The indifference that had weighed in Dao Ancestor Hongjun's eyes for hundreds of millions of years was torn open by Tongtian's own hands.
The cold seeping through that crack was heavier than the Chaos outside the Purple Heaven Palace.
Deeper still lay a trace of bewildered suspicion that even Hongjun himself had not noticed.
Tongtian had actually destroyed his Heavenly Dao Sagehood with his own hands, right before him.
That Saint-Slaying Pill could no longer find anyone to lock onto.
What the Saint-Slaying Pill locked onto was Heavenly Dao Sagehood; what it imprisoned was a Sage's Dao Foundation.
But Tongtian had severed that chain first.
An emperor bestowed a length of white silk, yet before it could settle around the condemned prisoner's neck, the prisoner set himself ablaze, burning his prison garb and his entry in the register together.
What this fire burned was his status.
What it burned into being was also the most vicious humiliation of Heavenly Dao Order.
Hongjun lowered his eyelids, and the gray light of the Saint-Slaying Pill in his palm dimmed by half an inch.
"Good. Very good."
When he spoke, a fluctuation finally cracked through his voice.
"Since you willingly abandoned the Heavenly Dao, I shall grant your wish."
Hongjun raised both hands, interlacing his fingers and palms into an ancient seal, and the myriad patterns behind the phantom Purple Heaven Palace churned in response.
"Then let me show you how much weight your so-called Great Dao truly carries before the real Heavenly Dao."
The entire Primordial World gave a deep, resonant tremor at that moment.
The Origins of the Laws of the Three Thousand Great Daos surged from upstream in time and poured backward from the ends of space, forcibly gathered into Hongjun's palms by a supreme will.
Karma and destiny intertwined,