"No, this is bad! This is merit capable of instantly turning thirty beings with no cultivation into Hunyuan Realm experts. Could it be that the Twelve Ancestral Witches will all achieve the Hunyuan Realm from now on?!"
At that moment, Hongjun truly felt like he was about to fall apart.
Twelve Hunyuan Realm experts—and not just any Hunyuan Realm experts, but the Twelve Ancestral Witches, whose terrifying combat prowess was plain for all to see. Just thinking about it made Hongjun's insides twitch from his heart to his liver and right through his whole body.
And that was before you considered that the Ancestral Witches also had the Twelve Capital Divine Gods and Demons Formation, a formation so powerful it defied the heavens.
Back when the Twelve Ancestral Witches had still been Primordial Origin Golden Immortals, they had been able to use the Twelve Capital Divine Gods and Demons Formation to summon Pangu's True Form, which had stood at the threshold of the Third Heaven of Hunyuan.
What if all twelve Ancestral Witches broke through to the Hunyuan Realm?
Thud!
At that moment, Hongjun stopped caring about his image as the Dao Ancestor and crashed down onto the golden bricks of Purple Heaven Palace.
"Why the hell am I still trying to merge with the Dao? There's no way it'll work! I might as well wait to die!"
There was no helping it. Hongjun had yet to merge with the Dao. Even with the Jade Plate of Creation and the Primordial World's Heavenly Dao backing him, even if he went all out, he could only reach the Fifth Heaven of the Origin at most.
But if the Ancestral Witches used their Hunyuan Realm cultivation to summon Pangu's True Form, just how powerful would it be?
The Eighth Heaven of the Origin? The Ninth? Or perhaps even half a step into the Heavenly Dao Realm?
If it really reached half a step into the Heavenly Dao Realm, even the Heavenly Dao itself could only trade a few blows with it. Hongjun would be worth less than nothing.
When the gap in power reached that extreme, there was simply no game left to play.
But in the next second, Hongjun abruptly sprang to his feet.
"No, something's not right! This merit seems to be strengthening the Ancestral Witches' foundations, not increasing their power."
"There's still a chance. This game can still be played!"
Hongjun shot to his feet. His despairing mood gradually flared back to life.
Then, suddenly, his expression changed.
A smile appeared on his face, filled with reverence, resentment, unwillingness, and even fear, yet tinged with self-mockery.
"Pangu, Pangu... No wonder you stood at the very top of the Three Thousand Chaos Demon Gods. I, Hongjun, truly can't compare to even a single strand of your hair."
By now, Hongjun had clearly understood a great many things.
The Great Dao Merit had never been meant to increase the Ancestral Witches' power.
Although Great Dao Merit was the supreme treasure of the Chaos World, and could greatly benefit even an existence like Pangu, who stood half a step into the Great Dao Realm, using it to increase one's power was always a waste of a heavenly treasure—and a way of forcing growth before the foundations were ready.
The further one traveled along the path of cultivation, the less room there was for even the slightest instability or flaw.
It was like building a tower that stretched endlessly toward the sky.
Suppose there were just one hole in it.
If the tower were only thirty stories tall, the damage might only cause it to lean a little.
But what if it were three hundred stories, three thousand, or even thirty thousand?
The higher the tower climbed, the more a tiny weakness in its foundation could bring about its complete collapse.
Cultivation worked the same way. Only the power one built up step by step through one's own efforts truly belonged to oneself.
Power obtained through outside means was ultimately unstable.
That instability could already show itself in the Hunyuan Realm, and would certainly become an obstacle for Hunyuan Realm experts seeking further breakthroughs, or even for those trying to reach the Chaos Realm in the future.
In fact, in the myths of the Primordial World, the Three Pure Ones, the Two Sages of the West, Nuwa, and even Houtu herself had all eventually felt the drawbacks of merit to some degree.
They had achieved sainthood suddenly by relying on merit, which inevitably meant that their Hunyuan Dao Fruits were incomplete.
That very incompleteness was why the Six Sages of the Heavenly Dao had made virtually no major breakthroughs in cultivation after becoming saints.
The reason Hongjun's emotions were so complicated was that he had already begun to sense that Pangu might have known of his existence long ago.
Pangu might even have known all along that Hongjun was scheming against the Ancestral Witches and the Three Pure Ones.
And yet Pangu had never intervened.
"He's using me as a whetstone for the Ancestral Witches and the Three Pure Ones."
Hongjun gave a bitter laugh.
He even had a thought so terrifying that the more he considered it, the more dreadful it became.
"Everyone says Pangu is an expert who stands half a step into the Great Dao Realm. But is he really only at that level? Fine, let's say he is. Still, opening a top-tier Immeasurable World like the Primordial World shouldn't be enough to kill an expert who's half a step into the Great Dao Realm.
"Take me, for example. Opening a Great Thousand World wouldn't be difficult for me now, and it certainly wouldn't kill me!
"So is it possible that the Primordial World is actually a stage where Pangu is tempering the Ancestral Witches and the Three Pure Ones? That I, Hongjun, have been nothing but a whetstone to help them grow from beginning to end?
"Even if I, the whetstone, grind the blade to pieces, it doesn't matter. For Pangu, it's just a matter of starting over."
How could Hongjun not be terrified when he thought of that? His mind crumbled.
If everything about him had been arranged from the start, then what use were all his efforts and schemes?
"No, I can't give up. There's no turning back now!"
But immediately afterward, Hongjun understood.
"So what if I know I'm a whetstone?
"If I keep playing my role, that proves I still have value. And if I'm still useful, then I can keep living under Pangu's hand.
"If I become useless, that may be the day I truly die!
"No, I won't die. Pangu can simply start over.
"Hahaha... Pangu, Pangu! You're ruthless!"
At that moment, Hongjun laughed and cried at once. His hair hung loose, while tears and snot streamed down his face. Not a trace of the Dao Ancestor's immortal bearing remained. If any living being from the outside had seen him, they would have thought he was a beggar on the verge of death.
"Fine! If you, Pangu, want to put on a show, then I'll put on one too. I'll play the role of the Dao Ancestor to perfection!"
Hongjun was Hongjun, after all. Even at this point, he had never considered giving up.
Of course, he was mostly just clinging to a desperate hope. Perhaps all of this was nothing more than his paranoia.
"No, I can't scare myself with wild thoughts. Pangu must truly be dead. I, Hongjun, am the one who will become the Primordial World's true Sovereign!"
After forcibly suppressing the wild thoughts in his mind, Hongjun began seriously considering what he should do next.
Meanwhile, a serious problem had arisen among the Ancestral Witches as well. Zhu Jiuyin had discovered that this time, the Great Dao Merit hadn't been distributed equally.
The Great Dao Merit that should have been divided evenly among all twelve had instead given him three-tenths by himself.
That meant the Great Dao Merit he'd received alone was almost equal to the combined share of the other five Ancestral Witches.
"This... This can't be right. Why did I receive so much Great Dao Merit?
Before you continue