Paragon of Sin

Wu Yu felt restless.

He was born in the Everlore Starfield roughly seven to eight thousand years ago in a human village of the wilderness in despondent times ruled by dragons and demons. The people of his village survived by hunting and scavenging what they could, cultivating slowly and gradually to gather sufficient strength to survive.

His village was special as the majority of females were impregnated by the chief, and that chief was his father. The chief was an expert with the highest cultivation base of that time, commanding the greatest authority, and ruling over his people. Wu Yu was but one of his many, many children. Even after Wu Yu was born, the chief kept spreading his Bloodline with wild, almost fanatical abandon.

At the time, Wu Yu felt this was completely normal. He dreamed of becoming chief since he could hold a spear, obtaining the rights to the most beautiful of women in the village, the grandest hut of brick and straw, and the highest degree of respect and authority.

However, times were chaotic, and villages of humans throughout the world would experience wars, catastrophes of beasts and dragons, or internal strife leading to a complete collapse. For Wu Yu's village, the last occurred. A coup was instigated and acted out, causing blood, bone, rock, and qi to fly. They wanted to change the way things were, and from Wu Yu's foggy memories of the times, it was seemingly because of the imbalance of possession as the chief hoarded everything intensely, especially the women of the village, and the older men rebelled after a particular warrior fell for one of the chief's women.

Wu Yu vaguely remembered that this woman might have been his birth mother, but he wasn't sure. The dynamics in the village made it so all females were mothers to all children and all males were teachers, but only to the other male youths. The female youths were kept away.

The chief was severely injured after being ambushed but survived. After claiming victory, his paranoia reached a level of derangement, and he cast all the male youths out, keeping only the females.

The village didn't last for long.

However, Wu Yu had been kicked out long before. He traversed for hundreds of miles and saw all sorts of astonishing things, such as great dragons dancing upon the clouds, the stars glinting with beauty that appeared like a waterfall in the sky, or a gigantic tree with hollow branches that was lived in and worshiped by countless people.

While hiding from the stormy weather in a damp, shallow cave, Wu Yu's life was abruptly and unexpectedly changed. His heart pounded furiously as he felt a calling from someone or something within the rain, like soft voices that whispered to the soul and the heart. Venturing out in the cold without the fear of death, summoning forth every ounce of bravery in his bones, he found a large tome buried in wet earth.

After using his hands for an hour to dig it out, he could read the words on the cover despite not recognizing the language.

It read: Myriad Monarch Canon.

His life changed on that day.

The world of cultivation was genuinely opened to him that day as he explored the latent, untapped potential within his bloodline, igniting the Imperial Heaven Ignition Essence and embarking on the path of the Monarch.

He eventually met a young man who carried with him a small, child-like demon born from a pebble and a middle-aged human man with eyes that hid abnormal degrees of hatred within. At first, Wu Yu intended to slaughter them all, take their possession, and move on, but after fighting the middle-aged human and demon to a standstill, he received an invitation that would once again change his life.

The story after was well known. The young man was none other than the King of Everlore! The child-like demon? The Demonic Abyss Master! The middle-aged human? The Divine King Han Xei!

Many things happened in the century that passed, and they began to create a stage of human supremacy, eking out a territory, a continent, that was theirs. They protected it as they pushed it to thrive. Soon, demons and humans began to work together to survive against the oppressors of indifferent dragons and wild beasts.

Wu Yu had never understood his origins or how he had come across the Myriad Monarch Canon all those years ago, or why it had chosen him of all people, but he accepted it as part of his destiny, striving to become a figure worthy of the title: Monarch. He established a kingdom. He built a country. He conquered.

They eventually met a group of strange individuals of an abnormal, rare race on the continent. The Elven Race! They seemed like rats hiding away, trying to make the least amount of noise, but their very existence conjured interest from the King of Everlore, and that was their greatest blessing.

The race of people had a young princess who was as curious as a cat, growing fascinated by Wu Yu, Divine King Han Xei, the Demonic Abyss Master, and the King of Everlore. Eventually, she revealed astonishingly innate talents in all sorts of fields of study, a naturally gifted prodigy of cultivation and invention.

The King of Everlore, who rarely showed interest in those like her, was unable to extract himself, and she later joined their mission of cultivating to their peak heights and finding greater paths of the Martial Dao and Alchemic Dao. They worked together to achieve things that would be difficult to do alone.

After a thousand or so years, Wu Yu was the last one left as the others traversed the stars for secrets of a breakthrough for the King of Everlore, who neared the end of his mortal life, stuck at the sixth stage of the Astral Core Realm.

Unlike the rest, Wu Yu was tethered to his kingdom, his land, and his people, unwilling to leave any of them behind despite the King of Everlore's departure. Unfortunately, he had flown too close to the sun, striving for the Third Ascension with his lacking foundation, losing his body and barely surviving as a soul attached to his Mystic Soul. Without the King of Everlore's Ever-Rebirth Pill or another Mystic Ascendant Realm expert, he was destined to be a lingering spirit for all his remaining days.

He tried all sorts of acts to revive himself, exhausting an ungodly amount of his remaining power, leaving him to the point of being too weak to do anything else, and he was forced into a long slumber.

Until he came across one young man...

"Then, listen." Tian Taizong's voice seemed to contain some mystical force, capable of drawing out the imagination and concentrating the focus, and Wu Yu found his weakened self drawn in. Despite subtly taking a recuperation pill at the high Mystic-Earth grade, he didn't have time to properly refine it to recover his exhausted energies or refine Mystic Power. However, his complexion was already showing signs of improvement.

