Stolen at birth and crushed beneath her step-family's cruelty, Raven awakens on her seventeenth birthday to memories spanning ninety-nine lifetimes—and this time, she plans to change everything.

Once called Mara Brenner, a forgotten girl hidden in a servant's robes, she now remembers every betrayal, every death, every moment of suffering across nearly a century of lives. In each existence, she endured enslavement, loss, and the tragic death of her child. But death was never her ending—it was her education.

Blessed with a rare tri-bloodline combining Dragon strength, Lín healing, and Zhào wisdom, Raven carries within her soul-space ten mystical Blood Essence Beads. Each bead holds the power to awaken a fragment of her divine body, rebuilding her from bone to spirit while granting mastery over lost technomagic arts: alchemy, artifact forging, runes, and the fusion of magic with cutting-edge science. Yet each awakening will test her mind, heart, and will to their very limits.

Around her looms an empire ruled by the ruthless Eight Great Families, where noble bloodlines battle for supremacy in a brutal 100-Year Tournament. Hidden beneath them lurk the secret cultivation clans—ancient powers manipulating bloodlines and history itself. Her stepsister, Amara, pampered and poisonous, conspires to steal both her name and destiny, guided by a devourer seed that whispers corruption into willing ears.

What Raven doesn't yet know will shake the foundations of reality: she is a Pillar Soul—one of the fundamental anchors holding Ascara's existence together. If she falls to darkness, the entire plane collapses into the void. To protect her world, she must locate and awaken the other Pillar Souls scattered across the world: a dying child, a broken soldier, a fallen saint, a betrayed lover, and others—each a fragment of Ascara's strength, each teetering on the edge of corruption.

Time is running short. The Great Shift approaches in five years—when spiritual energy will surge back into a world that has forgotten magic. As technology begins to fail and ancient powers stir, Raven must navigate step-family betrayal, aristocratic oppression, and imperial conspiracies while a darker truth emerges: the Devourers, cosmic parasites born from primordial hunger, seek to twist her suffering into corruption and drag Ascara into eternal darkness.

Standing between her and salvation are false allies and tragic enemies like Kael Xuán—heir to the ruling family and her betrayer across multiple lifetimes—while the shadowy SIS organization sacrifices innocents in the name of maintaining "order."

Only one figure recognizes her true nature: the exiled Keeper of the Accord, an immortal guardian bound by cosmic law to protect Ascara's souls. In him, Raven may find not only a reluctant ally but an echo of her grandparents' forbidden love—proof that loyalty and sacrifice can triumph against the tide of ambition and despair.

In a fractured empire where ancient cultivation lies broken, magic is dismissed as myth, and technology serves as the ultimate weapon, one forgotten girl will rise to reshape the fate of worlds. But first, she must survive becoming the most dangerous thing in existence: herself.

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Not suitable for readers under 18 or those sensitive to intense emotional/violent content.
Reader discretion is strongly advised.
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Time/Date: TC1853.01.17 (Day after wedding - Morning) 


Location: Imperial Palace Marriage Chambers → Emperor's Private Study


Pale dawn light filtered through silk curtains, painting the imperial marriage chambers in shades of rose and gold. Kael woke first, awareness returning slowly as he processed where he was, what he'd done.


The marriage chambers. His new wife beside him. The blood on the sheets.


He sat up carefully, trying not to disturb Amara, and his eyes found the evidence immediately—crimson stain on pale silk that proved what had happened last night. Proof of innocence taken. Virginity lost before her bloodrite, before she turned twenty-one, before her cultivation potential could fully manifest.


His throat tightened. What have I done?


Chapter 72 - Chapter 71: The Price of Control