Chapter Thirty-Seven: Tearing Chaos Apart, Breaking Through to Open Heaven and Earth

Volume Two: The Separation of Clear and Turbid — The First Opening of Heaven and Earth

Pangu stood before the fissure.

The fissure had appeared of its own accord — when his Spirit Embryo had expanded to the limit the Chaos Egg could no longer contain, the first crack split open on the Void Shell. That crack was fine as a strand of hair, allowing only a single thread of Void's breath to seep through. But in Pangu's perception, it was like a door.

He did not hesitate. He thrust both hands into that fissure, his fingers gripping its two sides, and then he exerted force.

He had never poured his full strength into anything before — his clashes with Mingdun, though fierce, had been only instinctive reactions, hardly counting as all-out effort. This time was different. This time it was an act he had actively chosen, consciously willed. He concentrated all the strength of his body into his arms.

The Chaos Egg emitted a deep roar. It was a vibration that shook directly at the level of the Spirit-Soul — Chaos was refusing to be torn. For the first time in the Eternal Ages, someone was trying to break this egg. The shell resisted.

Pangu did not let go. His knuckles turned white; his newly condensed muscles tightened against his bones. The fissure began to widen under his strength. Cracks spread in all directions from his two hands as their center, covering the entire surface of the Void Shell like a spiderweb.

Then, the Chaos Egg shattered.

Like an eggshell cracked open from within, it split outward. Fragments drifted away in all directions. chaotic qi surged violently from the breaches, like a flood bursting through a dike, rushing toward that void which had never been touched.

Pangu stood at the center of the rupture. Half his body remained inside the Chaos Egg; half extended outward. His feet still rested on the inner wall of the egg; his upper body had already emerged from the world he had inhabited for the Eternal Ages.

Outside, there was nothing. No light, no sound, no temperature, no qi. It was a void more absolute than Chaos — in Chaos, there had at least been qi vortices and energy currents; outside, there was only pure space containing nothing whatsoever.

Pangu stood at the boundary between Void and Chaos. The boundary had been broken.

Pangu's two hands were sunk deep into the fissure of the Void Shell; that resistance rising from the depths of Chaos was like living muscle trying to clamp a wound shut. He tore to both sides; each increment of force widened the fissure by one increment. When the fissure had widened enough for his entire body to pass through, chaotic qi surged forth from both his sides like a sluice gate thrown open. That qi churned and spun around his body, producing sounds he had never heard in the Chaos Era — not the hum of Chaos, but the howl of air rushing at high speed. For the first time, he experienced true motion — high-speed, violent motion, not the slow creeping of Chaos.

The released chaotic qi formed a great vortex around him. Pangu stood at the center of that vortex, watching that qi spin, collide, and tear at speeds he had never witnessed. His body was acclimating to this new surroundings — his skin perceived the tactile sensation of wind; his body felt the direction of air currents.

He lowered his head and looked at his feet. They still rested on the shattered inner wall of the egg — those textures, old and familiar, which he had taken an eternity of ages to grow accustomed to, were now disintegrating. Where he stepped, they crumbled into smaller fragments, and those fragments drifted silently into Void, like flower petals sinking into still water.

He took a step. One foot left the inner wall of the egg and landed upon a larger fragment in Void. That fragment tilted slightly under his weight, but held. He steadied himself.

He stood now in Void. His body had fully left the Chaos Egg. He stood upon a large fragment still drifting, with an expanding belt of debris around him, and farther beyond, pure Void.

Standing upon that fragment, Pangu slowly turned a full circle. He saw the full face of the Chaos Egg shattered — from the outside, the egg was already broken into pieces, no longer a whole sphere but a heap of torn shell fragments, revealing the hollow cavity within. That cavity had once been his entire world. Now, it was merely a dissipating wreck behind him.

He felt the faint sway of the fragment beneath his feet, felt the currents around him gradually subsiding after their release, felt the boundless Void in the distance waiting in silence. He could never go back. The era of the Chaos Egg was over. From the moment he stood in Void, the world had already changed.

The fissure was still expanding to both sides, as though pushed by invisible force. Pangu watched that fissure go from a hair-thin line to a palm-wide crack, then from palm-wide to a gap large enough for his entire body to pass through. The howl of chaotic qi surging forth at that gap grew louder and sharper, like the shriek of something being torn apart.

