The Twenty Devas

The Twenty Devas is a long wuxia novel by the web author Yunwaishan, roughly 1.17 million characters in length and completed. The title comes from the Buddhist term "twenty devas," the twenty guardian deities in Buddhist texts: Mahabrahma, Indra, Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka, Virupaksa, Vajrapani, Mahesvara, Samjneya, Sarasvati, Sri Mahadevi, Skanda, Prthivi, the Bodhi Tree Spirit, Hariti, Marici, the Moon Deity, the Sun Deity, Sagara, and Yama. In the book these twenty devas are transformed into a peerless martial legacy of "heaven beyond heaven, mountain beyond mountain"—twenty famed swords engraved on the sword wall of the Lotus Terrace at Yunlin Palace on Xueyue Peak of Mount Kunlun, also a metaphor for the world's master swordsmen. This "Kunlun" is not in the Western Regions but hidden in a mountain within the state of Yan that the world can scarcely find; its master, known in the martial world as the "Ancient Wall Immortal," is famed for the "Lanhuan Finger Seal" and "Lanhuan Zhiyin." The novel sets its story in the turbulent era around the Eastern Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms, roughly 300 CE. The Jin house was in decline and warlords rose on all sides; in the north there appeared successively the Xiongnu Han state, the Di-founded Cheng, and later Zhao, Qin, Dai, Liang, and Yan. The Murong clan of Liaodong was initially weak, surpassed by the kindred Yuwen and Duan tribes and by Goguryeo to the southeast; Cui Bi, the Jin-appointed governor of Pingzhou and commander of the Eastern Yi in Liaodong, bore a grudge against the Murong and allied the three powers' armies to carve up their territory. The book follows two youths, Murong Yan and Murong Yuanzhen, who take up swords in Liaodong and pacify Yan and Dai; on the surface it depicts martial feuds and swordsman legends, while beneath runs the contest to unify four states and rally the feudal lords, with steppe maneuverings, the rise and fall of cities, and human loves and hatreds. The whole is divided into sections including "Dragon Song in the Box," "The Upper Sword Is Like Water," "The High Goose and the Hidden Dragon," and "The Yan State's Steady Advance."