Di Jiang's eyes narrowed as the Void settled into a tense, vibrating silence. After a long moment, a sharp sneer broke his composure. "Forget it. I'll spare their lives... for now."
His gaze lingered on the three specks of gold on the Sun Star. Two possessed auras he considered unremarkable, but the one in the center—the third crow—was inscrutable, a deep pool whose bottom he couldn't see.
Still, Di Jiang dismissed the unease. The Three Crows shared the same origin; even if one was an outlier, the gap couldn't be insurmountable. As Hou Tu had reasoned, their crusade against the Pure Ones was a holy war for Pangu's legacy. Moving against the Crows now would look like a mindless slaughter, a move that might force the other Great Powers into a corner and incite a unified rebellion.
"We're leaving!" Di Jiang commanded, turning his back on the sun. The other Witches followed, their massive forms fading into the horizon like retreating storm clouds.
"They're finally gone."
On the Sun Star, Di Jun and Tai Yi let out breaths they hadn't realized they were holding. The atmosphere had been a taut wire, a hair's breadth away from snapping into a total war. Only those who had stood in the direct path of the Twelve Ancestral Witches knew the sheer, suffocating weight of their presence.
"I'm going into seclusion," Di Jun said, his voice unusually heavy. "I will not emerge until I reach the Grand Unity Golden Immortal Perfection."
The day had been a series of humiliations for the eldest brother. Not only was he weaker than his younger siblings, but he couldn't even stand as an equal to the Witches. It was a bitter pill he was no longer willing to swallow.
"Count me in," Tai Yi added, his usual fire replaced by a cold, sharp focus.
Ling Xiao watched them go with a faint smile. The Witches had done what he couldn't: they had ignited a genuine, existential fire in his brothers. Fear was a far better teacher than advice.
"I suppose it's time for me to get back to work as well."
Ling Xiao settled beneath the Fusang Tree. Here, the Law of Yang was at its most concentrated, and the Law of Fire pulsed from the core of the star like a heartbeat. He had already reached the Late Stage of the Grand Unity Golden Immortal realm through these two paths. Now, he turned his focus to the data he had harvested from the battlefield.
He replayed the clash between the Witches and the Pure Ones in his mind, thousands of times over. With the Chaos Pearl as his processor and the battle as his map, he began to digest the Three Thousand Laws.
Three thousand years passed in the blink of an eye.
In the world below, the friction between the Witch Clan and the Myriad Tribes had turned into a grinding war of attrition. The tribes were learning. They couldn't win a direct fight, so they moved like smoke—hit-and-run tactics, relocating their nests, and vanishing into the vastness of the Great Desolation. The Witches were jumping with rage, but they were punching shadows.
On the Sun Star, Ling Xiao opened his eyes.
A crackle of lightning flickered in his pupils—a single wisp of violet energy that tore a jagged hole in the local Void. It carried the scent of both creation and absolute annihilation.
"The Law of Thunder..." Ling Xiao whispered.
The destructive power of this new insight was immense. He pointed a finger, and a stream of clear Qi coalesced on the ground before him. Thunder surged through the Qi, molding it into a human form identical to himself.
"One Qi Transforms into Three Crows!"
He tapped the air again. Fire and Earth Origin forces surged out, forming the likenesses of Di Jun and Tai Yi. This was the system-rewarded version of Laozi's signature move, but where Laozi's clones were often mere phantoms designed for deception, Ling Xiao's creations possessed ninety percent of his own combat prowess.
He quickly withdrew the clones, not wanting his brothers to stumble upon their own doppelgängers and suffer a heart attack. He suspected Laozi's version of this skill involved tampering with his brothers' origins before they were even born. Ling Xiao, being the last to manifest, had no such advantage—but with the System's version, he didn't need it.
Suddenly, a premonition shivered down his spine. He turned his gaze toward the West.
The horizon there was changing color. The clouds were swirling in a massive, golden vortex, as if the very Luck of the world was being siphoned toward a single point.
The Western Great Desolation, Mount Sumeru.
Jieyin and Zhunti sat atop the jagged peaks, their faces illuminated by the fading light of the sun. They had spent these three millennia digesting every word the Dao Ancestor had spoken in Zixiao Palace, and now, they had glimpsed a path forward.
By binding their destiny to the broken, barren lands of the West, they could harvest a power that the pampered elites of the East couldn't touch.
"Brother," Jieyin said, his face naturally twisted into a look of profound sorrow. "If we make the Grand Vows and bear the burden of the West's Luck, the benefits will be immeasurable. But the price..."
"Strength is all that matters, Senior Brother," Zhunti interrupted, his voice tight. He unconsciously raised a hand to his cheek, feeling the phantom ache where Ling Xiao had once knocked his teeth into the dirt. The memory was as fresh as a new wound. "I will do anything to regain our dignity."
"Excellent."
The two brothers tapped their foreheads. Their 'Three Flowers' bloomed—not in the vibrant colors of the East, but with a pungent, profound fragrance that swept through the Western lands.
A voice, compassionate yet heavy with a strange, bitter weight, spread across the world.
"From this day forth, all living beings in the West may come under my sect and receive protection. All who recite my name shall find enlightenment and support!"
In the Void above Mount Sumeru, a colossal image of Daoist Jieyin manifested, reaching into the eternal blue. A brilliant golden vortex opened in the sky, raining down rays of Karma. The Luck of the West, long dormant and scattered, began to coalesce around the two brothers.
Their cultivation, which had been stalled at the Late Stage, began to surge violently toward Perfection.