The Twelve Ancestral Witches shuddered simultaneously, each exhaling a mouthful of turbid qi.
The turbid qi was grayish-black, like stagnant blood suppressed for countless ages, carrying a stale, chilling aura.
The instant the turbid qi left their bodies, some shackle within the Twelve Ancestral Witches snapped.
Di Jiang opened his eyes.
He looked at his hands, and for the first time, a light never seen before flashed in his eyes, which had always been as steady as mountains.
He could clearly feel that the invisible barrier between his True Spirit and his physical body had vanished.
His essence blood surged through his body, his will stirred within his divine soul, and he could "perceive" the workings of the Heavenly Dao's laws.
Not through a Law Deity as an intermediary, but by touching and comprehending them with his True Spirit itself.
Though this sensation was still faint, and though he still had a long way to go before truly giving rise to a Primordial Spirit, there was now a path.
On a path from nothing to something, what mattered most was not how far one traveled, but whether there was a path to follow at all.
From this day forward, the Witch Clan was no longer a race whose Primordial Spirits were sealed off by the Heavenly Dao.
They might still need long ages of cultivation and comprehension to truly form Primordial Spirits, but that door had opened.
At the same time, the atmosphere within the hall underwent a subtle change.
Amid the unspoken coordination with which they had fought side by side, there was now an indescribable sense of closeness.
Di Jiang looked toward Taiqing Laozi, who was looking at him as well.
Their gazes met briefly in midair. Neither spoke, yet each saw an unfamiliar emotion in the other's