Slaying Demons Among Mortals

The Divine Zhou Empire, fourth year of Qianwu.

Years of calamity and turmoil had ravaged the land—drought in the north, invasion from southern tribes, chaos reigned supreme. People turned to cannibalism, white bones piled on the roads, and the stench of death filled the air.

Northwest Province of the Empire, at the foot of Crane Mountain in Yingzhou.

Ling Chi slowly opened his eyes. Darkness enveloped him; he could not see his own hand before his face.

"Wasn’t I hit by a Tomahawk missile on that yacht, killed in the explosion? Why am I alive again? Where is this place?" Ling Chi was filled with questions as he tried to sit up.

Bang!

His head struck the wooden board above and he fell back down.

Just as he was about to move again, a wave of dizziness swept over him, the world went black, and a torrent of fragmented memories, tinged with an electric numbness, surged from his nervous system into the depths of his mind.

It took Ling Chi a long while to piece together these scattered memories. The boy was twelve years old, also named Ling Chi, from Ling Family Village in He County, Yingzhou. The village had been raided by mounted bandits. Over a hundred households were slaughtered. His parents and siblings were all killed. Ling Chi himself, out tending sheep, was whipped by the bandits and then, as a cruel jest, buried alive in this abandoned tomb, the coffin lid nailed shut.

He could now confirm he had transmigrated—come to a world resembling the ancient past, a world of martial arts, monsters, and spiritual ener