The instant Zhenyuanzi stepped into the heart of Penglai Immortal Island, an unprecedented tremor arising from the very source of life swept through his entire body like a tide.
Compared with Fangzhang Island's austere stillness and bitter cold, or Yingzhou Island's purifying sanctity, the aura here was weighty and profound, bearing all things with a mother's acceptance and a wordless majesty. It resonated with his own origin, the essence of innate earthen energy from which he had taken form, in the deepest and most direct way.
As though a wanderer had returned home, as though a drop of water had joined the sea, the earth vein spiritual energy of the entire Penglai Immortal Island rejoiced, conveying the purest sense of kinship to him.
This was no mere affinity with spiritual energy, but a mutual attraction and calling at the level of their origins. The foundation of his existence had, at this moment, found its most perfect reflection and resting place.
The soil of Penglai was the manifestation of his Dao, and his essential soul was a strand of the true spirit of this boundless earth.
He advanced slowly. Beneath his feet lay not ordinary soil, but earthen energy essence flowing with a gentle, lustrous jade light. Every step seemed to fall in time with the heartbeat of the entire island.
That gentle jade light was no lifeless thing. Like living veins, it rippled faintly with his footsteps, conveying joy and acceptance.
All around him, strange flowers and exotic herbs, jeweled branches and jade trees radiated rich earth-element spiritual energy and exuberant vitality, yet these were merely a backdrop.
His gaze pierced the layers of misty profound yellow qi and fixed firmly upon the island's innermost heart. There lay the source of this realm's wu tu essence, the heart of Penglai, and the ultimate destination of the call that had drawn him here.
There, above a small jade platform condensed from pure innate wu tu essence qi, a banner floated silently.
The jade platform was wholly natural, without a trace of carving. Its texture was as smooth and lustrous as mutton-fat jade, yet it possessed unimaginable density and weight, as though a fragment of the Primordial Land's very core had been stripped away and brought here.
Above the jade platform, the profound yellow qi was so dense that it had almost become liquid, swirling like clouds and mist. At its center, the banner flickered in and out of view, radiating familiar fluctuations that made even Zhenyuanzi's soul tremble.
The banner's pole was ancient and unadorned, profound yellow in hue, as though forged from divine metal drawn from the deepest core of the Primordial Land. Dao patterns tracing the courses of mountains and rivers and the textures of the earth were naturally inscribed upon it. They had not been carved by later hands, but born of heaven and earth—the most direct embodiment of the law of "earth."
Every pattern flowed with an immutable, age-old weight, as though it bore the mass of every mountain and the memories of all the earth since the opening of the world.
The banner fluttered and snapped without wind, displaying an indescribably pure earthen yellow, as though the essence of every stretch of soil in the Primordial Wilderness had gathered within it.
That hue was deep and restrained, neither ostentatious nor dazzling, yet it contained supreme power sufficient to bear all the heavens and anchor the cosmos.
To look upon it was to see boundless plains, towering mountain ranges, unfathomably deep valleys, and soil that nurtured all things—every form of the Primordial Land seemed condensed within this single banner.
Upon its fabric, incomparably abstruse runes flickered in and out of sight. They had not been engraved by later hands, but formed naturally from the Great Dao, like the language of the earth itself, expounding its supreme truths of "bearing," "stability," "nurturing," and "returning to concealment."
Every rune seemed a miniature world, unfolding the surging of earth veins, the rising of mountains, the formation of mineral veins, and the awakening and dormancy of life. Strands of profound yellow qi also hung down like beaded ornaments, each as heavy as a mountain yet as gentle as maternal qi, nourishing everything around them.
As those ornaments swayed, even space seemed to grow viscous and stable. Any restless energy here returned to calm, soothed and absorbed by the power of the earth.
It was indeed one of the Innate Five Directions Banners, the supreme treasure perfectly aligned with his great Dao origin—the Central Wuji Apricot Yellow Banner!
Understanding dawned at once in Zhenyuanzi's heart, like sunlight breaking through the clouds, leaving not the slightest doubt.
