Chapter One Hundred Thirteen: The Long River of Years, the Myriad Years Draw Near Their End

Volume Three: Supporting the Cosmos Across Eternal Ages — Heaven and Earth Take Fixed Form

After Heaven and Earth had taken form, Pangu began to feel a change — time seemed to be accelerating. Or rather, his sense of presence between Heaven and Earth was diminishing. He had fulfilled his mission; the world no longer needed him to stand guard as he once had, every moment of every day.

The years flowed past in silence. Pangu no longer counted the alternations of day and night, for he knew it no longer mattered. The world's order had become a self-sustaining law; the passage of time would not alter because he counted it. He let time flow as it would and merged himself into the rhythm of Heaven and Earth.

He recalled the entire course from his first awakening in Chaos to the present. At the very start, he had been only a faint wisp of spirit-light, struggling to survive in an endless dead stillness. Then had come the long ages of cultivation and confrontation, growing ceaselessly under Mingdun's suppression. Later still had come the shattering of the shell, the opening of Heaven, the bracing of the heavens and the planting of the earth, the establishment of order. Every step had been filled with hardship, yet he had walked through them all.

In memory, the myriad years were both long and short. Long were those days of bracing repeated without end; short were those pivotal moments — the shattering of the shell, the opening of Heaven, the moment Heaven and Earth took form. Those moments, though brief, defined the entire meaning of his existence.

The long river of years, the myriad years drawing near their end. Pangu knew he had reached the final stretch of his world-creating path. What awaited him ahead was the ultimate self-offering. But he walked toward this end with composure — as one walking toward a long-expected homecoming.

The eighteen-thousand-year span was drawing to its close. Pangu did a simple calculation — he had already endured through some seventeen thousand and more years. The days remaining could be counted on his fingers. He felt no panic. Over ten thousand years of repetition had brought his perception to a place of calm; the changes of time no longer troubled him. The only thing he felt was an anticipation — a curiosity toward the unknown beyond the end. As the endpoint of those eighteen thousand years drew near, Pangu's perception of time underwent a wondrous transformation. Before, time had been like a long river, with neither source nor mouth in sight, and he had simply floated at its center, pushed forward by the current. Now he could see the riverbank — the end was not far ahead; he could already see it. The sensation was at once comforting and reluctant — comforting because the long ordeal finally had an end, reluctant because —

Pangu stood between Heaven and Earth and felt the slow, steady draining of the Primordial Source within his body. The speed of that draining had once been imperceptible — eighteen thousand years was too long, so long that each day's change was only one billionth of the whole. But now he could feel it. Like a great river shifting its course over a thousand ages, in the final stretch, the speed of the current suddenly became clear.

His breathing had slowed. With each inhale, clear qi descended from the ninth heaven into his lungs. With each exhale, turbid qi sank from his dantian into the Great Earth. Between one inhale and one exhale, Heaven and Earth rose and fell in faint concert. He was no longer the young World-Creator who needed to brace with all his might — his body had already merged into one with Heaven and Earth. His breathing was the world's breathing; his pulse was the world's pulse.

Xiwei's light rose from the east and fell upon Pangu's shoulder. That light no longer probed with the timidity of a thousand years ago, but shone with steadiness and warmth. Pangu felt the heat of that light and turned his head slightly. He saw Xiwei suspended beneath the Celestial Dome — that newborn sun of Chaos had already grown into a round, warm sphere of light.

'You no longer need me,' Pangu said to it in his heart.

Xiwei seemed to have understood his words; its light flickered faintly, as if shaking its head, or as if nodding. In Pangu's eyes, that flicker was brighter than any scene he had witnessed in eighteen thousand years.

Yuanji, on the other side, flowed quietly through the depths of the earth. Its cold, dark presence was no longer as unsettling as in the beginning, but had become another temperature of the earth — steady, enduring, the temperature of night. Pangu sank his Spirit-Consciousness into the earth and touched the outline of Yuanji. That outline was clearer than a thousand years ago, like the profile of a slumbering giant.

Every corner of Heaven and Earth was sending signals to Pangu. The eastern mountain ranges were stable; the western deserts had taken shape; the southern waters had deepened; the northern ice fields had grown thick and firm. The Four Poles were rooted deep in the earth. Clear qi circulated freely between Heaven and Earth; turbid qi rested quietly beneath. Everything was in its proper place.

Pangu raised his right hand and slowly swept it through the space before him. As his fingertip passed through the air, it stirred a faint ripple — the trace of clear and turbid qi briefly separating under the disturbance of his fingertip, then quickly re-merging. He saw the transparency of Clear Qi, the faint brown of Turbid Qi, saw the countless fine lines they wove together between Heaven and Earth. Those lines had once required every ounce of his strength to comb into order. Now they could find their own correct paths.

The myriad years drawing to their end. Pangu's eyelids slowly lowered. He no longer gazed into the distance, but looked at the patch of ground beneath his own feet — the point where he had stood for eighteen thousand years. The turbid qi beneath his feet had, through his standing, deposited into a solid patch of ground. His toes sank slightly into it, and he could feel the warmth of the earth rising through his soles. It was the temperature of the earth — not his own body's heat.

He suddenly realized that he had not felt cold in a very long time. At the first parting of Chaos, the chill from above and the cold from below had simultaneously gnawed at his body. Later, he had grown —