"Pangu is different," Zhang Hao said.
Hongjun nodded.
Yes, Pangu was different.
Among all the Chaos Demon Gods, Pangu was the sole exception. He existed only before the opening of heaven.
After the opening of heaven, he vanished.
Some said he died, his body transforming into all things. Some said he transcended and went to a higher dimension. Others said he had never existed at all, that he was merely a symbol, a metaphor.
But Zhang Hao knew the truth.
"He existed only before the opening of heaven," Zhang Hao said. "After the opening of heaven, he was gone, so there are no projections of him in those timelines."
"You want to go find him?"
"I want to go take a look," Zhang Hao said. "To look at the chaos before the opening of heaven, to look at that era where Pangu was the only one."
Hongjun was silent for a while, then stood. He patted the nonexistent dust from his Daoist robe and said, "Then let's go."
Zhang Hao stood as well.
The two alerted no one, left behind no letters or messages, and simply departed the Prehistoric World in silence.
They passed through the Thirty-Three Heavens, went against the River of Time, and traveled upward, upward, ever upward.
Time flowed backward around them, epochs retreated, and the script replayed.
They saw the Witch-Demon War fighting in reverse, saw the War of Deification playing back, saw one epoch after another fly swiftly backward like the pages of a book being flipped.
In the end, they passed through that invisible barrier. It was the end of time, the starting point of cause and effect.
Before the opening of heaven.
Chaos.
True chaos.
Not the tamed, gentle chaos at the edges of the Prehistoric World, but primordial, violent, undifferentiated chaos.
There