When Lin Mo's Taotie mark first awakened, he thought it was just a game of survival. But after devouring an adjudicator of the Purification Society, he saw countless lives being cleansed by fire in the fragments of the man's memories. Only then did he understand: in this world eroded by the Dark Tide, survival of the fittest was merely a facade. The real war had begun billions of years ago.
From fugitive in Iron Curtain City to founder of the Taotie Alliance, Lin Mo is no longer alone on his path of devouring. A lame mechanic forges weapons from Dark Tide crystals, an exiled saintess can foresee the Tide's fluctuations, and a smiling young assassin carries the soul of an ancient ferocious beast within him. Each joins this rebel alliance led by a “Devourer” with their own motives, unaware that every time Lin Mo devours someone, he must endure a flood of memories. The cries of those he has consumed are slowly piecing together the truth about the Dark Tide.
The Purification Society's White Flame sees him as a blasphemer, the Merchant Alliance's puppet master wants to turn him into a collectible, and an ancient being sleeping in the depths of the Dark Tide calls him the “Last Watcher.” When Lin Mo discovers that the Taotie Seal was meant not to devour, but to contain, he must make a choice: keep expanding his power and fighting for supremacy, or gather the memory fragments of all those he has consumed and complete the salvation left unfinished by an ancient civilization?
Every world devoured by the Dark Tide gives birth to a Taotie Lord. But this time, Lin Mo will be no devourer. He will be the one to end it all.
