Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Three: Waist and Belly Become Plains — Vast and Boundless

Volume Five: Body-Perish Dao-Transformation — Myriad Realms First Born

As Pangu's legs transformed into mountains, his torso began its own dissolution. His waist and belly — the center of his body, where his Primordial Source had once blazed brightest — softened and spread outward across the land.

Where his abdomen had been, there now stretched the great central plains — vast, flat expanses of fertile earth that would one day become the breadbasket of the world. The soil was rich with the last remnants of his Primordial Source, imbued with a fertility that would nourish crops and forests for a thousand generations.

His waist became the gentle rolling hills that bordered the plains — soft, undulating landscapes that caught the light beautifully and provided shelter for the creatures that would come. The curves of his body became the contours of the land, every hollow and rise a memory of the form that had once occupied this space.

The transformation of his torso was quieter than the mountains — no great upheavals, no cataclysmic shifts. Just a slow, gentle settling, as if Pangu were lying down at last after eighteen thousand years of standing. And where he lay, the earth welcomed him, softening to receive the body that had shaped it.

Waist and belly become plains, vast and boundless. The heartland of the world was formed — not from violence, but from rest. The creator had finally lain down, and the earth had made a bed for him.