Beheading Immortals

Beheading Immortals is a xianxia cultivation novel by the web author Ren Yuan, serialized on Qidian from September 2011. It runs about 2.8 million characters, with the main text completed at 1,330 chapters. The protagonist, Yang Chen, was a Great Luo Golden Immortal in his past life who treated others with kindness, yet was bullied his whole life for yielding again and again. Reborn into his boyhood, before he formally begins cultivation, he resolves to take a different path; not to be a good man, but to be the blade of Heaven's Way. When the Heavenly Court falls into catastrophe, Yang Chen is chosen by the mortal realm to take charge of the Immortal-Beheading Platform. As an executioner, he settles scores with his ghost-head saber, extracts secrets from condemned prisoners, and accumulates heavenly merit. Endowed with an innate fire spiritual root and acquired spiritual roots fully aligned with yin-yang and the five elements, he rejoins the Chunyang Palace to study under Gao Yue, advancing in both alchemy and cultivation. The story advances along the thread of "beheading": beheading humans in the human realm, demons in the demon realm, devils in the devil realm, and immortals in the immortal realm. As Yang Chen rebuilds order, he forms bonds with Shi Shanshan, Sun Qingxue, Gongshu Ling, and others, and subdues demon disciples such as Xie Sha and She Kui; the growth of his power is always tied to the Immortal-Beheading Platform. Told through rebirth and revenge, the work shows how an oppressed man gradually rewrites his fate through the power of killing, the way of alchemy, and the foundation of a sect. It is a typical long-form xianxia novel in the "thrill-driven" mode.