In the Realm of Canghen, everyone is born with a “fate mark” on their forehead, and everyone believes it's a gift.
No one tells them the truth: the fate mark is a harvesting contract branded by Heaven's Will. The deeper you cultivate, the more completely your soul is drained after death and forged into a heavenly puppet that carries out Heaven's Will. The realm's countless sects and powerful cultivators are nothing but carefully managed pastures, and their keeper is called the Markbearer.
Xiao Shou was born with a “blank fate mark,” unable to draw in even a trace of mark power. His family bound him to an altar as a useless offering to the sect.
But because there was nothing on his forehead, the Heavenly Law couldn't mark him.
He is the only free man in this world who can personally kill the harvesters.
At the sacrificial rite, he turns on the officiating steward, cuts him down, and walks out of the Xiao household with his younger sister.
Deep in a mine, he saves an iron slave whose fate mark has been taken and takes in a Saintess who fled her sect.
A traitor who calculates Heaven's Will arrives with a loophole in the contract. And so the Alliance to Shatter the Wall is born.
“Heaven's Law uses fate marks as contracts. You've spent your whole lives kneeling, but what you've been kneeling to is your own grave.”
Xiao Shou grips the blade made to cut down Heaven. In this life, he has only one thing to do: tear down the sign above this pasture and let the people of Canghen be free again.
[Decisive and ruthless · The System only hands him a blade · Ensemble cast · A fresh take on fantasy]
The good-for-nothing isn't truly weak. He's a free man the System can't identify.
