Captain Shao Lian, a battle-hardened veteran of the Ming Dynasty’s imperial army, had become a respected officer in the emperor’s elite bodyguards.

This notorious and politically-powerful secret service organization, known as the Jinyiwei (brocade-clad guards), also functioned as the emperor’s premiere intelligence agency and as an extension of his iron fist. They were the empire's bladesmen.

After Shao Lian was assigned to eliminate a ruthless crime lord after he had seized power over several frontier towns, he discovers that the Blood Foot Syndicate had awakened a powerful and terrifying adversary from a bygone era.

Shao Lian and the soldiers in his command suddenly find themselves waging a harrowing war of survival against allied criminal gangs and an ancient being who commands hordes of monstrous man-eaters.

Shao Lian later discovers the secrets of prehistory and unravels a conspiracy that set ancient mechanisms into motion that now threaten the Ming Empire and the rest of the 15th century world.