As the Primordial World began to take shape, Pangu was overjoyed. Watching the evolution of countless laws of heaven and earth, Pangu felt his cultivation level advancing by leaps and bounds.
In the blink of an eye, the supreme, seemingly untouchable Great Dao was right before his eyes, within arm's reach.
Just as Pangu was about to attain the Dao, the newly formed Primordial World suddenly shuddered. The heavens and the earth began to close slowly, attempting to return to Chaos.
Filled with boundless love and unable to bear seeing the newborn Primordial World return to Chaos, Pangu decisively awakened from his state of enlightenment. His body instantly expanded to millions of feet tall, his hands propping up the heavens and his feet firmly treading upon the earth, halting the convergence of heaven and earth.
Thus, the heavens rose by one zhang every day, and the earth sank by one zhang every day, while Pangu's body changed in accordance with the heaven and earth.
One hundred and twenty-six thousand and six hundred years passed in this manner, equaling one yuanhui. The heavens had risen to the utmost heights, and the earth had sunk to the lowest depths, leaving no possibility for heaven and earth to ever close again.
By this time, Pangu's divine power was entirely exhausted, leaving him extremely weak. He staggeringly withdrew his colossal divine form and collapsed into the newborn Primordial World, on the verge of death.
At this moment, Lin Fan also awoke from his enlightenment. Seeing the weakened Pangu in the Primordial World, he was immediately alarmed and swiftly manipulated the Chaos Bead to approach Pangu.
In the blink of an eye, Lin Fan arrived beside Pangu and desperately channeled all his spiritual power into Pangu's body.
Lin Fan devoted himself entirely to saving Pangu, unaware that the moment his aura appeared in the Primordial World, dark and billowing clouds instantly gathered across the sky, blotting out the sun. A massive eye appeared directly above Lin Fan.
The eye flickered with lightning, its gaze cold and devoid of all emotion, like an indifferent master of all living beings.
In an instant, a destructive bolt of lightning shot from that eye, striking an unprepared Lin Fan and knocking him unconscious. Fortunately, at the critical moment, the Chaos Bead automatically protected its master, shielding Lin Fan from the majority of the damage. Otherwise, Lin Fan, who was still in the state of a disembodied soul, would have been completely obliterated by that divine retribution and utterly destroyed.
One must know that the one who struck was none other than the Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World.
The Heavenly Dao is utterly impartial, and thus it does not tolerate anomalies within its realm. Lin Fan had drifted through Chaos for countless epochs; he did not belong to the Primordial World, nor was he within the Heavenly Dao.
To the Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World, Lin Fan was an alien element, a variable.
Therefore, the moment Lin Fan appeared in the Primordial World, the Heavenly Dao immediately descended divine retribution to exterminate this anomaly. It never expected that the Chaos Bead would block most of the blow, and it immediately prepared to strike again.
At this critical juncture, just as Lin Fan was about to perish beneath the divine retribution, Pangu slowly awakened, casting a cold glance at the eye of retribution.
Instantly, the lightning filling the sky vanished without a trace, and the Heavenly Dao fled faster than anything. The Heavenly Dao was born because of the Primordial World, and the Primordial World was single-handedly created by Pangu; thus, upon seeing Pangu enraged, the Heavenly Dao fled like a mouse seeing a cat.
Although Lin Fan tried his utmost to save Pangu, that tiny bit of spiritual power was merely a drop in the ocean to Pangu, who was on the verge of attaining the Great Dao, entirely unworthy of mention.
Looking at the unconscious Lin Fan within the Chaos Bead, Pangu smiled faintly, a trace of warmth flashing in his eyes as he sighed with emotion, "I never expected such a young friend to be inside the Chaos Bead. It is a pity that your entire cultivation has been lost because of me. This time, I have incurred a karmic debt to you."
"It is a pity that I am about to merge with the Dao right now and cannot help you recover your vitality."
As it turned out, back when Pangu stood upright between heaven and earth and supported the Primordial World, he had already known his mission. No wonder that after splitting the heavens, the creation Merit from the Great Dao was so slow to arrive; everything had long been calculated within the plans of the Great Dao, bound by karma.
Pangu gazed at the Primordial World before him, his eyes filled with gratification and his tone gentle and compassionate, "Let me contribute one last time to this newborn Primordial World, and provide all living beings with a place to settle and thrive."
With that, he looked at Lin Fan, and instantly a drop of golden blood emerged from Pangu's heart. With a wave of his hand, this drop of heart's blood instantly merged into Lin Fan's soul, combining with his weak soul to produce a brilliant golden light that illuminated heaven and earth.
Thus, possessing Pangu's bloodline, Lin Fan would no longer be considered an anomaly. Furthermore, because the Primordial World was created by Pangu, Lin Fan, as a bearer of Pangu's bloodline, would henceforth receive the favor of the Heavenly Dao, ensuring endless opportunities and unimpeded cultivation in the future.
Having finished all this, Pangu cast one last lingering look upon the land of the Primordial World, and his massive body crashed down.
After Pangu fell and perished, his left eye transformed into the Sun Star, his right eye transformed into the Lunar Star, his flowing black hair turned into the stars across the sky, his bones and meridians became mountain ranges and lands, his blood turned into rivers, lakes, and seas, and his spine became Mount Buzhou, supporting the heavens and the earth.
After Pangu transformed his body into all things, boundless Great Dao Xuanhuang Merit was derived from the void, filling heaven and earth. One layer of Xuanhuang Merit transformed into a thirty-three-tiered Xuanhuang Linglong Pagoda—the supreme acquired merit treasure, the Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang Pagoda—which hovered above his head, rendering him innately undefeated. Countless boundless purple qi transformed into a jade ruler measuring three feet and three inches in length, which was the supreme acquired offensive merit treasure, the Measuring Ruler, ranking alongside the Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang Pagoda as the foremost acquired treasures, one offensive and one defensive.
Suddenly, Pangu's Primordial Spirit split into three, carrying five layers of creation Merit and the Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang Linglong Pagoda as it flew eastward, vanishing in the blink of an eye. Then, twelve drops of vital blood flew from his body, carrying two layers of creation Merit toward Mount Buzhou.
Of all this, Lin Fan knew nothing. Instead, another layer of creation Merit flew toward Lin Fan, simply because Lin Fan possessed Pangu's heart's blood and was mistaken by the Great Dao as being of Pangu's bloodline, just like the Twelve Ancestral Witches.
The moment the Great Dao Merit approached Lin Fan, it was taken in by the Chaos Bead, which also pulled the acquired merit treasure, the Measuring Ruler, into the small realm within the Chaos Bead.
Yet another layer of creation Merit was scattered across the land of the Primordial World. Instantly, the Primordial World teemed with vitality and all things flourished.
Meanwhile, the Chaos Bead carried the sleeping Lin Fan to an unknown small mountain within the Primordial World, where it fell dormant, concealing its aura and waiting for Lin Fan to awaken.