Western fantasy + game transmigration + ensemble epic + multi-faction power struggles + defying fate + satisfying institutional reform + the Eighth Law + love and vengeance for country and family
Ding Huan once played an obscure Western fantasy strategy game called Shattered Star Nations.
In the game, seven factions vied for the First Star, but every route ended in failure: the Inquisitor was destroyed by the law, the Memory Merchant sold the truth, the young king without a kingdom died trapped in his royal tomb, the Northern War King slaughtered entire cities, the Queen of Life swallowed cities whole, the Pirate Queen was destined to betray everyone, and the Needleless sacrificed themselves again and again, only to bring about an even worse future.
Then Ding Huan awoke in the body of Dane Hoven, a junior recorder in the Bell Tower Sanctuary.
A death record lay before him.
The deceased was Dane Hoven.
The person confirming the death was also Dane Hoven.
The Bell Tower told him this was the thirteenth failed future. Banner City was doomed to fall, unregistered children had to be sacrificed, and the fate of the Seven Kingdoms could not be changed.
But when Ding Huan opened the files, he saw only one abbreviation, repeatedly crossed out:
D.H.
Dane Hoven.
Ding Huan.
From that moment on, he was no longer just a player.
In an ending everyone had accepted as a failure, he would save the people written off as “necessary sacrifices.”
Fate wanted him to clear the game.
He would establish the Eighth Law instead.
