This is a parallel world where martial arts and technology advance side by side.
Three thousand years ago, humanity discovered the life energy known as qi, ushering in the era of martial arts. The strongest could move mountains and fill seas, while sects stood above nations. Five hundred years ago, a relic of a higher-dimensional civilization, the Heavenly Fall, descended upon the land. From it came artificial intelligence, nanomachines, and energy weapons. Two systems of power that should never have intersected were forcibly fused together.
Chen Shang is a scavenger boy from the Rust Belt of the Eastern Domain. With blocked meridians and no sense for qi, he makes a living picking through scrap with the broken mechanical glove his father left him.
Then a black chip from deep within the relic burrowed into his brain.
“Combat assistance System ‘Zero’ activated. Current version: V0.1. Host’s current dodge success rate: 12%. Assessment: abysmal.”
The AI’s precise predictions, combined with the one thing the boy with the useless body has going for him, his will to survive. When everyone thinks he’s an insignificant bug, he uses a 0.3-second prediction to take down his first enemy.
Deep within the relic, a consciousness that has slept for five hundred years is waiting for him. Behind the Iron Hand Society, the Reapers’ agents on Earth are stirring. The truth behind his father’s murder is hidden in a glove engraved with the words: “Third layer. Don’t go.”
Humanity has spent a thousand years walking two paths: martial arts and technology. But the path he must take has never been walked before:
The third path.
