The Celestial Emperor’s grotto, though meager in size, cradled within its depths a tapestry of fates far grander than its humble facade suggested.

In the wake of this conflict, the Alliance of Cultivators had suffered a grievous wound. Voidson, a stalwart protector, lay slain, and the mad Immortal Lord, the erstwhile scourge known as Pox, had vanished into the ether. The ranks of Immortals themselves were decimated, their ethereal forms scattered like stardust across the void.

Only a meager remnant limped back to the Alliance’s central fortress.

These tidings, carried upon the winds like whispers of snow, spread across the Alliance’s starry domain. Within two months, the tale had reached nearly every soul, sparking disbelief, shock, and insidious ambition in equal measure. Many scoffed at the notion that the mighty Alliance could be brought so low, yet as time marched onward and rumors bloomed like poisonous flowers, even the staunchest skeptics were forced to acknowledge the grim reality.

But a greater tremor shook the hearts of cultivators: the resurgence of the Four Sacred Sects. Whispers spoke of the Vermillion Bird Emperor, descending in celestial glory, wielding the ancient Four Sacred Instruments to cripple Skyfate, an elder of the Alliance Council, and imprison the awakened Celestial Emperor.

This cataclysmic event struck with the force of a shattered star, instilling terror and disbelief within the hearts of all who heard it. The specter of the Four Sacred Sects, once dormant for countless millennia, now stirred in the minds of the populace, a slumbering behemoth threatening to awaken.

Simultaneously, the forces of Luo Tian, sensing the shift in the cosmic balance, ceased their relentless advance, pausing to contemplate the veracity of these unsettling reports.

Outside the Alliance’s bastion, cultivators, reeling from the cascade of improbable news, waited with bated breath for the inevitable counterstrike. Since its inception, the Alliance had been a vengeful power, crushing any who dared to challenge its dominion.

Yet, to the bewilderment of all, the Alliance remained shrouded in an unnerving silence, offering no retaliation, no declaration of war.

Three moons drifted past, painting the cosmos in their ethereal glow.

Unease blossomed in the hearts of cultivators. The Alliance’s unprecedented inaction could only signify two possibilities: either a storm of unimaginable fury was brewing beneath the surface, or the Alliance itself had suffered a blow from which it could not recover.

Then, without warning, the immense array encircling the Alliance’s headquarters flickered to life, severing all communication with the outside world. A wave of panic and speculation surged throughout the domain.

Luo Tian seized the moment, unleashing its boundless hordes upon the weakened defenses of the Alliance’s star-realm. Like a ravenous tide, the warriors of Luo Tian surged forward, consuming all resistance in their path.

A month after Luo Tian’s full-scale assault, the enigmatic Corpse Shadow Sect, nestled within the Alliance’s southern reaches, declared its neutrality. They would neither aid the Alliance nor attack Luo Tian. Instead, they claimed the southern star-realm as their own, sealing its borders and promising swift and merciless annihilation to any non-sect member who dared to trespass.

The Corpse Shadow Sect’s defection sent ripples of shock and apprehension throughout the Alliance’s territories.

Still, the Alliance headquarters remained silent, its grand formations unmoving. Without guidance or command, the scattered forces of the Alliance were left to fend for themselves, struggling to repel the relentless onslaught of Luo Tian. Their efforts proved futile. As the invaders poured in, the defenders buckled, retreated, and fell. After a year of bloodshed, the Alliance’s northern territories had been entirely conquered, transforming into a permanent dominion of Luo Tian.

Nearly two years had passed since the first whispers of the Celestial Emperor’s grotto. Throughout those tumultuous seasons, the Alliance headquarters had remained silent, the impenetrable array barring all ingress.

The bustling hub of power had become a ghost, a silent testament to broken dreams. Rumors spread like wildfire, claiming the Alliance was gone, its foundations uprooted, its inhabitants vanished.

As the years dragged on, hope gave way to disappointment, and ultimately, despair. Disbanded cultivators splintered into factions, their scattered strongholds forming a constellation of new sects, scattered like seeds upon fertile ground.

Some carved out territories encompassing a handful of cultivator stars, binding together the shattered remnants. Others claimed a dozen stars or more, declaring their independence. Even once-loyal seventh-grade kingdoms, freed from the yoke of Alliance control, mirrored the Corpse Shadow Sect, asserting their autonomy.

Among these rising powers, four stood above the rest, the largest being the Auspicious Cloud Kingdom and the Reed Flute Kingdom. Both seventh-grade kingdoms had preserved their strength, the strongest in the surrounding area, declaring their independence a year and a half after the Alliance’s disappearance.

The remaining power consisted of two factions: The Celestial Hall and the Infernal Gate. These strongholds, once bastions within the Alliance’s hierarchy, had absorbed surrounding forces, forging themselves into formidable organizations.

Beyond these four factions, a smattering of smaller groups existed, clinging to territories in the central regions of the star-realm.

