Chen Fan never imagined that the hands he used to scrape scales, gut fish, and remove bones would one day dissect a god.
Amid the bustle of the East City market, he was the most inconspicuous person there. An old knife he had used for ten years and the fish stink that clung to him made up his entire life. He was content with his ordinary existence, until a “deep-sea behemoth” dragged ashore shattered its quiet. It looked less like a fish than a nightmare stitched together from countless vengeful souls and chunks of flesh.
While everyone else kept their distance, only Chen Ping heard a primeval melody of hunger inside the mutated monster, a tune no one else could hear. As if in a trance, he tightened his grip on the knife. Its edge cut through no flesh, but the veil between reality and madness. The world's true texture, cold and slick, writhing and yearning beyond comprehension, flowed along the blade and into his soul.
He awakened as a “Kindler,” one who could wield forbidden power. Only then did he understand that the city beneath his feet was merely the fragile shell of “surface reality.” Beneath that shell, a chaotic dimension called the “Turbid Sea” was constantly seeping through, corrupting everything. The mutant creatures he had treated as “ingredients” were the vanguard of a cosmic catastrophe.
His “Art of Butchering an Ox” had become the only way to fight this force. Every swing of his knife was both purification and plunder. From the most frenzied flesh, he could precisely carve out pure energy.
