This was not a world that offered mercy.
From the moment life drew its first breath, it was forced to fight—against hunger, against fear, and against others of its own kind. Survival was not a right granted by birth but a privilege earned through strength. Those who possessed power lived as masters. Those who lacked it lived as tools.
The weak worked.
They hauled stone from dawn until nightfall, tilled land poisoned by beast blood, repaired shattered walls, and carried supplies through streets that never truly slept. Their bodies broke long before their spirits did, because spirits had no value here. Only strength mattered. Only usefulness decided whether a person would be fed or discarded.
Beyond the walls, the beasts waited.
They were not born monsters. They became monsters.
Beasts grew by eating—by devouring flesh, bone, and blood. Everything they consumed was refined into raw energy that reshaped their bodies, forcing evolution upon them again and again. A wolf that survived long enough might grow scales harder than iron. A serpent that fed on enough prey could sprout wings and blot out the sun. Some beasts awakened intelligence, learning to hunt humans not as animals, but as enemies.
The wilderness belonged to them.
Humanity had nearly been wiped out in the early years. Villages vanished overnight. Entire bloodlines ended in screams swallowed by the dark. It was only when humans learned to fight differently that extinction was delayed.
Humans cultivated.
Unlike beasts, humans did not rely on flesh alone. They absorbed the energy of Heaven and Earth—the invisible essence that flowed through mountains, rivers, forests, wind, and stars. This energy existed everywhere, forming the foundation of all things. Stone held it. Metal carried it. Blood contained it. Even the soul was shaped by it.
Everything was energy.
Those who learned to sense it stepped onto the path of cultivation. Through breathing techniques, meditation, and harsh body refinement, they drew this energy into themselves, tempering their flesh, strengthening their organs, sharpening their senses, and extending their lives beyond natural limits. Each step forward separated them further from ordinary humans—and closer to becoming something else entirely.
Cultivation was not simple.
It was divided into nine known realms, each representing a qualitative leap in existence. Within every realm lay nine sub-stages, each more difficult than the last. And between every realm stood a terrifying threshold known as the Half-Realm—a state where one foot stood in the old realm and the other reached for the next.
Many cultivators spent their entire lives trapped in a Half-Realm.
Some failed and lost all progress. Others crippled their cultivation permanently. A few died as their bodies collapsed under energies they could not control. The Half-Realm was proof that the path to strength was never fair—it demanded talent, resources, opportunity, and luck in cruel and unequal measure.
In theory, the Ninth Realm marked the peak of mortal existence.
In legends, those who reached it could command the elements, reshape landscapes, and challenge the will of heaven itself. At its summit, cultivators were said to pierce the barrier of the world and ascend to the Immortal Realm, leaving mortality behind forever.
But those legends belonged to another age.
Ancient records spoke of a time when Heaven and Earth energy was thick, dense, and abundant—so rich it could be seen flowing like mist across the land. In those distant eras, cultivation flourished. Talents emerged endlessly. The Ninth Realm was not a fantasy but a reachable destination. Immortal ascension was rare, but real.
That world no longer existed.
As centuries passed, the energy of Heaven and Earth thinned. No one knew why. Some blamed the immortals, claiming they drained the world dry before abandoning it. Others whispered that the heavens themselves were wounded, leaking power into an unknown void.
Whatever the truth, the result was undeniable.
Breaking past the Seventh Realm became nearly impossible.
Those who reached it were already regarded as living legends—pillars upon which entire bases relied. The Eighth Realm faded into myth. The Ninth Realm became a fairy tale told to inspire children and deceive the desperate.
Yet cultivation did not stop.
It could not.
Because outside the walls, the beasts continued to grow stronger.
To survive, humanity established bases—massive fortified cities built from steel, stone, and desperation. Towering walls encircled them, etched with scars from countless beast onslaughts. Defensive arrays hummed silently beneath the ground. Watchtowers never slept. Every base was a fortress, and every fortress was a fragile island of order in a world drowning in chaos.
Inside the walls, life continued.
Markets opened at dawn. Soldiers trained relentlessly. Cultivators guarded gates and led hunting squads into the wilderness, risking their lives to gather resources—beast cores, medicinal herbs, ancient ruins—anything that could strengthen humanity, even by a fraction.
But safety was an illusion.
Within the bases, strength ruled just as brutally as it did outside. High-realm cultivators held power over life and death. Families rose and fell based on the talents of a single child. Resources flowed upward, while the weak fought over scraps.
Justice existed only when enforced by strength.
Those without cultivation worked endlessly, hoping their children might awaken talent. Those with low cultivation served as cannon fodder against beast tides. And those at the top watched everything from above, calculating gains and losses as if lives were numbers on a ledger.
The world did not care.
It never had.
Beasts needed food to grow. Humans needed energy to survive. Both competed for the same limited resources. As Heaven and Earth energy continued to thin, conflict intensified. Every breakthrough became harder. Every failure became more costly.
Yet even in this decaying age, something remained unchanged.
Energy still flowed.
Faint. Scarce. But alive.
Hidden deep within ancient ruins, buried beneath collapsed civilizations, or sealed inside forgotten bloodlines, traces of the old world still lingered. Power that did not belong to this era slept, waiting for something—or someone—to awaken it.
And somewhere within one of humanity's countless bases, far from legends and far from hope, a single life struggled to endure.
No destiny announced their birth.
No prophecy marked their path.
No heaven bent to acknowledge them.
But in a world where everything was energy,
even the smallest spark had the potential to become an inferno.
And when that spark finally ignited,
the fragile balance between beasts, humans, and heaven itself
would begin to burn.