Like the Book of the Earth, this treasure was naturally attuned to him, an indispensable other half on his path through the Great Dao.
Within his sea of consciousness, his memories of the Innate Five Directions Banners also emerged clearly, like a long-sealed scroll slowly unfurling:
These five banners had formed from the five lotus leaves of the Chaos Green Lotus. Each possessed the origin of one direction, and all ranked among top-grade innate spiritual treasures, containing great Dao laws and boundless power.
The Eastern Green Lotus Treasure Color Banner: aligned with wood, it governed vitality and creation. Green qi wreathed it like spring returning to the earth, and no evil could encroach upon it. It could restore withered trees to life, grow flesh upon decayed bones, and revive all things in an endless cycle of renewal. Its qi flow contained inexhaustible life-source power, the beginning of creation.
The Southern Ground-Leaving Flame Light Banner: aligned with fire, it governed light and blazing intensity. Its fiery radiance rose like a great sun high in the sky, burning away every impurity and evil spirit in the world. It could vanquish all demons and illuminate the Netherworld; wherever its light reached, all evils retreated. It was the ultimate expression of purification and destruction.
The Western Plain Colored Cloud Realm Banner: aligned with metal, it governed killing severity and sharpness. Pure and flawless white, like autumn frost and winter snow, its keen aura pierced the heavens. It could sever the threads of karma and destroy every spell and divine ability. Nothing could withstand its edge. It was the symbol of order and endings.
The Northern Profound Origin Water Controlling Banner: aligned with water, it governed extreme softness and extreme hardness. Deep and mysteriously black, like a boundless ocean abyss, it commanded all waters. It could nourish all things and bring sustenance to all living beings, yet it could also unleash world-destroying floods and overturn the cosmos. It embodied transformation and returning to concealment.
The Central Wuji Apricot Yellow Banner: aligned with earth, it governed bearing and stability. Wu and Ji occupied the center, profound yellow and weighty—the quintessence of the earth and the foundation of all arts. It could stabilize earth, water, fire, and wind, quell every upheaval, remain untouched by all arts, and keep all evils at bay. Its power was neither attack nor defense, but absolute "existence" and "support." It was the pivot of the five directions, the core of the five elements, and the cornerstone of cosmic order.
Separated, these five banners could each secure a direction, their power inexhaustible. Possessing even one was enough to stand at the pinnacle of the Primordial Wilderness;
United, they could establish the Innate Five Elements Great Formation!
Once this formation was established, the five elements rotated through mutual generation and restraint, forming a stable world of their own, evolving earth, water, fire, and wind, and anchoring cosmic order.
Its defensive power could be called an absolute barrier. No matter how peerless one's divine abilities or how overwhelming one's magical power, without a method to break the formation, one could scarcely shake it in the slightest;
Its offensive might was enough to obliterate stars and recreate chaos. The power of the five elements cycled endlessly, renewing itself without cease, sufficient to grind an entire great thousand world into dust.
Its profundity and vast power were comparable to the All-Heavens Divine Baleful Formation, through which the Witch Clan of later ages would manifest the Pangu True Body; the Great Formation of the Stars of the Heavens, through which the Demon Clan would command the stars of the heavens; and the Immortal Slaying Sword Formation, which could only be broken by four sages together. All were among the Primordial Wilderness's greatest formations for slaughter and protection!
Within it, the earth element represented by the Central Wuji Apricot Yellow Banner was the supreme formation's absolute core and foundation. Just as the earth bore all things, it was the crucial node that allowed the five elements' rotation and the circulation of energy to remain stable.
And the Central Wuji Apricot Yellow Banner before him was precisely that supreme formation's core foundation, as well as the treasure for attaining the Dao most perfectly aligned with Zhenyuanzi's own Great Dao!
It was not merely a powerful magical treasure, but the embodiment of the "way of the great earth," the most perfect dao marker and vessel on his path toward the Primordial Chaos Dao Fruit.
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