One billion years prior to the current era, the Immortal Palace Realm existed not as a fractured archipelago of dimensions, but as a monolithic, contiguous continent that defied the boundaries of imagination. In that primordial epoch, the cosmos was a singular, indivisible expanse saturated with a cacophony of potent essences: Di Qi, Immortal Qi, Dao Qi, Ji Qi, Yin Qi, Yan Qi, and the visceral Blood Qi, all coexisting in a volatile equilibrium that nurtured existence. However, following a cataclysmic Great War where myriad potentates perished and few descended unscathed, seven God Kings emerged from the entropic chaos to claim dominion. Yet, their collective potency was of such terrifying magnitude that the realm's structural integrity succumbed to the cataclysmic resonance of their power, causing the single, unified world to shatter violently into nine distinct fragments: The Wastelands, The Mortal Realm, The Sun and Moon Realm, The Martial Void Arts Realm, The Realm of Elements, The Realm of Spirits, The Heavenly Emperor Realm, The Thousand Star Palace, and the enigmatic Ancient Order Valley.
The Seven God Kings immediately commenced a protracted belligerence against one another, seeking hegemony over the fractured cosmos, yet their true, insatiable avarice was fixed solely upon possessing the Ancient Order Valley, for reasons obscured by the mists of antiquity and known only to their divine intellects. After a century of relentless conflict, the Ancient Order Valley inexplicably vanished from the tapestry of reality without leaving a trace, although whispered rumors of a concealed entrance persisted through the eons. To prevent the cosmos from undergoing further fragmentation, the Seven God Kings forged a binding armistice, a celestial treaty stipulating that entry into the Wastelands and the Mortal Realm was strictly prohibited for any entity wielding Divine Powers. Furthermore, according to the immutable Law of the World, any cultivator who achieved the Third Step within these lower planes was forced to immediately ascend to the Higher Realms; failure to comply would invoke the Laws of Heaven, resulting in inevitable annihilation.
However, as eras passed and Divine Kings rose and fell, the Laws of the World underwent a silent, insidious transmutation that went unobserved by all save one: the God of Dao. He attempted to seize this clandestine opportunity to acquire the Child of Order, but the Goddess of Light intervened, absconding with the infant to ensure its preservation. In the ensuing struggle, the Goddess sustained catastrophic injuries and plummeted from the heavens, crashing directly into the desolate expanse of the Wastelands; thus, the Body of Order was inadvertently birthed within the lowest stratum of existence.
The Ancient Ruins. No scholar possessed the knowledge to ascertain the provenance of these ruins or to elucidate how this minute fragment of "Fairyland" had become lodged within the Mortal Realm. It remained a profound enigma to all, for this location had endured for billions of years, immobile and impervious to the ravages of entropy, never shifting even a single centimeter nor succumbing to decay. Ancient texts recorded that a billion years prior, God King Asura, the deity of adjudication, had attempted to transport these ruins to the Divine Kingdom, but a strange, terrifying force had paralyzed him, compelling the God of Judgment to flee in abject terror.
Five years later.
"Hmmm, I have completed the assimilation of all literary knowledge and exhausted the entirety of the pilfered resources... only a few artifacts and treasures remain." In the epicenter of a humble timber construct surrounded by a dense, primeval forest, Xan Li Fang sat in a lotus position, cultivating with serene intensity. "More than five years have elapsed since my arrival, yet physically, I have not aged a solitary day... Ha, the Ancient Ruins... it truly lives up to its formidable reputation." Although the Ancient Ruins were replete with fortuitous opportunities, they presented two insurmountable obstacles for any interloper: time did not exist within this domain, and all occupants were ensnared within a perpetual illusion. Only those capable of deciphering these two paradoxes could penetrate the true Ancient Ruins Domain. "Ha, I desire to eventually depart," Xan murmured, his eyelids remaining sealed. "But this illusion... I perceive it not as a hindrance, but as a colossal opportunity for mental refinement."
Meanwhile, ensnared within the labyrinthine mists of the illusion, the situation was markedly less serene. "Damn it! We have succumbed to a phantasmagoria because of that brat!" Somewhere in the endless, nebulous forest, the Seven Lords of the Lindao Kingdom remained trapped, their visages haggard and their once-majestic robes reduced to soiled tatters. "We have exhausted every methodological approach in our arsenal, yet escape remains elusive; what is our recourse now, gentlemen?" Master Jin Sumo remained oblivious to their lamentations; he was sprinting forward with manic intensity, his eyes wild and unseeing as he slashed his sword furiously at the empty atmosphere. "Halt, Wang! Return here immediately!" It appeared that within the confines of his own personal purgatory, Sumo was condemned to pursue the phantom of Xan Li Fang... for eternity.
