"Feeling better?" Zhu Jiuyin laughed and patted Zhurong and Gonggong on the shoulders. "We Ancestral Witches are magnanimous. We never hold grudges against these walking corpses."
Zhurong and Gonggong, along with the other Ancestral Witches who heard Zhu Jiuyin, smiled in unison.
And honestly, when the day came that Turbid Qi ran rampant through the Primordial World, that would be the day the Witch Race had the last laugh.
After all, Turbid Qi was deadly poison to other races, even to top-tier Innate Demon Gods like the Three Pure Ones. But for the Ancestral Witches and the Witch Race, it was nothing much.
That was because, through absorbing Turbid Qi day after day and year after year, the Ancestral Witches and the Witch Race had already adapted to its properties.
It was like in modern society: nuclear radiation would deal a devastating blow to any plant or animal. But what if some living creature survived nuclear radiation—and had always lived amid it?
Wasn't that the Primordial World's version of survival of the fittest?
"Oh, no!"
At that moment, the Ancestral Witches were laughing, but Hongjun, far away in the Purple Heaven Palace, and the mighty figures who heard Zhu Jiuyin's words were panicking.
Clearly, Zhu Jiuyin had done it on purpose.
It wasn't that Zhu Jiuyin was being kind. He wanted Hongjun, those mighty figures, and even every living being in the Primordial World to be overcome by panic and fear.
"Did you really think that because you drove us Ancestral Witches back to our Ancestral Land, and even schemed against us until our race was nearly wiped out in the myths, I'd just let it go?"
A cold smile appeared at the corner of Zhu Jiuyin's mouth.
Compared with dying suddenly, without knowing or feeling a thing, it was far more despairing to live in fear and anxiety, watching helplessly as an inevitable death drew near.
"Don't they all say the Witch Race is fated to be nearly wiped out? Then I, Zhu Jiuyin, will tell every living being in the Primordial World: if that is the Witch Race's fate, then the fate of the entire Primordial World will be no better.
If the Witch Race is gone, what use is there for the Primordial World?"
Zhu Jiuyin had glimpsed a similar line in the Library's collection of books. He thought it was brilliant.
And indeed, Zhu Jiuyin and the Ancestral Witches present could clearly sense that, at that moment, the vast majority of the mighty figures were truly panicking.
They hadn't paid attention to Turbid Qi before, because in the past, it hadn't been a problem at all.
But now, when Zhu Jiuyin had practically laid the information bare before them, they could no longer ignore it.
Hongjun was the most powerful, and his deductions naturally came the fastest and most complete.
"In just thirty thousand years, Turbid Qi in the Primordial World has surged by thirty percent.
"If this trend continues, then in just ten million years, every living being below the Golden Immortal realm throughout the Primordial World will be wiped out. After a hundred million years, all living beings below the Daluo Golden Immortal realm will be wiped out.
"And if this continues for a billion years, no living beings at all will remain in the Primordial World apart from the Sages."
Hongjun sprang to his feet, aghast.
There was no need to wait until a billion years had passed, until every living being in the Primordial World except the Sages had been wiped out.
Even if only a thousand years passed and every being below the Golden Immortal realm in the Primordial World perished, neither the Heavenly Dao nor Hongjun could bear it.
To put it this way, if the Primordial World were a giant company—
Pangu was the company's founder, and he died on the day the company went public.
Of course, though Pangu had died, he had descendants—many of them. In the Primordial World, those descendants were the Innate Demon Gods.
That was why, as long as they didn't perish, the Innate Demon Gods could eventually cultivate to the Quasi-Sage or Primordial Origin Golden Immortal realm. They held the Primordial World's original shares, after all.
Having talked about Pangu, let's talk about the Three Daos of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity.
Pangu had died, and his descendants had only just been born. Most of them hadn't even developed intelligence. In modern terms, these Innate Demon Gods were newborn children, not yet of age. Naturally, they had no right to manage the company in the eyes of the Great Dao.
So the Great Dao appointed the Heavenly Dao as general manager of the Primordial World, entrusting it with all affairs, great and small.
To prevent the Heavenly Dao from becoming too powerful, the Great Dao established the Earthly Dao and Humanity Dao as deputy general managers alongside it, balancing its authority.
But in most cases, the boss held the greatest authority. And since the Earthly Dao and Humanity Dao had yet to fully awaken, the Primordial World was, for all intents and purposes, the Heavenly Dao's one-man show.
This wasn't much of a problem in itself. After all, the Great Dao had only two concerns: first, that no major disaster befall the Primordial World, especially one caused by the Heavenly Dao itself; second, that the Heavenly Dao and Hongjun have the right to punish the Innate Demon Gods, but never the right to decide whether they lived or died.
But the problem now was that a general manager could run the company however he liked—once the company ran into trouble, he was the one most responsible.
After all, great power came with great obligations and responsibility.
So it was no wonder Hongjun was practically hopping mad with anxiety.
As the Spokesperson of the Heavenly Dao, Hongjun and the Heavenly Dao shared the same fate, for better or worse.
If the Heavenly Dao grew stronger, Hongjun's own strength would grow with it.
If the Heavenly Dao were punished by the Great Dao, or even destroyed by it, Hongjun would suffer grievous injuries or even have his soul erased into nothingness.
The situation now was that, if the spread of Turbid Qi went unchecked, in no more than ten million years, every living being below the Golden Immortal realm throughout the Primordial World would be wiped out.
What did that mean?
Although the Primordial World had a famous saying at present—"Great Luos walk everywhere, Golden Immortals are lower than dogs"—that saying was aimed at the mighty figures of the Primordial World.
The truth was that if one Golden Immortal could emerge from a hundred million living beings, that was already considered good.
And that was with the Primordial World currently rich in innate spiritual energy and brimming with spiritual essence. After the Witch-Demon Calamity and the Tribulation of the Investiture of the Gods, even one Golden Immortal among ten trillion living beings would be exceedingly rare.
But whether it was a hundred million beings or, later, ten trillion, that still meant that beings below the Golden Immortal realm made up the vast majority of the Primordial World.
One could imagine it: in ten million years, only one in a hundred million of the beings alive today would still be alive. This...
Once they were all dead, the Great Dao would absolutely strike the Heavenly Dao into dust. Hongjun's true spirit would be obliterated, then cast into the Origin Thunder Domain, where he would suffer eternal death with no chance of rebirth.
In modern terms, it was like taking a company valued at tens of trillions and driving it into bankruptcy. Guess what would happen to its general manager?
Hongjun was the fastest, but the other mighty figures weren't much slower. After all, this deduction was based on facts, with no other possible outcome or variable. Even Golden Immortals could just barely work it out.
And then they panicked completely.
Before you continue