Thought I'd hierarchize the factions and titles of the Great Desolation World to give you guys a quick and easy way to check things if you ever get confused. For now, we will stick to the Five Continents (as introducing the structure of the Endless Sea so early does you no good). Without further ado, let's get into it.
---Organization Hierarchy (From lowest to highest)---
States: Often administrated by low-level cultivators but ruled by large sects, States represent the lowest level of organized political entities in the Great Desolation World. The sects monopolize state resources, preventing their development into independent powers (Ex: Dongli and Anyue).
Large Sects: Three key requirements determine whether a faction can be treated as a large sect or not. They need at least two Nascent Soul experts, a fourth-layer Defensive Formation, and a vast territory to exploit. Large sects are the masters of the various states, with disciple counts in the thousands (Ex: White Immortal sect and Dark Moon cult. The Soaring Crane mountain and Flower Plucking gang both have Nascent Soul experts, but due to territorial limitations, we cannot treat them as large sect).
Provinces: A group of six or more states revolving around and paying tribute to one supercity. The ruler of that supercity receives the title of Hegemon from his continent's emperor and must ensure that continental laws are enforced in all states. That aside, they're not allowed to interfere with a state's administration (technically, at least), and usually disdain to do so (Ex: Yanzhou province).
Supercities: The capitals of the various Provinces and seats of their Hegemons' courts. Their population counts are in the tens of millions—all cultivators. Here, the Spirit clans run the show. So while the Hegemon possesses nigh absolute power over his supercity's laws, it is not unusual to see the Spirit nobles' influence catch up to and even eclipse a Hegemon's. This forces the Hegemons to continuously reinforce their talent pool by draining all Divine Transformation level experts from the various states.
Continental Empires: States make up provinces, provinces make up empires. As decentralized as it gets, the empires only have direct control over several supercities—mostly leaving the administrative tasks to the respective rulers. That said, Spirit Emperors will occasionally proclaim laws that all within their continent must abide to. The Eastern Spirit Empire is the only one where inheritance follows strict primogeniture laws. For that reason, it is also the only place where the Spirit Emperor is not the de-facto strongest expert of his continent.
This leads to several problems—the most egregious of which being that, whenever a new Spirit Emperor ascends to the throne, they must appoint the strongest expert of their continent as the Slaughtering Shadow. In ordinary times, the Slaughtering Shadow has little to no political power. But in case of demon infestations, their authority supersedes that of the reigning emperor, granting them absolute power over their continent. This system was imposed by the Central Domain, making it impossible for the Spirit clans to reject it. You can now understand why other imperial spirit clans put such emphasis on raising the strongest heir possible. When the reigning emperor is not also the Slaughtering Shadow, catastrophes are almost inevitable.
Golden Lotus Temple: The holy land of Lianism. They are not a political entity per se, and do not interfere with the outside world. This doesn't change the fact that, throughout the five continents, their might only loses to the Central Domain. Even the Spirit Emperors wouldn't dare to mess with them.
Central Domain: The Lords of the Earth—led by the Taiyang clan and their August Divinity. Following the destruction of the Celestial Hall, across the five continents, the Taiyang are the only known faction with Immortal-level powerhouses. They view themselves as the only acceptable standard of divinity, and have no respect for lesser spirit clans, to say nothing of mortals. Barring a few exceptions, no mortal expert would dare to kill a Taiyang clansman—during the day, at least—the Sun would reduce them into ashes.
(Ps: I will likely add the relevant titles after we properly introduce Spiritual Lords. The Endless Sea info will follow at some point as well. Hopefully, things don't get too cluttered.)
