The All-devouring Whale: Homecoming

Meet Fan Lingxiao — a spirit pet master who gets eaten alive by his own whale during a tournament. That's already a rough day, but it gets worse — he wakes up reincarnated as some guy named Liu Fengmang, locked in a dungeon, with his entire sect on the verge of collapse. Now he has to figure out why his spirit pet turned on him, break out of prison, and somehow rebuild everything he lost, all while wearing someone else's face. This 12-episode ONA from Big Firebird Culture runs on an intricate spirit pet system that actually feels thought out rather than just being a gimmick. Fan Lingxiao isn't starting from zero exactly — he still has his knowledge and some of his spirit pets — but the power dynamics have shifted, and he has to navigate a world that doesn't recognize him anymore. He picks up a small crew along the way, including Gu Ling, Cheng Xi, and Yue Tong, and the group chemistry carries the slower moments between fights. The tone is action-packed with a steady current of mystery underneath. Someone set him up during that promotion competition, and untangling who and why gives the plot more weight than a standard cultivation power climb. If you liked the darker political intrigue in Mo Dao Zu Shi or the creative creature-based combat in something like Thunderbolt Fantasy, this scratches a similar itch. Based on a manga, so the source material gives it a solid foundation to work from.