He flew over a vast expanse of ruins.
The ruins covered a huge area. From above, he could just make out the outlines of what had once been a magnificent palace complex.
Now, only broken walls and shattered buildings remained. Charred stone pillars lay toppled, the damaged jade steps were cracked, and weeds grew wildly through the gaps. Vines covered the pillars of corridors that had once been adorned with elaborate carvings.
Intense, chaotic traces of Daoist resonance still lingered among the ruins.
There was the Dragon Clan's domineering aura, the Phoenix Clan's blazing intensity, and the Kirin Clan's weighty presence.
They twisted together, clashed, and tore at one another. Even after countless years, they had yet to fade completely.
Xuande landed at the edge of the ruins and stood there quietly for a long while.
He didn't know whether this had once been an important site belonging to the Dragon Clan, the Phoenix Clan, or the Kirin Clan.
Nor did he know what kind of terrible battle had taken place here.
But from the traces of Daoist resonance that remained, he could feel how tragic and heroic that battle had been.
The Three Clans had vied for supremacy for tens of millions of years, only to end up gravely weakened and driven from the Primordial Wilderness's main stage.
He recalled something Zhenyuanzi had once mentioned in passing during a casual conversation:
"The Dragon-Han Calamity Kalpa is said to have been a calamity, but in truth, the Three Clans brought disaster upon themselves.
Their slaughter was too great, their Karmic Sin too deep. Heaven despised them, Earth abandoned them. No matter how great their powers, even they could not defy the Heavenly Dao."
Xuande was silent for a long time.
He suddenly understood why he, Jieyin and Zhunti, Zhenyuanzi, and Hong Yun had earned such abundant Heavenly Dao merit by repairing the West Earth Vein. It wasn't only because repairing it benefited the world.
More importantly... they had avoided the deadliest trap.
Slaughter, Karmic Sin, and tangled causes and effects would ultimately be reckoned by the Heavenly Dao.
They had chosen to build rather than destroy, to dispel calamity rather than sow it.
That was the true meaning of the Way of Merit.
Xuande turned toward the ruins and bowed from afar.
Not for any of the Three Clans.
But for the countless lives that had perished in the Calamity Kalpa, and for this land, once glorious and now fallen silent. Then he turned and left.
He continued east.
One day, he crossed a vast wasteland.
The terrain here was exceedingly strange. The earth was an unnatural charred black, and wisps of eerie mist still rose from many places.
Spiritual Energy here was extremely unstable, appearing and disappearing at random, mixed with an indescribable savagery and desolation.
For thousands of miles around, there were almost no living creatures. Even the plants were sparse, mostly mutated, twisted trees.
Xuande knew at once what this place was.
One of the main battlefields of the Dao-Devil War.
Rahula had detonated the West Earth Vein in his final strike before defeat, taking revenge on the entire Primordial Wilderness.
But even before that, the Dao-Devil War had already spread across the Primordial Wilderness. Countless powerful beings had fallen, countless Spiritual Veins had collapsed, and countless lives had suffered.
This wasteland was one of the many scars left behind by that earth-shaking battle.
He didn't linger. The wounds in this land ran too deep; ordinary methods could no longer heal them.
Perhaps after another billion years, following the erosion of countless storms and the Earth Veins' gradual recovery, life would slowly return.
Or perhaps it would never recover its former appearance.
That was the price of war.
Xuande flew silently across this desolate land. The sense of accomplishment he had felt over repairing the West Earth Vein suddenly took on a deeper weight.
He continued east.
He didn't know how long he had flown when a faint yet towering outline, spanning heaven and earth, gradually appeared on the distant horizon.
At first, the outline was barely visible, like the shadow of a distant mountain or the folds of a cloud bank.
But as Xuande drew closer, it grew clearer, larger, and more... awe-inspiring.
It was a mountain.
A mountain whose majesty and grandeur defied description.
It was impossibly tall.
