The Heavens, District 26, outskirts.
Boundless black mist poured out from an unknowable place, sweeping toward the region where The Heavens lay.
The black mist teemed with beings of the Weird Faction, their bodies shrouded in dark matter. They came from countless different races, every one of them seething with murderous intent.
Within District 26 of The Heavens, armies of cultivators covered heaven and earth. Dao Ancestors, Immortal Kings, True Immortals, Supremes... every rank was present, likewise drawn from many different races.
These races had once been rivals, living together in the vast world of The Heavens. But the arrival of the Weird Faction shattered its peace. Facing a common enemy, every race set aside its old grudges and united to resist the eerie invasion.
Countless tens of thousands of years had passed since the war began. There was a minor battle every ten years and a major battle every ten thousand. The fathers of these cultivators had already spilled their blood upon the soil of The Heavens. When the older generation fell, the next stepped forward; when that generation died out, the one after it took their place.
This was a struggle for survival, with no room for compromise. No one wished to accept the baptism of dark matter and become another version of themselves, fallen into darkness.
"Kill! Fight these scum of the darkness to the death!" A Dao Ancestor in the army of The Heavens threw back his head and roared.
His voice carried laws at the Quasi-Immortal Emperor level. Instantly, the cultivators of The Heavens felt their blood boil. Power surged ceaselessly within them, their faces twisted, and their eyes turned red as they charged the dark army with furious cries.
According to the Weird Faction, this epoch was the black epoch, meaning that the Dark