Dragon Talisman

Dragon Talisman is a long Eastern fantasy novel by Mengru Shenji, following Star River Emperor and Fist Shakes Mountains and Rivers. It began serialization on Zongheng Chinese Network in late 2015 and concluded in January 2018, running to more than 3.5 million characters. The story takes place on the Endless Continent ruled by the Great Yong Dynasty: the Heaven Talisman Emperor (Gu Taxian) unifies the realm by "running the laws of Heaven on its behalf," builds the Great Wall, moves mountains and rivers, founds schools, and secretly prepares a great upheaval meant to "exterminate all divine religions and let everyone become a god." The protagonist, Gu Chensha, is the nineteenth prince of Great Yong; his mother was a princess sent in a marriage alliance from an enemy state, and after that state fell and his mother died, he was squeezed out at court and could only feign madness to protect himself while secretly studying to build his strength. By chance he obtains the ancient supreme treasure, the Edict for Sacrificing to Heaven, and through it practices the supreme art, the Emperor's Investiture of the Gods. Starting from the mortal realm, he gains power by sacrificing to Heaven and is drawn step by step into a tangled chaos of court factions, jianghu sects, otherworldly immortals, ancient clans, barbarian tribes, demon gods, demon clans, and the ancient shamanic way—hundreds of contending forces. The novel uses the "thirty-six transformations of the Dao realm" as its cultivation hierarchy, weaving together dynastic intrigue, immortal rivalries, and collisions between multiverses. Gu Chensha inherits the Heaven Talisman Emperor's aspiration, gathers "Shenzhou" and the "Four Wastes," transforms them into the "Eternal Realm," and deduces the "Dragonless Heart Method," arriving at last at the proposition: all beings may become dragons, and everyone may become a sage. The book is grand in scale and dense with battle scenes, an important work from Mengru Shenji's transitional period.