Astral Realm

Biodata

Cosmology and Geography

Worlds and World Clusters

• Scale: The Astral Realm contains countless world clusters, of which Paradise Mountain’s World Cluster is only one 545.
• World boundaries: Individual worlds are distinct from the surrounding Astral Realm. Jiang You encounters an enormous silver celestial body orbiting his world at this boundary 63.
• World formation: New worlds continually appear in remote, empty regions. Some eventually grow into great worlds and become the centers of world clusters 569.
• World aggregation: When many worlds gather together, the largest can drain the vitality of surrounding worlds and absorb them as nourishment 569.
• Outer barrier: Before the merger, the Astral Realm’s barrier protected its worlds from the encroachment of Nothingness 784.

Major Regions and Structures

Environmental Transformation

• Original structure: The Astral Realm originally possessed neither a universal “heaven” nor “earth”; its worlds existed within the surrounding expanse 709.
• White Gold Sun: Jiang You’s radiance introduced light and energy into previously dark, barren regions. New life emerged under these conditions, including the tentacled, naturally Transcendent Dark Void Race 671.
• Three thousand pillars: During Jiang You’s awakening, the rules manifested as pillars spanning the realm. Their lower ends formed the Desert of Stars, while their upper reaches supported a cloudlike layer beneath the White Gold Sun 709.
• Dimensional flooding: His strike against the Astral Realm Will severed the River of Spacetime and collapsed the dimensional domain. Hyperdimensional waters flooded worlds before collecting in the Desert of Stars, creating a forbidden zone accessible only to beings who understood rule power 709.

Rules and Power System

Rule Stars

• Three thousand original rules: The Astral Realm’s fundamental rules manifest as three thousand great stars within its hyperdimensional spacetime. These stars are one origin of the realm’s name 403.
• Necessary functions: The rules sustain the operation of the Astral Realm; their masters generally do not conceal their presence 431.
• World laws are distinct: Astral Realm Rules differ from the laws of individual worlds. Elemental laws such as fire, water, and thunder hold a lower relative standing than rules such as space and nothingness 431.
• New rules are possible: Jiang You created the Rule of Judgment rather than inheriting an existing rule. The Astral Realm welcomed it as a further perfection of itself and supplied power to stabilize and spread it 502.

Original Advancement Restrictions

• Breaking the Rule Sovereign monopoly: The known routes were killing an existing Sovereign or creating a new Astral Realm Rule. Before Jiang You’s success, the former had never succeeded, while the latter belonged to accounts of the realm’s earliest age 477 502.
• Protected Alternative Supremes: Some Sovereigns granted portions of their rules to subordinates. Major powers such as the Abyss could also shelter Alternative Supremes from the rules’ original owners 477 484.
• Limits of ordinary Sovereigns: Rule Sovereigns lacked the power to leave the Astral Realm and travel through the external void in search of other cosmic spacetimes 615.

Astral Realm Will

• Nature: An instinctive administrator rather than a conscious individual. It could recognize threats to its control and act to preserve the realm’s independence 709.
• Chronicle of the Ages: The ancient book is a manifestation of the Astral Realm Will and records the realm’s history, beginning with its birth 589.
• Astral Realm Mark: A recognized Star Saint receives authority through this mark, enabling rudimentary communication with the Will and notification of crises or unusual events 592.
• Limited awareness: The Game System’s Supreme-grade means initially concealed the merger with the Original Universe from it 580 592.
• Resistance to fusion: Once it discovered that the larger Original Universe would absorb the Astral Realm, the Will attempted to stop the process 671.
• Destruction and regeneration: Jiang You shattered and suppressed it. Remaining fragments became artifacts, spiritual plants, and other treasures; a replacement Will later formed from the collective power of living beings, only to be crushed as well 709 710 711.

History

Birth and Early Epochs

The Chronicle of the Ages depicts the Astral Realm’s birth as worlds scattering outward like fragments expelled from a stellar core. Its existence spans countless stellar epochs 403 589.

During its earliest epochs, the realm absorbed a shattered external spacetime. The inhabited realms within that spacetime became worlds of the Astral Realm, preserving their populations. The future Void Star Saint was among those survivors 651.

The Astral Realm Dragons and Great Serpent Race fought for dominance in its earliest era. In the Primordial Era, authority was divided among several Star Saints rather than concentrated under one ruler 612 713.

Arrival of the Abyss

A corrupted half-head larger than a world entered the Astral Realm and began absorbing its energy to reconstruct itself. This consumption caused the Dharma-Ending Epoch across countless worlds 575.

Led by the Star Saint of Time, the Star Saints extinguished its growing crimson consciousness but could not destroy the half-head. Their injuries forced them into slumber. The surviving body’s instincts transformed its skin, hair, and blood into Abyssal layers, ancient Demons, and the river that produced Demon Worms 575.

Fragments of the Seven-Colored White Jade Bone Disc carried the legacy that became the Sky Lord System. Seeking to recover the disc’s power, the Star Saint of Time later established the Hall of Time and ordered its Rule Sovereigns to eliminate Sky Lords 529 575.

Feland’s Exploration

After exploring the small worlds attached to Feland World, its peoples prepared a joint Astral Realm expedition to find a suitable large world as insurance against an Abyss invasion. The gods organized the expedition in Year 654 of the Elf Dynasty calendar, appointing Raphael to command a Sky City provided by the Winged People 212.

Spatial Mages left beacons along the route to prevent the expedition from becoming lost. At great distances, the explorers’ connection to their gods weakened, making divine intervention increasingly difficult 213.

