Though that was what he thought, Tongtian lowered his head after Hongjun shot him a glare, lost in thought.
"Senior Brother Tongtian, don't you have any thoughts on the matter?"
Qing Xuanzi's words nearly made Tongtian explode. Fortunately, the last shred of his rationality held him back.
"Qing Xuanzi." Tongtian gritted his teeth. Damn it, humiliating someone had limits.
Others merely rubbed salt into a wound, but he had tossed the whole wound into a pile of salt.
"Ah, forget it. I was originally planning to trade the Chaos Clock for some spiritual treasure of yours, but since you're unhappy, let's forget about it."
Qing Xuanzi said this while shaking his head. Just as he was about to sit back down, he nearly slammed into a figure before him.
Tongtian's eyes were bloodshot, and even his voice trembled. "Y-you, what did you just say? Trade? What do you want to trade for? No, take them all."
With a clatter, Tongtian disdainfully threw a heap of treasures onto the floor, even nudging them toward Qing Xuanzi.
"Is this enough? If not, just say the word. As long as it exists in the primordial world, I'll snatch it for you."
Seeing Tongtian showing signs of becoming a saintly bandit of the primordial world, Qing Xuanzi hurriedly said, "Enough, enough."
He picked out five swords from the pile. Four were the renowned Immortal Slaughtering Four Swords, while the remaining one was the Qingping Sword.
"There, it's yours. We're even now."
Tongtian snatched the spiritual treasure impatiently, not even having time to collect the pile of treasures on the floor.
He directly swallowed it.
Unlike Laozi, who refined pills and would have wanted to study it first, Tongtian was afraid that the golden pill might suddenly take form one day.
That would be disastrous.
As Tongtian swallowed the golden pill, the Purple Cloud Palace seemed to return to the days when Hongjun preached the Dao.
Gentle immortal qi swirled about, countless golden flowers drifted down, waves of Dao sounds entered their ears, and Dao Incense filled the hall.
The Heaven-Opening Divine Axe trembled violently.
Seeing Tongtian swallow the golden pill so impatiently, Laozi inwardly cursed his bad luck and hurriedly swallowed his own golden pill as well.
Yuanshi did the same, but he shot Tongtian a glare. He had been carefully polishing the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe.
After Tongtian's commotion, the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe was about to fall apart. What a waste of a heavenly treasure.
Before long, Laozi and Yuanshi had both swallowed their golden pills as well.
The entire Purple Cloud Palace became an ocean of Dao.
Nüwa and Hongjun immediately entered meditation to comprehend the Dao. Such a fine opportunity could not be wasted.
Qing Xuanzi, however, smiled and waved his hand. Before the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe could completely break apart, he summoned a phantom from it.
The moment the phantom separated from the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe, the axe seemed to lose its soul and immediately disintegrated.
Three streams of spiritual light transformed respectively into the Taiji Diagram, the Pangu Banner, and the Chaos Clock, hovering above the heads of the Three Pure Ones.
The phantom of the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe that had reached Qing Xuanzi's hand desperately absorbed the Dao essence filling the hall.
Gradually, it actually began to solidify.
No one knew how much time passed before the Purple Cloud Palace returned to its previous state.
Everyone awoke from their Dao comprehension, their eyes widening like bells. How was this possible? What was Qing Xuanzi holding?
The Three Pure Ones looked again at the Heaven-Opening Three Treasures in their hands and even rubbed them, checking whether they were fakes.
After repeatedly confirming that they were genuine, they spoke in unison. "Qing Xuanzi, don't you have something to say?"
"Are you talking about this?" Qing Xuanzi casually twirled the phantom of the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe. Calling it a phantom was no longer quite accurate.
Half of it had already become tangible, though it seemed to be missing something and constantly shifted between solid and illusory.
"Yes." This time, it was not just the Three Pure Ones. Everyone present was waiting for Qing Xuanzi's answer.
The Heaven-Opening Divine Axe could have babies? They had never even heard of such a thing. Don't tell us it was true.
"Fine. Just as you think, it really is the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe's baby."
"Qing Xuanzi, if you don't explain this clearly today, don't even think about leaving the Purple Cloud Palace." Hongjun's expression darkened.
His words were somewhat boastful, but they perfectly conveyed his current mood.
You were telling him that spiritual treasures could give birth? He would sooner believe that Qing Xuanzi had given birth to it himself.
"That is indeed the case. Put another way, under the resonance between Heaven and man,
the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe's Essence, Qi, and Spirit were captured by a thread of Dao essence, giving rise to this Heaven-Opening Divine Axe that wavered between reality and illusion.
Ordinarily, this would have been impossible, but earlier, everyone had been in a state of sudden enlightenment, where all things were Dao.
Everything moved according to the trajectory of the Dao, and this was especially true in a state of sudden enlightenment.
That was why such a bizarre occurrence had taken place."
Qing Xuanzi knew that this was not the time to provoke everyone further. He was not too concerned about the others.
But if Nüwa got any ideas, he truly had no idea what might happen.
If a smaller Qing Xuanzi suddenly appeared on the spot, the joke would have gone far too far.
Fortunately, everyone was satisfied with Qing Xuanzi's explanation.
After all, everyone present was a Mixed Origin Great Luo Golden Immortal. With a little thought, they knew Qing Xuanzi was more or less correct.
"Very well. The Qing Tian Plan has finally reached a perfect conclusion, though the Destiny Demon God escaped. Oh, right,
the Destiny Demon God was the being that had previously attached himself to the Heavenly Dao and fed on it. The one who saved him was the Karma Demon God.
Those two are Twin Demon Gods. As long as one still has a breath left, the other definitely cannot die."
Hongjun gave the final summary of the Qing Tian Plan's results.
"Has the Heavenly Dao regained its intelligence?"
"Yes. The moment the Destiny Demon God departed, the Heavenly Dao gave birth to a brand-new intelligence on its own."
Hongjun nodded, confirming Qing Xuanzi's question.
"What about the greater trend of the Heavenly Dao?"
"Ah, that will be the problem we must deal with in the future. The Heavenly Dao was ravaged by the Destiny Demon God for too long.
It no longer has the ability to set things right, so for the next several calamities,
the Heavenly Dao will likely continue operating as it did before. Perhaps this is also the Destiny Demon God's mockery of us: Look,
you drove me away, yet you still have to follow the greater trend I established."
Hongjun spoke helplessly.
"The most important point is that, in the eyes of the Heavenly Dao, both the Witch Race and the Demon Race are about to be exterminated, surrendering the fortune of Heaven and Earth to the human race. What should be done about that?"
Hongjun found this unsolvable problem particularly troublesome.
If the Witch Race and Demon Race did not withdraw from the primordial world, the human race could not become its protagonists.
If the Witch Race and Demon Race withdrew from the primordial world, would they simply be exterminated? Qing Xuanzi probably would not stand by and watch the ancestral witches perish.
Hongjun thought so, and how could the other saints possibly fail to understand the implications?
Everyone had seen how wholeheartedly Qing Xuanzi supported the Witch Race. He had even passed down all his Martial Dao Divine Powers.
Qing Xuanzi certainly would not allow this to happen.
How they should respond would therefore depend mainly on Qing Xuanzi's intentions.
In any case, Qing Xuanzi surely had no objection to the human race becoming the protagonists under Hongjun.
Thus, the pressure had once again fallen upon Qing Xuanzi.
Five pairs of eyes instantly converged on Qing Xuanzi.
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