Han Feng, Sword Sovereign

The world is a chessboard, and I alone hold the pieces.

Three hundred years after Han Feng, the Third Sword Venerable of the Immortal Realm, fell, he is reborn as a wastrel heir in the lower realm. A damaged Hongmeng Sword, a space that accelerates time a hundredfold, and an innate Dao body: all are his stepping stones back to the summit.

He wears the wastrel’s image as armor and wields cunning as his blade, laying plans amid the dynasty’s secret power struggles and making his moves in the turbulent world of cultivation. He gathers hidden agents, takes control of sects, unifies three thousand lower realms, and defies the heavens to ascend to immortality.

Then his old enemies from the Immortal Realm reappear, the dark secrets of the Divine Realm come to light, and the truth behind the cataclysmic tribulation of the era overturns everything he thought he knew: even Immortal Venerables are puppets, and the Divine Domain has long been part of the game.

In this life, he will not only cut down every enemy from his past. He will become the sword itself and shatter the Hongmeng cage that binds all living beings!

(A strategy-focused xianxia tale. The protagonist stays sharp throughout, and the worldbuilding is full of twists.)