In the first year of the Jingkang Era, the Star of Literary Fortune split apart, and a demonic star fell from the heavens, bringing calamity to the Northern Song. The Ziwei Palace in Bianjing drained years from the people to refine Star-Locking Paste, while the Jin cavalry rode the star's disasters south. Shen Yuan, the son of a merchant, salvaged a bronze casket from a sunken ship in Taihu Lake. A purple mark that devoured starlight suddenly appeared on his right arm, and the Imperial Astronomical Bureau branded him the world-ending calamity, the "Star Eater." As his blood relatives lay dead along the road, he fled for his life, carrying their final charge: "Destroy Ziwei."
Along the way, he formed bonds with Luo Li of the Heluo Academy, who drew on the light of the Star of Literary Fortune to burn demons at the cost of injuring herself; Yue Yun of the Yue Family Army, whose body was bound in chains of the Broken Army Star, shattering banners and bones; and Qin Wuyi, a lone girl from a poor family whose star-shaped birthmark at her throat burned in unison with his bloodline. When Jin shamans used blood magic to refine the lives of a million people in Bianjing, and the lord of Ziwei Palace gouged out the Imperial Star to forge an armillary sphere, Shen Yuan glimpsed a prophecy on the Three Lives Stone in the Star Ruins: "The Star Eater will swallow the kingdom. Only gouging out its heart can end it." He smashed the bronze casket, revealing the skull of the First Dao Pivot, and roared, "The Ninefold Star Core belongs in Bianliang, where corpses blanket the land! In Taiyuan, where people eat their own children! In the spines of millions who refuse to kneel!"
In the final battle, Yue Yun broke his chains and raised the banner, Luo Li burned away her life to write a talisman with the Star of Literary Fortune, and Qin Wuyi transformed into a Shura and set the fleet ablaze. Shen Yuan reforged the Heavenly Dao with the fire of his gouged-out heart, summoned the heart-lamps of the people to mend the rift in the sky, and sailed a star raft into the Guixu. In the reborn land, the star-tax registers were burned on Vermilion Bird Street, Ziwei Palace became a school for cultivating talent, and a wordless heart stele stood atop Star Pivot Peak, reflecting farmers in the starfields, children in classrooms, and sails bound for distant shores. As star-rain fell, the broken casket surfaced in the Reflection Pool: "From this day on, my life is the North Star. I bow not to Heaven, but to the people."
