a servant.
And deep within the sleeping palace, thunder struck again.