Late at night.
Only the soft, rhythmic beeping of the monitor remained in the hospital room.
Gu Xi was fast asleep. Gu An tucked in the corners of her blanket and checked the vital signs at the head of her bed before sitting down in the caregiver's chair. He closed his eyes and sank into his natal world.
The scene before him abruptly changed.
Boundless chaos stretched to the very limits of Gu An's perception.
The River of Time ran across the void, its flowing waters coming from no known source and ending at no known destination.
Countless layers of void overlapped, at times separated by hundreds of millions of worlds, at others seemingly close enough to touch.
Deep within the chaos, a Thirty-Six-Rank Chaos Green Lotus stood quietly rooted, its leaves unfurled beneath countless wisps of primordial aura.
At the heart of the lotus, Pangu still slept.
Gu An glanced at him, then turned his gaze to the vaster reaches of chaos.
After Shi Chen and Yang Mei had emerged one after the other, the chaos was already far different from what it had been at the beginning.
Though the Three Thousand Great Daos had established their foundations, the vast majority had yet to truly manifest. They lay scattered throughout the chaos, awaiting a long period of gestation.
Gu An's thoughts stirred.
The next moment, four masses of pure Creation Origin entered the chaos.
Boom!
Vast innate essence surged in every direction, and the innate Dao traces that had long lain dormant appeared wherever it passed.
One, a hundred, a thousand...
The chaos shook, and all the Daos rang out in unison!
The first to change was the crimson spark that had nearly scattered during the struggle between the Daos of time and space.
As the origin essence poured in, the crimson glow, originally no larger than a fist, transformed into a boundless sea of fire in an instant!
Rumble!
Innate divine flames burned through the chaos in every direction. Countless ancient Dao patterns emerged from the blaze, interweaving into a magnificent Fire Domain.
The Great Dao of Fire!
Wherever the sea of fire spread, chaos qi was continuously refined by the flames, only to gather anew in their depths, in an endless cycle.
Almost at the same time, the mighty sound of rushing water suddenly came from another part of the chaos.
At first, there was only a single drop of dark water.
One drop fell, and all waters returned to their source!
Torrents of dark water surged from the void, transforming in an instant into a boundless ocean that faced the Fire Domain across the distance.
As the two Domains continued to expand, the auras of water and fire finally collided with a thunderous crash!
In an instant, divine flames burned the sea, and dark waters swallowed the heavens!
The two utterly opposed Great Daos clashed, annihilating vast swathes of chaos qi and sweeping up innate Dao traces that had yet to take shape.
As water and fire contended, wisps of black and white Dao patterns quietly appeared.
They intertwined, each joining the other head to tail.
The Yin-Yang Dao!
Yin and yang revolved, water and fire complemented each other, and the two originally conflicting forces of the Great Daos gradually formed a mysterious balance.
Immediately afterward, innate Dao traces of metal, wood, earth, and more manifested in succession!
The five elements gave rise to one another, and yin and yang flowed in turn.
Ancient Domains rose from the chaos one after another, each occupying its own region and nurturing its own innate Dao lineage.
And this evolution of the Daos had only just begun.
Where the Daos converged, countless fine, invisible threads suddenly appeared.
The birth and extinction of flames, the rise and fall of dark waters, and every change brought about by the interaction of yin and yang all left traces within those threads.
A cause arose, and an effect followed.
All changes were linked.
The Karma Dao!
Farther away, deep in the chaos, countless hazy lights and shadows intertwined.
In one thought, the Daos coexisted, and all things flourished.
In the next, the Daos contended without end, and chaos returned to the abyss.
Countless possibilities appeared at once, only to vanish in an instant.
The Fate Dao!
At that moment, those two unfathomably profound innate Great Daos also revealed the embryonic forms of their Domains.
In the vast chaos, the Daos contended in a chorus.
The commotion even stirred the two innate divine beings who had already emerged.
Deep within the River of Time, Shi Chen slowly raised his head.
Amid the boundless void, the Hollow-Hearted Willow swayed gently, and countless spatial Dao patterns flowed with it.
Just then.
Hum!
A simple, ancient jade light rose from the center of the chaos!
The Fortune Jade Disc, which had been hidden within the innate Dao traces, slowly appeared as the Daos interacted.
Upon the jade disc, the patterns of the Three Thousand Great Daos shone in concert.
Water and fire, yin and yang, the five elements, karma, fate...
