Death... and me

"You seem to be enjoying talking about the past events," Roan couldn't help but comment.

Kafan shrugged his shoulders. "That's your fault. You were the one who asked about it earlier, remember? I couldn't tell you all of this before since it would end in your discovering your identity as a copy. Well, that's not a problem anymore. If you want, we can stop it here, and I can answer other questions you have."

Roan shook his head. Information was important, regardless of how old it was. What he hears about the past might have an impact on his decisions in the future, so he would rather hear the entire tale to the end. "Just continue."

"No problem," Kafan happily obliged. "So, the three realms got in a war where the Devils and Living Beings fought against the Angels. The worst part was that their constant fight all over this side of the Universe was consuming more and more cultivation energies. That only accelerated the process."

"Still, they continued like that for another twenty-some thousand years!" Kafan felt annoyed just thinking about it. "Even the karma I talked about had already lost its fun by now. It had been over thirty thousand years since the split of the Universe, and the cultivation energies concentration had dropped to just a tenth of what it was before the split."

Kafan then remembered a meeting that happened during that time. "Finally, all three sides stopped. The leaders of these three sides were forced to the table against their choice. They all had suffered greatly and lost so much. Yet, they still wanted to continue. The only reason they decided to talk about it was simply because there were no more cultivation energies to keep the war going."

"By now, only the top experts, those at the Void Tempering Realm or above, could continue to travel to other locations to do battle. Yet, even they were taking much longer than usual to reach such places, sometimes taking hundreds of years. Teleport Formations could still be used since you could power them with Divine, Devilish, or Heavenly Stones. Still, each one used was one less in existence."

Roan agreed. "With this side of the Universe's lack of cultivation energy, things like Divine Stones and similar also stopped to appear. That's only logical."

"Exactly," Kafan nodded. "Now, with all three powers on the table, they finally reached a resolution. If they continued this war and used even more of their cultivation energies, they would eventually have none left. This outcome was obvious since a long time ago, but they had to reach the critical point to accept it."

"You couldn't blame them, though." Roan suddenly mentioned. "If you think about it, they all noticed the cultivation energies were disappearing after the first ten thousand years. What does that mean? That means they must seize as many territories, cultivation locations, and cultivation resources as possible before the situation escalates. The one with the most left would be the ultimate victor... or so the three probably thought."

"Indeed," Kafan knew Roan was right. "In the end, not even a race like the angels could stop the power of greed from taking them. Too bad none of the three sides got any advantage in the end and reached their own demise together. So what if they finally met and decided to stop the war? With only a tenth of the total cultivation energies left, there was nothing they could do. If anything, the situation only got worse from there."

"Let me guess," Roan cut in. "Now that they all stopped the war, there was no one to fight. That meant all the cultivators, demon beasts, devils, and angels had to seize the opportunity to cultivate as much as possible. Otherwise, the rest of the cultivation energies of this side of the Universe would be gone, and they would get stuck."

"Correct," said Kafan. "Immediately after the war, a cultivation frenzy started. Well, the war was over, but the battles didn't stop."

"Obviously," Roan nodded. "With so little cultivation energies to go around, everyone could only rely on cultivation resources like Divine Stones. At such a time, the possession of any kind of cultivation resource could be considered a crime. Without a doubt, the war between devils, cultivators, demon beasts, and angels stopped. Yet, the fight inside their own races started instead. All for the sake of cultivation. Now, they didn't have to travel to such faraway places to fight the war of the three realms. They could do battle right in their garden and use as much cultivation resources as possible."

"One thing led to another, and the cultivation energy of the Universe continued to decrease. A tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth..." Kafan sighed as he remembered it. "Finally, the cultivation energy remaining was so scarce that even the usage of formations to gather it didn't work anymore. The formations themselves didn't get enough energy to simply work, let alone output extra cultivation energy for their users."

"Didn't they try to find a way to traverse to the other side?" Roan couldn't help but ask.

Kafan shrugged his shoulders. "Obviously, they did. However, I was secluded with my race back then. I barely got any information from outside other than the most obvious and easy ones to find. If someone found a way out, then they left a long time ago without raising any alarms. After all, such a discovery would make all powers of this side procure them."

"You can imagine what happened next," Kafan continued. "No more cultivation energy means no more breakthroughs. That means no more increased life span, no new cultivators, etc... The cultivators alive began to die one after another, and so did angels, demon beasts, and devils. The sole exceptions were the experts at the Space-Time Realm and above... and my Death Spirit Race."

Kafan once again gathered a little bit of Death Energy in his hand. "We cultivate by converging dead souls into Death Energy. That's how we have our breakthroughs. Naturally, there was no lack of energy for us. It just so happened that around that time, we noticed the problem with the Dead Souls without a reincarnation path."