Time flowed on, and in the blink of an eye, ten thousand years had passed.
Over those ten thousand years, the Witch and Demon races recuperated and built up their strength. On the surface, the Primordial World had returned to peace, but beneath it, turbulent currents surged. The clouds of the second great calamity were steadily growing thicker.
Meanwhile, the human race lived a peaceful farming life in the valley protected by the Innate Grand Formation.
Under Chen Ran's "divine guidance," they learned to clear land and grow spirit grain. They also learned to domesticate gentle spirit beasts for meat and labor.
Their population had grown from an initial hundred thousand or so to several million.
The entire tribe was flourishing, and its level of civilization had undergone a qualitative leap compared to ten thousand years ago.
Chen Ran had consequently gained an enormous amount of Civilization Power. The Spark of Civilization within him had condensed from a tiny flame into a fist-sized orb of light, radiating a brilliant glow of civilization.
His "landlady," Empress Nuwa, had benefited even more.
She had stayed home in Wa Empress Palace for ten thousand years without ever stepping outside, yet her cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds.
Her Saint's Body had been strengthened to an unimaginable degree. Even if she stood still and let the other Saints attack her, they likely would not be able to break through her defenses.
Her Nascent Soul's compatibility with the Great Dao of Creation was also growing ever higher.
She was now unquestionably the strongest among the Six Saints.
Yet Chen Ran was the only one who knew all this. Nuwa herself, along with the other Saints, remained completely unaware.
They only knew that Junior Sister Nuwa had become increasingly unfathomable.
On this day.
Chen Ran was planning the next stage of humanity's development—"institutional reform"—and preparing to establish the rudiments of a nation.
Suddenly, a world-destroying Killing Aura erupted from the center of the Primordial World!
The entire Primordial World trembled violently.
Chen Ran's heart tightened.
It was here!
The second Witch-Demon War had erupted!
And it had come earlier and more fiercely than he remembered!
Above the Primordial World, the Demon race's Grand Formation of the Stars slammed viciously into the Witch race's Great All-Heavenly God-Demon Array.
Stars fell, and Killing Aura soared into the heavens.
Terrifying energy storms swept across the nine heavens and ten lands.
At the center of the battle, Gonggong, the Water Ancestral Witch, and Zhurong, the Fire Ancestral Witch, for some unknown reason abandoned their opponents and began fighting each other.
Water and fire were incompatible, their Great Daos clashing.
In the end, Zhurong proved more skilled and severely wounded Gonggong.
Shocked and enraged, Gonggong threw himself at the pillar supporting the heavens—Mount Buzhou—in utter grief and fury!
"BOOM—!!!!!"
A deafening crash beyond description resounded throughout the Primordial World.
Mount Buzhou, formed from Pangu's spine, was forcibly shattered!
The sky had collapsed.
A massive hole appeared in the firmament. Endless Nine Heavens Weak Water, mixed with chaotic qi, poured down from it as though it intended to annihilate all things in the world.
Floodwaters surged across the earth, volcanoes erupted, and countless Living Beings died amid wails of despair.
The apocalypse had arrived!
In Wa Empress Palace, Nuwa's expression changed drastically.
As a Heavenly Dao Saint, she bore the duty of preserving the Primordial World's stability.
"I must mend the heavens!"
Without the slightest hesitation, she flew from Wa Empress Palace and began refining stones to mend the heavens.
She took out the Qiankun Cauldron, threw in the countless Five-Colored Stones she had collected, and tempered them with True Sun Fire.
However, when she brought the refined Five-Colored Stones to repair the hole in the sky, she discovered a fatal problem.
The hole in the sky was too large!
The Five-Colored Stones she had gathered were nowhere near enough!
As more and more Nine Heavens Weak Water poured down and the Primordial World was about to become a vast swamp, Nuwa was frantic with worry.
"What do I do? I'm still short by at least thirty percent of the materials!"