In the chronologically stagnant abyss of the Ancient Ruins, the linear progression of temporal reality was an abstract concept, utterly imperceptible to the biological senses. Prior to his departure from the Lindao Kingdom, Xan Li Fang had possessed the foresight to confiscate a fractured chronometer from Elder Mulo; although its gears had long since succumbed to entropy, Xan visualized the intricate mechanism within the fortress of his mind, compelling the gears to rotate through sheer force of will, thereby maintaining a perfect, rhythmic accounting of the passing eras. Throughout this prolonged epoch, he systematically cannibalized the ancient scrolls and invaluable artifacts liberated from the Lindao Academy, transmuting their accumulated history into raw spiritual fuel to fortify his somatic vessel. For the initial triennium, he strove to cultivate his Dao Path through organic evolution, yet the threshold of the Third Step remained an elusive horizon he could not breach. Following a period of profound contemplation, he initiated a radical paradigm shift; he deliberately fractured his Dao Essence, utilizing its foundational energy to fortify the auxiliary essences, while simultaneously shattering the elemental cores of Water, Fire, Light, Life, Death, and Darkness to fuse their remnants with the Yin-Yang. This cataclysmic restructuring exacted a heavy toll, causing his cultivation base to plummet precipitously back to the First Step, a regression that consumed an entire solar cycle to stabilize.
During the subsequent year, he delved into the esoteric genealogy of bloodlines, discovering that his veins harbored the dormant lineage of the Time and Space Dragon. With ruthless pragmatism, he decimated his own bloodline to synthesize pure Time Essence and Space Essence, but their manifestation ignited a violent internecine war within the orbit of his Sea of Consciousness. The resultant metaphysical trauma was severe, compelling him to shatter these new creations as well, forcibly compressing their volatile power into the insatiable maw of the Yin-Yang. His objective was singular: to identify the enigmatic Star occupying the center by unifying all disparate essences into the Yin-Yang matrix. Following extensive experimentation, he besieged the Prohibition Essence; although it offered obstinate resistance, he succeeded in amalgamating it after exactly one hundred and fifty days, whereas the Reincarnation Essence, recognizing the familiar signatures of Life and Death, acquiesced and merged within mere hours. Having successfully fused ten essences through excruciating tribulation, he proceeded to the Sword Essence, a stubborn power that demanded three years of ceaseless cultivation before finally submitting to the unification. Subsequently, questions arose regarding the Star, prompting him to synthesize a Dragon Bloodline Essence from his residual vitality and add it to the conglomerate, resulting in a Yin-Yang sphere that anchored twelve distinct Essences.
Xan stood at a crossroads, contemplating whether to crystallize a Yin-Yang Dantian or to shatter the mysterious Star to propel himself into the Third Step. "When Yin and Yang coalesce, Chaos Power is generated, serving as the foundational bedrock for a Third Step Cultivator," Xan analyzed, his intellect racing. "However, the cultivation of Chaos Qi is notoriously arduous, existing naturally only in the Heavenly Emperor Realm or synthesized during the ascension to the Seventh Step via the Sacred Chaos Void World." Paralyzed by the enigma of the Star's potency, he extended his consciousness to make physical contact with the celestial body that had served as his internal sun. The tactile sensation defied linguistic description; the power resonating from the Star was exponentially superior to the combined magnitude of the Yin-Yang and its constituent essences. Following his assessment, he assumed the lotus position, his resolve crystalizing around a desperate, suicidal gamble: he would shatter both the Yin-Yang and the Star simultaneously to force a total fusion. He committed to this course with the grim acceptance that failure would result in the permanent cessation of his cultivation journey. "If I am destined to revert to a mundane existence, then I shall embrace the life of a mortal without regret!"
Consequently, he initiated a sequence of rapid, complex hand seals, his fingers blurring into motion as he roared, "BREAK!" With decisive force, he fractured the Star and immediately decimated the Yin-Yang, triggering a metaphysical tempest of apocalyptic proportions within his Sea of Consciousness. "I can no longer endure... Hahahahaha!" He screamed towards the void as the illusion weaponized his memories, blending his past trauma with the dust of his crumbling mind to distort reality. Although hours seemed to evaporate, Xan remained in perpetual motion, refusing to capitulate. "MERGE FOR ME IMMEDIATELY!" Finally, a colossal, spinning cyclone manifested, drawing all disparate energies toward a singularity until they collided with a thunderous detonation that rendered him unconscious. Simultaneously, in a disparate sector of the labyrinth, the Seven Sovereigns discovered an exit vector; utilizing a Heavenly Teleportation Spell, they successfully extracted themselves from the Ancient Ruins and rematerialized in the Real World. Standing near the precipice of the Forbidden Land, realizing the futility of their pursuit, they uttered a singular, collective epitaph before retreating toward the Lindao Kingdom: "That insolent brat has undoubtedly perished; there is no utility in pursuing a corpse, so let us focus on our recuperation."