The Setting

The universe the events are taking place in is in fact a vast world which contains multiple dimensions which can be thought of as a cake with each layer being it's own seperate space.

The world is commonly referred to by ancient lifeforms as 'all creation' and as 'three realms' by younger beings. Both names refer to the same place.

The Beginning

What is the modern day three realms originates from the action of Pangu slaying 3000 chaos godfiends and utilising their essence to split heaven from earth. This action resulted in what mortals refer to as the big bang. It was in reality the last breath of Pangu who's life-force burned out in order to kill the 3000 chaos godfiends.

As the world came into being, a singular landmass formed around the Dao fruit of Pangu. This centre position would erect into the gargantuan Mt Buzhou that acted as the core of all creation. Many bystander chaos godfiends at the time witnessed Pangu's creation of a new world and entered into it. These godfiends included the likes of Aten-Re, first progenitor dragon, immortal phoenix, the Hindu triumvirate, and many more ancient deities.

Pangu's Dao formed the basis of the grand Dao of which the Heavenly Dao will be born from many years later. His essence soul was reincarnated into 3 unique ancient godfiends who would later become the three pure ones.

Godfiends

Most life in the world originated from the chaos and ancient godfiends as descendants. There are exceptions such as humans but for the most part gods, demons, devas, dragons etc originate from a godfiend ancestor.

There exist three subsets of godfiends that denote how they were born. Chaos godsend referring to those beings who lived before the formation of the world. This includes Aten-Re, Mother Chaos, Brahma, progenitor dragon. There's existences are ancient and mighty bearing powers beyond extraordinary. In ancient times they dominated the world as its masters. However the progenitor dragon, immortal phoenix, and primordial Kirin would win the distinction of the true masters of the world.

Ancient godfiends are born during the primordial era after the formation of the world. They include any being who was born from the energies of Pangu's universe including aspects of Pangu himself. For example the three pure ones are Pangu's essence soul while the 12 great godfiends of the Wu were his flesh. Many powerful individuals during the era of the demon-god war were once ancient godfiends. These same beings were also the ones who split into categories thus creating the races of gods(from the unification of pantheons), demons(from the ten thousand spirit alliance), devas(united under the triumvirate).

Modern godfiends are anyone born into the deva and asura path of reincarnation. It denotes anyone born directly from the universe and hence lack parents. They are the weakest of the 3 groups and are limited by lifespan and reincarnation.

Gods and Demons

After the universe lashed out at the end of the war between the three factions the primordial Kirin died, Immortal phoenix suppressed, and the progenitor dragon vanished. Dao progenitor Hongyun Laozu, one of the chaos godfiends left his seclusion in order to face off against the malice of the world. The war between the three factions caused great pain upon the living beings of the world and this buildup of negative emotions fed into the Chaos godsend Luohua's plan.

The Chaos godsend created the ultimate monster, a creature named Nian who consumed the corpse of the primordial Kirin. Hongyun Laozu sacrificed himself to permanently kill Nian and seal Luohua into the great beast's corpse. The corpse of the beast of malice became it's own seperate distorted universe just outside the three realms.

With himself on death row, Hongyun Laozu set up a Dao meet in which he preached all his attainment into the Dao for all to hear before merging the last of his essence into the burgeoning Heavenly Dao. This action solidified the rules of the world and created punishment lightning.

Hongyun's most distinct disciples were the three pure ones Yuanshi Tianzun, Lingbao Tianzun, and Daode Tianzun. The goddess Nuwa, the guide Jieyin, and the teacher Zhunti also gained great favour during this Dao meet. These six individuals will go on to become the strongest existences in ancient times by establishing Daoism and Buddhism.

For the time being these people stayed in seclusion to cultivate thus opening the world for power grabs. The various Godfiends immediately split themselves based on familial relations creating what we currently see as the pantheons. The Deva under Indra, the Mahayana sect under Vairocana, Greece under Ouranos, Egypt under Aten-Re, Asgard under Odin. These factions will vie for control for the primordial world.

However it will be the twelve godfiends of Wu under emperor Jiang that will succeed and become the dominant power. However these constant wars brought great oppression under the godfiends who didn't pick a side and to those living beings in the world. These mostly included Ancient godfiends who had no choice but to run or be enslaved. Due to their animalistic and ferocious forms these godfiends were seen as great mounts and trophies.

To that end many were captured such as the Garuda and Airavata. Being this oppression the two brothers born from the sun star, Pangu's left eye, Di Jun and Taiyi the two three legged golden crows decided to do something. Di Jun convinced ten powerful ancient godfiends to work under him and created the ten thousand spirit alliance. A collection of living beings across the world who would fight back against the pantheons and the Wu.

Di Jun would later conquer the vacant heavenly palace situated above the primordial world and gain the mandate of heaven. This signified his position as the first Heavenly emperor with authority from the Heavenly Dao to rule. He used this to establish the Demon race, the collective cultural identity to all those within the ten thousand spirits alliance. From it the demon court was born.

From this separation, the identity of gods and demons came to be.

Dragons, Phoenix, Kirin

Before the demons, gods, or even the various godfiends had the courage to rule the world. The three ancestors of the three factions ruled as the masters of the primordial world. The progenitor dragons lead the dragons and the sea clans, the immortal phoenix lead the avians, while the primordial Kirin led the earthly beasts. The three will vie for power throughout the entirety of the primordial era through to the ancient era.

