Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Four: Spine Becomes Mountain Ranges — Rolling Without End

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

Pangu's spine — that great column that had held the weight of the heavens for eighteen thousand years — did not dissolve all at once. It transformed vertebra by vertebra, each segment becoming a mountain peak, the full chain becoming a mountain range that stretched from one horizon to the other.

His cervical vertebrae became the high, sharp-peaked mountains of the far north — jagged and imposing, capped with eternal snow. His thoracic vertebrae became the great central cordillera that ran like a backbone down the middle of the continent — the spine of the world, just as it had been the spine of the creator. His lumbar vertebrae became the lower, broader ranges of the south — ancient, weathered mountains worn smooth by the ages to come.

The spinal cord that had once carried the fire of his will now became veins of precious minerals running through the mountains — gold, silver, jade, and crystal, all formed from the last concentrated essence of the channels that had carried his will. Future generations would mine these mountains and find, in their depths, not just wealth but a connection to the being who had made their world.

Spine becomes mountain ranges, rolling without end. The backbone of the creator had become the backbone of the world. And in every peak that caught the morning light, there was an echo of the strength that had once held up the sky.