~~~

  “The Gods are dead! The Jade King is slain!

  “Hear me, children of Man! Hear your new Emperor, and rejoice! For I declare the beginning of an age — the birth of a grand Dynasty for Mortals and Mortals alone!

  “The Eternal Banquet has begun, and the means of cultivation are now within your hands! Feast upon your Gods! Feast upon your kin! Feast upon your foes! Feast upon the very flesh of Mount Tai until nought but bones and skin remain!

  “Divinity is but a meal away. Pursue the dregs of immortality to the ends of the world! May our Age of Cultivators never end!

  “And may our Hunger never cease!”

  — First and Only Decree of His Perverse Majesty, the Immortal Emperor of the Flesh-Grafted Empire

  It was the nine hundred and sixteenth Imperial Year of His Perverse Majesty’s reign, and the Gods were dead.

  The Great War in Heaven almost a millennium ago had ended in the complete and utter victory for the forces of Humanity. Mankind had made the ultimate triumph over their Divine masters, shattering the chains of three millennia of slavery. The myriad Divine tyrants of the Celestial Court were slain, and the Jade King — Greatest of Gods — lies murdered upon the very altar which they once ruled from.

  In a grand rebellion led by the one and only Emperor of Humanity, the lowly creatures of the Earth have usurped the Heavens, laid low the Celestial oppressors that ruled from atop their court on Mount Tai, and secured the right to their Fates forevermore through the consumption of their godly flesh.

  With his First and Only Decree, the Emperor proclaimed that it was now the sacred mandate of every living creature in Qiangyu to cultivate. Where before one might have the excuse of Immortality being the sole proprietary of Heaven, the world was now a far more prospective and enlightened place.

  Cultivation techniques proliferated, and novel schools of thought emerged as humans explored the depths of their newfound autonomy. Temples that once served as shrines to the gods were transformed into Sects, which now stand as beacons of knowledge and empowerment to all aspiring Disciples; a place where cultivators may hone their skills and develop their individual philosophies in a world no longer bound by divine decree.

  The world was just, and all of Humanity rose together to eternity…

  … for the most part.

  Regrettably, the calamitous winds of inequality and ill fortune persist even in this new enlightened age of opportunity. Not everyone was able to flourish under the new Emperor's self-serving Domain, and not all blessings were wholly freed from the burdensome trappings of never-ending hardship and parasitical misery.

  As a Young Master was soon to understand.

  ~~~

  On the Northernmost border of the Flesh-Grafted Empire — in a sector designated as the 103rd Outer Province State of His Most Esteemed Imperial Majesty, where the land was poor, and the ebb of Mysteries ran thin — there lie four great, misty-peaked mountains.

  Twelve hundred years ago, a great battle took place in that Province. Such was its intensity that not one, not two, but four Divine Gods fell upon that spot.

  Those four sacred peaks once served as tombstones that marked the Divine Dead who fell in the War Against Heaven. Now, however, each of those mountains hosts a Cultivator Sect instead, where the few Mysteries left within the Divine Carrions were damned to be thoroughly gutted by the primitive locals for the rest of their days.

  It was rare for a Sect to exist in the Outer Provinces, let alone four within the same area. As such, these four Sects enjoyed a bit of renown within the local region and were hence colloquially known together as the Four Mountain Sects Group.

  Unimaginative, perhaps. But when one lived within the Outer Provinces, it was best to keep things simple. Grandiose titles have no place in such barren lands, especially when cultivators from the thriving Inner and Core Provinces were known to easily take offence at such things.

  Entire towns and states had been destroyed for less.

  With four dead Divines, came four possible foundations for a prospective cultivator of the 103rd Outer Province to choose from.

  The Path of the Beheaded Phoenix. The Path of the Split-headed Carnivores. The Path of the Decaying Greyroots. And the Path of the Inverted Monk.

  These were the four Divine conduits a hopeful mortal within the 103rd Outer Province could take to begin their ascension to immortality.

  To be able to cultivate at all was to be blessed. It was to be that single person out of a hundred thousand favoured by the fates and graced with a body that could utilise qi. Even a cultivator who merely exists within the Foundation Realm — the first and lowest Realm of cultivation — would enjoy a longer lifespan and a healthier body than a simple villager who could not practice the spiritual arts.

  And if merely being a cultivator was to be blessed, then one who was granted the opportunity to study in a Sect — even one simply established within the Outer Provinces — must be doubly fortuitous, for to be a Disciple was to have a means of securing Divine viands from the Sect’s Celestial Dead for cultivation.

  And so it followed: if being able to cultivate was a blessing, and being part of a Sect with a Divine Corpse doubly so, then being born as the Young Master of such a Sect must be a fortune in triplicate, would it not? Unquestionably, such a person would be blessed beyond measure, a clear sign that he or she was a favoured child of the Empire?

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  Hei Feng could be considered such a child. He was capable of cultivating. He was a disciple of the Beheaded Phoenix Sect. He was also the Young Master of said Sect.

