The History of the Galaxy and the Fifteen Realms
As the Open Faction began encroaching on the Hao Clan's traditional domains—hotels, trade, and the like—the Hao Clan struck back by targeting the internet itself. The Open Faction had a stranglehold on the net, and unless a service caused major problems or serious inconvenience, most users simply couldn't be bothered to switch. Though the Open Faction had long abandoned its beggar origins, it clung even more fiercely to its core purpose: justice. That sense of righteousness served as both the faction's greatest shield and its fatal weakness.
Just as the Murim world was divided between the righteous path and the demonic path, the sunlit surface and the shadowed underbelly, the internet too had its bright side and its dark side. The Hao Clan began carving out territory in the dark web, the shadowy corner of the net primarily used by criminals. Their attempt was wildly successful. By seizing the very areas the Open Faction had refused to touch, the Hao Clan escaped its desperate corner and began contending with its rival on equal footing.
With both major factions now violating each other's boundaries, an invisible information war erupted across every domain—online and offline, surface web and dark web alike. As the feud between the Open Faction and the Hao Clan intensified, the international political climate also began sliding toward the end of its long era of peace. Rampant development and environmental pollution had worsened global warming and natural disasters, while competition among nations vying for world hegemony grew fiercer by the day.
Even though the age of peace was ending, humanity could not afford to return to the all-out wars of previous eras. The great powers therefore limited their conflicts to localized skirmishes and poured their energy into invisible espionage battles. It was the beginning of the 22nd century's frozen New Cold War—a period so icy that the 20th century's Cold War would have felt positively warm by comparison. Naturally, since espionage was fundamentally an information war, the factions that shone brightest in this era were, without question, the Open Faction and the Hao Clan.
The documentary only touched on a few famous anecdotes, but even those were enough to convey how dire the situation had been. The New Cold War's espionage conflicts finally came to an end in the late 22nd century, thanks to the dawn of full-scale space colonization. Like its predecessor, the New Cold War evolved into a fierce competition in space development. With the full backing of multiple nations, humanity's expansion into space proceeded smoothly.
Terraforming of the Moon and Mars. Construction of colonies at Lagrange points. All these technologies were developed, and Earth itself became the primary testing ground. Thanks to terraforming technology, humanity managed to slow the momentum of global warming. Once the technology had been sufficiently refined, space expansion accelerated rapidly.
Of course, even with terraforming, the harsh environment of space was nothing like Earth's. This was when the overwhelming vitality of martial artists drew attention. A life force that could survive artillery explosions and poison gas attacks. It was not impossible to evolve martial arts based on that resilience so that practitioners could survive in space as well.
Thus, martial artists brimming with life force took the vanguard of humanity's space expansion. And when martial artists moved, it naturally meant that the great factions moved with them. With that, humanity's leap into space concluded, and the fourth episode of the documentary came to an end.
Episodes five through seven focused on the Galaxy Murim Alliance, the successor to the old Murim Alliance. To summarize briefly: amid the fierce competition between nations for dominance over the Moon and Mars, the great factions began breaking free from the shackles of national authority. The reason they could do so was simple—the brutal environment of space made terraforming and colony development nearly impossible without martial artists. Having earned authority through their suffering, the factions grew so powerful that nations could no longer control them.
In that process, a representative was needed who could speak on equal terms with entire countries. That role fell to the Murim Alliance and its Alliance Leader. If power became too concentrated in any single faction and the balance between them collapsed, the factions risked falling back under national control. Once warp navigation technology capable of leaving the solar system was developed, the great factions scattered across the galaxy like adventurers seeking a new golden land, competing fiercely to develop new territories.
The first to discover and claim a star system claimed ownership. From this point onward, the great factions began to transcend their identities as mere martial organizations and took on the characteristics of quasi-national entities.
Surprisingly, the protagonists of episodes eight through twelve were the Cheon Clan—the very family into which I had been born. More precisely, the central figure was the unparalleled genius born into the Cheon Clan when it had only barely secured a seat among the great factions: the Martial GodCheon Yu.
As the fever for planetary terraforming swept the galaxy—ignoring all distinctions between righteous, demonic, or unaligned factions—countless large and small wars erupted across the Murim world. Although there were innumerable star systems within the galaxy, the number of planets or moons that could be terraformed with the technology of the time was limited. The wars were fought to claim those precious worlds.
To seize planets, blood flowed without regard for righteous or demonic alignment. In such chaos, those known as the Demonic Cult frequently crossed every line. Then, during the centuries of warfare, around the 28th century, Cheon Yu was born into the Cheon Clan. Before he had even reached three hundred years of age—a number that momentarily made me wonder if this was a xianxia world rather than a wuxia one—he broke through the limit of martial artists known as the Natural Realm and ascended to become the strongest in the galaxy.
The Martial GodCheon Yu, having reached a realm no one had even imagined, began exerting influence across the entire galaxy as if directing traffic. His first move was to revive the now-defunct Murim Alliance, whose influence had grown meaningless due to the factions' overly expanded territories. He restructured it into the Galaxy Murim Alliance and united the righteous factions under one banner.
Then he personally took the lead in subjugating the demonic great factions that committed atrocities and the Demonic Cult, which had crossed far beyond any acceptable line. As the saying goes, one hand cannot block ten. Even the Martial God could not appear on every battlefield. However, the fronts where he did appear were primarily the headquarters of the Demonic Cult—the old Cheonsan Star System and the old One Hundred Thousand Great Mountains Star System—or the headquarters of the Paedo Alliance, the league of demonic great factions: the old Paewang Star System, the old Paedo Star System, and the old Second Paedo Star System.
