Pact of Ashes

A boy crawls out of the ashes, carrying a battered pendant tougher than his own life, and a strange shadow beast that loves to eat ore and sometimes tries to devour his soul.

This is a world overrun by magical beasts, where contracts reign supreme. Genius beast tamers soar through the skies, summoning thunder and fire with a wave of their hands. Lin Jin, meanwhile, is just a good-for-nothing with “blocked soul meridians” in the Flowing Flame Society of Blackrock City. His daily work consists of shoveling manure, chopping fodder, and getting chewed out.

Then one day, a powerful enemy catches up with him and crushes the last place he can call home. In his moment of despair, the pendant grows hot and the shadows boil. The life-bond contract he makes with the mysterious shadow beast becomes his only stake, burning with his last hope.

From then on, the doors of the beast tamers’ world open to him, but they also lead him into an even deeper mystery:

The Azure Thunder Dragonhawk incident that claimed his parents’ lives is connected to a terrifying shadow known as the Spirit Coffin Hall;

The ancient legacy, The Origin Codex of All Things, chooses him, but also brings the “Void” gaze that watches this world;

From the Flowing Flame Society to the Hundred Beasts Academy, from a border alliance to the world-renowned Palace of All Things, he gathers a group of friends who are the least reliable and yet somehow dependable: a gentle healer whose alchemy furnace is always exploding, a blunt blacksmith who loves to swear, and a troublesome young lady who keeps trying to saddle him with “family responsibilities”…

The road to revenge is also a road to salvation. Lin Jin gradually realizes that he must fight not only his old enemies, but the ultimate fate looming over the entire world, bent on devouring all things.

“They say that those who walk with shadows will eventually be swallowed by darkness.”