Traditional landscape painter, Wing-Kei, wakes from a sixteen-year coma paralyzed from the chest down and a stranger to his wife and a son he’s never met.

 

Using his new neural implant, he builds a breathtaking virtual world—Eternal Empire—an immersive land shaped by memory and imagination. But when a powerful tech corporation transforms it into a play-to-earn simulator inspired by the Song dynasty era, millions enter…and not all of them play fair.

 

Desperate to connect with his son, Wing-kei logs into his own creation, only to watch it slip further from his control. As rival factions rise and players bend the system for profit, he enters the Trials of Heavenly Mandate, where the victor holds the power to rewrite the empire’s laws.

 

But the real battle isn’t for the throne.