Chthonic's debut album, "Where the Ancestors' Souls Gathered (祖靈之流)", was released in late 1998. The band released the album independently and it reached No. 2 on the Tower Records pop music chart for Asia. In 1999 Zac, Xiao-Yu, and Xiao-Wang left the band and were replaced by Jesse Liu, Doris Yeh, and AJ Tsai respectively. The band recorded their second album "9th Empyrean (靈魄之界)", which was released in Taiwan by Crystal Records in 2000. It reached No. 1 on the Tower Records pop music chart for Asia and was also considered one of the best ten Mandarin albums of that year by Hong Kong's "MCB" magazine. This album's music style is closer to symphonic black metal, with Lim adopting harsh vocals mixed with keyboardist Ambrosia's female singing. The song "永固邦稷" ("Guard the Isle Eternally") was the first Chthonic song to mix Asian pentatonic scale melodies with black metal.