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## **PROLOGUE: THE FALL OF THE HIGH REALM**
**Boom! Boom! Boom!** The sound was no longer a mere vibration; it was a rhythmic, physical assault that rattled the marrow within every soldier's bones and threatened to shake the very teeth from their gums. Above the High Realm, the sky had turned a bruised, sickly purple, torn apart by explosions that cast long, flickering orange shadows over a landscape already saturated with the blood of millions. The air was a thick soup of ozone, burnt sulfur, and the metallic tang of fresh slaughter.
"Kill!!" a primal, ragged cry erupted from the vanguard.
A soldier at the absolute tip of the formation, encased in massive, heavy plate armor that had been hammered, dented, and scorched by a thousand previous strikes, lunged forward with everything he had left. His knuckles were white inside his gauntlets as he gripped a heavy spear with both hands. With a roar of desperation, he drove the point through the gap in an enemy's breastplate, adding one more corpse to the mountain of the fallen.
Behind him loomed a sprawling marvel of towers and citadels, a massive seat of power that stood as the "only empire that hadn't been conquered" by the encroaching dark. Every other realm had already fallen; this was the last bastion of a dying world.
Behind him, the defense was a masterpiece of cold, desperate engineering. These soldiers did not fight as individuals; they fought as a singular machine. They stood in pairs, a tactic forged through centuries of warfare. One soldier braced a giant, rectangular tower shield—a slab of enchanted steel—his shoulder pressed hard against the cold metal to absorb the bone-shattering impact of the charging horde. Beside him, his partner leveled a long spear through a specialized notch in the shield's side.
As they stood in their thousands, the curves of their shields interlocked perfectly with the comrades to their right and left. Looking down from the battlements, they formed the Thorny Wall—a jagged, impenetrable thicket of steel and reaching points that rippled like a silver snake. They held their ground with a grim, silent resolve that bordered on the suicidal. Yet, compared to the encroaching horizon, their hundreds of thousands seemed like a single, fragile **piece of slab trying to stop a roaring tsunami.**
In the far distance, the great city wall loomed, a testament to a golden age now ending. It was a marvel of ancient masonry, as tall as half a mountain and as wide as two highways laid side-by-side. From the high battlements, groups of archers rained down a constant storm of arrows, and heavy cannons roared, spitting iron and alchemical fire to defend the gargantuan gates.
But inside the walls, the battle was already being lost to the shadows. Smoke choked the narrow alleyways, debris from shattered temples littered the streets, and the haunting cries of grieving children echoed through the skeletons of ruined houses. "God save us!" the people prayed, their voices thin and brittle against the endless thunder of the massacre outside.
In the heart of the slaughter, the center of the battlefield was a churning vortex of pure carnage. Nearly five million warriors, swinging Greatswords with the strength of giants, fought encased in heavy armor and thick helmets. They were the last line of the High Realm's nobility. In front of them, a million shield-bearers held the line with their lives, their bodies forming a literal dam against the dark. On the flanks, the remaining cavalry—the **"Golden Hooves"**—cut their way toward the enemy's rear **like a hot knife through butter**, leaving trails of severed limbs in their wake.
**Yet, even this monumental effort felt like tossing pebbles into an abyss.** The enemy was a nightmare a hundred million strong, shrouded in a thick, unnatural black smoke that seemed to drink the very light from the sun. **The encroaching warriors were heavily armored with thick helmets**, their dark forms almost indistinguishable from the gloom they brought with them. They rode **horses in black fire** that left scorched hoofprints on the bloody earth. Their archers, positioned in the rear, were terrifying specters: they wore **black cloaks** that fluttered like bat wings and black goat masks that radiated a chilling, supernatural aura of death.
The defenders were beyond exhausted. Their muscles were screaming, their spirits breaking under the weight of a war that had lasted too long. They were driven now by nothing but the iron-cold will to protect the families shivering behind the mountain-walls, regarding death not as an end to be feared, but as a homecoming to be embraced.
