Du Ming, an apprentice at a medicine shop in a border town, has been able to understand the speech of every beast since childhood, but people regard him as a freak. When a devastating wave of beasts sweeps over Qingshi City, he saves a wounded nine-tailed fox cub named Xiao Jiu and forms a spirit pact with it, setting foot on the path of beast mastery. Ma Yutong, daughter of the Marquis of Zhenbei, has washed up here by chance. Bearing a deep blood feud and the bloodline of the White Tiger, she joins Du Ming in defending the city and forges a bond with him amid the bloody battle.
The two head for the Imperial Capital's Tiance Bureau, where they meet Shi Gandang, as steady and honest as a mountain; Su Wan'er, kindhearted and skilled in medicine; and Lu Li, who comes and goes like a shadow. The five swear an oath of brotherhood in blood, and from then on share life and death. They brave secret realms, pacify the Northern Di, defeat the Jiuli, and subdue Chiyou, turning the tide amid the collapse of the Great Xia Dynasty. When the legacies of the Five Sacred Beasts descend, Du Ming awakens the Qilin bloodline and uses the Classic of Mountains and Seas to divine the secrets of heaven. Leading his five-person team through one battle after another, he grows from a boy in a border town into a guardian of the Nine Provinces.
Yet the chaos is not over. The remnants of the Jiuli remain, murderous threats lurk on distant immortal islands, rifts in the heavens gape open, and the void corrodes the world's very roots. United with myriad beasts in the Divine Beast Realm, the five finally journey to the heart of the world, mending the mountains and seas with their flesh and souls.
Bound by the mountains and seas, fighting side by side with myriad beasts. This is a story about protection: protecting a city, a people, a world, and the ones held dear. Even when the whole world calls you a freak, you must still reach out to the weak. As long as the mountains and seas endure, so will my heart.
