Pan Xuan personally received the coffin bearers from the Three Clans.
Looking at the twenty-seven carefully selected coffin bearers before him, he solemnly cupped his hands and said:
"You have all traveled far. Pan Xuan thanks you here.
None but the Three Clans could shoulder the weighty duty of bearing Father God's coffin.
Your presence is the greatest tribute to Father God."
The members of the Three Clans returned his salute together, their expressions solemn and their movements perfectly synchronized.
In the days that followed, Pan Xuan and Randeng jointly guided these twenty-seven coffin bearers through rehearsals.
Bearing the coffin was no simple matter of carrying it.
The Annihilation Coffin had been condensed from the power of laws, and its bearers had to use their own magical power to lift and suspend it.
They had to keep the coffin absolutely steady as they advanced, without the slightest tilt.
At the same time, their steps had to follow the funerary ritual deduced by the Three Pure Ones to the letter.
A pause every three steps, a halt every nine; each step had to match the tolling of the Soul-Calming Bell, and at every halt they had to silently recite a passage of the funeral scriptures.
The route for bearing the coffin had also been carefully planned.
They would set out from before Pangu Hall and slowly ascend Mount Buzhou's main mountain path.
They would pass through the tribes of the Twelve Ancestral Witches, the Star Tribe, and the Cultivation Secret Realm before finally reaching the altar at the summit.
No one could say exactly how far this journey was.
Mount Buzhou had been formed from Father God Pangu's spine, a pillar supporting the heavens, its height untold tens of millions of li.
An ordinary cultivator might spend an entire lifetime without