Slaying Immortals

Slaying Immortals is a long classical xianxia novel by Xiao Ding, written after his Zhu Xian. It began exclusive serialization on Zongheng Chinese Network on May 15, 2014; the online edition runs to 859 chapters and roughly 2.64 million characters, and Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House issued a print edition in 2017. Set in the same world as Zhu Xian, it is regarded as its companion volume. The story begins in the Primordial World. The Heavenly Demon Court, which once ruled the realms, is history: ten thousand years ago, to block the human pursuit, the demon race cast a secret art that turned the only passage into the demon realm into the Yin Sha Dead Sea, sealing themselves away. In the 10,766th year of the Human Calendar, human cultivation is at its height, yet many lurking alien races are stirring in secret. An ordinary youth, Shen Shi, has practiced talisman drawing since childhood, mastering the ten talismans of yin-yang and the five elements and honing an eye for treasures; leaving home for the path of the sect, he is swept into a torrent where talisman cultivation, family secrets, and sect strife intertwine, and amid the entanglements of humans and alien races he is gradually pushed to the center of his race's fate. The novel continues Xiao Ding's gift for suspenseful buildup and grand scenes, threading the coming-of-age line of "a nobody enters the immortal gate" through sect resource struggles, secret-realm trials, and life-and-death gambles, portraying the cruel survival rules of the cultivation world and the light and dark of human nature. The book opens with "Drunken Flower Carving"; the serialized version builds its world in three volumes, while the print edition was reorganized into twenty-nine chapters.