Nuwa didn't need to deliberate. The moment Bai Ze mentioned the Golden Crow on the Sun Star, the image of Ling Xiao was vivid in her mind—the man who had stood atop a primordial cauldron and casually negotiated for a divine vine.
She still held the soil he had gifted her. She still owed him a debt of Karma.
Is this a move by Ling Xiao? she wondered. Or is he simply throwing stones into a pond to see where the ripples land?
Aside from the arrogant Sanqing, there was no one else on Mount Buzhou with the stature to lead. If Ling Xiao had directed Bai Ze here, he was directing him to her. She looked at the wise beast before her, sensing the shift in her own destiny. The Myriad Races were not just a rabble; they were a foundation.
"That... Fellow Daoist Nuwa," Bai Ze stammered, seeing her face cloud over. He began to back away, his fan fluttering nervously. "Perhaps I have overstepped. I shall... I shall go ask the Three Pure Ones instead!"
He turned to flee, Ji Meng stumbling after him. A wise man did not stand beneath a crumbling wall, and the pressure radiating from Nuwa was beginning to feel like a mountain about to fall.
"Wait!"
Nuwa's voice was like a bell, clear and absolute. Bai Ze froze, a strained smile plastered on his face as he turned back. "Do you... have further instructions, Fellow Daoist?"
"I agree," Nuwa said simply.
Bai Ze and Ji Meng stood paralyzed for a heartbeat, before their faces erupted into twin masks of pure, unadulterated joy. The "savior" had finally been found.
The Pangu Temple
Deep within the heart of the Great Desolation, the air in the Pangu Temple was thick with the scent of iron and ancient power. The Twelve Ancestral Witches had gathered.
"In a thousand years, our borders have swallowed the horizon," Dijiang announced, his voice echoing like shifting tectonic plates. "But the resistance grows. I ask you, brothers and sisters: do we crush them now, or do we allow the earth to rest?"
"Rest?" Zhu Rong, the God of Fire, scoffed. Flames licked at his collar. "The momentum is ours. We should burn through the Myriad Races until they are integrated or erased. If we stop, we give the 'fur and horn' trash time to breathe."
"Battle is the only path," Candle Nine Nethers added, his voice a cold, temporal rasp. "Our children need blood to grow. Seclusion is for those with spirits to nurse. We have only our strength."
Houtu sighed, her earth-bound heart aching for the slaughter, but she remained silent. The majority had spoken. The war would continue.
"I have something to add," Qiang Liang, the God of Thunder, interjected with a booming laugh. "That trash Bai Ze was seen at the Sun Star. He's looking for the 'Three Crows.'"
The temple erupted into mocking laughter.
"The Three Crows?" Gonggong, the God of Water, leaned back, his eyes flashing with disdain. "I could crush all three with one hand. What does Bai Ze hope to achieve by inviting out a few overgrown sparrows?"
"Just three Golden Crows," another laughed. "Who are they enough to fight? There wouldn't even be enough of them to go around our table."
Even Houtu offered a small, dismissive smile. While Ling Xiao had a reputation for strength, the gap between a lone cultivator and the collective might of the Twelve Ancestral Witches was a chasm that no treasure could bridge. They were the children of Pangu's flesh; the world was theirs by right of blood.
Dijiang raised a hand to silence the laughter, ready to issue the final invasion orders. But before he could speak, a Great Witch from Qiang Liang's tribe rushed into the hall, breathless.
"Great Ancestral Witch! The latest report! Bai Ze and Ji Meng have left the Sun Star—they are heading toward Mount Buzhou!"