Ziwei had reached the threshold of Mount Buzhou—though "reached" was perhaps too generous a word.
He stood far from its base, yet the pressure was already unbearable.
The sky bent around it. Time slowed. Space twisted like cloth beneath a titan's breath. His cultivation—Quasi-Saint, exalted by the Martial Dao—shrank before its divine radiance.
This was not a mountain.
This was the spine of the Creator.
The last bone of Pangu.
"To approach the Father's spine with wings," Ziwei whispered inwardly, "is arrogance. But with steps… it is worship."
He did not fly. He walked.
Each footstep parted the fabric of time like silk torn open by reverence.
Suddenly, a memory surged—not from thought, but from the marrow of his soul.
The tale of Ancestor Wu.
A reckless god who, in ancient rage, shattered Mount Buzhou with his skull. The story said he died, but the mountain cracked.
Ziwei narrowed his golden eyes.
"Impossible."
Even now, leagues away, he could scarcely stand before the mountain's pressure. Its stones were not mere stone—they were Pangu's Dao Bones, the anchors of Heaven and Earth. Not even a Saint could scar them.
So how had a wild god broken it?
He frowned.
"Someone interfered."
The Heavenly Dao?
Too small.
His intuition whispered of something older. Vaster. Deeper.
A force that did not govern… but devoured.
"If Mount Buzhou was ever truly shattered," he murmured, "then Father's Dao Fruit… will remain forever incomplete."
This truth did not come from words.
It came from the pressure itself—not mere force, but will.
A silent, sleeping will… waiting to be understood.
Ziwei continued forward.
Each step thundered through the fabric of fate.
And behind him, quietly, someone followed.
He didn't turn.
He didn't need to.
His divine senses told him everything.
Peak Great Luo Golden Immortal. No hostility. No bloodlust.
A single ant beneath a towering tree.
Ziwei walked on.
"And when an ant walks beside your heel," he thought, "do you crush it? Or do you simply walk?"
He chose the latter.
But then, the footsteps behind him stopped.
And a voice, calm and respectful, rang out beneath the weight of the mountain's breath.
"Senior… may I walk with you a little farther?"
Ziwei paused.
The voice was not laced with ambition. Nor flattery.
Only sincerity.
He turned.
His eyes shone like stars over a sleeping sea.
"I can carry you forward. But first—who are you, and why do you seek to climb?"
From the haze stepped a tall figure—elegant, calm, and ancient.
"I am Lin Zu," the figure said, bowing. "Ancestor of the Qilin Clan."
The Qilin—noble beasts born of Pangu's bones, symbols of virtue and cosmic balance. They walked when sages were born. And vanished when chaos ruled.
Ziwei had guessed.
But still, he had asked.
And Lin Zu had answered.
He could not lie.
Not before Ziwei.
For Ziwei's aura bore the weight of four eternal laws:
The Way of All Living Beings.
The Law of Nature.
The Law of Creation.
The Law of Destruction.
The first three warmed Lin Zu's heart—like standing before a sunrise that remembered his name.
But the fourth?
To lie before that was to dissolve—not punished, but erased by the Law itself.
So Lin Zu bowed deeply.
"I've come to offer reverence to the Creator. To thank Him for this world… and for the breath He gave me."
Ziwei smiled.
And the world changed.
Golden light shimmered in the mists of Mount Buzhou.
Blossoms bloomed on ancient trees.
Primordial butterflies spun from motes of light.
Even the wind grew soft—like the land itself had sighed in joy.
All of it, in response to one thing:
Ziwei's happiness.
Why does Ziwei love Pangu like a father?
Because Ziwei was born of sacrifice, not blood.
In a cosmos where even Saints chase power,
Ziwei found reverence instead.
Pangu's death gave the world breath.
And in that death, Ziwei found the father he had never known.
Ziwei's gaze softened.
"I am Ziwei," he said gently.
"You may call me elder brother, little one."
Lin Zu froze.
Then fell to both knees in reverent bow.
"Little Qilin greets the Supreme Emperor!"
But Ziwei was already turning.
"Go," he said.
"Offer your thanks.
Then leave.
We will meet again—someday."
Lin Zu rose, bowed once more, and stepped forward.
And in that instant…
The Pangu Pressure changed.
It deepened.
Ziwei's eyes narrowed.
"It's grown stronger. Why?"
The answer came not in words, but through the mountain itself.
Because Lin Zu—a creature born from Pangu's body—had offered reverence.
And the Power of Fate had responded.
The Power of Fate: A Cosmic Law
The Power of Fate binds all beings by karma and origin.
When a soul aligns with its source…
When reverence meets root…
The threads of destiny tighten.
And even the sleeping wills of gods begin to stir.
Ziwei felt the ripple.
A small echo in the mountain's vast silence.
But it was enough.
Enough to birth a thought:
"Perhaps… I can awaken my father sooner than I dreamed."
And with that—
A new seed stirred in the heart of the Supreme Emperor.
Not of conquest.
But of reunion.
Of restoration.
Of fate, bowing to love.