Long before the world forgot, there lived a cultivator whose name echoed across the heavens.
He stood above all others, untouchable and unrivalled.
Where others fell, he rose.
Where gods watched, he surpassed.
They called him the Divine Void Emperor.
He fought a thousand battles and never tasted defeat. His mere presence shifted the tides of fate. Yet as his legend grew, so too did resentment. Jealousy festered among the high realms, those who followed, but could never surpass him.
Though none dared face him alone, they conspired together.
A plot born of pride and poison.
At the emperor's annual banquet, an event to honour peace among the realms, they smiled as friends and bowed as allies. One among them had laced the wine with a divine berry, blended into God-wine to create a toxin no technique could detect.
As the emperor lifted his cup, the traitors activated a hidden array beneath the banquet hall.
Seals flared to life.
A trap sprung in silence.
With the first sip, the emperor's soul stirred in warning. But it was too late. The poison worked fast, clouding his meridians, unravelling his core. The sealing array roared to life, binding him in a cage of celestial threads.
Even weakened, his fury was unmatched.
In a final act of defiance, he ignited his own soul. The ground quaked. The world veins screamed.
And from the heart of his rage, he invoked the forbidden:
The Divine Grand Void Seal.
A technique whispered of in broken scrolls.
A legend among legends.
It shattered the banquet hall.
It tore the heavens.
It severed the world from the flow of Qi.
His life essence scattered across creation, lost to time.
And with his final breath, he cursed them:
"Live as mortals. Die as dust. May your names fade before the stars."
The seal consumed them all. And so ended the age of cultivation.
Thirty thousand years passed.
The traitors vanished, their lives whittled away by time.
The manuals they once studied gathered dust.
The beasts they once rode faded into myth.
And the divine tools they wielded became relics in forgotten ruins.
Cultivation… was gone.
Martial arts became performance.
Qi was dismissed as fantasy.
And the world moved on, unaware of the power buried beneath its feet.
But nothing stays buried forever.