This is the season where the map stops being a map and becomes an ocean, and the show gets bigger without getting dumber. Ying Zheng's fleet sails east chasing an elixir that no sane person believes in, and the horrifying part is how patient he is about it. Meanwhile the resistance is doing the least glamorous thing a rebellion can do: hiding, healing, waiting, while the Yin Yang Family works the Emperor's court from the inside and the northern frontier keeps bleeding. Tianming isn't the loud kid anymore. Gai Nie and Wei Zhuang still orbit each other like two blades that were never meant to be sheathed at the same time. The cel-shaded 3D wuxia choreography here is the argument that Chinese animation could hang, years before anyone in the West was paying attention.

In this sixth season of Qin Shi Mingyue, the Emperor of Qin has dealt the insurgents a heavy blow, and they are left lying low while they rest and recover. Meanwhile his ship has at last put out to sea to hunt for a fabled elixir that would grant him eternal life. The road to immortality is far from clear. Barbarians in the north and rebels inside the empire refuse to give up, and new threats are starting to appear. What remains open is whether the Emperor or his foes will come out on top, or whether anyone will be left standing at all. The season runs 23 episodes, an ONA mixing action, adventure and fantasy.