A humble nobody opens his eyes to the netherworld, then tears the heavens apart with one hand to break through the conspiracy!
Beneath the Divine Capital, undercurrents gnaw at the bones.
Chen Jiu, a low-ranking clerk in the Ministry of Works’ Heavenly Crafts Bureau, is an insignificant nobody assigned all the dirty work.
A bizarre murder case drags him into the abyss: a Foundation Establishment cultivator from a brothel has had his heart ripped out and marrow refined, his corpse turned to jade bone and his resentment transformed into a ghostly chariot.
What the bronze mirror used for examining corpses reveals is a shocking secret buried beneath the Ministry of Works’ embezzlement case: an evil formation that uses nine cultivators as kindling to refine the “Abyssal Filth Jade Marrow” alive!
During his escape, a shard of jade marrow from the formation’s core embeds itself in Chen Jiu’s left shoulder. It becomes both a curse that demands his life and the key to his rise.
The shard eats into his bones and devours his soul. It also draws relentless pursuit from the Shadow Pavilion of the Imperial Tombs, the scrutiny of the mysterious organization known as the Bureau of Celestial Observation, and even the arrival of the Abyssal Ruins’ emissary, Lord Chen Yuan.
They call him the “key” and mean to use his flesh and blood to pave the way to an apocalyptic abyss!
In this desperate plight, Chen Jiu forms an alliance with the surviving people of the Si River.
Si Yao, a young woman bearing the bloodline of King Yu, awakens her divine power by using her blood to activate the Purifying Source Stone.
The two plunge together into the Black Teeth Gorge, face an ancient ferocious serpent whose claws rend mountains and rivers, and touch the remains of King Yu’s Nine Cauldrons in the abyss of countless bones...
Fragments of the Water-Quelling Art, the radiance of dragon veins, and the Abyssal Filth Source Marrow.
Three forces that both sustain and counter one another clash within Chen Jiu. Will he explode and die, or command the power to slay gods?
Solve cases and uncover secrets, turning the Divine Capital’s sinister schemes upside down!
Make his body a vessel and hold back the Abyssal Ruins from bringing down the heavens!
In this dark age, where immortals and mortals grind against each other and mighty players move their pieces, watch as the humble clerk Chen Jiu...
uses his streetwise cunning to unravel a shocking mystery
