The God Emperor's Apotheosis

Prologue: A Calamity Strikes the Three Realms, Immortals and Buddhas Take Separate Paths When chaos divided and purity and turbidity took shape, Pangu transformed into the cosmos with his body. The Dao concealed the myriad transformations and stood before Heaven and Earth. After the Three Pure Ones founded and spread the Three Teachings of Humanity, Chan, and Jie, they established the orthodox path of immortality, governing the mountains’ spiritual veins, the stars’ movements, and the cycle of reincarnation in the underworld. They upheld the principles of following Heaven, cultivating virtue, improving oneself, and helping the world, while protecting the natural course by which all things arose and transformed themselves. Later, Buddhism came east from the western lands, teaching that suffering filled the world and reincarnation was a prison. It urged people to sever attachments and appearances and be reborn in the Pure Land, seeking to remake the hearts of all beings through the principles of emptiness and stillness. The Dao was rooted in the native land and regarded Heaven and Earth as real, with each thing possessing its own nature that must not be forcibly taken away. Buddhism took annihilation as its final destination, disdained the entanglements of the mortal world, and sought to ferry all living beings away from the mundane. The doctrines of the two faiths stood in opposition, and their founding ideals gradually grew apart. For a thousand years, they fought in the shadows without respite. At first, it was only debates between mountain hermitages and ancient temples, with the incense of the mortal world waxing and waning between them. Then the immortal sects seized spiritual veins, Buddhist temples gathered followers, and both sides competed to ferry away the karmic burdens of the underworld. As mortal dynasties rose and fell, each received support from immortals or Buddhas behind the scenes. Ordinary people were either bound by the Daoists’ strict rules or urged by Buddhists to abandon worldly ties. Those who resisted faced pressure from heterodox cultivators and fanatical monks. Resentment grew across the mountains and rivers, while the destiny of Heaven and Earth was torn apart more and more. The old Celestial Emperor dwelled in the Hall of the High Heavens, ruling over the gods of the myriad heavens. Yet his authority extended only to the order of the seasons, leaving him powerless to mediate the great struggle between the sages of the immortal and Buddhist paths. The immortals and Buddhas had countless disciples beneath them, each clinging to their own sectarian views. They would start magical battles and wars at the slightest provocation, shattering the starry river and stirring the Yellow Springs. Countless spirits, rogue cultivators, and mortals suffered for it, losing their lives and cultivation, their souls left to wander without refuge.