Xuande sat cross-legged in Spirit Spring Valley, the aura around him gradually settling.
Fully refining the Twelve-Petal Destruction Black Lotus had taken a great deal of effort, but the rewards had been immense.
At that moment, the black lotus platform rested quietly in the depths of his Primordial Spirit space.
It faced the Merit Golden Lotus in his true form from afar.
One light, one dark; one life, one death. Together, they formed a subtle balance.
Xuande did not hurry to rise. Instead, he spent several more days regulating his breathing. Only when his mind and spiritual power had fully recovered did he open his eyes.
Next was the God-Slaying Spear.
Xuande took a deep breath and raised his right hand. A dark-red spear flew out from between his brows and hovered before him.
The God-Slaying Spear.
The spear was about twelve feet long, its entire shaft a deep red.
That color had settled into it after countless battles, like a mixture of congealed blood and molten rock from the earth's core.
A cold glint shone at the tip. Even without anyone urging it on, it still radiated a sharpness that could freeze the soul.
Faint patterns seemed to flow along the shaft.
Looking closely, they were countless ancient Dao marks, recording the purest path of slaughter since the Creation of Heaven and Earth.
As Xuande gazed at the spear, he felt even calmer than he had when facing the black lotus.
The black lotus's nature opposed his own, so he had expected refining it to be difficult. In the end, it had gone unexpectedly smoothly.
The God-Slaying Spear, though a supreme weapon of slaughter with a fearsome reputation, had been formed from the stem of the Chaos Green Lotus.
The Chaos Green Lotus had given birth to Great God Pangu. It was also the mother of the Merit Golden Lotus that formed his true body.
The Twelve-Petal Merit Golden Lotus had been formed from a lotus seed, while the God-Slaying Spear had been formed from the stem.
In a sense, the spear and he... shared the same roots.
Xuande reached out and gently grasped the shaft.
In that instant, he clearly sensed a subtle stir from within it.
It was neither resistance nor rejection, but a... complex feeling, almost like scrutiny.
It was as if an ancient being, asleep for countless years, had finally sensed a familiar presence. Now it was slowly waking and sizing up this junior of the same origin.
Xuande did not rush to urge his spiritual power or wrap the spear in Merit Golden Light.
He simply held the spear, closed his eyes, and used his mind to sense and communicate with it.
You and I share the same origin.
He spoke slowly in his heart.
You once followed Rahula in his conquests across the Primordial Wilderness, becoming stained with countless causes and effects of slaughter.
But all that is past. Rahula has fallen, and the demonic aura has been cleansed. You... deserve a new home.
The spear trembled softly.
The vibration was faint, yet it came through to Xuande's mind with unmistakable clarity.
Then he sensed an ancient, boundless aura welling up from deep within the spear, slowly enveloping him.
It was the aura of the Chaos Green Lotus, the Origin Essence that had existed even before the Creation of Heaven and Earth.
It was more primordial and pure than the aura of his own Merit Golden Lotus, and more... all-embracing.
Xuande understood.
The God-Slaying Spear might be known for slaughter, and it might have once been wielded by Rahula, but it was not evil by nature.
It was part of the Chaos Green Lotus, formed from its stem.
It carried the most fundamental power of the Chaos Green Lotus: growth and support.
Only after the Creation of Heaven and Earth, when it absorbed countless baleful energies born of slaughter, had it gradually become the supreme weapon it was now.
But its roots remained, and so did its Origin Essence.
That faint resonance between kindred sources remained, too.
Xuande no longer hesitated. Following that resonance, he slowly sank his mind into the God-Slaying Spear.
Unlike the dark void inside the black lotus, the spear contained a field of dark-red Chaos.
Countless killing energies howled like gales and surged like raging waves. Each wisp was enough to unsettle an ordinary Grand Unity Golden Immortal's mind and plunge them into murderous intent.
Yet deep within that Chaos, Xuande could sense a trace of life—extremely faint, yet incredibly tenacious.
It was the root of the Chaos Green Lotus.
It was the spear's most fundamental core.
Xuande's mind passed through layer after layer of killing energy, drawing closer to that spark of life.
The killing energies sensed his kindred aura and instinctively tried to stop him. But when they touched the Merit Golden Light around him, they hesitated and withdrew.
Merit and slaughter were natural opposites.
Here, the Merit Golden Light formed a gentle barrier, protecting him as he passed safely through the Chaos of slaughter.
