On the day I failed the college entrance exam, I swallowed a mysterious bead.
From then on, the world changed completely before my eyes. I could see drifting ghosts, hear buildings “breathe,” and even catch a faint, fishy odor coming from the “people” around me.
They called me a “monster,” treating me as an outsider. They feared and shunned me.
It wasn't until that night, when the apparition of a girl in red murmured in the old school building and the city's ley lines began to tremble, that I learned the truth: I had swallowed the demon core shed by the ancient divine beast Xuanwu as it lay dying.
My blood was awakening things that had slumbered for countless ages, things that should never have existed in this world.
To protect myself, I was forced to step into a bizarre world of cultivation, where the strong prey on the weak and magic and schemes go hand in hand.
But I soon discovered that the crises in the two worlds were connected. The “anomalous events” appearing one after another in the modern world all traced back to a shocking conspiracy that had been brewing in the cultivation world for ten thousand years.
An ancient being calling itself Murong Yuan had cast its shadow over both worlds. It wanted more than power in the cultivation world: it meant to turn the Blue Star I called home into a blood-soaked sacrificial altar for its return!
So in the real world, I took the name “Xuanwu Squad,” suppressing evil spirits and protecting the land, while hiding from my former classmates and family the fact that I could tear open space with my bare hands.
People ask me what I want out of it.
Immortality? Invincibility?
I look at the comrades who trust me, the lights of home waiting for my return, and the girl I first met in the library, who knows I'm no ordinary person yet still holds my hand tight.
My path has never lain beyond the heavens.
My path is right here, amid the warmth and bustle of the human world.
