Father God, You Wouldn't Want Your Home Torn Down, Would You?

One second.

Two seconds.

A cold wind blew past, stirring up two dead leaves. If six dots had drifted by just then, they would have fit the scene perfectly.

This was pretty awkward.

Nothing happened. Never mind auspicious signs descending from the heavens or golden lotuses springing from the earth—a clap of thunder would at least have given him something to hear.

At least send a reply. An outright rejection would have been fine. Even a random reply after reading his message would have told him where things stood.

What was he supposed to make of being left on read? Was he supposed to guess?

There was no seeing through what the venerable Father God was thinking. No matter how much Xiang Dong guessed, he couldn't figure it out.

"Father God, do you think my offering is too shabby?"

There was still no response.

That silent response made Xiang Dong's whole face fall. The face formed of light was visibly dejected.

Being met with silence like this—this cold violence—was really hurtful, all right?

But he couldn't give up here!

When asking someone for help, the most important thing was to have a thick skin. As long as you were shameless enough, you could always win them over.

As long as your thinking didn't slide downhill, there were always more solutions than difficulties.

Since sweet talk hadn't worked, Pangu couldn't blame him for bringing out the big guns: an appeal to his emotions and a persuasion through reason.

"Father God, you have no idea how miserable the Primordial World's future is!"

Xiang Dong knelt again and wiped his face for good measure. With a flick of his hand, he flung out a shower of soybean-sized points of light. These were all his sincere tears.

"The Ancestral Witches, formed from your twelve drops of Essence Blood, will give rise to the Witch Clan. The Witch Clan will rule the earth, while the Demon Race rules the heavens, setting them against one another. In the end, the war between the witches and demons will bring about a Kalpa."

"They'll fight until the stars and clouds shift, heaven and earth go dark, the sun and moon lose their light, and even the Great Dao is worn away!"

"But none of that is the important part. The important part is Buzhou Mountain, formed from your backbone. Do you know how it falls?"

"It's that fine son of yours called Gonggong. He loses a fight, and in a fit of rage, he rams his head straight into it."

"Crack!"

Xiang Dong thoughtfully provided a sound effect.

"Judging by the position, he should hit you right in the kidney, breaking your backbone that holds up heaven and earth—the pillar supporting the skies of the Primordial World—just like that."

"The heavens collapse, and floodwaters pour back in. The entire Primordial World nearly resets and starts over. Though it's saved, the Primordial World still suffers a major setback, and its living beings are plunged into misery."

"Can you really bear to watch the world you created with your own hands come to an end like that?"

"Can you really bear to watch the Witch Clan, who honor you as Father God, get schemed against because their brains don't work properly, until they tear down their own home, perish one by one with their Daos extinguished, and die such unjust deaths?"

Xiang Dong's questions, one after another, were not only a plea against the injustice done to the Witch Clan but also an expression of regret for Pangu.

After all, the world Pangu had exhausted himself to create gradually crumbled and declined because of one internal conflict after another and the schemes of the Heavenly Dao and Hongjun.

"If you won't do anything, I won't either. I only wanted to make what little contribution I could before I died."

"If you don't want it, I'll think of another way. If nothing else works, I'll go offend the Three Pure Ones. Yuanshi Tianzun seems pretty good at holding grudges, and he has the Pangu Banner. He should be able to kill me."

After saying so much, Xiang Dong was tired of talking and felt like giving up altogether. After all, if even Pangu wouldn't take it to heart and open a convenient door for him, why should he go to all this trouble?

He also convinced himself that, at worst, he could wait a little longer. Waiting until the Three Pure Ones became saints wouldn't be a bad choice either.

Just as Xiang Dong was thinking this, Pangu finally reacted.

At the summit of Buzhou Mountain, the pressure of Pangu's will stirred.

This was the first time Pangu's will had reacted in the countless years since the Primordial World was created.

It was sad to say, but in the endless years since the Great God Pangu had created the Primordial World, very few of its countless living beings had been grateful for his grace in creating the world and bringing all things into being. Instead, they had become caught up in one bloody struggle after another.

Thus, even now, not a single living being had worshipped Pangu.

Xiang Dong was now the first to worship him, though his offering was a little odd, and he was worshipping him to gain a convenient backdoor.

Even so, his intentions were sincere. His desire to change the Witch Clan and give the Primordial World a different course, so that it would not fall into decline, was entirely genuine.

And so Pangu's lingering will was awakened and began to gather.

It wasn't that Pangu hadn't reacted. He had simply been very slow to boot up, and even after booting up, he needed some time to process the information.

An indescribably ancient presence slowly awakened.

Then the gathering will trembled in anger.

Though what Xiang Dong had described had yet to manifest, Pangu had indeed seen signs of it.

When Pangu's will grew angry, the entire Primordial World trembled, and endless fear welled up from the depths of every living being's heart.

At that moment, Hongjun, Luohou, Ancestral Dragon, Primordial Phoenix, Primordial Qilin, and the other mighty figures all sensed the disturbance on Buzhou Mountain, but they could not calculate what had happened.

Only Yang Mei smiled faintly when he sensed the fury.

He had a feeling that Xiang Dong's plan seemed to have succeeded.

"My Enlightenment Tea wasn't wasted, nor was all the trouble I went to sending you over there."

Pangu's will gradually gathered into a pair of eyes, gazing down from an immeasurable height at Xiang Dong, that tiny point of light.

Feeling that gaze upon him, Xiang Dong's whole body stiffened, but he didn't panic in the slightest.

After all, every word he had said earlier was true, though he had taken a few artistic liberties.

After a long while, the gaze seemed to acknowledge something.

Then the smiling face he had made from melon seeds on the bluestone slab serving as an altar began to rearrange itself.

In the end, the cheeky smiling face became an arrow, pointing the way forward.

Xiang Dong: (⊙o⊙)...

Xiang Dong froze.

Xiang Dong looked down.

Xiang Dong was ecstatic!

"Ahahaha, thank you, Father God, for showing me the way!"

Xiang Dong leaped three feet into the air, bowed three more times toward the sky with the utmost respect, then took off running in the direction of the arrow.

Something miraculous happened.

The pressure of Pangu that had previously left him gasping for breath and made it hard to take even a single step now parted of its own accord along his path, clearing a completely unobstructed road.

It even became like a guard, protecting and escorting him.

It was just like having a VIP passage, with the GM personally escorting him. It couldn't have felt better.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, this treatment is something else!"

Xiang Dong marveled as he ran.

Following the arrow's guidance, he proceeded without hindrance. Even the innate formations opened a path for him of their own accord, allowing Xiang Dong to enter a palace without the slightest obstruction.

The palace seemed to be alive. Veinlike patterns covered its surface, and it was slowly, powerfully... beating.

With each beat, a vast breath of life and ancient Sha Qi washed over him.

This was the Pangu Hall!

The Heart of Pangu!