Formless Divine Sect

Biodata

Power Progression

The sect’s documented growth concerns its institutional strength and guardians rather than a single cultivation realm.

Background and History

The Formless Divine Sect rose approximately eleven thousand years before the main events, but parts of its heritage reach back to Middle Antiquity and the Old Sage. Its cultivation tradition developed through successive generations refining the Formless Art and extracting heavenly rules and Dao laws from numerous martial disciplines 287 289.

Approximately seven thousand five hundred years earlier, the eighth sect master relocated the sect to Myriad Gods Gorge, a hundred-li-wide invasion route used by Giant Gods’ descendants. The entire sect spent thirty-two years quarrying primordial astral stone from the Eastern Sea and constructing Formless Divine Mountain to block the gorge and protect Youzhou 277.

Its frontier role shaped both its reputation and its losses. Although it regularly produced first-rank experts, its strongest cultivators were repeatedly committed to suppressing the Ten Thousand Demons Grotto. Since the Blood-Yazi Saber Lord’s era, nine Beyond First-Rank cultivators had entered the cavern over eight hundred years without emerging again 345 390.

Organization and Membership

Leadership

• Elder Council: Authorizes exceptional arrangements, including Chu Xisheng and Chu Ming’s early admission to the Patriarch Hall as Blood-Yazi Candidates 279.
• Institutional oversight: Academies, halls, and pavilions are generally supervised by second-rank Grand Elders. The Guest Reception Court instead uses rotating third-rank reception elders 323.
• Intelligence and missions: The Heaven-Listening Court tracks valuable secret-medicine ingredients; the External Affairs Court issues paid investigative assignments 448 514.

Recruitment and Advancement

• Academy network: Originally operates seventy-two martial academies. Seventh-rank graduates become Registered Disciples and may continue studying at the Lower Court toward entry into the Inner Sect 94 277.
• True Inheritance trials: First-place winners receive an Origin-Nourishing Art Battle Diagram. The sect distributes 144 such diagrams annually through its academies 94.
• Additional trial rewards: Include a five-hundred-tael secret-medicine allowance, thirty Heart-Nourishing Pills, and a lower seventh-rank runic weapon 94.
• Military credentials: Service in the Northern Lands earns recognized military merit toward Inner Sect and True Inheritance admission 182.
• Formal membership: A derivative Formless Heavenly Seal within the disciple’s Divine Soul serves as proof that they belong to the sect 279.
• Aristocratic applicants: Teaching elders restrict resources for aristocratic students who may exploit the adaptable foundational arts before transferring elsewhere 180.

Scale and Resources

• Merit economy: Disciples exchange merit for secret arts, Secret Realm cultivation, high-grade escorts, and permission to use guardian artifacts 279.
• Sources of income: Border Army service, hunting Giant Gods’ descendants and Fierce Beasts, gathering medicines and minerals, and appointments within sect institutions 279.
• Craft training: The sect encourages disciples to learn alchemy, artifact refining, and talisman-making 279.
• Service personnel: Ordinary people may enter service to obtain cultivation resources. Captured Giant God descendants also serve as “Saber Slaves,” “Sword Slaves,” or Strongmen 279.

Headquarters and Facilities

Formless Divine Mountain previously withstood an assault by thirteen million troops gathered by the Night Wolf Divine Clan and its vassals. The attackers failed to shake its defenses and suffered losses that weakened them for decades 278.

Cultivation and Martial Arts

Dao of Formlessness

The sect’s foundation is adaptability: its arts derive from a common lineage capable of accommodating different Martial Dao and reproducing other forms of Origin Power 179.

• Origin-Nourishing Art: Externally taught foundation; draws pure yang power into the body to nourish vital essence 6.
• Formless Art: Advanced foundation compatible with ninety-nine percent of the world’s martial arts. It can unleash more than ninety percent of an adopted martial art’s power 239 326.
• Primordial Formless Great Art: Higher inheritance within the same lineage 179.
• Imitation: Can reproduce ninety-nine percent of the Astral Immortal Sect’s foundational Origin Power art 179.
• Transferability: Switching from its foundational cultivation to another art presents no inherent obstacle 180.
• Underlying principle: “Formlessness” refers to true suchness and the source of transformations; its Dao is a branch of Hundun 250 346 524.
• Highest attainment: Requires mastery of numerous arts and extraction of heavenly rules and Dao laws, not merely proficiency in the foundational method 289.

Principal Martial Inheritances

The sect’s library contains thirty-two first-rank martial manuals and generations of annotations. Its highest inheritances offer a path toward upper first rank and the possibility of transcendent rank 405.

Blood-Yazi Inheritance

The Divine-Intent Death-Touching Saber is central to the sect’s survival strategy against the northern demonic calamity. Entrusting it to an unreliable successor is considered dangerous enough to threaten the sect itself 276.

• Foundation: Divine Wind Bright Mirror Saber and Nine-Wheel Divine Invocation 239 279.
• Soul cultivation: Nine-Wheel Divine Invocation strengthens Soul Power toward breaking the Limit Between Humans and Gods 279.
• Exceptional standing: The saber manual ranks ahead of the Three Saint Inheritances, despite lacking the coherent succession normally required for Saint Inheritance status 405.
• Strategic value: Even its First Form can substantially reduce the threat posed by the Ten Thousand Demons Grotto 406.
• Successor selection: Blood testing and the Blood-Yazi Divine Saber’s response are used to assess candidates 209 229 279.

