Chapter Seventy-Four: The Aberration of Turbid Qi, the Savage Fiend
Volume Two: The Separation of Clear and Turbid — The First Opening of Heaven and Earth
Heaven and Earth held not only bright signs and hidden vitality. At the same time that those faint glimmers were spreading across the face of the Great Earth, Pangu perceived, in the deepest reaches underground, another kind of change. This change did not come from the upper strata, where clear qi suffused the air, but from the lowest strata, where turbid qi had settled. The residual turbid qi that had been pressed into the deepest layers across nine thousand years of compression and settling was undergoing a subtle and ominous mutation.
Pangu drove his Spirit-Consciousness downward — through the solidifying rock-strata, through the slow-flowing, searing-hot Earth Veins, into those extreme depths where even his perception began to blur. Near the earth's core, he perceived the source of those stirrings. They were existences utterly unlike their surroundings — not pure turbid qi, not fragmented remnants of Chaos, but something that had metamorphosed from the substratum of turbid qi, having acquired a new nature. They were faint and indistinct, like unformed, restless dreams deep underground — without consciousness, without purpose, yet already possessing an instinctive, outward-pushing repulsive force, as though something were growing within them, straining to break free from the sealed darkness.
Pangu carefully distinguished the aura of these existences. They were absorbing the heat of the Great Earth, absorbing the energy flowing through the Earth Veins, absorbing the faint life-aura that naturally seeped from the crevices of his own body. That life-aura was inherently harmless — merely the residual energy his body naturally dispersed during the long ages of supporting the heavens, like the white mist drifting from a person's mouth and nose as they breathe, too faint to affect anything. Yet within those subterranean turbid qi substrata, twisted and reforged by the turbid qi, that dispersed life-aura was being transformed into something utterly contrary to his original intent — like pure water flowing through mineral-rich rock-strata, emerging at the outlet as an entirely different liquid.
He did not continue deeper investigation. Not because he was indifferent to those stirrings — their existence filled him with a faint, foreboding unease, like a planter who discovers an unknown seed in his field, uncertain what it might grow into — but because he knew the time for that was not now. Heaven and Earth had only reached the halfway point; he still had nine thousand years of support ahead. Those stirrings deep underground were the dark face of this world, the shadow that light must inevitably cast, destined to grow alongside Heaven and Earth as they matured. But that was a chapter to be opened only in a far-distant future. He needed only to confirm their existence, record their locations and state in his heart, and then return his attention to the fundamental duty of supporting Heaven and Earth.
Pangu laid a simple seal around the periphery of those aberrant masses. Sustained by what remained of his Primordial Source, the seal locked that stirring turbid qi deep underground, preventing it from rising prematurely to the surface. He knew the seal would not hold forever — in his current condition, it could maintain itself for only a limited span before gradually unraveling as his Primordial Source continued to ebb away. But it was all he could do for now. He could not divert too much strength to this matter, for he still had to hold up the Celestial Dome. He could only buy Heaven and Earth some time, so that by the moment the seal failed, the world would have grown more stable — and a Heaven and Earth thus matured would be better equipped than he alone to face what surged up from the depths.
He cast one final glance toward the deepest interior of the earth. Those aberrant existences writhed slowly in the darkness, like dormant things sunken in the deep strata, awaiting, in their long slumber, the hour of awakening. Pangu did not fear them — they were an indivisible part of Heaven and Earth, as natural as darkness being light's shadow, as cold being heat's opposite. He merely confirmed their existence, sensed their state, then withdrew his Spirit-Consciousness and refocused on the height of the Celestial Dome and those faint glimmers of vitality upon the Great Earth. Those things in the depths — they would appear when it was time for them to appear, just as the Myriad Things would be born when it was time for them to be born. That was part of the cosmic ordinance; he need not trouble himself over it.
The aberration of Turbid Qi — the Savage Fiend. It was a seed buried in the depths, a thread planted in the latter half of this second volume, not to be truly unfurled until chapters far, far ahead. For now, it needed only to lie quietly in the deepest reaches of the earth, silently transforming in the darkness, awaiting, in the deep strata, the hour that belonged to it.
The aura emitted by those turbid qi masses mutating deep underground was distinctive — not the sour, fetid odor of Chaos, nor the neutral scent of the Clear-Turbid blend, but something Pangu had never before experienced, carrying a pungent, acrid sharpness. The odor was so intense that even across layer upon layer of rock, his sense of smell could capture it. Turbid qi was undergoing a qualitative change — not simple gathering or displacement, but a transformation of its fundamental nature under some external influence, evolving in a direction even he could not predict.
A subtle correlation existed between the mutation-rate of those turbid qi masses and the activity on Heaven and Earth's surface — when the Celestial Dome rose faster, the mutation rate slowed; when the dome's ascent slowed, the mutation rate accelerated. The higher the level of activity across the face of Heaven and Earth, the weaker the aberration underground; when surface activity diminished, the subterranean aberration intensified. It was as though Heaven and Earth's energy were being apportioned between surface vitality and subterranean latency.
Within the limits of his physical strength, Pangu laid a layer of 'camouflage' — composed of substances similar in composition to turbid qi — above the regions where the aberration was most active. This was not a seal — it did not block the movement of turbid qi or suppress the mutation. What it did was fill the external surroundings perceived by those aberrant masses with the same turbid-qi components as themselves, thereby lowering their alertness and activity. Just as wild animals relax their vigilance when they scent their own kind, so too did those aberrant masses, under the effect of the camouflage layer, show a slight deceleration in their mutation rate.
Over the long ages of his surveillance, those aberrant masses deep underground displayed one characteristic — they possessed an extraordinarily strong affinity for absorbing the Great Earth's heat, like thirst-crazed plants frantically drinking in water. That heat, once inside the masses, was not preserved, but was converted into a different form of energy — a bizarre energy Pangu had never before perceived, simultaneously bone-chilling cold and searing hot. The internal contradiction of that energy unsettled him — not because of its power, but because it defied every law of energy he knew.
Pangu sought, within the heat absorbed by the Great Earth, the root cause of those aberrant masses' formation. He discovered that their source was not the direct mutation of Chaos remnants — they had evolved from the transitional-state substances that had been marginalized during the Clear-Turbid separation, substances that belonged fully to neither clarity nor turbidity. After Clear and Turbid had each returned to their respective domains, those transitional-state substances had lost their foothold — unable to ascend to the heavens, unable to settle into the earth, they could only remain suspended for ages within an interlayer deep underground, until at last, across the long years, they evolved on their own into an entirely new, independent form of existence.
The speed with which those aberrant masses deep underground absorbed earth-fire energy astonished Pangu — in the same span of time, they absorbed several times the energy of an equal volume of ordinary turbid qi. That energy, once inside the masses, caused neither expansion nor temperature increase, but was stored in a manner Pangu could not decipher — as though a seemingly modest container had been filled with far more than its volume should permit. That high-thickness energy-storage state made the interiors of those masses look like energy-orbs compressed to their utmost limit: placid on the outside, yet containing an energy-thickness within that was shockingly high.
At times, during his long labor of supporting the heavens, a chill would sweep across Pangu's back — not a coolness from the Celestial Dome, not a cold from the Great Earth, but an extremely low, deep vibration traveling upward from that zone of aberration in the deepest earth. The vibration was so faint as to be nearly undetectable, yet whenever he perceived it, his body would instinctively shudder — not a reaction to cold, but a primal wariness toward those aberrant existences in the depths. That shudder was not fear, but the most instinctive self-protective response of a living being confronting the unknown.