In the world of cultivation , or five, or maybe the realms are infinite since no one has ever achieved such realms. Each realm has its stages, the mortal realm has seven stages, the immortal realm has seven stages while the godhood realms just have four stages. The higher your cultivation level the slower it becomes and the harder it is to break through the next realm and that's where the cultivator's spiritual roots come to play which makes your cultivation path smooth, different grades starting from trash to heaven-defying depending on what color is your spiritual root.
Dragons are primordial creatures and part of the great Divine beasts. The human god cultivators fear that this beast will one day rule over them due to the fact dragons and other divine beasts are proud and prideful creatures.
The humans set out to destroy the divine beasts although they made it seem as if they were doing it for the greater good but humans are greedy creatures and are only after the previous bloodline of the divine beasts.
It was a dreadful era, everywhere was filled with blood and corpse of both humans and divine beasts. Although the divine beasts are strong creatures they are few, unlike the humans who kept coming like endless ants determined to destroy them.
The divine beasts which include the dragons, phoenixes, white tigers, and Black tortoises were at a loss especially when the human has a beast cultivator that tames beasts under his control, this was what the human's upper hand in the war.
The beasts were given options either they should surrender and be tamed or die.
How can divine beasts be willing to be tamed by mere humans. So the gods among the divine beasts all concluded self-destructing since the battle was going nowhere and if it continues the divine beasts maybe be at lost, since they can't breed like the humans so self destructing to destroy the human gods or injure is the best option .
They self destructed according to the plan while killing and injuring many human cultivators and gods along. So each divine beast gods left a wisp of their soul flying across the universe t to search for a successors to avenge them and recreat their clan if possible.