Infernal Realm

Biodata

Geography and Environment

• Scale: Its five continents and surrounding seas make complete territorial unification difficult. Each continent is smaller than the Netherworld’s continuous landmass, but the realm as a whole supports numerous competing powers 109.
• Sky: A purple crescent moon casts eerie purple moonlight at night; the sun is blood-red 6 113.
• Landscape: Rhodes’s first journey outside the Thunder Region reveals towering trees, jagged rocks, and vast stretches without visible inhabitants 6.
• Planar boundary: Once its expansion ends, a barrier containing all seven perfectly fused elements separates the realm from endless Spatial Turbulence 25.

Notable Locations

Travel and Teleportation

Teleportation Arrays

• Network: The Infernal Realm has seven Teleportation Arrays connecting it with other Overgod Planes and countless Material Planes 25 109.
• Protection: The Overgod Edict declares that anyone who destroys an array will die 25.
• Strategic value: Arrays provide access to arriving recruits, interplanar campaigns, and Material Planes where factions can spread faith 26 118.
• Local access: One array appears approximately one hundred thousand li from the Amethyst Mountains. Blood Peak Continent has two, including one close to the Skyrite Mountains 26 57.
• Transport services: During its monopoly, the Hall of the Gods transports new arrivals in Metal Lifeforms, distributing them among settlements rather than allowing populations to accumulate around the arrays 112 116.

Long-Distance Travel

• Metal Lifeforms serve as vehicles for journeys across continents and seas. Rhodes recalls that crossing the Star Mist Sea can take fifty or sixty years of uninterrupted travel 7.
• Spatial travel becomes an alternative for Sovereigns, who tear open the realm’s barrier to enter Spatial Turbulence 139 141.
• Danger outside settlements persists despite organized transport: bandits ambush travelers, raid homes, and kill deities for their Divine Sparks 112.

Major Factions

The four-faction balance emerges after the early continental wars; it does not represent the realm’s political organization throughout its entire history 54 57.

• Independent experts: Watrod repels the Demon King without joining the major continental alliances. Other unaffiliated experts later challenge the established rulers and seek their own territories and sources of faith 35 76 90.
• Infernal Realm Faction: In the Sovereign era, Rhodes leads a broader coalition. Wind Sovereigns under Yi Han attach themselves to it rather than all settling within the Infernal Realm itself 141.

History

Formation and Early Disorder

The Infernal Realm exists before the Seven Divine Planes are born and before life appears in the Material Planes. Its territory initially expands continuously as elemental essence condenses into land along its edges 1 8 25.

Early society has no unified order. Deities and Saints gather into alliances or Divine Beast kin-groups for protection, while powerful individuals establish their own forces. The Demon King imposes relative stability in the realm’s center, but conflict continues beyond his territory 8.

Rhodes begins his travels in the Thunder Region. After defeating Di’ers, he learns about the surrounding powers and begins organizing followers of his own. Over five hundred years, Di’ers and Pulide expand his territory across hundreds of millions of li 8 13.

End of Expansion and the First Continental Wars

An Overgod Edict marks the end of the realm’s expansion and announces the construction of Teleportation Arrays in fifty years. Their completion brings successive waves of Saints and deities from the Material Planes 25 26.

Factions seize the arrays and use the arrivals to enlarge their armies. Recruitment ranges from coercion to outright slaughter: the Amethyst Alliance allows Midgods to leave, whereas the Demon Alliance kills those who refuse submission. Cities rise, but fighting remains common even within them 26 27.

The Demon Alliance expands across two continents and attacks the Amethyst Alliance. Rhodes refuses the Demon King’s invitation to join him, while Watrod independently repels the Demon King in the Sea of Chaos 28 34 35.

Kings’ Agreement

After the leading continental rulers gather around Rhodes’s confrontation with the Celestial Realm’s Light King Atezi, they negotiate a temporary settlement. Proposals for common rules fail, including Chris Ding’s attempt to establish Fiend Castles throughout all five continents. They agree that the winner of a war ten thousand years later will determine the realm’s rules 51 52 54.

