On the executioner's platform, an ancient scroll awakens. The bloodline of Yu the Great, long sealed away, leaves its bearer with only three years to live. Gather the Nine Cauldrons of the Nine Provinces and break the curse of gods and demons. But across the three realms of Mountains and Seas, the gods and demons have already placed their pieces everywhere. Every step toward survival must be paid for with human lives.
Seventeen-year-old Jiang Li is an ordinary young hunter from the Abandoned Lands.
After his family is slaughtered, he is dragged to the execution ground. As the executioner's blade falls, the fragment of the Classic of Mountains and Seas tucked against his chest shines with golden light. His identity as a direct descendant of Yu the Great is revealed, along with a cruel truth:
His birth father is imprisoned, and his adoptive father has been captured. The ancestral blood within him is sealed behind nine layers. If he cannot break the seals before turning twenty, he will die. His only chance is to gather the fragments of the Nine Cauldrons scattered across the three realms. Meanwhile, the nine gods and demons sealed underground by Yu the Great are stirring, and their pieces are already scattered throughout the world of Mountains and Seas.
The boy who walks away from the execution ground enters a cruel world where spiritual energy reigns supreme. He joins the Lingshan Sect, starting as a lowly outer-sect servant. Though he appears to be a hopeless cultivator, he secretly works to break the seals on his bloodline. He risks his life for a fragment in the Leize Secret Realm, infiltrates the Fire God's Visualization Hall to rescue his adoptive father, and later finds his birth father in the forbidden grounds of the Xuanyuan Sect.
Yet every time he unlocks more of his bloodline, the price grows steeper.
The sect leader who guided him blows up his visualization diagram to cover his escape.
His adoptive father breathes his last in Jiang Li's arms.
After passing his inheritance blood to Jiang Li, his birth father dies alongside his enemies.
Jiang Li grows stronger step by step, while losing every form of protection along the way.
“Every time you grow stronger, someone else makes a sacrifice for you.”
And when he finally stands before the nine gods and demons, he discovers that the true enemy lies beyond that sea of chaos...
