In the final years of the Xuanhe era of the Northern Song dynasty, the Heavenly Order fell into disarray, and warfires blazed across the Nine Provinces.
Corrupt officials seized power at court, while greedy officials and cruel functionaries ran rampant across the prefectures and counties. Famine struck year after year, bandits rose in droves, bones lay exposed in the wilderness, and the people were driven from their homes.
The eighteen guardian generals of Lingxiao looked down upon the devastation in the mortal world and could not bear to watch.
Willing to surrender their immortal status of a thousand years, shatter their immortal bones, and descend into the swirling mortal world, they sent their souls into mortal bodies to endure every kind of hardship and uphold Heaven's justice.
Eighteen celestial gods became eighteen common-born heroes, scattered through the countryside amid the chaos.
Farmers, woodcutters, hunters, blacksmiths, wanderers, and drifters... Though humble in origin, they bore the righteous brilliance of heavenly generals in their very bones.
As the chaos closed in, good and evil were utterly turned upside down.
At their leader Li Qingfeng's call, the eighteen heroes chosen by destiny came together as one.
They did not rebel against the court or seek the throne. They only cut down corrupt officials, executed tyrants, crushed bandits, and provided relief to disaster victims, bearing Heaven's tribulation in mortal bodies to bring peace to a corner of the troubled world.
When the land was pacified, the warfires had died away, and the people lived in peace, the eighteen heroes completed their merit and ascended to Lingxiao together on the same day.
Thus began an epic tale of loyalty and righteousness on the loess plains, passed down through the ages.