The agreement produces a period of rapid development. Restrictions on Teleportation Arrays are lifted, intercontinental trade expands, and the four major factions make their cities safe by executing anyone who fights inside them. Lei Ding’s Floating Shadows of Rhodes’s battles circulate widely, making Rhodes famous throughout the realm 54 57.

War Against the Hall of the Gods

The peace lasts less than six thousand years. After discovering the Hall of the Gods’ efforts to gather faith, Chris Ding, Solo Ross, and other powers organize an attack while Rhodes is traveling in the Netherworld 88 89.

Enemy forces seize the Hall’s Teleportation Arrays and surround the Skyrite Mountains. The Four Divine Beasts kill Solo Ross with their fusion innate divine ability, but face further attacks from the assembled Highgods. Atezi subsequently enters with Celestial Realm reinforcements 90 94.

Hathaway and experts from Green Leaf Castle arrive from the Netherworld to support Rhodes. Their intervention prevents Atezi from continuing his assault and shifts the battle against the invading forces 101.

Hall of the Gods’ Ascendancy

Recognizing the difficulty of conquering every continent, Rhodes abandons complete territorial unification as a goal. He instead directs the Hall of the Gods to hold Blood Peak Continent and control all seven Teleportation Arrays, leaving other factions to contest the remaining lands 109.

Over the next hundred thousand years, the Hall’s legions maintain that monopoly, build protected cities, and transport new arrivals. Its authority remains selective rather than universal: the other continents continue to produce competing factions and powerful experts 112 116.

Blood Peak Continent becomes an exclusive base. Residents must belong to the Hall of the Gods or be relatives or dependents of its members; unauthorized inhabitants face expulsion through lethal patrols and military action 116.

Celestial Realm Campaign and Sovereign Sparks

The Four Divine Beasts lead the Hall of the Gods into the Celestial Realm, drawing other Infernal Realm factions into the invasion with the prospect of capturing Teleportation Arrays. The resulting conflict continues for over a hundred thousand years 117 118.

When pillars containing Sovereign Sparks appear, Rhodes recalls the Hall’s armies and relinquishes its Celestial Realm holdings. Although he initially orders most Infernal Realm arrays abandoned as well, a small number of Highgods ultimately remain to guard them. Other factions still hesitate to challenge the Hall 120 122.

Competition over the pillars fuels prolonged warfare elsewhere in the realm. Blood Peak Continent remains comparatively peaceful because no one dares seize the Hall’s pillars 124.

Sovereign Era

The emergence of Sovereigns transforms the struggle for power. Rhodes intends to seize the Sparks of Sovereigns outside the Hall of the Gods, prompting four Infernal Realm Sovereigns to flee toward the Celestial Realm. Their request for protection draws the other Overgod Planes into the confrontation 129 130 131 132.

The Infernal Realm later serves as a refuge for spectators during the dangerous final compression preceding the Wind Element Divine Plane’s creation. Rhodes’s faction also exercises decisive influence over plans to create further Divine Planes 139 142.

The realm’s Sovereigns jointly create Purgatory in the Sea of Chaos. Deities who enter and claim territory become Purgatory Commanders, linking its elite fighters to the era of Planar Wars 147.

After the catastrophe involving Rhodes’s gray energy, outside Sovereigns believe he has perished and predict that the Infernal Realm Faction will eventually fragment. This remains their expectation rather than an established dissolution of the faction 187.

Society and Economy

Population and Advancement

• Early population: Before Teleportation Arrays exist, the realm has relatively few deities, though violent conflict is already widespread 12.
• Immigration: Continuous arrivals from Material Planes produce rapid population growth and make Midgods increasingly common 55.
• Saint-level arrivals: Early factions accept Saints as recruits. Those unable to attain godhood through comprehension can earn Divine Sparks through contributions such as mining 55.
• Concentration of experts: Persistent competition helps the Infernal Realm produce more powerful experts than the other Overgod Planes 109 116 130.

Trade and Resources

Before Sovereigns appear, trade relies on barter because ordinary manufactured currency can be copied. Inkstones containing traces of Sovereign power do not yet exist during this period 57 112.