At that, Zhu Jiuyin refused to accept it.
"Then can you enter the Ancestral Land?"
He shot Hongjun's words right back at him.
Hongjun only smiled.
"You still don't understand..."
As he spoke, Hongjun directly wielded the power of the Heavenly Dao. In an instant, everything beyond the Ancestral Land of the Witch Race was completely concealed from the many powerful beings watching from afar.
"Ah... this!"
At that moment, from the Three Pure Ones down to ordinary Great Luo-level powerhouses, they all felt a deep sense of loss.
Earlier, when Hongjun had said that from then on he would regard Zhu Jiuyin as someone who could fight him on equal terms, the shock and sense of loss had been real, but it still felt somewhat unreal.
Or rather, many powerful beings could still deceive themselves. After all, to them, wasn't Zhu Jiuyin just a being who had taken form from Pangu's blood essence fused with the Primordial World's Turbid Qi? What was so remarkable about that?
The Three Pure Ones, for their part, had taken form from fragments of Pangu's Primordial Spirit fused with the Primordial World's Clear Qi. Their origins and fortune were even greater than Zhu Jiuyin's.
As for the demon race's Di Jun and Tai Yi, they had emerged in response to fate after countless ages of transformation on the Sun Star. Their origins and fortune weren't much inferior to Zhu Jiuyin's, either.
And apart from these few, consider the likes of Nuwa and Fuxi, Jieyin and Zhunti, Zhenyuanzi and Minghe, and the other top-tier Innate Demon Gods. Which one of them was an easy opponent?
So getting them to admit that Zhu Jiuyin was stronger than they were would be difficult.
But now, Hongjun had used an ironclad fact to tell them that he had something to discuss with Zhu Jiuyin—and the other powerful beings weren't even qualified to know what it was.
That truly broke them.
The main thing was that this made the gap between them and Zhu Jiuyin plain for all to see.
Unless one day Hongjun personally acknowledged them, they would have to hold their heads a little lower whenever they met Zhu Jiuyin from then on.
Well, they'd watched the show to the end, only to discover the clown wasn't onstage. Then, after searching carefully, they realized the clowns were themselves.
They were devastated!
The gathered powerhouses fell silent for a while, then, without exception, chose to go into seclusion.
Strength, strength. In the Primordial World, strength was the most important thing after all.
Why else would Zhu Jiuyin receive such courtesy from Hongjun? Wasn't it because he had truly made the Heavenly Dao return empty-handed, and even forced Hongjun to lower his head?
Never mind whether he had borrowed Pangu's legacy. Who could deny that Pangu's legacy was also part of Zhu Jiuyin's strength?
It was just like a rich heir inheriting the wealth left behind by his ancestors. Did that wealth somehow not count as part of his own assets?
"Speak. What exactly does the Dao Ancestor want to discuss with me?"
Zhu Jiuyin realized that there was no one else between him and Hongjun now.
In other words, apart from the two of them, no one could listen in on their conversation anymore—unless their cultivation was far beyond Hongjun's.
Of course, since concealing the secrets of heaven between him and Zhu Jiuyin did not count as harming Zhu Jiuyin or the Witch Race, Pangu Hall's autonomous defense had not activated this time.
"Little friend, I've always thought you were clever, so I assume you understand that Houtu taking Nuwa's place to create humans is something the Heavenly Dao absolutely cannot tolerate."
"And what if it can't tolerate it? You and the Heavenly Dao can suppress us, even try to wipe out the Witch Race, but we're not allowed to fight back? Things don't work that way!"
"The Heavenly Dao is merciless. So when something crosses its bottom line, it will never allow it to happen—even if it must pay the price of grievous injury or the destruction of the Primordial World."
"So what if it's grievously injured? So what if the world is destroyed? My Witch Race is safely staying inside our Ancestral Land. Even if the Primordial World perishes, what does that have to do with us?"
"Before, nothing. Even if you Ancestral Witches didn't absorb Turbid Qi, after all, not even the Great Dao can force a living being or a race to shoulder some particular duty. But now, things are different."
As he spoke, a trace of mockery appeared on Hongjun's unchanging face.
"This time, the reason the Heavenly Dao lost control was that you wanted Houtu to take Nuwa's place and create the Human Race. This completely overturned the Heavenly Dao's great plan and shattered its arrangements.
"So if an unspeakable tribulation occurs, you, as the one who deliberately set all this in motion, will inevitably bear seventy percent of the karmic burden.
"And the Primordial World needn't even be destroyed. The Western World becoming a dead, desolate wasteland would be enough to alarm the Great Dao.
"When that happens, the Heavenly Dao and I will bear thirty percent of the punishment from the Great Dao. We'll lose only two minor cultivation stages. But what about you, little friend?
"Can you and the Ancestral Witches behind you bear seventy percent of the Great Dao's punishment?"
Zhu Jiuyin fell silent.
At the level of Zhu Jiuyin and Hongjun, they wouldn't lie.
Once one's cultivation reached a certain level, lying was useless.
Any living being who cultivated to the Daluo Golden Immortal realm gained, to some extent, the ability to know the future in reverse—especially when it concerned their own future.
For ordinary beings, a premonition was merely a warning. But once one reached the Daluo Golden Immortal realm, or even surpassed it, a premonition was the truth.
Under these circumstances, even if a Sage lied to a Daluo Golden Immortal, the flaw would be spotted at once.
Aside from the constraints imposed by the ability to know the future in reverse, the higher one's cultivation, the less one could lie.
A lie was, in itself, a sign of weakness, a desecration of oneself.
After all, if you were powerful enough, why would you need to lie?
Of course, lying was one thing, scheming against someone was another. One was deceit, the other wisdom. They weren't the same.
And because Zhu Jiuyin knew Hongjun hadn't lied—and because even the River of Time had issued a warning when Hongjun pointed out the crux of the matter—he fell silent.
In other words, if they stubbornly insisted on having Houtu replace Nuwa, forcing the Heavenly Dao into a corner and ultimately dragging the Western World down with it, then the Ancestral Witches would have to bear seventy percent of the karmic burden and blame.
That was when Zhu Jiuyin realized that his plan had basically failed.
Thirty percent of the Great Dao's punishment would be enough to leave both the Heavenly Dao and Hongjun badly weakened, but no more than that.
But he, Zhu Jiuyin, and the other Ancestral Witches would have to bear seventy percent of the Great Dao's punishment.
Seventy percent! Just think: thirty percent was enough to make the Heavenly Dao and Hongjun this wary. Under seventy percent of the Great Dao's punishment, perhaps only he and Houtu could barely survive among the Twelve Ancestral Witches.
Still, there was no way he would let the Heavenly Dao and Hongjun off so easily.
"I admit you make a good point, but I'll never just give up!
"You and the Heavenly Dao are damn overbearing. You've already come knocking at our door, and you expect us to put up with it?
"I might as well tell you: if Houtu creating humans will make the Heavenly Dao fly into a rage and bring about something unspeakable, then my Witch Race can do the same.
"If you and the Heavenly Dao dare leave today without paying a price, then my Witch Race dares to detonate all the Turbid Qi in the Primordial World!
"Like I said, at worst, I'll blow the Primordial World to pieces. Who's afraid of whom?"
Before you continue