Hongjun's response to Yuanshi and the others had naturally not been made without reason.
Nor had he merely been shrouding the matter in mystery.
He truly had his own considerations.
After all, throughout the ages, the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe could be said to have changed hands several times.
At the very beginning, as Great God Pangu's companion supreme treasure, it had been born alongside him when he was nurtured within Chaos.
Their constant communion over those endless epochs had naturally left Pangu's Divine Sense imprinted within the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe.
Or, more precisely, an imprint of the Great Dao of Strength!
Pangu had sought to Prove Dao by Force. The Great Dao of Strength was the foundation of all his cultivation, as well as his most fundamental Great Dao law.
One could well imagine how deep and firmly rooted that imprint was.
Later, Pangu had cleaved heaven and earth apart, only to perish and have his Dao extinguished. The Heaven-Opening Divine Axe had then drifted into Chaos.
By rights, once a supreme treasure lost its master, the imprint within it should gradually dissipate with the passage of time.
Yet the imprint of the Great Dao of Strength had proven far too tenacious. Even after Pangu's fall, it had remained within the divine axe, enduring through the ages.
Later still, the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe had shattered, becoming the Three Heaven-Opening Supreme Treasures.
The restrictions, imprints, and other such things within it had naturally split into three as well, weakening considerably.
Only then had each treasure been able to find its own master.
After that came Gu Changqing.
Through the sheer power of his cultivation, Gu Changqing had forcibly refined the Heaven-Opening Divine Axe.
Although he had not spent very long on it, with his current cultivation as a Hunyuan Limitless Daluo