"The War of the Myriad Clans broke out, and all clans fought tooth and nail for the position of Sovereign of the Celestial Court! That war raged for millions of years, and more lives were lost than in countless years of combating the Demon Race!" the incarnation of the Heavenly Dao said calmly.

Wang Xiu sighed. "After all the effort to escape the Ancient Gods, they ultimately desired to become Ancient Gods themselves!"

The incarnation of the Heavenly Dao explained, "Rebelling against the Ancient Gods was not necessarily out of hatred. It was simply because the Ancient Gods were not them. All living beings were created by the Ancient Gods, so in their hearts, the highest achievement... was to become one themselves."

The Heavenly Dao's incarnation continued its narration. "In that war, two-thirds of the Myriad Clans were completely wiped out! The power of the Celestial Court was weakened to the extreme!

"Hidden agents of the Ancient Gods among the clans seized the opportunity to rebel, colluding with the Demon Race from within and without. Of the six remaining demigods, five died in battle! With that, the Celestial Court collapsed!

"The minions of the Ancient Gods found the location of the Heavenly Gates and, following their masters' guidance, built a Divine Mountain that reached into the heavens, naming it Mount Buzhou. All they had to do was reach the peak, use the methods passed down by the Ancient Gods, and offer the blood of countless living beings to open the Heavenly Gates and welcome their descent!

"It was then that the last demigod stood forth! His name was Gonggong. At the cost of his own life, he smashed the Divine Mountain mid-ritual, causing it to fail. The heavens collapsed and the earth shattered!

"An Ancient God who was in the midst of descending had half of its body severed by the interruption and failed to arrive successfully. Coincidentally, that very Ancient God was the source of the half-bloodline of the Ancient Gods within Gonggong's own body!

"He used that part of the Ancient God's body, burning his own life to transform into an unprecedented, cataclysmic flood. The flood swept up all the Ancient Gods' minions and the powerful warriors of the Demon Race who were present, entombing them to die with him!"

As the incarnation of the Heavenly Dao finished speaking, the scene on the light screen before Wang Xiu changed in real time. A flood blotted out the sun, its waves tens of thousands of feet high and as black as ink. It contained a destructive divine power, and wherever it passed, even the mightiest beings perished and their bodies were reduced to withered bones.

After Gonggong died, the great flood raged out of control. It swept not only across the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths but also flowed into the Demon Realm, washing it clean as well. Nine out of ten living beings in the world were gone, leaving only a handful of survivors. The entire world seemed to have restarted an era, returning to desolation and darkness as it sank into Chaos.

「After an untold number of years, the great flood finally dissipated.」

New life began to sprout from the death-choked land. The survivors of the disaster descended from the high mountains and emerged from their caves, spreading across the earth and beginning to multiply.

One day, a young man of the Human Race was preparing to go up a mountain to chop wood when the mountain before him suddenly split apart in a great earthquake. Boulders rained down, eventually revealing a colossal corpse. It was as large as a mountain and had clearly been dead for countless ages. The youth approached cautiously. Suddenly, the corpse began to glow, burning brightly until it transformed into a speck of light that shot into him.

After a long time, the youth opened his eyes, his mind filled with innumerable images from a time long, long ago. Those memories belonged to a demigod named Pan. The youth's eyes grew clear. He now understood the truth of the world and felt a heavy burden settle upon his shoulders. He added the name of that demigod to his own. He was now called Pangu.

He had inherited the accumulated enlightenment and research on cultivation from all the races of the ancient Celestial Court. So, he walked out of the desolate mountains and into the vast Savage Wilderness, where he began to teach the methods of cultivation to all living beings. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

「Countless years passed in the blink of an eye.」

The land once again became prosperous and vibrant. With Pangu's teachings, the beings of the new era no longer had to learn through slow and painful trial and error. Their strength grew with incredible speed, and they soon created a great and flourishing civilization. Perhaps influenced by the ideals of the demigod Pan, Pangu advocated for teaching without discrimination. He took on countless disciples, never caring about their race. He traveled everywhere, spreading his teachings far and wide, and came to be revered as the Ancestral Teacher.

One day, he tore through the void and traveled to the Demon Realm, intending to eradicate this hidden threat. He had assumed the Demon Realm would not have recovered so quickly from the great flood, yet he discovered that it, too, was thriving, with no shortage of powerful experts. Fortunately, none were stronger than him. He slaughtered nearly all the powerful warriors of the Demon Race, eventually arriving before a Blood Pool. It was called the Ancestral Demon Pool—the very source of all demons.

The Ancestral Demon Pool was a creation of cosmic laws, forged by the hands of the Ancient Gods. As long as the pool existed, demons would continue to be born into the world, an endless tide that could never be fully exterminated.

Pangu glanced at it once and turned to leave. He knew he could not destroy the Ancestral Demon Pool. When he left the Demon Realm, a child of the Demon Race was with him.

The Ancient Gods' intervention in the Lower Realm never ceased. Every so often, agents of the Ancient Gods would emerge among the various races. Bewitched by the Ancient Gods and craving the power they promised, these agents would serve them wholeheartedly, trying to open the Heavenly Gates. Fortunately, they were stopped every time.

But as the saying goes, one can be a thief for a thousand days, but one cannot guard against a thief for a thousand days. The infiltration of the Ancient Gods was silent and nearly impossible to prevent. Just monitoring the clans from within consumed most of their energy, not to mention the Demon Race, which was constantly growing stronger.

Even now, with the clans mighty and the Ancestral Teacher Pangu presiding over all, his power shaking the heavens and making him invincible, the Demon Race did not dare to invade. But how long could such a situation last? The Ancient Gods have endless lifespans; they can afford to make countless mistakes.