I've been trying to find information on the story and lore of FFXI but it's rather hatf and what I can find is rather fragmented or not well written/explained.

Particularly I've been trying to find out about the backstory of Promathia and Altana and the Zilart. From what I could gather, the world was created when Altana took energy from the Crystal that birthed the gods to save Promathia from dying due to the Emptiness, which caused the Crystal to shatter into five and turning the realm of the gods into the mortal world. Altana then put pieces of the Emptiness inside the Enlightened races making them mortal. And the Zilart were angelic beings who existed before Vanadiel was created and were made physical when the crystal was shattered, and the Zilart who were given Emptiness became Kuluu. Am I right?

I don't quite understand what the Emptiness is though, and where it came from. Did it come from Promathia? Or did it exist before?