"How about it? Do you still think I was wrong not to let you raid the Demon Race Heavenly Court? More to the point, do we even stand a chance of winning this struggle for supremacy against the Demon Race?"
Zhu Jiuyin pretended not to notice the fury written plainly across his siblings' faces and asked in a calm voice.
As I've said before, the Ancestral Witches had no Primordial Spirits, so they couldn't read the workings of Heaven. And because they had always absorbed Turbid Qi, they were impulsive and savage in temperament. But that didn't mean they were fools or reckless brutes.
The situation was plain to see. More than ninety percent of the powerful beings in the Primordial World had already chosen sides between the Witch Race and the Demon Race, and their support for the Demon Race was practically undisguised.
What chilled many of the Ancestral Witches even more was that the Three Pure Ones were among them.
Just as the Three Pure Ones felt warmly toward the Ancestral Witches, the Ancestral Witches had always been close to the Three Pure Ones, treating them almost like brothers of another family.
Back when the Purple Heaven Palace held its first sermon, the Ancestral Witches had even done the Three Pure Ones a huge favor.
Think about it. Which powerful being who made it into the Purple Heaven Palace wasn't clever? Could they really have failed to see the immense opportunity hidden in the first six cushions?
Most importantly, whether it was the Nuwa-and-Fuxi pair or the Hong Yun-and-Zhenyuanzi pair, they were among the outstanding figures of the top-tier Innate Demon Gods. Yet each pair had claimed only one cushion.
But the Three Pure Ones?
The three of them had taken half the cushions. How could that not make the other top-tier Innate Demon Gods covet them?
Did they really think that being of the Orthodox Pangu Lineage meant they could steamroll the entire world?
In the vast Primordial World, every being with the roots of a top-tier Innate Demon God had countless ties to Pangu. Who among them didn't have at least some Merit of Opening the Heavens?
Besides, even if Innate Demon Gods killed one another, the Great Dao wouldn't interfere.
In the Great Dao's eyes, when Innate Demon Gods fought to the death, it was merely a family dispute among Pangu's descendants. It was Pangu's family business, and the Great Dao couldn't be bothered to meddle.
Of course, if some shameless Chaos Demon God or Chaos Being used their power to bully the weak, the Great Dao would never allow it.
After all, in the Great Dao's eyes, Pangu had rendered great merit to Chaos and the Primordial World by creating the heavens and earth. He had even given his life for that great deed.
In such circumstances, if the Great Dao allowed those old monsters left over from the Chaos Era to take advantage of Pangu's absence and attack his descendants, wouldn't that be tantamount to telling the countless beings of Chaos and the Primordial World that if you worked for the Great Dao and died, your descendants would suffer terribly?
The Great Dao was impartial. How could it allow that?
So even though Hongjun was now revered by all the living beings of the Primordial World as the Dao Ancestor and had clearly become the Spokesperson of the Heavenly Dao, he still couldn't directly attack the Innate Demon Gods.
Otherwise, why would Hongjun have gone to such lengths for so long, scheming and plotting? He could have simply killed the Three Pure Ones and the Ancestral Witches, extracted the Primordial Spirits of Pangu and blood essences from their bodies, and fused them together. His power would have surged beyond measure.
And if he'd been even more ruthless, he could have refined every being in the Primordial World with Innate Demon God roots. Then Hongjun could have achieved a true Pangu Dao Body and been known as "Little Pangu Hongjun." Wouldn't that have been wonderful?
It couldn't be done!
Forget Hongjun—even Beast Emperor Shenni and Devil Ancestor Luohou, with all their fearsome might, hadn't dared to do such a thing!
Luohou hadn't even dared to kill Jieyin and Zhunti.
Luohou's lair was on Mount Sumeru, after all. So take a guess: with Luohou's cultivation at the time, could he have sensed Jieyin and Zhunti's presence?
So it wasn't a matter of not daring. It was a matter of being unable to.
Back to the Purple Heaven Palace. At the time, someone had urged the other powerful beings to join forces and pressure the Three Pure Ones, demanding they give up at least two seats. Di Jun and Tai Yi had led the charge.
So Yuanshi's hatred and loathing of the Demon Race hadn't come from nowhere.
Even Tongtian, despite adhering to the doctrine that "all beings are equal beneath the teachings" and taking in many spirits and monsters as disciples, had hardly ever accepted members of the Demon Race as his disciples.
At the crucial moment, the Ancestral Witches had stood up for the Three Pure Ones, holding firm to the belief that they all belonged to the Orthodox Pangu Lineage.
That was the beginning of the life-and-death feud between the Twelve Ancestral Witches and Di Jun and Tai Yi.
After all, before that, the Ancestral Witches and the Golden Crows had barely crossed paths.
And so, when the Ancestral Witches learned that the Three Pure Ones had joined forces with Di Jun and Tai Yi, and had openly chosen the Demon Race in the conflict between the Witch Race and the Demon Race, their chill and anguish were beyond words.
In the Ancestral Witches' eyes, the Three Pure Ones had betrayed them.
Sadly, perhaps the Three Pure Ones had long since forgotten how the Ancestral Witches had stood by them.
As for the immense karmic debt the Three Pure Ones had incurred, in the myths of the Primordial World, once all the Ancestral Witches had died and Houtu had withdrawn into the Underworld, there was naturally no one left to speak of settling that debt.
When a karmic debt is too great to repay, how do you make it disappear? The Two Sages of the West had already provided the best answer.
To put it in modern terms, a dead creditor is a good creditor.
"Second Brother, I was wrong before. From now on, if you say east, I won't say west. Whatever you want to do, I'll support you without reservation!"
Zhurong had a fiery temper, but he was also a man of his word.
He had promised to support Zhu Jiuyin's decision without reservation, and he would do so without holding back. Even if Zhu Jiuyin told him to die, he wouldn't hesitate.
After Zhurong, Gonggong and Qiangliang voiced their support as well.
Even the Ancestral Witches who had already sided with Zhu Jiuyin now stood firm in their convictions.
Dijiang had still been somewhat reluctant to give up his position as leader of the Witch Race. After all, power was hard to gain and even harder to relinquish.
But now things were different. From the bottom of his heart, Dijiang truly accepted the fact that Zhu Jiuyin would take his place as leader of the Witch Race.
All it took was one choice by the Three Pure Ones to outweigh millions of lectures from Zhu Jiuyin.
It was through the Three Pure Ones' choice that the Ancestral Witches finally woke from their delusion that they, as the Orthodox Pangu Lineage, were the most exalted beings in the Primordial World.
In the myths of the Primordial World, it was only after all the Ancestral Witches had returned to the earth, the Witch Race had been all but wiped out, and Houtu had entered Reincarnation and ceased to be a Witch, that the awakened Gonggong felt the full weight of despair.
And it was because he had reached the depths of despair and lost all hope in the Primordial World that Gonggong had rammed Mount Buzhou in a fit of rage.
If there was no point in living, then damn it, no one else would get to live either.
The laughable part was that the Three Pure Ones at the time thought the Ancestral Witches were completely insane. They even congratulated themselves for having drawn a clear line between themselves and the Ancestral Witches in advance.
Tongtian had even sneered at Gonggong: "So you lost. A fine man should know how to win—and how to lose!"
And what happened in the end? The boomerang might have come late, but it always came back.
When the Tribulation of the Investiture of the Gods arrived and the Interception Sect was all but destroyed, perhaps Tongtian could finally begin to feel the anguish and despair Gonggong had felt back then.
Before you continue