Hunting the Kingdom

Hunting the Kingdom is a long novel of otherworldly conquest by the web novelist Tiao Wu (real name Chen Bin). It began serialization on Qidian Chinese Network in November 2009, and in 2010 Taibai Literature and Art Publishing House released it in multiple print volumes. The story is set on a fictional continent where three powers stand in a tripod balance: to the south lies the ancient and mighty Byzantine Empire, to the north the warrior-worshipping Odin Empire, and to the west the island nation of Lantis. On the Wildfire Plains where the three realms meet lives Xia Yaleming, a youth of unknown parentage who was taken in as a child by the "Old Fellow," heir of the Tulip family, and raised in the wilds into a rough, cunning, streetwise "bumpkin." After his adoptive father dies, Xia Ya leaves the backcountry with a good pair of hands and a restless heart, making his way around Wildfire Town. He swindles his first stake out of the mage Duoduo Luo, befriends a motley crew of companions, and is drawn into the whirlpool of local factions, imperial legions, and court intrigue. The Byzantine Lance Emperor and his strategist Kavi Hill are plotting a great gamble of retreating in order to advance and break the warlords; by a twist of fate Xia Ya is pushed onto the board, rising from demon hunter to common soldier to a pivotal figure who shakes the three kingdoms. With black humor and anti-formula writing, the novel depicts a chaotic age of contending heroes, offering both blood-pumping battlefield carnage and treacherous political maneuvering and bizarre adventure. It is one of the most representative long novels of its era's otherworld genre.