A litrpg xianxia/wuxia serial, based on the twelve Chinese zodiac animals. In a land filled with magic and beauty, a young cultivator strives for excellence and glory. Armed with a sword that sings, can a rabbit become a great warrior and earn honour for their clan? Wuxia/Xianxia.

On the broken world of Urdezha, Wendal Finn died on the hostile plains of the wasteland, one more casualty in the endless war between the city-dwellers and the clansfolk. But now Wendal has returned to his home city of Old Castle, possessed by something he brought back from the wasteland, something old and best left forgotten. The spirits are calling it Sycamore, an ancient entity out to avenge all victims of murder. And in a city like Old Castle, no one is innocent. With his mind trapped inside a dead body, Wendal can do nothing but watch as Sycamore turns him into a serial killer. Until the magicians take an interest in him. Preserving Wendal's body and trapping Sycamore inside it, the magicians now have the perfect assassin at their disposal. Whenever they need an enemy removed, they can set the killer loose on Old Castle. Between these moments of horror, Wendal struggles to piece together the remnants of his former life. He wants to know why his wife died while he was fighting in the war, but no one will tell him, no one wants him to know. Left to his own devices, Wendal picks at the scabs that cover the dark secrets of the magicians and reveals a threat to every city on Urdezha. The clans are massing. A supernatural storm is raging across the wasteland. It has already destroyed one city, and now it is heading for Old Castle. And the only one who might prevent oblivion is the murderous entity who the spirits are calling Sycamore.

It is the 147th century. In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man. In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is cheap, an invention is born that will become the Firmament's most closely kept secret. Lycaste, a lovesick recluse outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation. Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor. Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament-the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain. "To call The Promise of the Child one of the most accomplished debuts of 2015 so far is to understate its weight-instead, let me moot that it is among the most significant works of science fiction released in recent years." -Tor.com "One of the most ambitious and epic-scale pieces of worldbuilding I've read. Reading The Promise of the Child, you feel you're in the presence of an author at the height of his powers. If this is what Toner is like when he's just getting started, I think we can expect great things from him. Utterly absorbing; a tremendous adventure." -Karl Schroeder, author of Lockstep and Sun of Suns "An amazing debut-a colorful space opera in the post-human tradition of Iain M. Banks, combined with the razor-sharp plotting of Alastair Reynolds. It left me feverish with delight." -Loren Rhoads, author of The Dangerous Type "The Promise of the Child is a rip-roaring, full-blown Space Opera, with Epic-ness writ large across its pages... an impressive debut and one of my favourite books of the year, I think." Mark Yon, SFFWorld