On the Xuan Continent, four great regions divide the land. Lin Mo, a young boy from Qingxi Village deep in the vast Cangmang Mountains, is an ordinary apprentice herbalist from a family of herb gatherers. But after his grandfather disappears, he is left with a mysterious black jade pendant. During a life-or-death clash with a black-scaled leopard in Sunset Valley, Lin Mo unexpectedly awakens the long-lost power of the Soul Pact. When a pillar of black light shoots into the sky, the boy's fate becomes entangled with that of the demon beast. Only then does he realize that his grandfather's disappearance and the pendant's origins are closely tied to the continent's hidden secrets of the Soul Pact.
Unlike traditional cultivation, which absorbs spiritual energy, Soul Pact wielders use their lifeblood to forge contracts with soul beasts, spirit artifacts, and even treasures of heaven and earth, sharing power and memories through a "soul chain." Lin Mo's black jade pendant is actually the ancient sacred Soul Pact relic known as the Nether Abyss Jade. Every pact he forges tears his soul apart and remakes it: he can gain the black-scaled leopard's swift and fierce combat prowess, but he may also be consumed by the beast's ferocity; he can decipher a thousand years of memories sealed within spirit artifacts, but may also be swept into the bloody mysteries of the Soul Pact War from ten thousand years ago.
