Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Four: Mountains and Rivers Weep Together

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

The mountains that had been Pangu's legs and spine trembled with a low, seismic grief. Avalanches rumbled down their slopes — not destructive, but solemn, like the slow shedding of tears. The rivers that had been his blood ran swifter and colder, their waters carrying flecks of gold that had been his essence, scattering it across the land.

The forests that had grown from his body hair rustled in a wind that seemed to come from nowhere, their leaves whispering a requiem in a language that no living thing would ever speak but that every living thing somehow understood. The plains that had been his torso seemed to breathe one last time, a long, slow exhalation that stirred the grasses and carried the scent of earth and memory across the land.

The mountains and rivers were not merely scenery — they were Pangu's transformed body. And that body, even in its new form, remembered what it had been. Every stone, every stream, every tree participated in the grieving, offering back to the creator some echo of the life he had given them.

Mountains and rivers weep together. The world's geography was not just a landscape — it was a memorial, and every feature of it was engraved with the name of the one who had made it.