Kenshiro Kasumi, the 62nd heir to the assassination art Hokuto Shinken and known in the Shanghai underworld as the King of Death, abandons his quiet life as a Tokyo professor to return to 1930s Shanghai after learning his old friend Pan Guang-Lin and Pan's sister Yu-Ling are in danger. He finds the city carved up between foreign powers and criminal syndicates, and is pulled into the Qing Bang triad's fight to survive it. A direct prequel to Fist of the North Star, this manga traces the martial art's roots decades before its post-apocalyptic future.