Year 20,048 of the Dao Calendar . The Dao Court did not fall in a final, earth-shaking battle, nor did it crumble piece by piece under visible pressure. It collapsed as if the very foundation of existence had rotted away overnight, silent and absolute. Darkness did not creep across the heavens—it erupted. A strange black fire ignited in the sky, spreading like a living entity, devouring everything in its path. The sun was swallowed whole, its light erased, turning day into nothing more than a fragile illusion that could shatter at any moment. From the deepest reaches of existence, the Endless Abyss awakened. Its ancient seals, which had held firm for tens of thousands of years, shattered in an instant. What followed was not a gradual release, but a catastrophic surge. It burst forth from beneath the Ancestral Court, swallowing the Great Wilderness Royal Court in a single, unstoppable tide. And from that abyss, they came—twisted figures crawling out from the darkness, once human but no...