Sacred Beasts
Back in a mystical era, long before mankind had the slightest advancement in technology, spirits lived. The most prominent ones were the phoenix, dragon, qinlin, and kunlun. One was a fiery bird who goes through nirvana, one was an elemental being responsible for weather, one was a strong being purifying the world of evil, and one was a whale that traveled the void with its size.
The kunlun is the simplest sacred beast alive, only traveling in its lifetime. Its sheer size alone can cover the heaven and earth, leaving worlds dark. By utilizing its size, it can move long distances per step, along with its heaven-defying size, one step of it can travel further than any other sacred beast in it’s lifetime.
The qinlin has the strongest body of the four; it alone rivals the power of the thirteen suns and with the toughness of all of the earth condensed. Its innate ability is to purge evil from the lands, using its body to traverse the lands and the void. It can tear space solely relying on its body because of how perfect it is, the closest body to chaos in terms of perfection.
The dragon controls the elements along with the weather. It has many attributes, such as lightning, wind, water, fire, earth, and nature, to name a few. Each of them specializes in their own respective fields, each controlling corners of the world, its guardian. A few special ones can have multiple elements. An example of a mutated element is lightning, ice, and magma. The mutations are combinations of elements, and the most elements owned by one dragon were 36, the closest to the heavenly dao in terms of inherited abilities.
Finally, the phoenix. It dies and comes back stronger through nirvana, which is another term for rebirth. They are born in the primordial flame, live as the primordial flame, and die in the flame. Their lives are the flame. Endless reincarnation has made their flame able to target souls as well as bodies. They are the most adept in souls out of all of the sacred beasts, able to corrode and purify others.
These four beasts act together to keep the balance of the world, whether you know it or not. They still exist today, just out of sight of people in the heavenly dao, void, earth, and primordial flames.
They exist to balance each other out so no beast is above the other. The phoenix balances the qinlin with its soul-devouring flame, the qinlin balances the kunlun with its extraordinary strength, the kunlun balances the dragon with its size, and the dragon balances the phoenix. This cycle has been in place for who knows how many years, far beyond the count of short-lived beings like humans.
From time to time, the rebirthed phoenix might be captured because it’s still weak, or the dragon hunts for its precious body parts. These things happen naturally, for the greed of mankind is the greatest of all. They don’t bother the qinlin and the kunlun because they can’t find or possibly hurt them. Although they outlive their captures, some humans can get the favor of the beasts, and that results in them bestowing power onto that human.
Although the beasts existed from the start of time to the end of time, it’s repulsed by how humanity progressed over the years, making sightings of them rarer and rarer, to the point it turned into a legend.
