Undying Martial Emperor

Undying Martial Emperor is an Eastern fantasy novel by the web author An Qi Ye, serialized on Tencent Literature's Chuangshi Chinese Network from April 2014 and completed around June 2016, with 1,773 chapters in all and about 5.34 million characters. The story begins on the Qingyun Continent: the protagonist Hong Yu is a branch-family youth of the Hong family in Shishui City who, in protecting his sister Yun Mengyao, offends the main family line and is treated with contempt everywhere. By chance he activates the hidden Xuantian Tower within him, in which sleeps a tiny creature calling itself the "Tower God," and from then on, under the Tower God's guidance, he cultivates medicine refining and tempers body and soul, his cultivation advancing by leaps and bounds. The first half of the novel centers on the family's rise: Hong Yu becomes an underground alliance hunter, trading dangerous missions for cultivation resources, defeats Hong Yan, slays the Crimson Yin Venom Scorpion, wins the Huan Yin Grass, and gradually establishes himself in Shishui City. In the middle section he represents the Qin Kingdom at the Southern Ten-Kingdom Alliance martial tournament, befriends Beichen Tianshuang, Feng Xuexin, and others, defeats strong foes such as Prince Zhu Yue and Hong Renjie, and makes a great name for himself; he is then drawn into upheaval at the Qingming Sword Sect, and to save his master and loved ones embarks on a long struggle with the Blood Demon Palace and the Holy Demon Hall, with episodes including the battle of Guiyuan Sect, the bloodbath at the Lion-Tiger Garden, and the exploration of the Fallen Dragon Pool following one after another. In the later stage the map expands to the cosmic starry sky: Hong Yu joins the Heavenly Dao Alliance and uncovers the mystery of his origins, founds the Hong Alliance to rally hidden masters, and lives through such great events as the opening of the Ancestral Dragon Tomb, the wars of the Four Ancient Kingdoms, and the revival of the gods, breaking through to Supreme and Holy Ancestor and confronting the ultimate conflict between the Heavenly Dao and the Eight Great Gods, until the final battle at the Ancient God City brings the story to its conclusion. The cultivation system is strictly tiered, progressing from essence, earth soul, heaven soul, primordial core, primordial embryo, primordial spirit, yin-yang, and profound meaning to Supreme and Holy Master and the gods; settings such as the Xuantian Tower, the Star River Spirit Bone, and the Six Paths of Reincarnation run throughout—a typical leveling fantasy of "trash rises to the top + tower-spirit cheat + war across ten thousand realms."