Central Plains

Biodata

Feature	Information
Name	Central Plains (中土)
Occupation/Role	Central land of the human world; political heartland of the Xia Dynasty and a major center of divine, shamanic, and immortal-path power
Status	Extant; affected by dynastic instability, environmental disasters, world fusion, and war with the Western Ocean
First Appearance	30

Geography and Boundaries

• The Central Plains lie north of the Southern Barbarian Lands, beyond a mountain range and more than a dozen great mountains. Merchants describe them as the “center of the earth,” blessed by heavenly gods and ruled by the Heavenly Emperor’s favored child 30.
• A seal marks part of the border with the Southern Barbarian Lands. It suppresses spiritual-energy fluctuations and prevents cultivators above a certain realm from remaining there for long, while also providing a comparatively safe travel route 60.
• The borderlands still support intelligent demon beasts, ferocious beasts, and tribes. Some border tribes become targets for cultivators from the Central Plains 60.
• The Central Plains’ netherworld retains more of its original Dao principles than surrounding regions. The Three Mountains Ritual limits the influence of another world’s netherworld, while former tributary states in other directions have undergone much heavier mutations 298.

Governance and Political Order

The Xia Dynasty is founded on hereditary rule and supported by human fortune, dynastic destiny, and the human divine pantheon. The Xia ruler acts as the exchange hub for the fortunes of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity gathered by the feudal lords; this grants the ruler a rank comparable to a Green Edict Great Deity and the title of Emperor 269.

Power	Position in the Central Plains
Xia Dynasty	The hereditary royal house. Its ruler, Di Fa, draws on divine power from the Central Plains’ lands, totems, cities, and five elemental forces 269 712.
Open Xia supporters	Shiwei Kingdom, Gu Kingdom, and Ge Kingdom have national fortunes closely tied to Xia and openly follow its leadership 269.
Neutral powers	Great Peng Kingdom, Fei Kingdom, the Dragon-Raising Clan, and other ancient states maintain independent or neutral positions 269.
Hostile or uncertain powers	The Youhu Clan bears deep hatred toward Xia, while Kunwu Kingdom and Shang Kingdom hold ambiguous positions 269.
Regional princes	Princes governing regions hold authority comparable to third-rank cultivators through dynastic providence, though most of that power is distributed throughout their territories rather than retained personally 646.

Reduced offerings from feudal lords weaken the Xia emperor’s position. If the emperor cannot maintain divine power beyond the royal territory, feudal rebellion may become unavoidable 269. By a later era, powerful princes have spent decades expanding their authority, and the Central Plains is considered close to another change of dynasty 562.

Yu Chen ultimately preserves the imperial courts’ ranks of fortune but removes the power attached to them, leaving the organization of government to humanity itself 785.

Divine and Spiritual Systems

Three Mountains and Five Sacred Mountains Grand Ritual

The Three Mountains and Five Sacred Mountains Grand Ritual protects the Central Plains’ netherworld and serves as a mechanism for reorganizing its spiritual order. Yu Chen adjusts the rite to expel lingering ancient-god power and foreign netherworld influence, gradually bringing the region’s Dao principles and laws under his control 298 315.

Through the true intent of Driving Spirits, Yu Chen seeks to access heaven-and-earth authority itself. His reshaping of the underworld replaces lingering foreign influence with his own Daoist field, creating a cycle through which he can influence the Central Plains’ divine authority 315.

Central Plains Divine System

In a dungeon world, the Central Plains Divine System consists of thirty-three interconnected heavenly palaces. Each palace represents a true-god-level divine domain, including domains associated with the sun, moon, Jade Purity, and other divine functions 725.

• The system interweaves Daoist, Buddhist, folk, and official divine traditions; apparently unrelated gods may be different identities or “masks” of the same deity 725.
• The heavenly soldiers, divine generals, and jade maidens within the palaces are formed from accumulated faith power rather than being independent living beings 725.
• The gods and saints who established the system departed long ago, leaving thirty-three true-god-level domains arranged to protect the Central Plains 725 751.
• Their remaining authorities are open to the mortal realm. Research into these authorities enables the development of supernatural technology and strengthens resistance to evil gods and outer-side entities 728.
• Yu Chen’s spiritual realm joins the system as the Stamen Pearl Palace and Seven Reflections of Purple Radiance Hall, where he receives the title Deliverance Emperor Lord 725.

Historical Developments

• During the first upheaval after the Severing Heaven and Earth, ancient earth deities mutated under the effects of faith, worship, human desire, and blood sacrifice. Cultivators of the ancient divine path established the immortal Dao and suppressed many ancient gods and evil gods 728.
• More than a thousand years before the Western Ocean conflict, internal division split the Central Plains into three major factions and exhausted seventy percent of its fighting strength. The crisis devastated the once-prosperous divine path and left almost no immortal-god statuses above the third rank 562.
• The Central Plains later endured the fusion of worlds. Its netherworld largely assimilated the other world’s origin rather than being transformed by it, a stability attributed to the Three Mountains Ritual 298.
• The Dragon-Slaying Ritual and the later materialization of the world contributed to the decline of individual cultivation. The Central Plains Divine System ceased openly manifesting miracles, even though many of its functions continued to operate 729 750.
• The Central Plains’ cultivation system later revives through the Thirty-Three Heavens Palace framework, which provides a broad and accessible foundation for supernatural research 728.

Crises and Conflicts

Drought and Internal Disorder

Changes to the world’s Dao principles alter the Central Plains’ rainfall and sunlight for decades or centuries, producing alternating droughts and floods 673.

After three years of drought, the region faces a projected cycle of three years of flooding, a half-year of favorable harvests, and another five years of drought. Yu Chen can stabilize water vapor only within several dozen li around his dojos before resistance from an unseen force becomes overwhelming 799.

The drought causes widespread hunger. In the Shang Kingdom, nets used to catch birds and beasts are deliberately left open on three sides as a gesture of benevolent governance and a means of attracting people to Shang territory 813.

Ge Kingdom Campaign

The Ge Kingdom sacrifices its people to ghost gods in exchange for protection, using treated corpses and curse arts to cultivate spiritually rich grain for its upper and middle ranks 813.

Shang Kingdom responds with military action. Its border cities function as miniature divine kingdoms: the defending general acts as the local divine lord, while soldiers reinforce the general’s strength through the city’s formation 813.

War with the Western Ocean

The Central Plains and the Western Ocean enter open war after prolonged tension over world origins and the nine-rank status system 609 646.

• The Western Ocean’s supreme deity seeks to merge more deeply with the Central Plains’ Dao principles and laws, while the Central Plains fears that this would collapse the existing order 609.
• The Heavenly Consort and Lord of Earth help connect the Central Plains’ Dao principles, laws, and origins into a vast defensive system around the capital 647.
• Western Ocean angels descend in battle arrays, while Central Plains defenders include military cultivators, Buddhist forces, regional princes, and the Mechanism Grotto-Heaven 646.
• Yu Chen initially observes and supports the war indirectly, but later confronts and defeats the Death Knight summoned by the Sixth Apocalypse horn 646 650.
• The Central Plains’ strategy is to pressure the Western Ocean steadily, either assimilating it or waiting for its unstable supreme deity—burdened by undigested world origins—to split apart 562.