"Hmph."
In Pangu's Domain of Dao, the giant rose to his feet. His axe struck the ground with a dull hum. He looked up at the enormous eye overhead, defiance in his voice.
"Great Dao, I'll create heaven and earth, but I don't need you ordering me to do it."
Despite his words, he did not hesitate.
With a thought, a Dao body identical to his true body stepped out of him.
The Dao body held the Pseudo-Pangu Axe, wore the Pseudo-Creation Jade Butterfly above his head, and stood upon the Pseudo-Chaos Green Lotus. The power of the three Chaos Spirit Treasures linked together, creating an equally astonishing presence.
"Here I go!"
With a low shout, Pangu sent his Dao body striding toward the heart of Hundun.
Shichen was already waiting there.
At the sight of Pangu's Dao body, he nodded slightly. "Go ahead and strike. I'll stabilize the chaotic currents of space and time. Your Dao body won't scatter, and your laws won't collapse."
"Good!"
Pangu wasted no words. His Dao body soared upward, gripped the Pseudo-Pangu Axe with both hands, and poured the full power of the Law of Strength into it.
"Open!"
With a thunderous shout, the axe-light fell.
It cleaved straight through the murky chaos. The clear rose, the turbid sank, Yin and Yang first divided, and heaven and earth began to appear.
One axe strike followed another.
Pangu said nothing. He simply kept swinging.
The Pseudo-Chaos Green Lotus supported the earth's veins, while the Pseudo-Creation Jade Butterfly worked out the laws. Together, the three pseudo-treasures held the force of creation steady.
Shichen stood at the edge of heaven and earth, an unbroken stream of green light flowing from his fingertips.
The Law of Time wove itself into the newborn framework of heaven and earth. Without a sound, he dispersed more than half the violent backlash that should have followed creation.
The cleaving went on for ten Chaos Eras.
The axe-light rose and fell without pause as heaven and earth grew taller and wider.
When the final strike fell, heaven and earth separated completely. But the new world had only just been born, and its laws were not yet complete. Slowly, the two began to show signs of merging again.
Pangu's Dao body thrust up his hands, braced them against both sides of the gap, and heaved!
"Rise for me!!!"
Pangu's Dao body roared. The muscles in his arms swelled to their limit, and his body began to expand.
He grew larger and larger, holding the gap open. But Hundun resisted, trying to close it.
"Shichen!"
Pangu's voice boomed from his enormous body like thunder.
"Now!"
Shichen's eyes flashed. He swept out a hand.
"Demon Gods, send forth your Dao bodies!"
At his command, the Demon Gods acted as one!
Countless streaks of light flew in from every direction. They were the perfect Dao bodies the Demon Gods had spent untold effort refining. Each carried a portion of its Demon God's power of law.
Time, space, fate, karma, creation, destruction... Each of the three thousand Great Daos took its place. Then the laws of hundreds of millions of Lower Demon Gods began to merge with them.
The whole of heaven and earth grew more substantial. Heaven and earth stopped converging and stabilized, while spiritual energy filled the world so densely it was visible to the naked eye.
Pangu's Dao body had fulfilled its task of creating heaven and earth. It was slowly fading, a satisfied smile on his face.
"Shichen, I did it."
His voice had weakened, but it still rang out.
Shichen nodded. "You did."
Pangu's Dao body began to divide and become all things. His left eye became the sun, his right eye the moon, his hair the stars filling the sky, his blood the rivers, lakes, and seas, his bones the mountains and hills, his skin the fertile earth...
Thus, a new world occupying one ten-thousandth of Hundun's expanse took shape.
One ten-thousandth might not sound like much, but Hundun was boundlessly vast. Even someone in the Hunyuan Realm would need an entire Chaos Era to cross the Primordial World from its easternmost point to its westernmost. Its immensity was beyond imagining.
Almost the moment the world took shape, the gray-black haze that had hung over everything for countless eras receded like a tide.
The Tribulation was over.
Shichen stood at the edge of the new world. As he felt a disturbance in the River of Time within him, he suddenly froze.
He discovered countless branches in the River of Time.
They extended from its main current toward countless different worlds. Some had just been born, some were flourishing, and some were heading toward destruction.
"This is..." Shichen murmured. "The Primordial World became the main world when creation succeeded, and countless other universes came into being alongside it?"
He felt dazed.
So the creation of heaven and earth had not merely created the Primordial World. It had also given rise to countless parallel universes. Those universes existed alongside the Primordial World as the main world, yet operated independently, each following its own course.
Crack.
A sharp fracture rang out. Under the backlash of creation's immense power, the Pseudo-Pangu Axe broke apart first, becoming three streaks of light that shot into the sky.
One became the Taiji Diagram, which stabilized earth, water, fire, and wind. One became the Pangu Banner, which governed slaughter. One became the Chaos Bell, which suppressed the myriad Daos.
The three Innate Supreme Treasures each went their own way, circling as they fell to different parts of heaven and earth.
Next, the Pseudo-Chaos Green Lotus beneath his feet withered petal by petal.
Its petals became the Twelve-Rank Lotus Platform, its leaves divided into the Five Elements Flags, and its root formed the Qiankun Cauldron. Numerous Innate Spiritual Treasures scattered and fell toward the Primordial World.
The Pseudo-Creation Jade Butterfly above his head shattered into countless luminous white fragments and rained down like stars. Some sank into mountains and rivers, some hid in the depths of the sea, and others drifted toward the ends of heaven and earth.
With that, the three pseudo-treasures had served their purpose.
Pangu's true body tore through space and arrived at the edge of the new world. Gazing at heaven and earth slowly developing below, he stroked his chin and thought for a moment.
"Still feels like... something's missing."
He muttered to himself, "How can a world I created bear no mark of mine?"
With that, he raised a hand and touched his chest.
Twelve drops of his blood essence flew out and fell into Mount Buzhou, where they were nurtured within the newly formed Pangu Hall.
Then he raised his hand again and gathered his power.
The remnants of his Dao body's primordial spirit split into three streams of clear light and landed atop Mount Buzhou.
"That's more like it."
Pangu grinned and nodded in satisfaction.
He turned toward Shichen in the distance and called out.
"Shichen! Now that we have a new world, it needs a name, doesn't it?"
Shichen looked across the vast land beneath his feet and at the first sun rising over it. Countless legends from his previous life flashed through his mind.
He smiled faintly and said softly,
"Let's call it the Primordial World."
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