Having seized the western and northern domains, Luo Tian’s ambitions remained unsated. The east, like the deep seas, held unkown secrets. The invaders sought now to lay claim to the Alliance’s central territories and its dormant headquarters.
Luo Tian avoided clashing with the Corpse Shadow Sect, their ambitions set elsewhere. Luo Tian, judging, assumed the east had fallen under the yoke of the Four Sacred Sects, a matter best avoided.

And so, just as the armies of Luo Tian prepared to strike, their advance grinding to a halt, something shifted.

The array encircling the Alliance headquarters, after nearly two years of impassable enclosure, began to pulse with renewed energy. The gates opened, and the slumbering heart of the Alliance once again beat.

A tempest of anticipation and dread swept through the star-realm, halting the advance of Luo Tian and drawing the attention of the Corpse Shadow Sect, who turned their eyes from the southern reaches.
The shattered remnants of the Ascendancy, each splintering into fledgling sects, were left to their own devices. Instead of crushing these nascent powers, the Ascendancy’s heart, the Grand Citadel, remained eerily still, issuing no decrees of unity or conquest. Instead, a single proclamation echoed through the fractured star-fields: a Blood Edict.

“HUNT Wang Lin! Known in the wastes of Luo Tian as Xu Mu, styled the Devil Daoist, bearing the mark of the True Lightning Immortal! He now claims lineage with the Vermillion Bird Clan of the Four Sacred Sects!

Bring forth his spirit essence, and claim the Celestial Inheritance of the Ascendancy!”

Yet, alongside this decree of death, a missive of desperate preservation was unfurled.

“Those who swore fealty to the Ascendancy, now Lords of New Sects: Hold against the encroaching tide of Luo Tian for sixty cycles of the sun, and guard the Citadel! Those who succeed shall enter the Elder Conclave of Luo Tian, and inherit the full power of the Celestial Legacy.

Those who flee, who break their oath: Know that when the Ascendancy falls, your very souls shall shatter like glass!”

As the Citadel groaned open for the first time in ages, ancient treasures and jade scrolls brimming with forgotten spells poured forth, claimed greedily by the scattered remnants of the Ascendancy. Millennia of accumulated power, now scattered like seeds in the wind, spoke volumes of the crisis gripping the Citadel’s heart.

With the edicts declared and the treasures released, the grand formations surrounding the Citadel flared to life once more, sealing it shut, a lonely beacon in a sea of chaos.

But the brief opening had chilled the hearts of the former Ascendancy’s vassals. Their souls were not their own. The greater one’s power, the tighter the Ascendancy’s grip. Resistance meant oblivion. This was the price of the Ascendancy’s long reign over the star-fields.

Even as the sealing order echoed, a new power rose in the eastern reaches of the Ascendancy’s domains: the Four Sacred Sects.

True to Luo Tian’s grim predictions, the Sects had, within two short years, conquered the eastern territories, obliterating all opposition…save for the inscrutable Kun Xu Realm.

The Ascendancy’s once unified domains were now a patchwork of warzones, carved up by rival factions. Luo Tian, on paper, possessed the greatest strength. But the veiled secrets of the Corpse Yin Sect, the legendary might of the Four Sacred Sects, and the newfound power of the Ascendancy’s remnants, combined with the soul-binding oath that forced them to resist Luo Tian, created a precarious, bloody equilibrium.

The ancient feud between Luo Tian’s Flame Lightning Sect and the Ascendancy would not be quenched by this fragile balance. The armies of Luo Tian marched once more, driving toward the Ascendancy’s last bastion at the heart of the domains.

The war raged on, a ravenous beast consuming lives and resources.

Meanwhile, within the Eastern domain, now claimed by the Four Sacred Sects, lay a region of searing stars. Deep within this inferno, a lone figure sat cross-legged upon a colossal shard of white stone.

Clad in simple white robes, his features ordinary yet imbued with an otherworldly aura, he possessed an almost unearthly charm, a hint of immortal grace. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling in rhythmic breaths. Two wisps of iridescent vapor, like miniature dragons, snaked from his nostrils, circling him before being drawn back into his body.

From the stone beneath him, tongues of white flame pulsed, drawn into his being alongside the vaporous dragons.

For two years, he had remained here, never stirring from his meditative trance, drawing upon the stone’s fiery energy to heal the wounds that scarred his spirit.

Behind him stood an ancient figure, his face a roadmap of wrinkles, his life force almost extinguished. Periodically, the old man raised a trembling hand, pressing a finger to the young man’s back.

Each touch caused the elder’s form to convulse, as if a vast well of primordial power was being wrenched from his very being and channeled through his finger into the youth before him.

And with each touch, the young man would shudder, his white hair stirring without wind, the heat radiating from his body intensifying.

“The Vermillion Bird Clan…the most sacred of the Four Sacred Sects, demands it possessors of the bloodline learn the Divine Arts. This technique that they use, it is passed down to all the Holy Emperors, is the pinnacle of strength.”