They called him then-piercing Spear. A martial prodigy like no other, born in the turbulent central plains of the Nine Nations, where power dictated life and death, and destiny bent to those who could bend it back. At just twenty-two, he became a Martial Master—a feat considered impossible for anyone under forty. By then, his name, Jin Long, echoed from one end of the continent to the other.
He was the rising star of the Jin Clan, the most powerful martial family in the central plains. With thousands of disciples under its command, hundreds of elders, and holdings spread across all Nine Nations, the Jin were unmatched. And Jin Long, the direct heir, was destined to ascend as the next patriarch.
But destiny is a cruel mistress.
His rise had not been easy. From a young age, Jin Long's talent made him both revered and envied. He had trained under the clan's most powerful elders, spent years in seclusion breaking through mortal limits, and shed more blood than most would in a dozen lifetimes.
But his cultivation was not the only thing that defined him. In the Garden of Falling Petals, he met her.
Li Xue.
A lone flower blooming on a mountain of corpses. She was beautiful, quiet, and deadly. A prodigy of the Ice Phoenix Sect, her blade was known to freeze blood in its veins. Yet, to Jin Long, she was warmth in a world grown cold. They fought side by side during the Eastern Incursion, when the Beasts of the Abyss tore through the capital. They bled together, lived for each other—and, perhaps foolishly, dreamed of a future.
They had even spoken of leaving it all behind. The bloodline politics, the sect rivalries, the endless thirst for power. They'd go somewhere far, somewhere peaceful. A dream, naïve and fragile.
And dreams, in their world, did not survive.
The fall began with whispers. A missing elder. A broken alliance. Poisoned grain in the outer cities. Slowly, the clan turned against itself. The elders whispered that Jin Long was growing too powerful. That he would break the old traditions. That he was more loyal to his sword and his woman than to the Jin name.
His father, Jin Tian, once the pride of the clan, had long been pushed to the sidelines. They had branded him a dreamer, a man too kind for a world that devoured kindness. Jin Long had become their new obsession—and their new fear.
He should have seen it coming.
On the eve of his coronation, when the seven great clan lords gathered at the Grand Celestial Hall, Jin Long drank the ceremonial tea and offered his oath.
He collapsed before he could finish his vow.
A slow poison. Refined over decades. Designed to weaken his spirit veins while keeping his body alive so his enemies could strip his cultivation and humiliate him before killing him.
It was his uncle, Jin Wuye, who leaned in and whispered into his ear as he lay paralyzed on the floor.
"You should have left when you had the chance."
Then came the blade. But it wasn't Wuye who delivered the strike.
It was Li Xue.
Her eyes were devoid of emotion as she pressed the ice-cold dagger into his chest. Her lips trembled with a thousand unspoken regrets.
"You were supposed to run," she whispered.
And then the world went dark.
There was no funeral. No monument. The Jin Clan erased him from their records. A generation's brightest light, snuffed out like a candle in a storm.
But Jin Long did not pass quietly.
Even as his soul left his body, something—some force—grabbed hold of it. Tore it from the spirit realm. Spun it through realms of darkness and light, time and space, agony and rebirth.
And then—
"Clear! We're losing him!"
The voice was unfamiliar.
A blinding light scorched his eyes. He felt heavy. Cold. Wet. A world of strange smells and machines he did not understand.
His last memory was of a dagger in his heart.
His first new one was of a hospital bed, a screeching monitor, and a woman in a nurse's gown yelling over him.
"He's stabilizing. Get Mr. Grant on the phone. His grandson is awake."
Thus began the second life of Jin Long.
Gone were the mountains and rivers of the central plains. In their place were steel towers, glowing screens, and a new battlefield—a world ruled not by cultivation, but by wealth.
His name now was Lucas Grant, age 14. Sophomore at one of America's most elite private academies. Grandson of industrial tycoon Maxwell Grant.
His new father? The black sheep of the family. His enemies? Uncles and cousins in suits instead of robes.
But the game had not changed. Not truly.
The strong still trampled the weak. The cunning still reaped the rewards.
And Jin Long, now Lucas Grant, had no intention of staying weak.