A quick note: Although the author felt the worldbuilding was well written, with quite a few important hints buried within it, and readers also said they enjoyed it immensely, here's a reminder: if you don't like worldbuilding-focused plotlines, you can skip chapters one, four, and five~~ Those three chapters mainly introduce the world setting!
Though you might miss quite a few exciting parts that way~--------------------------------------
In the endless void, there were two origins for naturally evolving universes. One was a universe that exploded outward from a singularity infinitely small, infinitely massive, and somewhere between Existence and Non-existence, continually expanding afterward. The other was a universe that slowly expanded from a singularity. The Multiverse belonged to the latter.
Different universes had different laws. The Multiverse possessed its own system of laws. Countless bubbles floated within it, large and small, each bubble a plane. A plane's gravity was not generated by mass, but by its core. The core's gravitational pull was uneven in every direction, causing many planes to display the wondrous sight of a square earth beneath a round sky.
Countless years passed after the universe's birth. Countless planes were born in silence, then perished in silence.
Then, one day, the Multiverse gave birth to its own consciousness. His name was Ao. Ao was the Multiverse itself, so his greatest wish was to keep it stable and allow it to continue developing. But things clearly did not go as smoothly as he had imagined. The Multiverse's peace would not last much longer.
Lady of Pain descended from the void. Compared to developing slowly on one's own, plundering the fruits of another's labor was clearly quicker and easier. Lady of Pain was a void powerhouse who developed through pillage, and the Multiverse was her target this time.
Ao naturally would not sit and await death. The instant Lady of Pain invaded the universe, he launched his counterattack. A great battle between two void-level powerhouses erupted within the Multiverse.
In the end, Ao won with the advantage of fighting on his home ground. Lady of Pain had misjudged Ao's strength. She had failed, and she was trapped within the Multiverse, unable to leave. She had no choice but to hide in her sole remaining base, Sigil, to recuperate. Devouring a void powerhouse would bring Ao immense benefits, enough at least to make up for the losses from this battle. He would not let his enemy go.
But he had something even more important to do now... repair the Multiverse as quickly as possible. During the battle, the violent power of the two void powerhouses had torn holes throughout the Multiverse. These holes leaked the Multiverse's aura into the void, drawing countless savage creatures wandering there.
Leaking one's aura into the void was like letting a wound bleed freely in the ocean. Even the powerful would be worn down by countless predators, let alone Ao, who had been greatly weakened by the battle. If another void-level powerhouse arrived, the consequences would be unthinkable.
But Ao was no skilled tailor. Who knew how many years it would take him to mend all those holes? For now, he needed to plug them first. Even if it was only a superficial fix, that was better than leaving them exposed. At the very least, it would be enough to fool those brainless void creatures.
Ao's method was to make living beings into gods, create divine sparks to fill the holes, and let lifeforms control those divine sparks to become gods capable of handling sudden changes. The gods would gather faith to maintain their divine sparks. Such a chain could become a self-sustaining, virtuous cycle.
Divine sparks needed to be controlled by living beings, but life could only arise through natural evolution. Even Ao could not completely control a lifeform. And lifeforms were undoubtedly selfish. Moreover, those willing to Become a God were almost all fiercely ambitious. They would never obediently control divine sparks and fill the holes. They would covet greater power and authority, and they would seek to break free from control.
But Ao had a decent countermeasure. He tampered with the divine sparks. A divine spark sabotaged by Ao would slowly wear away a lifeform's emotions, eventually turning it into an absolutely rational, cold, emotionless machine. Machines naturally worked with utmost dedication and had no private schemes of their own. Of course, by then, that lifeform would no longer be itself. It could not even be considered a complete lifeform anymore.
But the facts proved that gods might be arrogant, greedy, and ignorant, but they were definitely not fools!
The first batch of "lucky ones" to obtain divine sparks and become gods soon discovered that they were gradually losing their joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, becoming cold machines. Yet if they abandoned their divine sparks, they would perish completely. Naturally, they could not accept such an outcome.
Where there was oppression, there was resistance. The gods began racking their brains for all manner of reliable and unreliable methods. A very few succeeded, while most failed. Those who succeeded hid in the cracks of the universe, living in constant fear. Those who failed turned entirely to ash and scattered into the heavens. But their divine sparks would be found by new inheritors, and new gods would be born. Even when the new "lucky ones" clearly knew the drawbacks of divine sparks, countless chosen heroes always believed they could easily defy fate. Thus, divine sparks continued to be passed on. One Ancient God after another fell, while one new god after another was born. Seeing that this virtuous cycle had been established, Ao went to sleep in peace. (That's right, the way to repair the universe was to sleep.)
Life always pursued evolution. Over the long passage of time, the living beings of the Multiverse found methods of evolution, the mainstream ones being magic and battle aura.
Among them, magic developed the fastest. In an obscure plane, the glorious Netherese Civilization was born. Driven by the Archmages, Netheril's radiance spread across the entire Multiverse at an astonishing pace. By the time Ao noticed, Netheril's power was already on the verge of transcending the universe and truly escaping his control.
Ao was restrained by Lady of Pain and could not act personally, so he sent the gods to battle Netheril. But the self-important gods were soon utterly defeated before Netheril's ultimate creation—the floating city!
The gods' defeat only made Ao more wary of these powerful beings. How could Ao allow the living beings of the universe to escape his control? So, with great reluctance, he split off some of his precious origin and created his most loyal servants—a group of terrifying tentacled monsters. In bitter irony, he used Netheril's home base, the Faerun plane, as the name for these monsters. Thus, the Faerun Demon Beasts were born.
Over the long years of war with the Faerun Demon Vine, the Netherese Civilization ultimately prevailed. But the price was terrible. Although the Archmages sealed away the Faerun Demon Vine, the Netherese Civilization also collapsed with a thunderous crash under the gods' opportunistic attacks. Yet this absolutely did not mean that the Netherese Civilization had been destroyed. The remnants of Netheril still remembered The Splendor of Netheril, and they continued striving at all times for Netheril's revival.
The present Multiverse appeared peaceful, but beneath its seemingly still surface, gods fought over faith while exhausting every possible method to break free from the shackles of their divine sparks. The remnants of Netheril evaded pursuit from all sides while secretly passing down Netheril's knowledge.
And within the endless Abyss, the Abyssal Will had quietly been born at some unknown time. Amid a vortex of filth and chaos, he plotted unspeakable schemes. Endless waves foretold the coming storm, while endless undercurrents surged beneath the surface.
In such a tumultuous era, a spark of Netheril was suddenly kindled in the endless void.