The reason these star systems bore the prefix "old" was because Cheon Yu's attacks had completely shattered the planets the Demonic Cult and Paedo Alliance had terraformed. Before I could even think how can a person destroy an entire planet, the documentary showed footage of worlds whose crust had been overturned, exposing the mantle and leaving them as literal hellscapes of fire. Some clips even depicted planets literally splitting in half. Honestly, watching the footage made it feel more like a xianxia world than wuxia, but it wasn't.
In this way, the Demonic Cult was believed to have been annihilated before Cheon Yu went into seclusion, and the territory of the demonic path shrank endlessly. Of course, after his seclusion they slowly began regaining power again, but the dominant force in the current Galaxy Murim was the righteous Galaxy Murim Alliance. To be precise, the galaxy was divided roughly sixty percent righteous path, twenty-four percent demonic path, fifteen percent Demonic Cult, and one percent other.
In any case, although Cheon Yu had gone into seclusion, he was confirmed to still be alive. The Cheon Clan, which had played the central role in founding the Galaxy Murim Alliance, had surpassed the other great factions and now enjoyed the prestigious title of the greatest clan in the galaxy.
“Siwoo.”
After finishing the documentary, I called out to her. Siwoo, who had been cleaning, immediately set down the vacuum and approached.
“Yes, young master.”
The 50th-century vacuum made absolutely no noise. How fascinating. Was this the power of future technology?
“Gengji… how’s it going?” My pronunciation was lisped because my teeth hadn’t fully grown in yet.
“Are you asking about my own realm? Or are you inquiring about the classification system of martial artist realms?”
“Boaf.”
“Both, I see. I am capable of fighting on equal footing—or with a slight advantage—against martial artists in the Transformed Realm, thanks to my artificial external dantian and martial arts drive.”
Siwoo had originally not been a nanny android. She had been a combat training android for my father, who had died before I was born. Even now that she had become my nanny, she remained a master of the Transformed Realm.
“The realms of martial artists are broadly divided into fifteen stages.”
She began listing them one by one.
Inception — Sensing and absorbing environmental qi to form the dantian.
Third-Class — Consuming dantian qi to reinforce the physical body.
Second-Class — Extending beyond body reinforcement to strengthen external objects.
First-Class — Capable of manifesting tangible Sword Qi on weapons.
Peak — Where Sword Qi begins to take form, allowing the creation of Sword Threads.
Transcendental Peak — Where Sword Threads gather to form a solid blade of energy known as Sword Gang.
Transformed Realm — Compressing materialized Sword Gang into a concentrated Sword Ring. Achieves physical rejuvenation.
Profound Realm — All bodily meridians open, connecting with the world and allowing near-infinite internal qi regeneration.
Life and Death Realm — Said to transcend the boundary between life and death.
Natural Realm — Perfectly accepting nature as an extension of oneself.
Astral Self Realm — Surpassing nature to draw in the power of stars and become a star oneself.
Star Transcending Realm — A realm that transcends even the stars.
Ecstasy Realm — A realm beyond the Star Transcending Realm.
Ascension Realm — The stage above that.
Martial God Realm — The realm reached by only Cheon Yu.
After listening to the explanation, I spoke to Siwoo.
“From the Life and Death Realm onward, the explanations are vague and hard to understand, right?”
Siwoo somehow managed to decipher my lisped speech perfectly.
“That is correct. Most of the testimonies from those who have reached the Life and Death Realm and beyond are highly metaphysical and difficult to comprehend.”
“Ah, so that’s why it can’t be properly interpreted?”
“Yes, precisely.”
I nodded, indicating that I understood.
“Then why can the Martial God live so long?”
“That is because once a human reaches the Transformed Realm, they undergo Complete Renewal and experience physical rejuvenation. From the Profound Realm onward, the higher one’s realm, the slower their aging becomes. According to records, reaching the Life and Death Realm and the Astral Self Realm triggers another Complete Renewal.”
What Siwoo said next left me stunned.
“Your great-grandfather, the current Family Head, is six hundred and eighty-one years old. Your grandfather, the Outer Hall Master, is five hundred and three years old.”
The Sword King Cheon Jasu, who had become Family Head roughly thirty years ago, was a master of the Star Transcending Realm. My grandfather, Cheon Gyeong-ho, was known as a master of the Natural Realm.
“What about my father?”
“…Your father, Lord Cheon Juyu, was a master of the Transformed Realm. Your mother, Lady Seo Kyung-ae, was a Peak realm martial artist.”
Siwoo answered carefully, unsure how discussing my parents might affect my emotional state.
“I see. Got it.”
“If you have any more questions, please ask me anytime.”
Having finished speaking, Siwoo returned to her cleaning.
Why had Cheon Juyu, the grandson of the Family Head, died? Even if it was a direct blood relative of the Family Head, such a death should have made the news. But since I couldn’t search the internet, I felt incredibly frustrated.
I fiddled with the remote for the television embedded in the wall, but it only brought up movies and dramas. There was no internet search function to be found. The fact that every available movie was rated for ages fifteen and under suggested that the system had been deliberately locked to prevent a young child from seeing inappropriate content.
Hmm. There was one forbidden technique I could use in times like this.
Was it time to unleash the forbidden demonic arts?
(To be continued in the next episode)