Defying Heaven and Sealing the Gods: The Heavenly Spirit Era

The flames of the Shang-Zhou War had burned fiercely for ages, but at last they began to die down. What remained, spreading across heaven and earth, was the desolation and silence of a world that had survived a catastrophe. Towns once prosperous and bustling were now nothing but broken walls standing alone in the wind, seeming to recount in silence the splendor and suffering of the past. Fertile, vast fields, scorched again and again by the merciless fires of war, had turned black and cracked, as though the earth’s skin were covered in shocking wounds. Smoke and the stench of blood mingled in the air, so thick it was hard to breathe. Every breath seemed to draw in endless grief and misery.

The Investiture Altar, a sacred place where the fates of countless heroes, gods, demons, and immortals had turned, looked even more solemn beneath the dim glow of the sunset. It rose high above the clouds, like a divine mountain beyond the mortal world that none could cross. An indescribable air of majesty and gravity radiated from it, as if it were looking down upon the rise and fall of all things.

Wen Zhong, Grand Preceptor of the Shang dynasty and disciple of the Jie School’s Golden Spirit Holy Mother, had remained steadfastly loyal and righteous throughout his life, devoting all his strength to the cause of the Yin-Shang dynasty. Now, dressed in a black robe whose sleeves snapped in the wind, he stood tall and straight as a pine, like a mighty mountain that could not be moved. Yet when his gaze slowly fell on the words “Thunder Department’s Principal Deity” on the Investiture List, boundless resentment and indignation surged through his deep-set eyes, like a massive rock tossed into a calm lake, raising a storm of waves.

He gripped the golden mace in his hand, the Twin Maces of Male and Female, so tightly that his knuckles turned white. It was as if the divine weapon had become one with its master’s will