After an unknown length of time, Xuande finally reached the source of that spark of life.
It was the faint shadow of a tiny root, pale green and entirely unlike the dark-red Chaos of slaughter around it.
It hung there quietly, as if asleep, or perhaps waiting.
Xuande's mind gently touched the shadow of the root.
Boom—
In an instant, countless images flooded into his mind like a rising tide.
He saw an enormous green lotus growing quietly in the boundless Chaos before the world had been formed.
The lotus was too vast for words to describe.
Each petal seemed capable of containing an entire world, and each root stretched deep into the Chaos, drawing in its most primordial Qi.
At the center of the lotus, he saw the indistinct shape of a giant.
The giant slumbered, yet radiated the mightiest, most primordial aura from before the Creation of Heaven and Earth—Pangu.
He saw the day the world was created: the giant awakened and split the Chaos with a Giant Axe.
The clear rose to become the sky, and the turbid sank to become the earth. But the green lotus that had borne the giant disintegrated bit by bit under the force of the Creation of Heaven and Earth.
Its petals scattered and became Innate Spiritual Treasures; its seeds fell and became lotus platforms across the world.
As for the stem that had reached deep into the Chaos, it absorbed the boundless baleful energy of slaughter unleashed during the Creation of Heaven and Earth as it fell into the Primordial Wilderness...
At last, he saw the stem gradually take the shape of a spear over the long years.
On the day it was formed, the entire Primordial Wilderness trembled.
Countless mighty beings sensed its terrifying killing aura and hastily withdrew.
The first to grasp the spear was a Daoist shrouded in demonic aura—Rahula.
The vision ended there.
Xuande's mind was shaken. For a long time, he could not speak.
What he had just seen were the memories of the God-Slaying Spear, the memories of the Chaos Green Lotus, and... the memories of the Creation of Heaven and Earth.
It was a history more ancient and vast than his own existence.
And now, through that shadow of a root, this history, these memories, had opened themselves completely to him.
Xuande took a deep breath, quelled the emotions surging within him, and slowly merged the aura of his own Origin Essence into the shadow of the root.
This was the final step in fully refining the spear—not domination, not assimilation, but... a return to its source.
He would help the God-Slaying Spear remember that it was part of the Chaos Green Lotus.
He would help it recognize that the Daoist before it was also descended from the Chaos Green Lotus.
The shadow of the root quivered softly.
Then the entire field of dark-red Chaos began to tremble.
The countless killing energies stopped howling and surging. Instead, they slowly retreated, opening a path to the core of the spear.
At the end of the path, a dark-red orb of light hung quietly. It was the spear's Artifact Spirit Origin.
It had yet to fully take shape, but it had already existed for countless ages.
Xuande's mind followed the path and came before the orb of light.
He made no move. He simply watched in silence.
After a long while, the orb flashed softly and voluntarily released a ray of light, which merged into Xuande's mind.
In that moment, Xuande clearly felt an unbreakable connection form between him and the God-Slaying Spear.
It was neither master and servant nor domination, but something closer to recognition between beings of the same origin.
The spear was his, and he was the spear's.
From now on, this supreme weapon of slaughter that had once made the Primordial Wilderness tremble would walk beside him.
Outside.
In Spirit Spring Valley, Xuande opened his eyes.
He was still sitting cross-legged on the same blue-gray rock, and his right hand still held the God-Slaying Spear.
But the spear was now completely different.
Its dark-red shaft remained ancient and solemn, and the cold glint at its tip was still as sharp as ever.
But most of its icy killing intent, the kind that kept everyone at a distance, had dissipated.
In its place was a calm, restrained sharpness, ready to erupt at any moment.
Xuande looked at the spear in his hand and suddenly smiled.
He released it. The God-Slaying Spear rose gently into the air, circled him once, then turned into a streak of dark-red light and entered between his brows.
In his Primordial Spirit space, it settled quietly near the Twelve-Petal Destruction Black Lotus.
One lotus, one spear.
One black, one red.
Together with the golden Merit Golden Lotus that formed his true body, they created a strange yet harmonious balance.
The refinement was complete.
It had gone far more smoothly than he had expected.
The God-Slaying Spear might have had a fearsome reputation and been filled with killing energy.
But its Origin Essence had, after all, come from the stem of the Chaos Green Lotus, sharing the same lineage as his Merit Golden Lotus.
That recognition between kindred sources was more effective than any forced refinement.