He has no heart. His heartbeat is a countdown to the rebirth of civilization.
The aurora tore open the sky. What fell was no meteor, but an infant with a white stone heart embedded in his chest.
Xiao Qi'an, a heartless child adopted by a hermit on the frontier, feels no pain. A flash of white light from him can annihilate all things. To humanity, he is an aberration; beneath the Abyssal Clan's blades, he is prey; and in the Celestial Clan's secret texts, he is the prophesied star of calamity.
But he does not know that the stone heart is the last stellar core left behind after an ancient civilization was destroyed. He does not know that the wars consuming this land, the betrayal of his allies, the sacrifice of his dearest friend, and even the fall of the rulers of the three clans are all part of a brutal experiment spanning the sea of stars. The world he loves, Aurora Star, is merely Prison No. 11 in an experimental facility.
“When the source core merges, the World-Eater arrives.” When the observers' chains pierce the clouds, and his beloved nearly dies merging with the core, turning into stardust, Xiao Qi'an finally tears open his chest and faces the truth:
Either become the fuel that burns through the galaxy, winning civilization a future, or bow down as a slave and watch billions of species fall silent in the ultimate void known as “heat death.”
This is a godslaying war in which every heartbeat is at stake. The epic chronicle of eternal starlight, The Vessel of Destiny, begins!