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### **II. The Sky Duel and the Ultimate Treachery**
High above the blood-slicked mud, the air was eerily still. This upper strata was separated from the chaos below by a shimmering barrier of pure spiritual pressure. Here, two parties of supernatural beings faced each other in a silent standoff that would decide the fate of a billion souls.
On the side of the Dark Lord stood a collective of shadows—men in **black cloaks** filled with rolling smoke, their masks etched with eerie, identical patterns that seemed to shift if one looked at them too long. At their head stood a figure of majestic terror—the **King of Hell**. He did not breathe; he simply existed as a void, sucking the warmth and hope out of the sky.
Opposite him stood the **Holy Sage**. He appeared to be a man in his nineties, his white robes tattered and stained, his long hair disheveled from the days of continuous combat. Yet, he radiated a holiness—a golden, solar aura—that the black smoke could not swallow. His eyes, though weary, remained as sharp as the edge of the blade he held.
"After a long time, it's time to end this," the Dark Lord said. His voice was not a sound, but a cold rasp that vibrated directly in the Sage's mind.
"I think so, too," the **Holy Sage** replied, leaning slightly on his sword to mask a tremor in his hand. "Take your men and go back. You will never take this city. Although we are small in number, my men are all elite fighters, tested and forged in the furnace of life and death. You will find no easy victory here, only a grave."
The Dark Lord threw his head back and laughed—a sound like grinding stones in a tomb. "Go back? Hahaha! I think you misunderstood me when I said 'end.' I didn't mean a ceasefire, you old fool. I meant a surprise... a surprise that you'll never expect! Hahaha!"
"Cut your bullshit," the **Holy Sage** spat, his aura flaring into a blinding white light that briefly pushed back the encroaching shadows. "There's nothing you can give me that is a surprise. If you don't want to go back, then let's continue the fight!"
The Sage vanished, reappearing in a blur of motion as he slashed a trail of light toward the Dark Lord. The King of Hell avoided the strike with mocking ease, drifting backward like a leaf in the wind. "Since you are so eager to seek death," he hissed, "I shall fulfill your wish! **NOW!**"
In less than the blink of an eye, a figure manifested at the **Holy Sage's** back. A blade flashed—the **Soul-Locking Dagger**, an immortal artifact designed specifically for the assassination of deities. It slid through the Sage's chest with sickening ease, the cold metal hungry for his essence.
(The wound of the Soul-Locking Dagger is an absolute death sentence. It does not just cut the flesh; it rots the spirit and the very foundation of the soul simultaneously. The wound will never close; it will only fester until the victim's spirit is consumed. There is no cure discovered in this realm, and while legend says a cure exists in the Higher Realm, no proof has ever been found.)
The **Holy Sage** coughed a mouthful of thick blood. In slow-motion disbelief, he turned his head to look at the person who had stabbed him. He saw his most trusted lieutenant—a man he had raised since childhood, a man he had mentored for thousands of years. The traitor pulled the blade free and, with a look of pure coldness, plunged it again into the Sage's stomach before flickering away to stand beside the Dark Lord.
"My Lord, it is done," the traitor said, his voice as flat as a tombstone.
"Why?" the **Holy Sage** gasped, clutching his midsection as a black, oily rot began to spread from the wounds. "Thousands of years... I called you son... why?"
"Because you never allowed me to read that book," the traitor snarled, his face twisting with long-buried resentment. "He promised me that once you were dead, the knowledge within would be mine to practice. He promised me the power you denied me out of fear!"
The **Holy Sage** let out a bitter, bloody laugh that turned into a wet cough. "Hahaha! Just because of that? You betrayed the world for a book I kept from you to *save* you? It is an incomplete artifact, a cursed thing; I have studied it for millennia and still it remains a mystery of high risk. I kept it from you to keep you from losing your soul... and ironically, that protection led you to sell it anyway."
"Excuses!" the Dark Lord interrupted, his eyes gleaming with triumph. "You were just afraid he would surpass you! You wanted to be the only sun in the sky! Now, give me the book, and I will grant you a quick death. Refuse, and you will learn that I can make a second last an eternity of agony."
