A hundred years after the founding of the Great Yong dynasty, the imperial court was roiling with hidden currents of power.
A century earlier, during the Jingwu upheaval, the imperial family slaughtered the martial world's masters and secretly supported the seven great sects to rule the jianghu.
The sects appeared to be reputable schools governing the martial world together, but each concealed private ambitions. The court had planted spies among them all, keeping them firmly under imperial control.
Shen Yanzhi, the legitimate son of the Qingyun Sect, grew up beneath the glory of the orthodox path and believed deeply in chivalry and justice.
But after one upheaval in the jianghu after another, he tore away his sect's hypocritical mask and uncovered a century-old secret soaked in blood, left behind by the previous generation.
He also learned that his own origins were part of a carefully planned deception and atonement.
Su Wangyan, a menial servant in the Netherworld Valley, was born in a sinister, unorthodox valley and endured scorn and abuse.
Bearing a blood feud and the fate of a remnant of the previous dynasty, he wielded forbidden arts and walked the line between orthodox and unorthodox.
The world cursed him for his unorthodox origins and ruthless methods, never realizing that he was the one abandoned by his era.
Xie Qinghan, a royal secret agent disguised as a man, went undercover in a prestigious sect with orders to watch over the martial world.
Raised and conditioned by the imperial court from childhood, she was cold-hearted and detached, moving among schemes and calculations.
When her true identity was revealed, loyalty and affection were torn apart, leaving her the most tragic pawn in the imperial power struggle.
The seven sects fell into turmoil, the court plotted and schemed, old grudges remained buried, and conspiracies closed in from every side.
The fates of the three crossed, taking them from suspicion as strangers to standing side by side.
Prestigious sects hid corruption, imperial power devoured its own, and there was no true boundary between orthodox and unorthodox. Good and evil alike came from the human heart.
A century-old injustice still awaited redress, while the jianghu and imperial power were locked in a struggle to the death.
Everyone was trapped by fate, obsession, hatred, and allegiance.
No matter how peerless one's martial arts, one could not break free of the world's game of strategy or withstand the shifting tides of a chaotic age.
There has never been a truly righteous path in this jianghu, only people with no choice in their fate.