Just as she was at a loss.
Chen Ran inside her body grew anxious as well.
When the nest was overturned, how could any eggs remain intact?
If the Primordial World was destroyed, the human race would be finished too. As a parasite, he naturally would not survive either.
"Not enough Five-Colored Stones... Then replace them with something else!"
Chen Ran's thoughts began racing in a manner far beyond the cultivators native to the Primordial World.
"Mending the heavens is, at its core, a structural repair project. What it needs are materials with high strength, high toughness, and high adhesion!"
"Science is the primary productive force!"
"System! Immediately consume all Civilization Power and deduce the ultimate applications of 'Structural Mechanics' and 'Material Science' for mending the heavens!"
Chen Ran practically roared the command.
[Command received! The host is facing a life-or-death crisis. System permissions temporarily elevated!] [Consuming all Civilization Power...] [Civilization Power -!] [Primordial World versions of 'Advanced Material Science' and 'God-Tier Structural Mechanics' successfully deduced!] [Ultimate technology unlocked—'Psionic Cement' formula!] [Ultimate technology unlocked—'Innate Geng Metal Rebar' manufacturing method!] [Relevant knowledge transmitted to host Nuwa's Nascent Soul!]
Boom!
Nuwa, who was worrying over the materials, was once again flooded by a vast torrent of knowledge.
This time, it was no longer abstruse runes and Dao techniques.
Instead, it was knowledge she had never encountered before, yet understood instantly.
"Using Nine Heavens Breathing Soil as the base, combining it with Nine Heavens Divine Water, adding powdered stellar cores, and tempering it with Samadhi True Fire can produce 'Psionic Cement,' whose sturdiness far surpasses that of Five-Colored Stones?"
"Extract the Innate Geng Metal qi from the earth's gold veins and compress it with immense Magic Power to form 'Innate Geng Metal Rebar,' whose toughness can support an entire firmament?"
"Using 'rebar' as the bones and 'cement' as the flesh to construct a 'frame structure' can perfectly repair the cracks in the heavens, even making them sturdier than before?"
Nuwa was completely dumbfounded.
This... what was this?
Though it sounded utterly inconceivable, the deductions within her Nascent Soul told her that this plan was entirely feasible!
Moreover, it was a hundred times more efficient than simply using Five-Colored Stones!
"There's no time to worry about that!"
Nuwa had no time to consider where this knowledge had come from. Saving the world came first.
She immediately began acting according to the method in her mind.
With one hand, she reached toward the earth and forcibly drew out endless Nine Heavens Breathing Soil and Innate gold veins.
With the other, she summoned Nine Heavens Divine Water and stars from beyond the realm.
Within the Qiankun Cauldron, True Sun Fire blazed fiercely.
Before the astonished gazes of the Saints and other great cultivators.
Nuwa no longer refined Five-Colored Stones. Instead, she began refining a gray, muddy substance and gleaming golden "metal rods" that resembled long dragons.
"What is Junior Sister Nuwa doing?"
"That isn't artifact refinement, nor is it pill refinement... What is it?"
"I don't understand. I can't understand it at all..."
As everyone looked on in confusion, Nuwa moved.
She flicked her slender hand.
Countless lengths of Innate Geng Metal Rebar flew toward the hole in the sky, instantly weaving together according to a mysterious mechanical structure into a gigantic framework that covered the entire breach.
Next, she poured out the Psionic Cement from within the Qiankun Cauldron.
The gray slurry precisely filled every gap in the rebar framework.
Catalyzed by Nuwa's Saint Power, the Psionic Cement solidified at an astonishing speed.
That terrifying hole that devoured everything was... patched up just like that!
Moreover, the newly repaired patch of sky looked thicker and sturdier than the surrounding firmament!
Every living being in the Primordial World who witnessed this scene was petrified.
She... she mended the sky with mud and metal rods?
Wasn't this style a little off?
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