The shock on the faces of Di Jun and Tai Yi did not fade quickly. They had barely processed the events of the Saint's sermon, and now they found that in their absence, Ling Xiao had secured the Zhou Tian Star Tree—a top-tier Innate Spiritual Root.
Ling Xiao, however, remained unfazed. Deep within his Chaos Pearl, the Yellow Core Plum—the very head of the ten great spiritual roots—was already rooted and flourishing. To him, the star tree was merely another piece of the grander puzzle.
"Eldest Brother, Second Brother," Ling Xiao said, his voice steady. "Lately, I have been peering into the depths of the Hongmeng Cauldron. I've glimpsed the blueprints of a profound Formation hidden within its structure. I suspect that all our companion treasures contain similar hidden truths. You must not be slack; when you return to your meditation, look deeper into your own artifacts."
He was speaking of the Zhou Tian Xing Dou Great Array and the Hun Yuan He Luo Great Array. He knew he couldn't simply hand them the knowledge, so he nudged them toward the source. Having a sword and not using it was far better than standing empty-handed when the storm finally broke. With these arrays, the Golden Crows would hold a trump card that could tip the scales of the entire Honghuang world.
"Truly? Then we shall not waste another moment," Dijun said, his eyes alight with a new fire.
"Until we reach the Hun Yuan Golden Immortal realm, we shall not set foot outside again!" Tai Yi declared.
With those parting words, the two brothers vanished into their respective solar palaces. Ling Xiao watched them go with a faint, amused huff of laughter before settling into his own cross-legged posture. With a flick of his will, he summoned the drop of Pangu's Essence Blood rewarded by the system.
This blood was the distilled essence of Pangu's physical dominance. As Ling Xiao swallowed it, he felt his very lineage begin to stretch and expand.
It felt as if hundreds of millions of volcanoes were detonating simultaneously inside his marrow. A violent, surging power raced through his limbs, his bones, and every fiber of his being. Looking inward, Ling Xiao saw his flesh reacting to the stimulation; each cell was like the first spark of Chaos, evolving and birthing miniature worlds. Vast, primal power gushed from the hidden treasuries of his body.
Every pore now contained a nascent Small World. As his physical form sublimated, these tiny pockets of existence evolved toward the complexity of Major Thousand Worlds. Even without channeling the power of the Laws, Ling Xiao felt that a single movement of his hand could now shatter a universe.
As his body reached this new threshold, the path to the Law of Strength began to reveal itself.
"The Law of Strength..."
Ling Xiao's eyes shimmered with shifting light as he mobilized the Chaos Pearl. He adopted a dual approach, using the pearl to anchor his soul while he wove the Law of Strength into his newly tempered flesh. Since his breakthrough, he had refined a thousand of the pearl's three thousand restrictions, expanding the internal Chaos World into a boundless sea.
In that grey void, the Yellow Core Plum grew amidst the lashing of Chaos winds and the Nine-Layered Thunder Sea. Nine young fruits hung from its branches; once mature, a single bite would be enough to elevate a mortal to the Grand Unity realm. Ling Xiao closed his eyes, pouring his entire focus into the Law as the Essence Blood was slowly, painstakingly consumed.
In the ancestral lands of the Witch Clan, Di Jiang's head suddenly snapped up. His gaze pierced through the sky, locking onto the distant Sun Star.
"Strange," he murmured, his brow furrowed. "Did I just... feel Father God's aura?"
He paused, a flicker of profound doubt crossing his features. "It felt like a brother... someone from the same source."
He stood silent for a long time, grappling with the sensation. It seemed impossible. Father God was gone, and there were only twelve of them. Was he hallucinating?
Eventually, he forced himself to relax. The Sun Star was Pangu's left eye; it was only natural for it to retain a lingering scent of the Creator. He turned back to his duties, unaware of the transformation occurring within that solar sphere.
Following the second sermon, the Honghuang world entered a deceptive period of quiet. Most of the great experts were buried in seclusion, obsessed with the Path of Slaying the Three Corpses. Only the Witch Clan and the myriad lesser races continued their endless, bloody struggle for territory.
Three thousand years passed in a heartbeat.
On this day, near an immortal mountain by the Shore of the East Sea, three Daoists sat upon clouds of Jade Sea Tide. Their individual auspicious clouds merged, forming a single, Chaos-colored canopy the size of ten thousand mu. Above that cloud, a world was evolving.
It displayed the birth of all things: Pangu wielding the divine axe, the shattering of Chaos, and the stabilizing of the four primal elements.
These were the Sanqing: Laozi, Yuanshi, and Tongtian. After three millennia of stagnant meditation, the air around them finally began to ripple.
The cloud above Laozi's head suddenly churned like a violent sea. One moment it showed the creation of the heavens; the next, it shifted into the Taiji and the Two Polarities. Finally, with a soft ripple, a Daoist with the face of an old man and hair as white as a crane's wing stepped out. He wore a Nine Clouds Crown and robes of purple silk. He looked ninety percent like Laozi, but radiated a warmth and benevolence that was almost overwhelming.
"Fellow Daoist, great joy!" the figure said, bowing.
Laozi smiled, his eyes bright. "The joy is shared."
The figure merged back into Laozi's body, and a vast, suffocating aura shot straight into the firmament. Across the East Sea, every living creature felt a sudden, crushing weight on their souls, a terror that left them gasping for air.
"Who has ascended?" the hidden masters of the world whispered in horror.
But the display was not finished. Above Yuanshi's head, a second figure emerged—a stern, cold Daoist who radiated a sense of absolute authority and a chilling, underlying malice. He cupped his hands and vanished into Yuanshi's body, anchoring himself within a Spirit Treasure. A tyrannical aura swept across the world, naked and unconcealed.
Finally, from the clouds above Tongtian, a tall youth with sword-like eyebrows and eyes like cold stars stepped forth. Sharp, cutting Sword Intent erupted from him, piercing the heavens. Without a word, he stepped forward and merged with Tongtian.
The Sanqing had succeeded. Their combined aura pierced the sky like pillars holding up the universe, their immortal light illuminating the Nine Heavens. They made no effort to hide their power; they were announcing to the world the return of the Orthodox Lineage.
"Finally," Tongtian whispered, a long sigh of relief escaping him as he finally reined in his aura.
"We are likely the first to succeed," Yuanshi said, his voice dripping with a new, dangerous arrogance. He clenched his fist, feeling the vast power of a Quasi-Saint thrumming in his veins. "The strength of this realm... it exceeds everything I imagined."
He looked toward the horizon, his eyes narrowing. "Let us march upon the Witch Clan's ancestral land. We take back our dignity, avenge every insult, and seize the Pangu Temple for ourselves!"
The memory of their past defeat at the hands of the Witches was a festering wound in his mind. He wanted to see the Twelve Ancestral Witches torn to pieces.
"Inappropriate," Laozi said, his voice heavy with the weight of reason. "Our strength has grown, but do not think the Witches have been idle. They hold the majority of the Luck; their progress will not be slower than ours."
"Are we to just endure it?" Yuanshi demanded, his jaw tight.
"Endure? No," Laozi replied, his voice hardening. "But we are not fools. First, we will reclaim our rightful Daoist rite. We reclaim what is ours."