Who knew that handling the aura of annihilation and origin at the Minor Authority level would be so strenuous for an Earthly Saint?

Tian Taizong began, "I will consider you as ignorant of all things, so do not shy from any inquiry. So, I'll start at the very beginning."

Wu Yu nodded slightly. He 'was' ignorant, after all. Wei Wuyin had told him, before he was given this mission, that the Divine Emperor wasn't so simple, and that certain details that he had tried to grasp regarding the world, all the characters, organizations, and undercurrents he met or discovered thus far, and its situation didn't align, further muddying the truth. But the Divine Emperor was an outlier that may know far more than anyone else.

Why? Because he was imprisoned and restrained-not killed. That was very, very telling.

"We all exist within a Galactic Zone known as the Azure-Prime. A Galactic Zone is an unfathomably vast environment filled with an uncountable number of stars, starfields in the millions upon millions, hundreds of thousands of stellar regions, and enveloping them all, constituting a whole-the galaxy.

"The scale of which is hard to describe with mere words, but my Grand Cyclic Stellar Region would merely be an ant before a mountain. It is simply that vast. Millions of years ago, the Galactic Zone was originally ruled by a Jiao of a True Dragon Lineage, its azure scales were said to contain entire worlds, exuding brilliance that outmatched the stars in every direction. It was said to be invincible, at the cusp of attaining true immortality.

"In its attempt to seek out immortality, to exist as long as the heavens, it faced a tribulation so great that it warped all of creation itself."

Ba-dum! Ba-dum!

Wu Yu's heart was already racing from this little bit. He was already aware of the Azure-Prime Galactic Zone as Wei Wuyin didn't hold back informing about the World Beyond, but he was fully unaware of its great history. A Jiaolong? What was that? Was it like the Tiangou? An existence different from a typical beast or cultivator?

Tian Taizong fully expected Wu Yu's shock, even feeling the lingering shivers his own soul felt when he first heard of it all as a youth. "Alas, it died after its failure; upon its death, it used its last breath to give birth to a single, godly star that shone across the Galactic Zone with its radiance. It outshone all other stars, endlessly majestic. It was named by the cultivators of that time as the One-Star Era."

Wu Yu's eyes widened; the One-Star Era was something Wei Wuyin mentioned too! Supposedly, a heaven-defying product was born in that era! Wei Wuyin hadn't delved too much into that specifically, seemingly not wanting him to be affected too much.

Seeing his reaction or recognition, Tian Taizong's thoughts stirred as if certain thoughts and beliefs were solidified at that moment. "From this era, several exceptional existences were born among the myriad of races there. Most were unimportant, but three, just three, stood out above anyone and anything else."

"The Ascended Sovereigns?!" Wu Yu blurted out unintentionally.

Tian Taizong gave Wu Yu a look then solemnly nodded. "The Human Sovereign, the Titan Sovereign, and the Celestial Sovereign; they were three that carved themselves out of the ordinary dust and cultivated to levels unheard of during their era."

"What cultivation stage did the Ascended Sovereigns reach?" Wu Yu didn't think Tian Taizong would speak of this, so he asked outright. His curiosity as a Grand Knight who had conquered an entire starfield was far too strong to resist, feeling as if he'd have a flagpole to rush toward.

Tian Taizong, however, seemed to have expected that question. "At that time, they were at the Ascended Saint Phase of the Mystic Ascendant Realm. It's why they were referred to as Ascended Sovereigns by the world's inhabitants of that time. The Ascendant Saint Phase is said to hold the true power of the Mystic Dao in their grasp, so their dominance was far-reaching and irresistible, likened to my rise." There was a tinge of great pride in his voice at the end.

"How long ago was that?" Wu Yu asked. Wei Wuyin had once said the One-Star Era had begun roughly two million years ago, but it came to an end with the current era. The three Ascended Sovereigns likely had something to do with that. And they did!

"The three Ascended Sovereigns came into power about one hundred and eighty thousand years ago, ushering in a new era- the Azure-Prime Era. Due to conflicting interests between them, the Ascended Sovereigns decided to show respect to the Jiao, attributing their success to its existence, and they worked together to send the Solar Star of the Jiao into a different realm, sealing it off. It brought the end of the greatest One-Star Era that shone across the entire Galactic Zone." Tian Taizong said, his eyes glinting mysteriously as he did.

"They sealed it?" Wu Yu was stunned. Not even Wei Wuyin knew this! There were no records in the World Between the Fold nor in any of the memories that he came across of this. It was clear that this information was incomparably valuable and restricted. For Tian Taizong to know this, Wei Wuyin was right!

"Why?" He followed up.

"..." Tian Taizong didn't answer.

"..." Wu Yu thought for a long moment and then it clicked. After one hundred and eight thousand years, it was very unlikely that no abnormal genius would emerge from similar conditions as them as the society of cultivation kept advancing to greater and greater heights. Eventually, like all things, the Ascended Sovereigns would be relics of the ancient past, weighed down by age and worn by time.

Unless...they...

Seeing the realization in Wu Yu's eyes, Tian Taizong nodded and continued: "The Ascended Sovereigns maintained their supremacy by monopolizing the greatest source of power, sealing off the sole Absolute-sized Solar Star in the Galactic Zone for their personal use, and with it gone, the Azure-Prime Era began.

"But then, about one hundred and twenty thousand years ago, a change occurred. The heavens gave birth to a demon that shook the foundations of their supremacy."