by Greenlotuss
Born in the impoverished, ash-strewn village of Black Cloud Pass, Lin Xiao is a frail youth whose family lives on the lowest tier of the Jianghu. His father is a crippled blacksmith with a muted past, and his mother died of a mystery ailment when Xiao was young. Xiao possesses no innate "Aura Veins"—the fundamental requirement to cultivate Martial Dao—and is mocked as a dead-end mortal destined to live and die in the mud. However, Lin Xiao harbors a deadly secret: he can perceive the "Lines of Fate" woven by the Heavens that dictate every living being's life, death, and luck. When a corrupt local sect razes his village to seize an ancient heirloom disguised as his father's rusted hammer, his father sacrifices himself, revealing with his dying breath that their lineage is not mortal—they are the last descendants of the Empyrean Erasers, a forbidden clan wiped out by the Heavens themselves for mastering the art of Severing Destiny. Driven by grief and defiance, Lin Xiao takes up his father’s rusted hammer and embarks on a blood-soaked path. He refuses to submit to the "Will of Heaven" or the tyrannical Orthodox Sects that enforce its divine order. Through brutal grit, ancient lost arts, and sheer force of will, he forging his own path—rewriting his fate, severing the chains of destiny, and ultimately raising his hammer against the Heavens themselves.