Battlefield Training

• Almost all disciples understand coordinated attacks and battle formations because of continuous northern warfare 301.
• Their training prepares them for both individual duels and mass combat 301.
• The Heavenly Dipper Six Harmonies Formation allows a heavily outnumbered force to threaten devastating retaliatory casualties 301.

Guardian Artifacts

• Remote invocation: All five guardian artifacts can project incarnations across great distances. Disciples may spend merit to summon manifestations or even the originals from tens of thousands of li away 279.
• Blood-Yazi Divine Saber: Preserved and examined by the sect during its search for a successor; eventually bonds with Chu Xisheng 229 259.
• Battle Diagrams: Include the Formless Art Battle Diagram and its advanced Primordial Chaos version, the latter capable of raising a Formless cultivation body by one layer 331 454.

Ten Thousand Demons Grotto

The grotto contains ninety-six imprisoned ancient Giant Gods, with something still more terrifying beneath them. Li Changsheng states that this hidden burden has been part of the sect’s responsibility since its foundation 404.

• Cultivation resources: The sect extracts divine blood and compels imprisoned gods to bestow grace, helping disciples break bloodline seals without worshipping those gods 256.
• Divine Strength Pills: Giant God blood is refined into strength-enhancing pills for lower-ranking War Hall and Imperial Hall disciples 406.
• Cost and danger: Purifying the blood requires substantial labor and resources. Residual divine intent cannot be completely eliminated and creates lasting vulnerabilities 320 443.
• Suppression burden: Powerful cultivators sustain severe injuries maintaining containment; three living transcendent-rank patriarchs remain part of the sect’s hidden foundation 390 404.
• Later settlement: Chu Xisheng’s covenants with three Eternal Giant Gods strengthen the sect and withdraw Divine Curses 447.
• Continuing guard: Mei Nianxue remains in the grotto suppressing it while other senior combatants search the Eastern Sea for Taiwei Enclosure 493.

Major Story Arcs

Recruitment of Chu Xisheng

Chu Xisheng initially seeks entry to obtain treatment for his illness. After blood tests and the Blood-Yazi Divine Saber’s unusual response, Qingxu Zi recruits him into the inheritance and provides protection while concealing his true status 64 209 229 259.

Qingxu Zi also intervenes in Eastern Province, overturning the charges against him by forcing officials to accept a rebellion case against Sikong Chan and associated factions. Chu Xisheng subsequently enters the main mountain alongside fellow Blood-Yazi Candidate Chu Ming 259 279.

Time Secret Realm and the Wooden Sword Immortal

The sect’s disciples endure repeated pursuit and losses in the Time Secret Realm. At the heavenly stairway, Chu Xisheng breaks an assault by more than two thousand enemies and enables the survivors to retaliate 301 302.

His assistance to the Wooden Sword Immortal brings the sect its first dependable patron god. The resulting Blood Pine sharply improves mountain security and shifts the balance against hostile neighboring powers 320 323.

Confrontation with Great Ning

Li Changsheng storms the Imperial City after attacks on Chu Xisheng and compels Emperor Jianyuan to punish responsible officials and provide compensation. This public display reverses perceptions that the sect’s prestige has declined 345 346 363.

After the grotto upheaval and northern battlefield crisis are resolved, the sect conducts sweeping arrests of Military Bureau Embroidery Guard personnel across northern regions 449 452.

Taiwei Enclosure and Northern Expansion

The sect conceals its true Taiwei Enclosure operation behind searches conducted by senior experts. During the actual opening, its disciples, guardian treasures, and contracted Giant God incarnations trap and destroy forces sent to kill Chu Xisheng 493 494.

Its later intelligence campaign identifies Giant Spirit bases in Iron Province. Defeats inflicted on Yan Province’s Giant Spirits free senior leaders to operate beyond the northern frontier, including the defense against the Great Luo Ant Clan at Skyvault Mountain 514 516 545 578.

Relationships

• Chu Xisheng — Blood-Yazi Saint Inheritor and key defender. His inheritance, recruitment, and survival become central sect priorities 259 283 449.
• Chu Yunyun / Qin Muge — Former direct disciple who entered under an assumed name and lost that status when exposed. Her return is welcomed by the patriarchs; she later fights alongside the sect 6 404 494.
• Chu Ming — Blood-Yazi Candidate admitted alongside Chu Xisheng. Her influence declines as his achievements resolve the sect’s immediate crisis 279 405 450.
• Great Ning Imperial Court — Publicly acknowledges the sect’s frontier role, but Emperor Jianyuan suppresses it in hopes of directing the coming catastrophe toward Youzhou 345 393.
• Divine Wilderness Immortal City — Nominal ally whose territorial ambitions, commercial encroachment, and refusal to aid endangered disciples undermine the alliance 301 318 323.
• Northern Heaven Gate — Allied second-rank sect whose disciples join the sect’s defensive formation in the Time Secret Realm; it also sponsors infiltration of the Formless Divine Sect 282 301 326.
• Profound Darkness Sect, Cliffside Sword Sect, and Eternal Cold Palace — Third-rank allies or subordinate sects allotted places in its Secret Realm 282.
• Extreme Sword Sect — One of the northern powers underpinning the sect’s frontier position 325.
• Origin-Returning Sword Sect — Longstanding rival with a blood feud rooted in local competition; occasionally cooperates against Giant Gods’ descendants 285.
• Iron Banner Gang — Protected through Chu Xisheng. Attempts to destroy it risk being interpreted as coercion aimed at obtaining the sect’s saber inheritance 276.