The blood moon looms overhead, and the dynasty's prophecy foretells its downfall. Yun Yi, the son of an herb farmer, imprints a mysterious dragon-scale mark upon himself at the brink of despair and enters the Qinglan Sect, carrying out his father's dying command. His arrival triggers an Azure Dragon apparition that shakes the sect, but also earns him the jealousy of his senior brother and the murderous attention of Imperial Preceptor Yuwen Hong.
Ancient sect records and his father's keepsake uncover a blood feud dating back a thousand years, when the Four Symbols Sect was destroyed. The culprits turn out to be the Great Zhou imperial family! Yun Yi possesses the Azure Dragon Art and the power of the dragon scales, yet a strange shackle torments him, and he is branded a traitor. At the moment of peril, Elder Mo Yanqiu, guardian of the library pavilion, protects him with his life and reveals a shocking secret: Liu Yao, whose feelings for him have begun to grow, is a "vessel" cultivated by the Imperial Preceptor, with the polluted true blood of the Vermilion Bird imprisoned inside her!
Seeking a way to survive and uncover the truth, Yun Yi carries the gravely wounded and unconscious Liu Yao into the perilous Dragonfall Abyss. At the Four Symbols ruins, the remnant soul of the Azure Dragon weeps as it recounts the blood feud. Before the Vermilion Bird Hall, the Imperial Preceptor's scheme is laid bare. His beloved becomes a pawn, his mentor dies in a pool of blood, and the out-of-control vengeful spirit of the Vermilion Bird burns the heavens and lays waste to the earth... With his dragon scales stained in blood, Yun Yi clutches the ancient Xuanwu Ruler that Elder Mo traded his life to give him, carries the dying words "Find the White Tiger," and flees for his life as space crumbles around him.
An inscrutable guide lies ahead, while the entire nation hunts him from behind. For the shackled dragon-blooded heir and the Vermilion Bird's daughter trapped in a cage, is their flight a dead end, or a chance to defy fate and be reborn? A storm of god-slaying that will shake the very foundations of the dynasty has begun!
