A fist was a circle.
A circle was an egg.
An egg was the origin of the world, the primordial chaos of Yuanshi, the oneness of Hunyuan.
Clenching the five fingers into a fist was the reversal of the Five Elements, returning them to Hunyuan.
Yes, yes. In the material world where humanity could live, the power of the Four Symbols was dispersed: Xuanming Water condensed and contracted into ice within material particles; Changqing Wood ran through all things as wind and thunder; Zhuli Fire melted, transformed, and brought all existence in the world into fall; while the central Earth ruled all Physical Images with its vast origin.
This was only natural.
But to the true "Yuanshi," it was not so.
At the very beginning of heaven and earth, apart from the final "vast origin of Earth, the force that drew all things," the other three powers of the Four Symbols had in fact been one. At that time, all matter had yet to exist, and thus neither time nor space existed. Entropy's arrow had not yet fully slipped free of heaven's bowstring, and the great axe that opened the beginning had not yet been fully swung.
And just as the fission of matter produced tremendous energy, the very splitting of the Four Symbols' power released an unimaginably vast energy. This was energy the universe had stored within spacetime itself since its state of Hunyuan oneness—like frozen water. If it were melted by a force and its vacuum potential released, it could forge a true torrent of creation.
At this moment, An Jing clenched his fist. Heaven's Calamity Five Punishments—one finger, one punishment.
The Five Elements moved in their proper course, creating the world.
Then they moved in reverse, destroying the world.
Dense vacuum fissures blossomed from his fist as