In the final years of the Tang dynasty, rebellions erupt across the land, and local armies repeatedly rise against the court. An Sai Shan, a military governor close to the emperor, secretly plots rebellion and schemes to seize the Tang empire. He meticulously orchestrates a catastrophe in the martial world, setting his plan quietly in motion. To launch a swift invasion of the south, he plans to command a million troops by harnessing the power of the martial arts world. He secretly engineers a string of bloody cases among its sects, from the destruction of the Bagua Sect to alliances, mergers, and finally unification, shaping a powerful martial world with a single chain of command, one that will take orders from him and serve his purposes.
An Sai Shan is a formidable martial artist who practices the secret Blazing Sun Divine Art, a match for no one under heaven. To pursue the highest level of cultivation, he never lays with a woman and preserves his pure yang body. Instead, he adopts a son and names him An Huaisheng. The martial hero and Divine Sword, Wang Zongwei, refuses to favor the court, so An Sai Shan supports Songhua Island's master Ling Feiyan and helps her become the leader of the martial world. Driven by ambition, she leads the various sects through a series of changes. Blood is spilled and swords clash until the martial world is finally unified.
As it happens, this is exactly the kind of martial world An Sai Shan needs. He intends to use it to stir up opposition to the court, raise an army, and rebel, laying a series of schemes along the way. In the end, An Sai Shan fails to understand what the martial world truly is, leaving everyone disappointed and bringing the novel to several more climactic turns.
The novel follows the love between Yan Xuezhi and Du Yuenian as its central thread. Against the backdrop of An Sai Shan's schemes, it tells of the love, hatred, passion, and vengeance of the martial world's sons and daughters. An Huaisheng longs for his birth parents and goes to great lengths to find them, provoking An Sai Shan's anger. In a fit of rage, An Sai Shan kills them. For one reason and another, An Huaisheng finally reaches his limit and persuades Yan Xuezhi and the others to join forces and kill An Sai Shan, avenging his parents at last.
