In the vast pasture of the starry sea, who are the lambs, and who wields the butcher's knife?
Ling Xiao, the Dragon Nation's most elite starship captain, bears nebula-blue marks in his pupils from genetic enhancement. He carries the mission of flying the Five-Star Red Flag to ever more distant frontiers. After passing the ultimate test of the Dream Chaser Project, he takes command of the Xuanlong, a symbol of civilization's defenses, and sets out on a magnificent voyage into deep space.
But the scars and sacrifices along the way, from crossing a violent wormhole to watching a deadly "light wave" corrode his comrades' minds, and witnessing his brothers-in-arms make a tragic sacrifice amid the flames of a dying star, all point to a universe-shattering truth: Earth and even the entire Milky Way are no more than an "ecological pasture" carefully designed by a higher civilization. Humanity is merely an experiment, observed and guided, and even "harvested" at regular intervals. The technological explosion that powered the Dragon Nation's rise came from reverse-engineering the forbidden relic known as the Enlightenment Stele. And Ling Xiao is the modern-day "Keybearer," entrusted with finding the legendary "Path of the Sages" and winning a sliver of hope for civilization.
When the Hammer of Purification, executor of the laws of the pasture, descends and erases Beichen Harbor with overwhelming force, Ling Xiao, on the brink of death, rescues three wanderers among the stellar wreckage, each bearing the embers of a civilization and a blood feud: Edlan, a pathfinder of technological civilization; Kaiduo, a star-shatterer from a savage planet; and Selan, a singer from a dimension's surviving people. He embeds fragments of the key to the truth of the pasture and the path to freedom into their civilizations' legacies, igniting the last beacon of starlight.
After fleeing to the mental prison of the Spirit Root Domain, Ling Xiao's consciousness transforms into the Devouring Abyss amid a struggle of consumption and counterattack. He sees through the true nature of this tree-shaped planet as the pasture's spiritual farm, and dives deep into its spirit network