He raised his head and looked toward the world beyond the fissure. Void — pure Void. But in that Void, he saw a kind of possibility — a possibility that had never existed in Chaos. In Chaos, there had only been fullness, only space already filled. In Void, anything could be contained. It could be filled, created, given form.

Before that Void, Pangu felt for the first time an emotion akin to anticipation — an active, forward-facing impulse, a drive to go and do something.

He knew what he must do now.

Pangu drew a deep breath — the first time he had independently inhaled chaotic qi — and then passed fully through the fissure.

He stood in Void.

Void extended silently beneath his feet, spread silently above his head, surrounded him silently on all sides. No direction, no reference, nothing that could be touched — save the shattering shell behind him.

He looked back once. The fragments of the Chaos Egg had already drifted farther away, like a shattered titan-egg tracing a gradually fading outline through Void. Some of those fragments still spun slowly; at their edges, chaotic qi leaked away, like blood seeping from a wound.

Pangu watched those fragments, and memories surged like a tide — they had borne his entire past. The immeasurable ages of the Chaos Era, Mingdun's oppression, one instinctive resistance after another, and this moment of finally breaking through the shell. Those memories were branded into the depths of his Spirit-Soul in a more primal mode — temperature, texture, pressure, cadence.

He could feel those memories fading from his consciousness, because that world was vanishing. The Chaos Egg no longer existed; it had become a past, a memory. And he stood upon its ruins, facing an entirely new, blank world with no history whatsoever.

He turned again toward Void. The void ahead was deeper than what lay behind — no light, no sound, no breath. The chaotic qi inside the Chaos Egg had at least possessed a boundary; Void did not even have boundaries.

But Pangu felt no fear. He simply stood there, feeling the faint buoyancy of the fragment beneath his feet, feeling the breath of Void brushing past his exposed skin. That sensation was neither cold nor warm — it was a completely neutral state of existence.

He flexed his shoulders. The chaotic qi around him flowed, stirred by the motion of his shoulders, forming small wind vortices. Though Chaos was dissipating, the energy it had left behind continued to move. Those movements might perhaps be guided, shaped, given direction.

Pangu clenched his fist. His knuckles produced a crisp cracking sound — that sound propagated through Void in a manner entirely different from Chaos. If he wished, he could make a part of his body emit sound, could create vibrations, could leave traces in Void.

In Void, he spread his arms wide and raised his head toward the infinitely high, infinitely far darkness. The fragments of the Chaos Egg continued drifting behind him; chaotic qi continued seeping from those fragments; the separation of Clear and Turbid had only just begun. His body was acclimating to this entirely new space; his perception was extending toward even farther reaches.

The first step of opening Heaven and Earth — taken.

The residual shell fragments on either side of the fissure still trembled faintly, like muscles at the edge of a wound twitching. Pangu extended a finger and touched the nearest fragment — it was far thinner than the inner wall of the Chaos Egg, as fragile as a dried membrane. The instant his fingertip made contact, that fragment crumbled into still finer motes and silently scattered into Void.

He stood there feeling something he had never before experienced — change. In the Chaos Era, everything had been static. chaotic qi might flow and spin, but that was a cycle — back and forth, round and round, never truly changing. Now, everything was changing. Fragments were drifting, qi was flowing, space was expanding, even he himself stood upon a fragment that was drifting.

All things were in motion.

Pangu lowered his head and looked at the fragment beneath his feet. That fragment was carrying him slowly toward some direction in Void. His body was leaving the remains of the Chaos Egg, drifting ever farther. Ahead was infinite Void; behind was a vanishing past. This was an irreversible inevitability — once opening Heaven and Earth began, it would not stop, just as that fragment would not drift back on its own.

He raised his head and looked toward the Void ahead. His eyes were adapting to the darkness; though he could see nothing, his perception began to penetrate that Void, sensing that it was not truly empty — within Void there existed some potentiality he could not name, like a sheet of blank paper that had never been written upon, awaiting the trace of the first stroke.

Pangu drew a deep breath — that breath entered his body directly from Void, turned one circuit through his chest, and was exhaled again. Void provided no chaotic qi, but his body no longer needed to draw energy from an external source. He was himself the Origin.

He straightened his body. The fragment beneath his feet stopped drifting, as though sensing the shift in his will. His gaze pierced the darkness, looking toward the deeper reaches of Void. The remains of the Chaos Egg had already receded into a blurred shadow; around him remained only endless emptiness and himself.

'Then let it begin', he said to himself.