Yang Jian, a young man born with a vision, has suffered from the coldness and discrimination of the villagers since he was a child. One day, however, Yang Jian’s mother, Fairy Yunhua, dies while fighting to protect the lives of the world’s enemies. After experiencing all this, Yang Jian’s daily life becomes so painful that he learns that the only way to defeat the gods and find the truth and save his mother is to open the seal and regain his divinity. Yang Jian is guided around by his companion, the deer robe, to find a way to do this, and finally learns under the tutelage of the Jade Emperor. After going through the ordeal of dying and then being born, Yang Jian eventually opens his vision to the heavenly eye of divine punishment, and his cultivation grows by leaps and bounds, taking in the snarling dogs, defeating the gods, and finally attaining nirvana, becoming a saint in the flesh and sealing the gods in one battle.

The story follows a band of courageous bodyguards headed by Yang Liu An, and tasked by General Ma Bao with escorting his daughter Chen Yuanyuan, concubine to the recently deceased Ming emperor Wu Sangui, and her son, the last hope of the Ming Dynasty, to safety. En route, they must fend off the attacks of enemy general Hala, as well as Ma Bao’s treacherous second-in-command Ma Biao, all the while being closely watched by the mysterious Zhu You.