Chronicles of the Mystic Ruins

Ten years of forced labor on the frontier. When he returns, his entire family has been reduced to ashes. Lin Yan, the abandoned son of the Lin family of Qingshi City, struggled to survive for ten years in the Great Wasteland, a land of death. He thought he was destined to live like a blade of grass, crushed beneath an ant's foot, until the nine-aperture black cauldron deep in his dantian awakened. That night, an old soldier with one arm smashed through the temple door, exposing the monstrous conspiracy behind three thousand years of immortal sects sacrificing all living beings in blood rituals: “The Lin bloodline has weakened. In three days, at the martial arena, we'll publicly extract your marrow and strip your bones to offer them to the Sword Sect's killing formation!” Wielding a crude, broken iron saber, he lays waste to Qingshi City and slays every false immortal's lackey. But then he discovers that the so-called righteous immortal sects are nothing but bloodsucking monsters, using the people as dregs for their medicine and all living beings as fuel. The Broken Sword Sect, Penglai Island, the Imperial Capital of the Divine Dynasty, and even the demons beyond the heavens: behind layer upon layer of dark secrets lies a ten-thousand-year fraud, with the land of Shenzhou as its medicine garden and its people as livestock. “You turned the mortal world into a sheep pen and crowned yourselves shepherds?” “Today, I'll tear down your man-eating thieves' den!” From a forced laborer in the Great Wasteland to an Earth Immortal who has transcended mortality, from a single broken saber to the nine cauldrons reunited. Lin Yan bows to no immortal or deity and kneels before no emperor. He meets heavenly tribulations with his supreme physical body and burns false altars to ash with Netherworld Sparrow Flame. He smashes the dragon throne, tears apart the Golden Investiture of the Gods, and seals the rifts in Heaven's Gate. He slaughters the Divine Dynasty, the immortal sects, and the demons from beyond the heavens, all to give the mortal world a clean slate: Everyone cultivates by absorbing qi, and the world no longer serves the gods. When the incense of the people gathers into a canopy, and no immortal clans or imperial rule remain across Shenzhou, Lin Yan carries his broken saber, wears straw sandals, and leads a blue ox deep into the clouds of the Great Wasteland, vanishing from sight. “Before chaos split, the primordial breath already stirred. Sated on clear winds, I tread the mortal world. The nine cauldrons have followed the river moon away; with no immortals in the mortal realm, all ages will know spring.” Highly recommended: the classic, hard-edged xianxia novel Record of the Mystic Ruins, a pinnacle work of the supreme physical cultivation genre!