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### **III. The Final Strike and the Scattering of Hope**
The **Holy Sage** didn't argue further. There was no point in speaking to the dead. With a roar of renewed power that defied the rot spreading through his spirit, he yanked the Soul-Locking Dagger from his own stomach. His aura flared one last time—not golden, but a fierce, dying white.
He lunged. The Dark Lord tried to evade, but the Sage was a blur of righteous fury. The dagger bit deep into the Dark Lord's arm. As the Sage struck again, the Dark Lord showed his true nature; he grabbed the traitor by the throat, hauling his own spy forward as a human shield.
The Soul-Locking Dagger buried itself deep in the traitor's chest. The traitor's eyes widened in a final, pathetic shock as he realized the "promise" of the Dark Lord was a lie meant only to secure a tool.
The **Holy Sage** did not stop. He hacked and stabbed with the last of his vitality, wounding the Dark Lord's arm again before both fell back, gasping for air in the thin atmosphere. The Dark Lord was exhausted and broken, his majestic cloak shredded. But the Sage was at his end.
With his final strength, the **Holy Sage** produced a **small jade porcelain bottle**. With a trembling hand, he shoved his storage ring and the **Incomplete Book** inside. He sealed it with a shred of his dying consciousness—a lock that would prevent any malevolent being of lower power from ever breaching its contents. He poured every remaining drop of his life force into the bottle, turning it into a shimmering beacon of hope, and hurled it with a cry of defiance into the vastness of space.
Then, he turned his gaze back to the Dark Lord. His body began to glow with a blinding, celestial light as he compressed his entire cultivation into a single point.
**BOOM!!** The explosion leveled the sky for miles, the shockwave flattening the clouds and shaking the very foundations of the city below. The Dark Lord emerged from the smoke barely clinging to life; his elite guard was decimated, and his body was shattered. He ordered a frantic retreat of the dark forces.
The High Realm had won the battle, but the war had cost them their soul. Knowing they couldn't resist a second wave once the Dark Lord healed, the survivors—led by the remaining generals—prepared for a Great Exodus. They left their strongest warriors behind to buy time—a suicide mission to ensure the ships could break orbit.
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### **IV. The Long Journey and the Great Rejection**
Three months later, the sky above the High Realm was filled with rows of massive space ships, their hulls gleaming under the light of a fading sun. These were not ships of war, but arks of survival. The Royal Family drained the ancestral treasuries to fund this journey into the terrifying unknown.
The exploration team spent years navigating the staggering, soul-crushing vastness of the universe. Their journey was a slow, agonizing crawl through the stars, characterized by a series of painful rejections as they descended the hierarchy of the cosmos:
* **Refuge among Equals:** They first sought sanctuary in planes of the **same status as their original home**. These were high-energy worlds where they hoped to find peers. However, they were met with cold borders. These civilizations, seeing the tattered fleet and the lingering shadow of the Dark Lord's forces, feared that hosting the refugees would draw the same destruction upon themselves. They were forced to move on.
* **The One-Level Lower Planes:** Desperate, they sought refuge in **planes one level lower** than their original status. They visited worlds of floating crystal islands where the air was pure music, and worlds of pure water where cities floated like lilies. But at every stop, they were rejected. The rulers viewed the refugees' high-level cultivation as a biological and political threat to their own stability.
* **The Dead Planes:** Falling further, they reached the **Dead Planes**. These worlds maintained a **Guardian**—a powerful entity with a connection to the **Higher Realms**. Despite the refugees' plight, the Guardians met them with cold indifference. Fearing that hosting the survivors would bring the Dark Lord's attention—and the Envoy's wrath—to their doorsteps, the Guardians barred the gates. The refugees were turned away, forced to leave the light of the Higher Realms behind.
* **The Abandoned Planes:** Finally, they were pushed into the "Unmapped Zones"—the **Abandoned Planes**, which had **no connection to the Higher Planes** at all. Even here, the local warlords and regional rulers rejected them, viewing them as invaders or contaminants.
