Above the High Heavens

Above the High Heavens is an epic fantasy novel by Yin Tian Shen Yin, serialized on Qidian from February 16, 2022, and completed in late 2023; it runs to roughly 4.4 million Chinese characters in 1,140 chapters. The story is set in the same world as Eternal Suppression of the Abyss and Soul of Burning Steel: because of the mysterious Calamity of the Fallen Sky, the once-flourishing interstellar civilization of the previous era fell from the stars and returned to dust; the nations of Terra, rising again from the ruins, discover that after hundreds of years there are no longer any stars in the sky. In Terra 766, the reincarnated boy Ian opens his eyes on this world. He comes from the interstellar age, was an engineer in his previous life, and is now a child who has only just recovered his memories at the age of eight, with a younger brother to care for. He possesses a strange gift: he can glimpse others' fortune, judge good and ill, and even look back into the past. With this ability he escapes a murderous plot in which relatives intend to sacrifice him, meets an old knight during his flight, and becomes his apprentice, setting out on the path of Sublimation. Thereafter he analyzes spirit energy, bloodlines, and the relics of the previous era with a scholar's eye, builds up his territory and promotes industry and education as a lord, and amid the rivalries of nations, alien races, and outer gods, step by step accumulates the civilizational foundation needed to "go above the high heavens." This is not merely one man's story of leveling up but the story of a world learning once more to look up at the stars.