Primordial Era: Starting by overwhelming the Sages, Hongjun was stunned!

Upon hearing this, the calm indifference deep within Hongjun Daozu's eyes suddenly froze.

Beneath the cloud platform, the flow of the chaotic starry sky seemed to slow down by half a beat.

The illusory images of the three thousand worlds swayed slightly.

He slowly raised his eyes and looked at the figure in black robes sitting opposite him.

Kong Xuan remained calm, with a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. The smile was not mocking, but rather a knowing indifference.

"unwise?"

Hongjun's voice remained calm, but there was a very subtle, almost imperceptible fluctuation.

He has been in harmony with the Dao for countless eons, his divine thoughts merging with the Dao of Heaven. The rise and fall of all things in the primordial world, and the entanglements of cause and effect, are all within his single thought.

He believed he had already figured out Kong Xuan's background, origins, and cause and effect.

The son of Yuan Feng, the last bloodline of the Phoenix Clan, he bears the immense karma of suppressing the Undying Volcano and the residual karma of the Dragon-Han Calamity.

By joining the Jie Sect, one receives the protection of Tongtian and can use the sect's fortune to offset some of one's karma.

To attain the Primordial Chaos and transcend the Heavenly Dao is nothing more than a desire to break free from shackles, rescue one's mother from her predicament, and end the generations-long entanglement between the Phoenix Clan and the Yin Shang Dynasty, and with the Primordial World.

This obsession firmly pinned Kong Xuan to this primordial chessboard.

That's why Hongjun dared to tacitly allow him to slaughter saints and to indulge him in disrupting the Investiture of the Gods game.

Because of his obsession, Kong Xuan wouldn't actually destroy the chessboard.

But now, Kong Xuan says... he miscalculated?

Where did we go wrong?

Hongjun spoke slowly, his body surrounded by a silent flow of purple energy, and the branches and leaves of the ancient tree behind him, which seemed to support the sky, moved without wind.

Kong Xuan did not answer immediately.

He raised his hand, and a wisp of chaotic energy swirled and vanished at his fingertips, evolving into a scene of the five elements rotating and returning to the primordial chaos.

"The Dao Ancestor believed that by seeing through my cause and effect, he had seen through me as a person."

"I believed that everything I did was to atone for the sins of the Phoenix Clan, to rescue Yuan Feng, and to protect the Jie Sect and the Yin Shang Dynasty."

"I thought these obsessions were my everything, my shackles, and also the threads you could use to control me..."

He paused, then raised his eyes, his gaze sharp as lightning, piercing straight at Hongjun:

"Unfortunately, the Dao Ancestor was wrong."

"From beginning to end, what I wanted was not to be a piece with deep-seated obsessions on this primordial chessboard."

"What I want..."

Kong Xuan spoke slowly and deliberately, his voice not loud, yet it struck the endless starry sky above Zixiao Palace like a heavy hammer:

"They overturned the chessboard."

"To redefine... the rules of heaven and earth."

After he finished speaking, the Purple Cloud Palace fell into a deathly silence.

Deep within Hongjun's pupils, the indifference that had remained unshaken for billions of years finally showed a crack.

He was silent.

The ancient tree shadow behind him swayed more and more violently, and the world projection supported by the three thousand branches flickered, as if it had been subjected to some kind of invisible impact.

a long time.

Hongjun slowly exhaled a long breath, which transformed into a tangible purple-gold Dao pattern that hovered in the starry sky for a moment before slowly dissipating.

"To redefine the rules of heaven and earth..."

He repeated these six words, each one seemingly carrying immense weight.

"Do you know that the rules of heaven and earth were established by the great god Pangu when he created the world, and have become ironclad laws after being evolved by the way of heaven?"

"Even if I were to attain the Dao, I could only adapt and make minor adjustments, but I could not...completely change it."

"Although you have attained the Primordial Chaos and wielded the Great Dao, you are still not yet at your peak."

"How can we possibly change the world?"

The final question, carrying an aura of divine authority, spread silently.

The entire chaotic starry sky seemed to be pressing towards Kong Xuan, with every star radiating dazzling light, and countless phantoms of Dao chains appearing and disappearing in the void, attempting to lock him up and suppress him.

