Fate’s Orphan: The Rat Who Devoured Destiny
In the Jade River Basin, everything is hungry: the beasts beyond the walls, the proud sects in their mountain perches, even the land and sky themselves. Mortals here live on borrowed time; one wrong step on a misty night and you’re just another corpse in the mud. The Basin doesn’t care how clever or brave you are. If you’re weak, you’ll feed something that isn’t.
Yet somehow, a mud-stained nobody called Rat keeps crawling out of this land’s worst death traps alive. He’s a scrap-picker with a smart mouth who should have died a dozen times, but fate seems to have other plans. Maybe it’s dumb luck, or maybe it’s the strange Codex only Rat can see, an uncanny cheat-book of destiny that shows him secret paths to survive the unsurvivable. Whatever it is, it’s the only reason he isn’t worm food… yet.
Now the Basin’s dangers are closing in. Sect elders cast shadows over the lowly, monsters slither where they shouldn’t, and even Heaven’s gaze lingers on the rat who refuses to die. Luck might not be enough when the whole world wants you crushed. The Basin devours the weak, so can one resourceful gutter rat defy a world ruled by the strong and claw his way to see another dawn?
Content Disclaimer:
This story contains violence, blood, and harsh survival themes set in a brutal cultivation world. Expect grit, reversals, and dark humor, but no explicit adult content.