  At the moment, however, Feng did not feel like he was particularly blessed or favoured. To be fair to the young man, it was probably hard to do so when he was on the receiving end of a horribly one-sided duel.

  ~~~

  “Slow!”

  The Young Master ducked right as his opponent’s fist brushed past his head. The strike drew a fresh line of blood across his scalp, yet Hei Feng had no time to register the pain as he prepared himself for the inevitable follow-up from his attacker’s assault.

  His opponent struck fast with another punch, twisting their hip and delivering the blow in a devastating smash. Their fist — made iron-hard by a layer of calcified black plates — would have shattered the Young Master’s nose if he hadn’t anticipated the hit and raised both arms in time to block it.

  Feng felt his very bones shake from absorbing the impact. He was blown several metres back, his feet digging deep into the reinforced earth as they struggled to arrest his momentum.

  The Young Master of the Hei Clan grunted as he reorientated himself, dashing forth in an attempt to seize back the initiative. Ducking low to avoid another strike, his knees slid hard against the dirt of the training grounds, legs sweeping for his opponent’s unprotected ankle in an attempt to trip them.

  His attack connected, but it did more harm to himself than his target. Feng’s opponent barely budged, whereas the bones of the Young Master’s feet cracked under the impact of smashing into the calcified black armour that manifested at the last moment.

  That took only a heartbeat to form, he thought with some despair. She can transform that quickly now?

  “Weak!”

  His opponent mockingly shouted once more. They raised a leg, and Feng barely managed to avoid the crushing stomp that followed by rolling behind them. The attack blew a carter upon the earth where he once stood.

  The Young Master paled. Even the cultivator training grounds — made to endure the punishing duels between Sect disciples — could no longer handle his opponent’s strength.

  In a single fluid motion, Feng leapt up from his crouch and spun, attempting a flying double kick at his opponent’s head from her blind spot. His qi flared, and his legs erupted into vicious flames, ready to devour any it touched.

  At this distance, Feng was confident enough to say that he would have landed both strikes against almost any other disciple and knocked them out instantly. Victory should have been a foregone conclusion.

  Unfortunately for him, this was no ordinary opponent he was fighting.

  The Young Master was currently facing the famed prodigy of the Split-headed Carnivores Sect, a cultivator whose prowess eclipsed that of all the other disciples on the mountains.

  As such, both of his kicks missed as the cultivator dodged with inhuman swiftness. Before he could react, a palm smashed against his torso.

  His ribs burst into shrapnel. The blow sent him flying. Feng barely managed to find his footing in time before the attack almost threw him out of the ring.

  “And utterly predictable!” His opponent taunted. Barely five seconds had passed between her first insult and her last. Though both duellists were clearly of preternatural speed and strength, the superior cultivator was evident for all to see.

  Hei Feng couldn’t respond as he coughed out a hissing mist of blood, falling to one knee as he hunched over. That last strike had knocked the air out of him, utterly demolishing two of his ribs. He doubled over, trying to steady his breathing while he rapidly cycled his qi.

  By the second breath, the regenerative abilities of his cultivation kicked in. The Young Master could feel a supernatural heat emerging from his core.

  His shattered ribs began to burn, cannibalised into spiritual energy while new bones rapidly materialised over the cracks and stumps of his ribcage.

  “Pathetic!” Feng’s opponent did not bother capitalising on his open vulnerability, choosing instead to mock him. “Truly, the Hei Clan has fallen far if this is the best their Young Master can manage!”

  The moment his ribs healed adequately, Hei Feng sucked in a breath.

  [Arts of the Beheaded Phoenix — Fiery Comet Step]

  The Young Master shot forth like a shooting star, leaving behind a cloud of blazing flames that surged from his feet. He drew his arm back, his fist wreathed in fire. Feng’s speed was beyond the perception of any mortal man. Brilliant and radiant, he swung with all his might—

  — and hit nothing but air as his opponent simply stepped aside with one raised eyebrow.

  A familiar feeling of resigned annoyance enveloped him before a kick landed mockingly against his back and propelled him forth.

  The blow sent him spiralling even further forward. Combined with the acceleration of his earlier technique, his momentum was such that he could not stop himself in time before he landed several metres outside the training ring.

  The Young Master let out an exasperated groan.

  Yet another loss, he thought, more amused than bitter. A feminine chuckle came from his opponent, back within the ring.

  “Come on now, you couldn’t have expected that to work. Honestly, Feng. Try to be a little less predictable next time. A lady needs to have her fun.”

  Qi

  Qi, or spiritual energy, originates from the life-giving cosmic rays that emerge from the countless stars above the world. The celestial luminance of the Astral Heavens gave rise to the first Divine Deities atop Mount Tai, whose peaks were the closest to the constellations and thus were the most heavily saturated in their miraculous radiation.

  The first and greatest of the Divine Deities was the Jade King. Possessive of the powers given freely by the Astral Heavens, the Tyrant created the Jade Clouds which blanketed most of the world, denying the gentle touch of the Stars from ever reaching the rest of the ecosphere.

  The selfish Deity then established the Celestial Court — their personal kingdom atop Mount Tai — from which they and their Divine ilk would spend their days lavishing in the invigorating glow of the cosmos while ruling the impoverished mortals below.

  It was only many centuries later, during the War Against Heaven, that a new source of qi was discovered — one that did not require the light of the Astral Heavens and could be used to revitalise the barren lands beneath the Jade Clouds: the decaying bodies of dead Divine Deities.

  Once slain, the body of a Divine Corpse slowly releases the vast reserve of spiritual energies accumulated over its long life, enriching the nearby lands with qi.

  It is this phenomenon that gave rise to the many Cultivator Sects within the new Flesh-Grafted Empire. After the collapse of the old Celestial Kingdom, the Sects built their monasteries around the Divine Corpses. Upon those sacred grounds, practitioners bathe themselves in the glorious decay of the Dead Gods and begin their ascension towards Immortality.

  – Excerpt from To Those Worthy of the Eternal Banquet. The manual is commonly distributed to Sect Disciples across the Flesh-Grafted Empire as a readily available textual resource for cultivation.