The game opens with an alternate version of the Battle of Fei River, a battle between Former Qin and Eastern Jin. It concludes with Eastern Jin's surrender to Former Qin. Former Qin merged with Eastern Jin and united the entirety of China.

On December 3, 2015, an animated series inspired by the game called Xuan Yuan Sword Luminary (軒轅劍：蒼之曜 / Ken En Ken: Aoki Kagayaki, literally "Xuan-Yuan Sword: Lights of the Bleak") was announced as a collaborative project with TV Tokyo and Studio Deen and began airing on October 2, 2018 in Mainland China, Taiwan, as well as Japan.

Set within the Spring and Autumn period, the story is told from the perspective of an orphaned girl, Che Yun (車芸), whose family was framed by a corrupt official and executed. She was spared from execution due to her age, but her legs were amputated as punishment. Che Yun was talented in the art of Mujia - a technique of creating and manipulating constructs of magnets and wooden machinery, which are lightweight yet powerful, with her late grandfather as her inspiration. She fashioned herself wooden prosthetic legs and managed to craft a lifelike and agile wooden fox that can be used in various tasks such as transportation and battle, Yunhu (雲狐), after much effort and coming across rare materials. She was a close friend with Huan Yuanzhi (桓遠之), whom Che Yun saved from drowning and who assisted her in creating Yunhu with exotic components. Che Yun later encountered Ying Shi (嬴詩) (who is reincarnation of Che Yun except that Ying was from a different era and was named Murong Shi - 慕容詩). With Che Yun as a common link, Huan and Ying formed a grudging alliance and adventured together, coming into conflicts with the Jin Kingdom's Tai Chen Gong, a priest organization focused on increasing its power and influence, and Heralds of the Seven Luminaries (七曜使者 "Qiyao Shizhe"), a group of powerful rebels from a bleak future timeline sent back with the help of the student of the then-deceased Spirit of the Vessel. At the culmination of the story, Che, Ying and Huan reached the deepest chamber of the Realm of Haotian containing the wheel that determines the destiny of and relationship between all things, Wheel of Taiyi (太一之輪 "Taiyi Zhi Lun"). However, Murong and Huan were both duty-bound to set history on diverging courses in favor of their homelands. Che intended to stop Huan from changing the future despite Murong having decided against intervening with history by ordering Yunhu to push Huan away. However, Huan wielded the Xuan-Yuan Sword and injured Che fatally by accident while repelling Yunhu. The gate to the Palace then closed abruptly. Murong, unable to extract her friends was transported out of the gate, leaving Huan and Che in the room where Huan, immortal due to the power of his surroundings, mourned in regret for a thousand years. At the instant of Che Yun's death, Murong realized their link and inherited the knowledge of Mujia. She entered the gate when it next opened in a thousand years after she returned to the future in which Jin overcame Qin to fight for the welfare of the common-folk, encountering a sorrowful aged Huan and offering forgiveness and acceptance as Che Yun would have.