Father God, Are You Married?

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

If one listened carefully, one could hear a deep heartbeat accompanying the pulsations of Pangu Hall. It had a rhythm and a distinctive melody of its own, a kind of...

"Heavy metal rock. Yeah, that's what it feels like. It gets your blood boiling and makes you all restless."

Xiang Dong shook his head, adjusting to the beat that struck straight at the crown of his head. He felt his whole body brimming with power.

At the center of the hall was a massive blood pool.

This was the birthplace of the Twelve Ancestral Witches and a vast number of Witch Clan members. At the moment, it was bubbling away.

Dense Heaven-Opening Sha Qi and Turbid Qi mingled with Pangu Essence Blood, constantly washing over the twelve flesh cocoons in the blood pool.

"They look like braised eggs soaking in an old pot of master stock, being marinated with a steady supply of Heaven-Opening Sha Qi. If the flavor really soaks in, that'll be trouble. Come on, I'll add a little something for you."

Xiang Dong rolled up his nonexistent sleeves, ready to get to work. Wasn't this what he had gone to so much trouble for?

But what stance should he use?

He had it!

Xiang Dong took a deep breath and assumed an opening stance.

"Behold my Moon God Form!"

The sun totem on Xiang Dong's chest blazed with light. Within the diamond-shaped spherical space at the core of his true body, all his clones released light, which was then transformed through reflection and refraction.

He was an innate sacred being formed from an innate sunflower combined with the first ray of light after the heavens opened. He could absorb the light of both the Sun Star and the Moon Star.

It was simply his sunflower nature that made him favor the Sun Star's light and instinctively chase after it.

Thus, his light had both yin and yang attributes. Ordinarily, he used light containing Innate Yang Qi. It was more powerful for attacking, but its purifying effect was nothing special.

Now, however, he was using light containing Innate Yin Qi, bringing its purifying effect to the extreme.

Under Xiang Dong's control, the golden light turned into a soft, cool, silvery-white radiance.

"Secret Art: Full Moon Light Wave!"

With that chuunibyou shout, Xiang Dong slowly thrust his left hand forward. The silvery-white radiance spread over the blood pool like a layer of moonlit frost.

Before the radiance touched the blood, it met the escaping Heaven-Opening Sha Qi and began to sizzle.

"This won't do. Full power!"

Seeing how little effect it had, Xiang Dong immediately drew on the reserves of another sea of flowers. Under his control, the sea of flowers at the foot of Buzhou Mountain absorbed innate Spiritual Qi and light, then sent them to Xiang Dong in an endless stream, helping him accomplish this great undertaking of purification.

Yet even when he gave it his all and burned through everything, it was still just a cup of water on a cartload of burning wood.

It might have had some effect, but then again, it probably didn't.

The blood pool remained the same blood pool, and the Sha Qi was as dense as ever. He had indeed purified a little innate Sha Qi.

But the problem was that Buzhou Mountain reached up to the heavens and down to the earth. The Beast Calamity had only recently ended, and Sha Qi still filled the land, while the amount of Turbid Qi remained immense. This Sha Qi and Turbid Qi would flow along the Earth Veins to Buzhou Mountain without end.

Never mind that Xiang Dong was weak right now—even if he were a Great Unity Golden Immortal or a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal, he still couldn't completely purify all that immense Sha Qi and Turbid Qi.

It was an intractable dead end. He had thought it would be far too simple, and a deep sense of helplessness suddenly welled up in his heart.

"Damn!"

"This won't work. I can't change anything, and my coming here will be pointless. If I can't do it from outside, maybe I can try purifying it from inside the blood pool. But if I jump in, that's a one-way road to death."

He couldn't really die, but the innate Sha Qi in the blood pool would corrode his body's origin, eventually destroying both body and soul. His Primordial Spirit would also be corroded by Sha Qi and Turbid Qi, affecting his mind.

He had already tried using Sha Qi to kill himself, and had gained nothing but torment and pain.

If his light hadn't been able to purify Sha Qi, he might never have regained his senses.

Although he had regained his senses, something had gone wrong with his mental state. Still, it wasn't a big problem.

After all, ever since he'd become mentally ill, he'd become much more spirited. That was a good thing.

Just as Xiang Dong was considering how to purify the blood pool from within, and whether it was feasible and safe, the sunflower-seed arrow controlled by Pangu's Will moved in one direction.

In front of one wall of the hall, it rearranged itself into an... exclamation mark.

A blinking, sparkling... yellow exclamation mark.

Xiang Dong blinked, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing.

Was this a quest marker, or the next part of the story? Could he click it to get an item for clearing the level?

"Whoa, Father God, you're pretty hip, huh? You even have exclamation-mark markers."

Father God's hint was so obvious that Xiang Dong couldn't possibly miss it. He immediately took off at a run toward the exclamation mark.

The exclamation mark pointed straight at a bulge in the wall. If he wasn't mistaken, it was a blood vessel—a major artery, at that.

Xiang Dong cautiously reached out and poked it. His finger passed through without resistance, as though through a thin membrane of light.

Inside the blood vessel was a hidden little space. It wasn't large, only about ten cubic meters.

Floating inside it were dozens of drops of golden blood, emitting a trace of Pangu's pressure.

"So this is... Pangu Essence Blood?"

Among the drops of Pangu Essence Blood was one that stood apart.

It was only the size of a fingernail, purple-gold in color and as flawless as a gemstone. This was Pangu Heart Blood.

There was also a sunlike mass of... Pangu Jade Marrow.

Marrow was, in essence, bone marrow: hematopoietic stem cells.

With it, new blood could be produced without end.

Who would have thought? Father God Pangu, with his thick brows and big eyes, had hidden things so deeply, keeping treasures like these tucked away.

"Father God, are you married? You've even learned to keep a secret stash of money. I think I understand now why those system stories can always get their hands on Pangu Essence Blood."

"I always thought the system just drew it directly, but now it looks like that's not it. They stole Father God's private stash. They even took the hematopoietic stem cells, so naturally they could get Essence Blood wholesale."

"But Father God, what do you want me to do with this Essence Blood? Absorb it to increase my cultivation?"

Xiang Dong didn't quite understand Pangu's intention, but he soon found out.

After all, he had been calling him Father God for so long, so it was time to make that title a little more real.

The purple-gold drop of Heart Blood turned into a streak of light.

The sun that was the Pangu Jade Marrow descended over his head.

They were so fast that Xiang Dong couldn't react at all. The drop of Heart Blood enveloped him and, in a manner that brooked no refusal, took him...

Splash!

Straight into the blood pool!