The Classic of the Shan Hai Cycle 1

In ancient times, the Shanhai Realm, a world where strange beasts, deities, and early humans coexisted, and the Human Realm shared the same origin. They were completely torn apart by a catastrophe of reincarnation that swept across both realms. The catastrophe began with the ultimate war between the forces of the two realms: the Devourers of the Shanhai Realm sought to consume the vitality of the Human Realm to strengthen themselves, while the Guardians' Alliance of the Human Realm joined forces with the Shanhai Realm's peaceful faction, including the Queen Mother of the West and Zhulong, to activate the Great Reincarnation Formation. At the cost of sealing away the Devourers' main forces, they forcibly separated the two realms. The surviving fragments of the Shanhai Realm fell into the Human Realm, forming the Ruins, cursed secret realms infested with strange beasts, scattered across the land.

Hidden within the Ruins are the treasures of reincarnation, nine core components of the formation. Gather them all and the passage between the two realms can be reopened, and even the outcome of the catastrophe rewritten. For a thousand years, the Guardians' descendants have protected the treasures from falling into the hands of ambitious schemers. Meanwhile, the Shadow Alliance, remnants of the Devourers seeking to restore their power and overthrow the Human Realm, has been frantically searching for the treasures in an attempt to free their sealed ancestors. The protagonists' adventures unfold amid this struggle between protection and plunder, a war spanning a thousand years.