Stray Cat Strut - Book Eight - Prologue

What is martial arts?Martial Arts has nothing to do with musical instruments, chess, calligraphy, painting, treasures or secret manuals, nor is there so much talk about being the best in the world. Martial Arts is a technique, a method that gives the weak a chance to draw their blades against the strong.What is chivalry (xiá)?Chivalry is not about romantic affairs, traditional culture, or being gentle, respectful, frugal, and compliant. Chivalry is violence, it's the bayonet forged by those driven to Mount Liang to use against tyrants.Cao Mo pledged with a dagger, (Returning to) Lu to invade. Zhuan Zhu entered with grilled meat, (Pacifying) Wu to usurp the throne. Brother Zhang cried in the market, avenging his lord by defiling a lavatory. Suicide by cutting one's own throat to seek justice, acting while concealing his sleeve. The tyrant of Qin seized souls, the coward gained courage.This is a martial artist's story.In the 1930s, a group of like-minded young people came together, striving to change the world.Then, two hundred years later, in a garbage landfill, Xiang Shan, the Progenitor of Cyber Martial Arts who had once rebooted heaven and earth, woke up reciting the name of his enemy, having lost all his memories.“Perhaps it's because I lost back then that the world has become what it is...”“So this time, I won't be defeated again!”This is the story of a person changing the world once more!

Kael Veyne was betrayed, hunted, and left for dead in the depths of the Abyssal Dungeon.As an infamous assassin, he was the empire’s deadliest shadow—until the day his guild turned on him.Ambushed in the Abyssal Dungeon, his body was torn apart, and his soul was consumed by the abyss. But death was not the end.He reincarnates 25,000 years later with the Devouring Bloodline System. Kael awakens in the body of a noble scion sharing a similar name to him, and his very essence fused with eldritch power.With every kill, he absorbs primal energy, evolving into something far beyond human. Monsters, mages, mancers, knights, assassins—nothing is beyond his reach.

The nascent Chaos had just been carved out, and the barren void welcomed the souls from the Otherworld.As the first soul in the Chaos World, Laine automatically became the God of Spirituality.However, divine power stems from Divine Power, and the existence of spirituality was insignificant; thus, the newly born Laine was extremely weak.With no other choice, to avoid being overturned by the torrents of fate, Laine had to rely on himself.He carved out realms, and birthed lives belonging solely to spirituality.He created sequences, scattering the steps to deification.He wove the Magic Net, enveloping the sky, the oceans, and the land.When the bell of dusk sounded, I raised my divine seat and proclaimed to all beings from the pinnacle of the Spirit Realm:There are two facets to the world, the material and the spiritual.The material belongs to the gods, and the spiritual belongs to me, such is the ultimate truth of all things.

While on a school field trip in the Czech Republic, Kang Hyuk happens to stumble into a shop called “Archmage.” To his disbelief, the shop is actually owned by an archmage… from another world! Forced to become the Archmage’s disciple, Kang Hyuk is punted into the Kallian Continent, where might and magic overwhelm and wyverns fly high in the sky…

In this world, people are either sword-wielding knights, magic-wielding mages, or spirit-wielding summoners. There hasn’t been anyone yet who can do all three… until now.