Ancient and vast.
Boundless and endless.
This was the origin of the Primordial World.
Beneath the Celestial Vault lurked terrifying beasts, each roar powerful enough to shatter the Star River.
There were also undying Immortals and Gods, whose radiance illuminated the ages, past and present.
Across the boundless sea of stars, billions upon billions of celestial bodies shimmered.
Within the infinite expanse, Divine Mountains stood in towering ranks.
The most striking of them was Buzhou Mountain.
Buzhou Mountain, the first Divine Mountain to rise when the Primordial World was created.
It had formed from Pangu's spine, reaching up to the Thirty-Three Heavens and down to the endless Netherworld.
Deep within the Netherworld, an ancient bronze divine hall drifted, immense as if it bore the weight of the world.
The Netherworld had formed when the Innate Turbid Qi gathered at the creation of the world.
In the beginning, clear qi rose while turbid qi sank.
The clear qi became the realm of immortals, while the turbid qi evolved into this Netherworld.
The Turbid Qi was venomous, able to corrode Immortals and Gods and erode their physical bodies.
Yet within this world, filled with Turbid Qi, an outlier race had come into being... the Witch Clan!
In the Primordial World, all races cultivated their primordial spirits—except the Witch Clan, who pursued the path of physical cultivation.
They were born different, at odds with all other races.
That was because the Witch Clan could absorb Innate Turbid Qi and, sheltered by the legacy Pangu had left behind when he created the world, take form and develop intelligence.
Without Pangu's protection, they would have long since been swallowed by the Turbid Qi and reduced to nothingness.
It was for this reason that the Witch Clan had been able to step onto the grand stage of the Primordial World.
They were hot-tempered and fierce. Unable to cultivate primordial spirits, they could only rely on their physical bodies.
This, too, was a consequence of their innate exposure to the Turbid Qi.
But in terms of bloodline, the Witch Clan were the true inheritors of Pangu's lineage.
Pangu had transformed into all things, and his blood essence had given rise to the Ancestral Witches.
The Witch Clan were the continuation of Pangu's bloodline.
No one could dispute their claim to be Pangu's direct descendants.
The Netherworld gathered all the Turbid Qi released when Pangu created the world.
The Witch Clan's birth was both a result of Pangu's protection and a means of stabilizing the order of the Primordial World.
No other race could bear the Turbid Qi gathered here. Only the Witch Clan could survive in this place.
Deep in the endless Netherworld, the ancient bronze divine hall drifted in the darkness.
Divine Light pierced the gloom like a beacon in the river of time.
The hall was an Innate Supreme Treasure formed from Pangu's heart, and it was also the Witch Clan's Ancestral Hall.
Only with the protection of Pangu Divine Hall could the Witch Clan safely absorb the Turbid Qi and take form.
In the divine hall's Blood Pool stood thirteen enormous crimson cocoons.
They absorbed the endless Turbid Qi and turned it into overwhelming power.
Twelve cocoons encircled the pool, while one stood in the center.
That one was the largest and most terrifying.
Black and red qi coiled around it, and muffled booms like thunder rumbled from within.
Suddenly, a voice came from inside the cocoon.
"Where... am I?"
Long Zang spoke in confusion, but his consciousness was once again overwhelmed by Pangu's bloodline and the Heavenly Dao inheritance.
Having only just awakened, he sank back into slumber.
Time held no meaning in the Primordial World.
This was the era of the first Immeasurable Calamity—the Ferocious Beast Calamity.
Ferocious Beasts rampaged across the Primordial World.
The Three Innate Races had yet to emerge, and the world was in chaos.
At its heart, the Ferocious Beast Calamity was a war between the Three Innate Races and the Ferocious Beasts.
Though Ferocious Beasts were born to ravage the Primordial World, a few among them possessed intelligence and had no desire to destroy it.
After all, if the Primordial World were destroyed and all things returned to Chaos, they would have nowhere left to live.
But the vast majority of Ferocious Beasts were mindless, knowing only frenzied slaughter as they churned the Sea of Blood into a raging torrent.
Thus, the Three Innate Races arose to face the calamity and fight the Ferocious Beasts.
In the midst of this chaotic age, Long Zang opened his eyes inside the giant cocoon.
He instinctively absorbed the endless Turbid Qi, and his body continued to grow stronger.
