They called this world Aetherion — though even that name was disputed. To some, it was the Cradle of Heaven's Will, where mortals strove to touch eternity. To others, it was the Tomb of the Divine, a decaying battlefield of forgotten gods and failed immortals.
Ezra would learn quickly that truth here was a luxury — and faith, a weapon sharper than any sword.
The Great Powers
Aetherion was not united. It had not been for millennia. What remained was a mosaic of power, each fragment ruled by a force that shaped how its people lived, fought, and died.
Four pillars held the world in their fragile balance: the Clans, the Sects, the Cults, and the Religions — each born from chaos, each bound by their own philosophy of strength.
The Clans – Bloodlines of Heritage
The clans were the oldest—families that traced their lineage back to divine beasts, fallen angels, or ancient cultivators whose bloodlines still pulsed with residual power.
Their strength lay in inheritance; their techniques were passed through blood, not scrolls.
They ruled the lands and the markets, the mortal cities that crawled beneath floating peaks. To be clan-born was to inherit pride and burden alike. The stronger one's lineage, the heavier the expectations.
The weaker the blood, the easier it was to be forgotten—or culled.
Some of the most feared among them included:
The Vermilion Fang Clan, said to carry the diluted blood of dragons; their Qi burned red and corrosive.
The House of Hollow Ice, whose children could still their hearts for days, their emotions carved out like frozen rivers.
The Thornveil Clan—a house of assassins rumored to distill poison from their own veins.
The Sects – The Disciples of Discipline
The sects were order born from chaos. Structured, disciplined, mercilessly selective.
They were the academies and armies of the cultivation world, training disciples in ancient techniques that bent the natural order through will alone.
To join a sect was to surrender individuality—to be forged into a weapon of doctrine.
Training was relentless, and failures were discarded like broken blades.
The three most renowned were:
The Azure Peak Sect, masters of balance between mind and body, who claimed to see the world as ripples in an eternal pond.
The Crimson Tide Sect, cultivators of pure aggression, their power drawn from the blood they spilled.
The Golden Lotus Sect, healers and schemers both, believing that to control life was to rule death itself.
Every sect demanded absolute loyalty. A disciple's death meant nothing if it strengthened the sect's name.
The Cults – Faiths of the Forbidden
The cults existed in the cracks between civilization, shrouded in secrecy and madness.
They worshipped fallen gods, primordial beasts, or ideas so ancient even the heavens had forgotten them.
Their power was unpredictable, their followers bound by oaths written in blood and shadow.
Unlike the sects, cultists did not seek enlightenment—they sought transcendence through corruption.
Whispers spoke of the Cult of the Black Sun, who believed immortality could only be achieved by devouring one's own soul.
Others feared the Children of the Maw, whose rituals opened rifts that swallowed entire villages.
No one trusted cultists, yet no one denied their strength. Many a sect master had bargained with them in secret.
The Religions – The Thrones of Heaven
Above them all stood the Religions — vast theocracies that claimed divine authority over cultivation itself.
They taught that Qi was a gift of the heavens, meant to be refined in reverence, not stolen in defiance.
Their temples crowned mountaintops; their priests wielded both spiritual and political power.
The most dominant among them, The Heavenly Concord, ruled the skies and burned heretics in the name of purity. Their paladins—radiant cultivators of divine flame—were said to purge entire sects with holy fire.
Yet even they were not free from decay. Corruption bloomed in their sanctuaries, faith twisted into fanaticism.
The Cycle of Chaos
These four powers existed in fragile tension. Every decade, new alliances formed and old ones shattered.
Sects raided clans for rare bloodlines; cults infiltrated temples in the dead of night; religious inquisitors purged entire mountains under banners of salvation.
The balance of Aetherion teetered constantly.
And now, whispers said the Heavenly Seal — the divine barrier separating mortals from true immortality — had begun to crack.
The world was tipping into chaos.
And chaos was opportunity.
The Outcasts
Between the powers, in the wastelands and ruined valleys, lived those without sect or clan—wanderers, mercenaries, failed disciples.
They called themselves Rogue Cultivators, though most were little more than corpses waiting to happen.
Ezra Thorn would soon find himself among them.
But unlike the others, he carried no inherited bloodline, no divine scripture, no sacred flame.
His only weapon was the will to endure.
In a world where every breath was contested and every step could draw divine wrath, survival itself was a rebellion.
And from rebellion… came ascension.