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### **V. The Blue Plane: The Lowest Sanctuary**
With their resources dwindling and their spirits breaking, they eventually discovered the **Blue Plane**, which occupied the absolute bottom of this hierarchy. It was the **lowest Abandoned Plane** in existence—a world forgotten by the cosmos, a graveyard of evolution. They chose this world out of sheer strategic necessity: its low energy meant the local powers were not strong enough to resist them, and the plane's unique Law provided a natural sanctuary.
The Blue Plane is covered with a **thin, bubble-like barrier** that looks incredibly fragile, almost as if a single touch could shatter it. However, this appearance is deceiving; this "bubble" is an absolute law of the plane that prevents entities of higher power from entering. While it keeps the true immortals out, it offers little protection against its peers. Other Abandoned Planes frequently visit to **plunder its resources** and scavenge through its **ancient ruins**. Furthermore, **beast tides**—massive migrations of monstrous creatures—happen from time to time, though they are not overly frequent due to the planet's naturally low energy density.
The arrival of the refugees triggered a tense standoff. The **local powerhouses**, consisting of the **Seven Main Organizations**, were terrified. The refugees' power was far beyond theirs, but the refugees could not set foot on the planet without triggering the Plane Law. A grueling **process of negotiation** followed. The refugees offered the locals a trade they couldn't refuse: the technology to create **Secret Space Planes**—stable pockets of high-density energy hidden in the folds of the world's geography.
In exchange for this technology, the refugees were allowed to settle, becoming the eighth of the **"Eight Powerhouses."** But the refugees had a **hidden agenda**. They proposed a massive, world-altering project: building a Secret Space Plane that was **1/4 the size of the Blue Plane itself.** They offered to pay half the cost, claiming it was a gift—a training ground intended to **raise the peak power** of the world's practitioners. In reality, they were building a fortress-world within a world, gathering their strength to one day return to the High Realm and reclaim what was stolen.
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### **VI. The Envoy's Arrogance and the Beginning of the End**
Five years passed in a fragile, busy peace. On the original plane, a man in a black mask and **black cloak**—an **Envoy** from a Higher Realm—manifested inside the Dark Lord's new fortress. He moved **unobstructed and unnoticed**, walking through layers of high-level wards as if they were cobwebs.
The practitioners in the hall were paralyzed. They had lived their lives believing they were the masters of all creation, entirely unaware that a **Higher Realm** existed above them. To them, the Envoy's mere presence was like a mountain crushing a blade of grass.
"You are dying from a Soul-Locking wound," the Envoy said, his voice echoing with a power that made the Dark Lord's ears bleed. "And you won't live much longer."
The Envoy flicked his finger, shooting a strand of black energy into the leader's mind, and tossed two Black Pills onto the floor. "Do not resist. This is the exercise passed down by the Lord to activate this branch. You are now responsible for searching for the entrance to the ruins of the Ancient Immortals."
He explained coldly that the entire army was merely a **"Dead Branch"**—a forgotten, low-level asset that the Higher Realm had ignored for centuries because they were deemed worthless. They had only been reactivated because a **"fragment"** of an ancient key had recently been detected.
The Envoy had been explicitly ordered by his masters to find an **Incomplete Book** inside a jade bottle. However, his superiors had **only given him a rough appearance** of the book. Because the description was vague and the object seemed small, the Envoy's blinding, celestial arrogance took over. He found the task of hunting for a mere "book" to be menial labor beneath his station. He concluded that what they were *actually* looking for was the **Entrance** itself—a massive gateway that would bring him much more glory to discover.
"Your task is to search for the **entrance** to the ruins in this plane," the Envoy commanded, his aura cracking the stone of the palace. "If it is not here, go to every plane in the sector until you find it. Scour the universe if you must."
The Envoy vanished. Because of his pride, he had pointed the "Dead Branch" toward a Door that didn't exist, completely ignoring the Incomplete Book that was already drifting toward the fragile blue bubble of the lowest plane.
**The destruction had begun.**
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