Its slopes disappeared into a sea of clouds, and beyond that, all was Chaos. Even his spiritual sense couldn't pierce through.
It seemed less like a mountain and more like a colossal pillar rising from the depths of the earth, piercing the firmament and supporting the weight of the entire world.
It was impossibly vast.
Even from ten thousand miles away, the mountain filled his entire field of vision.
Xuande flew for several days, yet its outline didn't shrink in the slightest.
Instead, it grew ever larger and closer, as though the entire world were gathering around it and bowing before it.
It was impossibly ancient.
Just glimpsing it from afar, Xuande could feel that boundless will rushing toward him, as though it had existed since the very beginning of Creation of Heaven and Earth.
It wasn't the might of any living being, but the weight of Heaven and Earth itself, the lingering power of Pangu's Legacy, the breath of all creation.
Buzhou Mountain.
The backbone of the Primordial Wilderness, formed from the spine of Great God Pangu. It held up the sky, supported the earth, and guarded the Primordial Wilderness.
Before Xuande had even reached the mountain, he voluntarily descended from the clouds.
He could fly no farther.
Not because he lacked magical power, but because any living being would instinctively draw in their aura before this divine mountain, not daring to show the slightest disrespect.
The reverence that rose from the depths of his bloodline and the instincts of his soul was stronger than any pressure.
He continued on foot.
The earth beneath him grew increasingly weighty, the Spiritual Energy increasingly pure, and the air filled with an indescribable ancient and sacred aura.
It wasn't the scent of any immortal herb or spiritual medicine. It was the aura of Buzhou Mountain itself, the Daoist resonance of Pangu's remains, accumulated over billions of years.
Along the way, he also encountered several cultivators heading toward Buzhou Mountain.
Most hurried along without speaking to one another. When their gazes occasionally met, they merely nodded before looking away.
Xuande could sense that they were all highly cultivated. Even the weakest was an Early-Stage Grand Unity Golden Immortal.
At the foot of Buzhou Mountain, no one strutted about or made a commotion.
No matter how powerful they were, the cultivators were like pilgrims, keeping all their sharpness and arrogance in check.
Xuande found a slightly elevated hillside with a clear view and sat down cross-legged.
He wasn't in a hurry to do anything. He simply wanted to sit quietly here for a while.
He gazed at Buzhou Mountain, at its towering outline and its peak that vanished into Chaos. His heart was at peace.
He thought back to when he had first crossed over, trapped within a tiny restrictive formation and cultivating day and night just to undergo Form Transformation and survive.
He thought of the time after his Form Transformation, when he had faced Jieyin and Zhunti, treading carefully at every step.
He thought of joining hands with Zhenyuanzi and Hong Yun to repair the Earth Veins, trekking over mountains and rivers for tens of thousands of years and exhausting himself in the process.
Now, he was alone at the foot of this divine mountain that supported heaven and earth. He didn't have to think about anything or do anything. He simply... existed.
The mountain wind swept past, carrying the crisp chill unique to Buzhou Mountain, tinged with the breath of Chaos.
Xuande closed his eyes and let the wind brush his cheeks and robes, and stir the memories and thoughts that had settled over countless years.
From Western Mount Sumeru to the foot of Buzhou Mountain.
He suddenly realized that he had been in this era, in this Primordial Wilderness, for a very, very long time.
So long that he had almost forgotten he was once a soul from a later age.
A "transmigrator" who knew the legends of the Primordial Wilderness by heart.
He neither cultivated deliberately nor tried to comprehend anything.
He simply sat there, like a stone, like an ancient tree, like one of the countless beings quietly existing at the foot of Buzhou Mountain.
He didn't know how much time had passed.
Here, time seemed to flow extraordinarily slowly, and yet it seemed to have lost all meaning.
He just sat quietly, feeling the weight of the earth beneath him.
Feeling the majesty of the divine mountain before him, and the ancient Daoist resonance that filled Heaven and Earth—omnipresent, yet impossible to put into words.
Until, at last, he opened his eyes.