Pan Xuan gradually felt the boundary between himself and the Pangu Phantom grow blurred.
He seemed no longer to be sitting before the phantom in contemplation, but to have merged into it, becoming part of the Father God's power.
He could feel the Father God's resolve when he split open the heavens.
That stroke of the axe had been neither anger nor violence, but creation.
It had cleaved Chaos apart, separated the clear from the turbid, given heaven and earth form, and given all things a place to belong.
He could feel the Father God's compassion when his body became all things.
His eyes had become the sun and moon-not loss, but devotion; his blood had become rivers-not extinction, but nourishment; his spine had become Mount Buzhou-not falling, but holding up heaven and earth.
Mount Buzhou. The Father God's spine.
Pan Xuan's consciousness jolted at that moment.
He suddenly understood: Mount Buzhou's essence was not merely a manifestation of the Great Dao of Strength, but a continuation of the Father God's will.
The Father God had held up heaven and earth with his own spine, keeping the clear from falling and the turbid from rising, allowing the order between heaven and earth to endure.
Was this not the most fundamental meaning of the Divine Dao?
The Divine Dao was neither rule nor possession, but protection, the maintenance of order-holding up a realm like the Father God's spine.
A Mountain God was the spine of a mountain range.
This realization slashed through his Divine Soul like lightning.
The Nine-Clawed Golden Dragon Law Deity behind him let out a long dragon cry at that moment, filled with unprecedented understanding and resolve.
Purple-gold light surged skyward from his body and intertwined with the Pangu Phantom's radiance. The two powers of the same origin