Atop Phoenix Perch Mountain.
The Wutong Tree towered into the sky, its branches and leaves like fire.
Already familiar with one another, they exchanged greetings and dispensed with further pleasantries, getting straight to the matter of merging their true fires.
Xuanming had no objections.
He, too, wanted to see what other effects it could produce.
None of them wasted words.
Nor did Xuanming mention Night Demon's split soul.
Otherwise, explaining the Yellow Court Scripture would be difficult.
The human, demon, and Divine each sat cross-legged and raised a hand, light blooming at their fingertips. Southern Bright Separation Fire, wutong wood qi, and Samadhi True Fire intertwined, gradually taking on shades of red, yellow, and green before evolving into a distinctive configuration of the three powers.
Separation fire was heaven, wutong wood was earth, and true fire was humanity.
More and more lifelike creatures gradually manifested around the three great Spirit Refining cultivators: Phoenixes, spirit deer, trees, mules...
Each was more animated than the last.
Each was more real than the last.
Laws intertwined, their degree of fusion steadily increasing. The gold deepened, and the oppressive aura grew stronger.
As they discovered and resolved problems, their understanding deepened. Under Xuanming's guidance, the three powers united as one.
Bang, bang, bang!
At first, they always failed. But as attempts accumulated, experience grew, and their techniques improved, everything gradually came naturally. The manifested creatures multiplied once more.
Only now, their color was no longer pure gold, but carried a faint gray tinge. In truth, signs of this had already appeared when they sealed Night Demon Old Ancestor. They had simply been too busy guarding against that old monster, their minds stretched taut, to pay it much attention.
Xuanming had only remembered it while reviewing events afterward.
As the union of the three powers