Undying Martial Venerable

Undying Martial Venerable is a long Eastern fantasy novel by the web author Yao Yue Ye (real name Cao Bo), serialized on Chuangshi Chinese Network from December 2013 and completed in May 2018. With the main text and extras it runs to roughly 2,240 chapters, about 6.66 million characters in total. The story takes place on the Shenyun Continent, where ten thousand races stand: bodies come in countless forms, and spirit bodies, divine bodies, descendants of gods, and demon clans each display their powers, but among all constitutions the martial soul is supreme. The ten ancient martial souls each dominate their own domain—the Six Paths Martial Soul evolves the six paths, the Life and Death Martial Soul controls life and death, the Heaven-Devouring Martial Soul devours all things, the Sun and Moon Martial Soul pulls the force of sun and moon, and the Life Martial Soul can revive the dead and regrow flesh from bone. The protagonist Xiao Yun has been without his parents since childhood. Although he has awakened a martial soul, his cultivation has long stagnated and his clan regards him as a mediocrity; in truth he carries the Life Martial Soul, one of the ten ancient martial souls. As the Life Martial Soul advances, he can absorb heaven-and-earth essence for his own use and heal wounds and neutralize poisons; relying further on the Heaven-Devouring Divine Art left by his father, he can merge multiple martial souls into one body. From there Xiao Yun defies fate and washes away his former shame, moving from a corner of his clan out into a vaster world. In seeking his father, saving his kin, and fighting powerful enemies on all sides, he keeps raising his realm until he finally condenses an undying body and becomes a "Undying Martial Venerable," dominating the nine heavens and ten earths. The book's main line is inspirational growth, briskly paced—a typical Eastern fantasy leveling-up work; during serialization it set several sales and subscription records on Chuangshi Chinese Network.