The various Great Daos intertwined into a vast diagram of the Dao, as though reflecting every change throughout the entire expanse of chaos.
The jade light shone in every direction, and even the innate Dao traces that had yet to manifest faintly resonated with it.
Yet just as Gu An watched intently,
a wisp of azure Dao resonance suddenly flowed out from the depths of the chaos.
It had neither the earth-shaking grandeur of water and fire contending nor the vast phenomena of the Space-Time Dao.
Wherever the azure light passed, countless innate auras quietly changed.
The first place affected was the region where water and fire clashed.
The two Domains pressed against each other, shattering countless innate Dao traces and reducing them to scattered chaos essence.
But as the azure light flowed, those Dao traces that had been on the verge of dissipating gathered together again!
Water and fire formed the foundation, and yin and yang interacted.
The qi of the five elements poured in one after another. Countless innate Dao patterns crossed and interwove, giving rise to an unprecedented, mysterious change within the chaos!
Boom!
A mass of chaos essence abruptly contracted.
Water and fire fused, and yin and yang became one!
The innate auras, which had each followed their own Dao, condensed within the azure light into a Chaos Dao Embryo!
The Dao Embryo hung in the void, its entirety still undivided chaos.
Yet within it, water and fire revolved, the five elements alternated, and innate patterns formed of their own accord in a repeating cycle.
More mysterious still, the evolution within the Dao Embryo did not stop when the wisp of azure light faded.
It began to draw in and expel chaos essence on its own, nurturing its own innate creation!
Gu An's gaze sharpened.
The earlier clash of water and fire and the manifestation of yin, yang, and the five elements had all been the Great Daos' own evolution.
But now, through the interaction of the Daos, a true innate Dao Embryo had been nurtured!
The myriad laws interacted, and creation arose of itself!
Gu An followed the wisp of azure light with his gaze.
Deep within the chaos, a vast azure Domain gradually appeared.
Countless innate Dao patterns interwove, and boundless auras of creation flowed within.
An ancient and venerable innate will could faintly be sensed, taking shape in the depths of the Domain.
Though it had yet to emerge, there were already signs of its power to create all things!
"The Creation Dao!"
Gu An finally recognized it.
One of the Three Thousand Great Daos: creation!
The Daos unfolded the principles, and creation gave rise to their forms.
Pangu had yet to split open the heavens, but this Mythic Chaos had already begun to nurture the true myriad innate forms of existence!
And the innate demon god who presided over the Creation Dao had not even awakened.
As Gu An looked at the azure Domain, Gu Xi's pale little face suddenly appeared in his mind.
Congenital Vitality Deficiency.
In the eyes of an ordinary physician, it might have been an incurable terminal illness.
But if the Creation Demon God truly emerged in the future, Xiao Xi's illness would no longer be a problem.
Gu An felt considerably more at ease.
Meanwhile, as the last wisp of Creation Origin fully merged into the chaos, several lines of golden text appeared.
[This round of creation and evolution is complete.]
[The Daos of chaos have manifested further. The first innate Domains have formed.]
[The innate Great Daos of fate, karma, creation, and others continue to take shape.]
[Current remaining Creation Origin: 0.]
Gu An looked at the last line and felt somewhat helpless.
Two hundred and seventy-two thousand Star Coins, all spent again in the blink of an eye.
Still, the origin had been worth the cost.
Water and fire, yin and yang, and the five elements had manifested in succession. Karma and fate had formed embryonic Domains, and even the Creation Dao had revealed its mysteries.
And all of this was merely the first awakening of the Three Thousand Great Daos.
In an ordinary world, four portions of origin would have been enough to expand its territory and nurture living beings.
But in this Mythic Chaos, they had only advanced the Daos through their initial evolution.
In particular, as the connections between the Great Daos grew closer, ordinary origin was gradually becoming unable to support the next stage of evolution.
Gu An looked toward the center of the chaos, at the Thirty-Six-Rank Chaos Green Lotus nurturing Pangu.
Deep within its heart, the Dao patterns of world-opening remained dormant.
The Daos had awakened, but Pangu had yet to emerge.
The resources needed to continue the evolution of this mythic Primordial World would only become more staggering.
Gu An withdrew his gaze.
It seemed that, one way or another, he had to obtain the high-grade Creation Origin treasured by the school at the school-wide evaluation ten days from now.