Chapter Two Hundred One: A New Epoch Begins — Myriad Things at Their Starting Point

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

The new epoch began not with thunder or cataclysm but with a sunrise — the first sunrise of a world that no longer had a creator watching over it. Xiwei rose in the east, and her light fell upon a world that was complete, whole, and ready.

The plants that had been Pangu's body hair stirred in the morning light and continued their slow, patient growth. The rivers that had been his blood flowed onward toward the seas, carrying nourishment and minerals to every corner of the land. The mountains that had been his bones stood against the sky, silent and eternal.

And in the waters, in the soil, in the air — life stirred. The spirit resonances that had been gestating for so long now began their final unfolding. The simplest minute life-forms, already present but dormant, began to divide and multiply. The great chain of life — from tiny water-life to plant, from beast to thinking being — had begun.

The world did not need a creator anymore. It was self-sustaining now, self-renewing, self-aware in its own diffuse way. Pangu had given it everything it needed. The rest was up to the world itself — and to the countless living things that would one day call it home.

A new epoch begins, the Myriad Things at their starting point. The universe was no longer a project. It was a home. And though its builder was gone, he was also everywhere — in every sunrise, in every breath of wind, in every new life that opened its eyes to the light.