The progenitor dragon was one of the chaos godfiends who existed before Pangu separated heaven from earth. He was in actuality one of two brothers and personally witnessed the slaying of the 3000 godfiends from afar and saw the primordial world as an opportunity. He was among the first to integrate himself within the new world by using his blood essence and in combination with the elemental power of the virgin primordial world birthed nine sons. These same children are known as the ancestor dragons who will go on to progenate the entirety of the dragon race.

The Immortal phoenix was among the bird type chaos godfiends. She possessed the unique ability known as the nirvana flames of rebirth. This pheasant looking creature spread her wings and lit the world ablaze. In ancient times she led the entirety of the avian race as their empress. However the immortal phoenix never expected her ultimate fate and thus never cared to leave behind descendants. She will leave only one direct son in Kong Xuan while any firebird who claim descent from the immortal phoenix are either liars or a godfiend with similar powers. Remnants of her flames also eventually gave rise to a less variant of birds known simply as phoenix.

Similar to the former two the primordial Kirin was a horse like beast who commanded the primordial world. He led millions of earthly beasts and ruled as the emperor of the primordial world. He constantly vied for power with the former two but unlike the former two his children never amounted to much. None of the kirins who carry his blood were anything special unlike the ancestor dragons and Kong Xuan who were monsters in their own right. This godfiend tragically perished as a result of the rage of the grand Dao. His essence was completely eradicated, his corpse eaten.

At the climax of the primordial era, the constant infighting and negative emotions reached a breaking point. This created a phenomena of which fiends were created. Luohua, the black lotus godfiend saw this as an opportunity for himself. He cultivated the vile power into himself and created a vicious monster known as Nian. The three factions were exhausted by this point. An uncountable number of dragons, avians, and beasts had perished as a result of the long war. All the pain and suffering drew the wrath of the grand Dao, the power of Pangu himself. This Dao as mindless and directionless but under the grief and wrath of the untold trillions of dead beings was guided to lash out. The three leaders met the brunt of the attack.

Kirin, the most injured of the three perished on the spot. The phoenix for the first time saw her death before her and fled. Her flames made it near impossible to kill her hence the grand Dao pressed her down into earth. It forever trapped and suppressed her beneath a multitude of mountains later known as the firebird volcanoes. The dragon was also grievously wounded and forced to retreat. In his miserable state the dragon disappeared from the world forever.

In modern times, the dragons are the only one of the three factions to still be around. Although they were no longer the masters of the world they are still a force to be reckoned with. Throughout the years all the ancestral dragons had perished. Even the legendary dragon kings of the four seas were gone. Today the dragons are still largely recovering their vitality but a recent strong of young talents has allowed them to slowly rise. What few ancient experts they still posses has done everything to protect them.

The Three Realms

The current universe is unlike the primordial world of the past. That world had long since imploded scattering into pieces. The largest piece is in fact the High Heavens of the Heavenly Realm. The 33 larger pieces became the 33 heavens, large landmasses within the Heavenly Realm.

Over 3000 small pieces fell from the Heavenly Realm into the trichilliocosm. These are the 3000 major worlds, central hubs for cultivators and acted as the heart of their own universe. The trichilliocosm actually referred to the material realm. It encompasses the vast multiverse which contains 3000 eternal universes and countless lesser ones. These universes are also referred to as chilliocosm.

The eternal universe house a major world, thousands of minor worlds including both upper and lower realms. Lesser universes are lucky to even have lower realms. It's also important to note that eternal universes are eternal. They never die unless an expert purposefully attempts to destroy it. Lesser universes however die on a regular basis.

The third part of the three realms is the Netherworld. It is the land of the dead separated into 18 hells guarded by nine courts. Each court is ruled by a king of hell, powerful chaos immortals who decide the process of reincarnation.

Reincarnation

During the ancient era, in the midst of the war between gods and demons, one of the twelve godfiends of Wu made a special sacrifice. In that era anything that died had their spirits either dissipate or remain on earth, they suffered having nowhere to go. The pantheons' divine kingdoms offered some reprieve but they were selfish and only permitted their chosen people.

The virtuous lady of the earth, Houtu transformed herself into the six paths of reincarnation. The waters of the blood sea flowed into the chaos along with the reincarnation disc and the book of life and death. Thus the netherworld was born in other to free the spirits of the world by giving all beings an even chance of new life.

Reincarnation is separated into six paths all of which required certain freeholds of karma.

Deva path—reincarnation as a heavenly being, it is different from the deva race as they're not the same thing. This requires a huge amount of good merit in life and saving some child from a truck does not come close to the requirement. People born here are godfiends of at least Celestial God rank(equal to True Immortals).

Asura path—reincarnation into a semi-heavenly being, it is different from the asura race. Being born here requires a huge amount of good merit. Those born here are generally lesser godfiends of Xiantian grade at least. Angels of YHVH are also included here.

Human path—different from the human race and requires neutral karma leaning towards positive, this path denotes reincarnation as a mortal earthly race not exclusive to humans. Elves, dwarves, giants, dryads, and others are included here.

Animal path—requires neutral karma leaning towards negative. Beings here are born as a beast, youkai, or anything to do with the demon race, dragons, or any special bestial creature.

Preta path—requires negative karma. In this path you stay dead. Ghost immortals are automatically citizens of the netherworld. Newly deceased people with extreme grudges could bypass reincarnation entirely and become a ghost immortal. They too are included in the Preta path.

Naraka path—requires enormous negative karma. People here are the most vile filth imaginable. They do not reincarnate but are transformed into warped devils who are forced to torture others and each other for the rest of eternity as punishment. The godfiend Tartarus once built a prison to house these beings named after himself.