The Twelve Ancestral Witches were livid. In the chaos of the final strike, the Three Pure Ones had simply... vanished.
The detonation had been blinding—a frantic, high-yield explosion of spiritual energy that had momentarily fractured their collective focus. By the time the dust settled, the space they had occupied was empty.
"They escaped! Cowards! Scum!" Qiang Liang roared, his thunderous voice shaking the very roots of Mount Buzhou. He turned to give chase, his body crackling with arcs of violet lightning.
"Let them go," Di Jiang commanded, raising a massive hand to halt his brother. "The Pure Ones are vermin with many holes to hide in. By the time you find them, they'll be buried in the deepest grottos of the Great Desolation."
He looked out over the ruins of East Kunlun, a cold satisfaction settling in his chest. "It doesn't matter. Our goal is achieved. We have broken their spirit and plundered their Luck. From this day forward, the world will see who truly carries Father God's legacy. Defeated dogs have no right to claim the title of 'Orthodox'."
"Big Brother is right," Zhurong laughed, the flames on his skin flickering with amusement. "Let them rot in some cave. I doubt they'll ever have the courage to show their faces on the Great Earth again."
"East Kunlun is ours now," Candle Nine Nethers added, his voice echoing with the weight of centuries. "This mountain range is an extension of Buzhou's spine. It belongs to the Witches."
"Clean the peaks," Di Jiang ordered. "Then we return to the Ancestral Land. I don't want those three rats scurrying into our temple while we're away."
Somewhere in a secluded valley, miles away from the carnage, three figures in tattered Daoist robes slumped against the jagged rocks.
"Damned... beasts..." Tongtian wheezed, his Qingping sword trembling in its sheath. The blade gave off a mournful hum. "If I do not wash this humiliation in their blood, I renounce the name of Pangu!"
"While they are still occupied at Buzhou," Yuanshi hissed, his eyes burning with a dark, vengeful fire, "we should strike their Ancestral Land. We should seize the Pangu Temple itself!"
His chest still ached where Di Jiang's fist had landed. The loss of the Gourd treasure—a spiritual artifact they had sacrificed to create the distraction for their escape—felt like a hole in his very soul.
"Enough, Second Brother," Laozi said, his voice raspy but firm. He was the most composed, though his robes were stained a deep, muddy crimson. "We do not trade our lives for a moment of spite. To go to their temple now is to invite a decapitation we cannot survive."
He looked toward the sky, toward the distant, invisible gates of the Zixiao Palace. "We hide. We heal. We wait for the second sermon. When the Dao Ancestor speaks again, our cultivation will leap beyond these brutes. Only then will we settle the Karma."
The Sun Star.
"To think they actually made it out," Ling Xiao murmured, a faint smile playing on his lips.
He felt a twinge of regret—a dead Pure One was a much simpler variable—but he wasn't surprised. Individuals with that much Luck didn't die easily. Their tenacity was as legendary as their arrogance.
However, the "Pangu Orthodoxy" battle had changed everything. The Witches had committed the ultimate sin against the Pure Ones' pride. One day, when the brothers attained Sainthood, the blood-debt would be called in.
Perfect, Ling Xiao thought. The more the Witches and the Pure Ones hate each other, the less they'll bother the Crows.
"Third Brother, what's so funny?"
Di Jun and Tai Yi approached, their expressions a mix of awe and relief. The massive aura of the Witches had woken them from their cultivation, and they had watched the entire beatdown from the safety of the solar palace.
"Just a happy thought," Ling Xiao replied.
"Those Witches... they're terrifying," Tai Yi admitted, his hand tightening on the hilt of his weapon. "I'm glad we didn't listen to Bai Ze. If all twelve of those monsters came to our door, I'm not sure I could hold back even one of the weaker ones."
"Which is why Third Brother is always nagging us to cultivate," Di Jun said, seizing the moment to regain his stature as the eldest. "Without seeing the world, you'd never know how many people can kick your teeth in."
Tai Yi glanced at Di Jun and grinned. "Brother, no offense, but right now? You're the one who'd get his teeth kicked in first. You can't even beat me."
Di Jun's face fell. He looked at Ling Xiao, then back at Tai Yi, and let out a long, weary sigh. Between the genius of his youngest brother and the combat prowess of his middle brother, his position as "Big Brother" was starting to feel purely ceremonial.
"Don't take it to heart, Big Brother," Ling Xiao laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. "You might be the weakest, but you'll always be the boss. We won't look down on you."
"Don't stop me," Di Jun grumbled, though a smile twitched at his lips. "I'm going back into the solar egg to be remade. This life is too hard."
The laughter died instantly.
A vast, suffocating aura suddenly permeated the Sun Star. Ling Xiao's divine eyes sharpened, the laughter replaced by a deep, calculating brilliance.
Across the Great Eastern Wasteland, a colossal figure stood amidst the clouds, staring directly at the Sun Star. His eyes were like twin voids, radiating a pressure that made the solar fires flicker.
Di Jiang.
Di Jun and Tai Yi snapped into combat stances, their internal power surging as they prepared for the worst.
Ling Xiao didn't move. He simply looked back, his gaze incredibly deep. Streaks of Law power began to flow within his pupils like liquid gold.
"Do you want to start something...?" he whispered.
On the wasteland below, the other Ancestral Witches gathered around their leader.
"Big Brother," Qiang Liang asked, his knuckles popping with static electricity. "Should we finish the job? Let's take care of those three Crows while we're already out."
"I say we do it," Zhurong added, his body a pillar of sky-high flame. "They're far weaker than the Pure Ones. I could probably handle them myself."
"Undeserved reputations," Candle Nine Nethers sneered, time-fragments dancing around him. "They aren't worth the effort of a chase."
"Let them live," Xuan Ming said suddenly, her voice like cracking ice. She stood amidst a frozen wasteland she had created just by standing. "They don't pose a threat. Why bother?"
"Sister Xuan Ming is right," Hou Tu analyzed, her gaze soft but piercing as she looked toward the Sun. "Striking the Pure Ones was about the Pangu Lineage—the world understands that. But if we slaughter the Crows for no reason, the other Great Powers will panic. If they unite against us out of fear, it will be a headache we don't need."
Di Jiang didn't answer. He remained motionless, his void-like eyes locked onto the three specks of gold on the Sun Star.
He was weighing the pride of the Witches against the stability of the world.