The Tyrant's Spear

The Tyrant's Spear is a long fantasy web novel written by Yu Yunfei (who describes himself as a "science and engineering student by training"). He began writing in 2002 and completed the manuscript in November 2003. The book runs to thirteen volumes and nearly 900,000 characters, and was first published in Taiwan by Xianxian Culture under the Xianwang imprint as a series of separate physical volumes; in mainland China it circulated mainly as a carefully proofread electronic edition online. The story takes place in a fantasy world called Yunfei Continent. The protagonist, Jeff Yunfield, carries the blood of three races—human, minotaur, and fairy—and is the son of Dax, king of the minotaurs. He loses his father in childhood, his mother disappears, and his sweetheart in the village is abducted; to pursue her he retreats into the Asura Realm to train in "bloodthirsty battle aura." After returning to the continent he first subdues Li, a magic dragon able to take the form of a young girl, then kills a holy knight by surprise attack, wipes out the Magic Rock Bandits, repels an invading army from the Kingdom of Lyka by stratagem, and rescues a fairy princess. Thereafter he goes into hiding under the name "Jett Lallo" and joins the Likanan army, rising to lieutenant general through battlefield merit and commanding a private brigade. Drawn into the power struggles of Likanan's upper ranks, he forms complicated relationships with Mona, Liya, Xilu, and others, and through a succession of battles, flights, and conspiracies gradually approaches the position of "tyrant." The book is built around war, intrigue, and the coexistence of many races, and uses exaggerated wish-fulfillment and a light comic touch to tell how a "tyrant who is not a tyrant" becomes the uncrowned king of the continent. In a postscript he wrote himself, the author states that the whole book took one year and four months to write, and that he wanted to give readers a happy ending with "a proper beginning and end." This entry covers the complete edition of this work, not Gu Long's wuxia novel of the same title, The Tyrant's Spear.