This is the instinctive rejection of Heaven!

however.

Beneath Kong Xuan, the Chaos Lotus Platform slowly emerged.

The lotus blooms in twelve petals, each one a chaotic mess.

Within the lotus heart, the illusory image of the Five Elements Great Dao River flows ceaselessly. Although only one-tenth of it is manifested, it carries an primordial aura that transcends all laws.

The oppressive force of the starry sky, upon touching the halo of the lotus platform, melted away like ice and snow meeting the sun.

The countless illusory chains of Dao principles broke and disintegrated on their own when they were only three zhang away from Kong Xuan.

"On what grounds?"

Kong Xuan smiled.

He slowly rose and stood on the lotus platform, his black robes fluttering in the starry sky without wind.

Behind him, the divine light of chaos silently manifested.

It was no longer the mighty torrent it had been during battles, but rather condensed into an ancient, restrained halo of chaotic light, hanging behind the head.

The halo rotated slowly, and with each rotation, countless miniature chaotic worlds were created and destroyed within it, while three thousand phantom images of demon gods rose and fell in worship.

"Because I am walking the Great Path of Primordial Chaos."

"Based on what I cultivate, it is the origin of the Five Elements."

"As for me... I don't want my mother to be forever imprisoned in a volcano, weeping blood for billions of years, all for the sake of so-called 'atonement'."

"I do not want the Jie Sect, with its myriad immortals paying homage, to have its lineage wither and its disciples perish because of a single Investiture of the Gods."

"I don't want these primordial beings to become an excuse for the Heavenly Dao to cleanse them during every great calamity!"

Kong Xuan's voice suddenly rose, booming like thunder in every corner of Zixiao Palace:

"Dao Ancestor, you have aligned yourself with the Heavenly Dao, seeking the continuation of the primordial world."

"But what are you continuing?"

"It's a prison that's constantly decaying, constantly saturating itself, and constantly clinging to life by plundering its own resources!"

"Were the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin clans wrong? Were the Witch and Demon clans wrong? Were the three sects of Xuanmen wrong?"

"They may be guilty, but not guilty enough... to make the entire race and the entire lineage sacrificed to fill the hole in the Heavenly Dao!"

He stepped off the lotus platform, stood in the starry sky, and looked directly at Hongjun:

"The variable you need is a new force that can break the cycle."

"But what I want is to completely shatter this cycle itself!"

"I will settle the karmic debts of the Phoenix Clan, save the Primordial Phoenix, protect the Jie Sect, and revive the Yin Shang Dynasty... I will do these things."

"But what happens after it's done?"

The chaotic energy swirled in Kong Xuan's eyes, as if he could see through to the endless future:

"Following your path will only lead to a repetition of the same old story."

"Today I protected the Jie Sect and destroyed the Chan Sect and the Western Sect. But what about the future? Will there be a new calamity, a new purge, that falls upon the Jie Sect? Upon the Phoenix Clan? Upon me, Kong Xuan?"

"As long as these rules remain, as long as this natural order exists, there will be no end!"

Hongjun remained silent.

The ancient tree shadow behind him had stopped swaying at some point.

The projections of the three thousand worlds also returned to peace.

However, on the tree trunk, there was a faint trace of... decay that had never been seen before.

"so......"

Hongjun finally spoke again, his voice devoid of emotion:

"You slaughtered the Four Saints not out of anger or personal vendetta."

"Or...does he have ulterior motives?"

Upon hearing this, Kong Xuan nodded slightly.

His gaze swept over the illusory image of the ancient tree supporting the sky behind Hongjun, and over the projection of the three thousand worlds. His voice was calm, yet carried a sharp insight that seemed to know everything:

"Dao Ancestor, you must already know..."

"The primordial world should have been jointly governed by the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity."

"And the revival of the Heavenly Way is the earliest and the most powerful."

"The Earthly Path was only allowed to revive by the Heavenly Path to avoid detection by the Great Dao. Even after revival, it is still confined to the Underworld."

"As for humanity... it is still dormant."

As soon as the words were spoken, the chaotic starry sky within the Purple Cloud Palace suddenly froze.

The projections of the three thousand worlds all dimmed for a moment.