"I... became the First Ancestral Witch?"
His voice was low, full of shock.
In the original Primordial World, there had been twelve Ancestral Witches. But Long Zang had been born before them, becoming the First Ancestral Witch!
He wielded the Great Daos of Devouring and Destruction!
Yet the Turbid Qi's influence meant that, like the rest of the Witch Clan, he could not cultivate a primordial spirit.
It was an innate flaw, one that could not be remedied after birth.
Even the Twelve Ancestral Witches had been unable to overcome it. How could an outsider like him change it so easily?
This was the Supreme Great Desolation!
Immortals could live as long as the heavens.
Heavenly Immortals could create billions upon billions of worlds.
And yet, in a world like this, the Witch Clan still stood at the peak.
But the flaw of lacking primordial spirits remained an insurmountable shackle.
Long Zang could not escape that fate, either.
Long Zang slowly opened his eyes, a complicated thought rising in his heart.
"Unable to cultivate a primordial spirit?" he murmured.
He soon accepted the truth. Since he had come here, he would make the best of it.
In the Primordial World, strength was everything.
"If cultivating a primordial spirit is out of reach, then I'll follow this path to the end." Long Zang's gaze was deep, black as an abyss.
In the depths of his pupils, an endless primordial darkness surged. It was the source of power that devoured all things... the Great Dao of Devouring.
The Witch Clan's physical bodies were the strongest in the Primordial World.
That was the foundation on which they stood.
So to Long Zang, the Witch Clan's lack of primordial spirits was not something he could not accept.
The wonders of a primordial spirit lay in divining the workings of Heaven, foreseeing fortune and disaster, and even scheming against the Great Supernatural Beings of the myriad heavens.
But Long Zang was different. He came from a later age and knew the general course of the Primordial World's future.
Whether he had a primordial spirit or not would not affect him much.
Of course, the flaw was just as clear.
If a Witch's physical body was shattered, they died for good.
They had no independent, undying primordial spirit, only a "True Life" bound to their physical body.
Once the body was destroyed, their True Life perished with it, leaving almost no chance of reincarnation.
Long Zang's thoughts grew clear.
The advantage was obvious: an invincible physical body!
The drawback was just as obvious: no primordial spirit!
He began sorting through the cultivation techniques inherited through his bloodline.
It was the most powerful body-refining technique Pangu had left behind... the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique!
Not only had the Twelve Ancestral Witches cultivated this technique, the Three Pure Ones had also grasped its true meaning.
It followed the path of body refinement, making it the perfect fit for the Witch Clan.
Cultivated to its utmost, it could lead directly to the Grand Unity Golden Immortal realm.
But Long Zang knew one thing very well.
Powerful as the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique was, it could only take its cultivator as far as the Grand Unity Golden Immortal realm.
Beyond Grand Unity lay the realm of the Dao.
The utmost limit of humanity was immortality; the utmost limit of immortality was the Dao.
There was no way to cross that threshold by relying on a predecessor's technique. He would have to forge his own path.
Pangu had created the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique through his boundless might.
The Witch Clan could use it to reach Grand Unity, but that was where they stopped.
Whether they could advance further depended on themselves.
Among the Witch Clan, hardly anyone besides the Twelve Ancestral Witches had ever set foot beyond Grand Unity.
Long Zang's thoughts churned.
He knew the Witch Clan's fate would be tragic.
Though the Demon Clan had declined, powerful figures like Nuwa and Kunpeng still upheld its fortunes.
But what about the Witch Clan?
Houtu had become Empress Pingxin, yet was trapped in the Nine Netherworlds, never to emerge.
By the time of the Investiture of the Gods, not even their shadows could be seen.
"The position of overlord of the Primordial World was always a bottomless pit," Long Zang sighed inwardly.
Trying to rule the Primordial World? That was courting death.
The Three Innate Races had once stood the best chance, yet in the end, they had failed, too.
The emergence of the Sages had completely cut off the possibility of a Co-Lord of the Primordial World.
Beneath the Sages, all were ants.
As for the Ferocious Beast Clan, they had even less of a chance.
Countless mindless Ferocious Beasts were already enemies of every living thing in the Primordial World. They had no chance of becoming its Co-Lord.
So even though the Three Innate Races had once had a glimmer of opportunity, it had been no more than a fleeting moment.
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