Chapter Two Hundred Three: The Source of Myriad Things — All Come from Pangu

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

Everything in the world — every mountain, every river, every tree, every creature, every soul — traced its origin back to Pangu. The physical world was his body transformed. The spiritual world was his soul diffused. The laws that governed both were his will made manifest. There was nothing in Heaven or Earth that did not, in some fundamental way, come from him.

This was no doctrine. This was the truth of flesh and earth. The strength in every bone had once been part of Pangu's skeleton. The iron-red warmth in every drop of blood had once circulated through Pangu's veins. The breath in every chest had once filled Pangu's lungs. The light that warmed every face had once blazed in Pangu's eyes.

Future civilizations would forget this. They would invent gods and myths to explain their origins, unaware that the truth was simpler and more profound than any myth. They were not created by a distant deity who had withdrawn to heaven. They were made from the literal substance of the creator, who had given his body to become their world and his soul to become their spirit.

The source of the Myriad Things — all come from Pangu. This was the first truth, the deepest truth, the truth that underlay every other truth. And though it would be forgotten and rediscovered a thousand times across the ages, it would never cease to be true.