In Year 1398, Kanier used the expedition’s beacons to achieve ultra-long-distance teleportation through the Astral Realm. By Year 1423, she had opened a portal to a small world with the gods’ support 238.

Rise of Paradise Mountain

Paradise Mountain’s campaigns against the Abyss attracted refugees, knightly orders, Star Spirits, and other groups from across the Astral Realm. Its willingness to oppose the Abyss helped establish it as a major power 549.

Jiang You’s defeat of the Star Saint of Time overturned the realm’s existing balance. He subsequently invited the Rule Sovereigns to a conference at Paradise Mountain, where more than seventeen hundred attended. He proposed an Astral Realm Alliance and a redefinition of Transcendent ranks, presenting external enemies as the reason for unification 600 612 615.

Paradise Mountain’s armies eventually conquered the Astral Realm. Searches for secluded and sleeping Sovereigns continued for more than ten thousand years, ending when the final Sovereign submitted and all three thousand rules fell beneath the Highest Heaven Throne 657.

Subjugation and Sacred Cataclysm

Jiang You’s control of the rules allowed him to confront the Astral Realm Will directly. He cleaved its essence apart, suppressed its remnants, and rejected a newly formed Will’s offer to assist his ascension. He instead unified the realm’s power through his own throne 709 710 711.

In Year 302438, he opened the Astral Realm to the Hyperdimensional Sea and shattered the dimensional source of its Transcendent system. The resulting Sacred Cataclysm forced gods into mortal forms, allowed mortals to seize Divine Sparks, and sent chaotic energy throughout the worlds. The flooded Desert of Stars became an ocean in which a vast new world began forming 725.

Fusion with the Original Universe

The merger began through the connection between Feland and Blue Star, created through the Supreme-grade power of the Radiant Holy Armament that operated as the Game System. Over tens of thousands of years, the fusion spread far beyond Paradise Mountain’s worlds 420 580 651.

Unlike a contest between equal-ranked universes, this fusion inevitably placed the lower-ranked Astral Realm under the Original Universe’s dominance. The Seven-Colored Compass enabled it to enter through spatial displacement from an internal point 784.

The Astral Realm’s entry took roughly a hundred years. Its protective barrier then shattered, exposing its worlds and matter to cosmic space. The transformation of its worlds into planets concluded after three hundred years 784.

Government and Society

Administration

• Supreme authority: Paradise Mountain governed the entire Astral Realm under Jiang You, with Angels patrolling worlds, judging wrongdoing, and suppressing injustice 659.
• Heavenly Empress’s demarcation: Annatania divided the realm into thirty thousand provinces. Concentrations of nearby worlds became stellar domains, and interconnected domains formed provinces 660.
• Provincial capitals: Capitals were generally placed in stellar domains containing Rule Sovereign-grade beings; otherwise, the largest domain served as the capital 660.
• Local states: Submitted Astral Realm Empires continued to exist, sometimes spanning several provinces. Their internal boundaries coexisted with the Angels’ administrative divisions 732.
• Grand Constitution: Livier ordered a realm-wide constitution and compatible regional laws. Its final version entered implementation in Year 146888 692 693.

Peoples, Trade, and Institutions

• Astral Realm Merchants: Their apparently unequal trades yield power originating from the realm’s essence. Their alliance predates the completion of the original three thousand Sovereign positions 400 412.
• Resource-rich isolated worlds: Some worlds with low Transcendent density possess rare minerals, crystals, and organisms difficult to find elsewhere, attracting travelers and merchants 599.
• Industrial growth: Exchanges with the Original Universe encouraged large-scale industry and the rise of gods associated with industry, machinery, and steam 659.
• Shared language: Sariel promoted the Ferland Language to reduce barriers between peoples below Legendary rank. Surveys later found it in use across the vast majority of regions 691.
• Soul protection: After souls became a circulating currency, Sariel established the Soul-Guiding Angel Legion to safeguard their passage to the Underworld 691.
• Anti-trafficking campaigns: Livier’s crackdowns substantially reduced disappearances among major Transcendent races, although the surviving slave trade moved underground 693.
• Adventurers’ Association: Established in Year 177678, it ranked adventurers by experience and mission points: Black Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Monarch 706.

Transport and Communications

Astral Realm Railway

• Specialized services: Ocean, purgatory, darkness, mist, and lava trains were designed for unusual environments and passengers 682.
• Uneven access: Remote Welstiro World initially received a train only once every ten years. Wealth, status, longevity, or strength remained important practical requirements for travel 685.
• Portal network: Gates on Paradise Mountain’s sixth level provided another means of reaching worlds throughout the provinces 660.

Astral Realm Magic Weave

• Construction: Began in Year 115101 under Raphael, following the railway network through provincial star regions, Hell, and the Land of Twilight 685.
• Coverage and core: By Year 118000, it covered every provincial star region. Its core was located in Saint Raphael World 688.
• Spell distribution: Spellcasters could download magic, including spells above their own level. Transfer speed, storage capacity, and personal mana still limited use 689.
• Commerce: The Myriad Worlds Trading Platform enabled transactions through the Magic Weave, with goods shipped by Astral Realm Train 689.
• Entertainment: Realm-wide broadcasts included a popular show following recipients of Sariel’s Dice of Fate as they pursued greater strength 691.

Legacy After the Merger

• Unified timeline: Jiang You’s attainment of Quasi-Supreme had already converged the Astral Realm’s timelines into a single possibility before the final fusion 783.
• Distinct historical origin: Although the Astral Realm’s River of Time joined that of the Original Universe, their pre-merger histories remained separate upstream branches 830.