Chapter 470

Kamikawa Mitsu froze.

That voice felt familiar, like flowing water, gurgling.

It simply appeared out of nowhere, right before him.

Primordial Five Greats??

In Huáguó, people know the myth of Pangu splitting the heavens; it is said that in the era when Pangu was born, heaven and earth were not yet heaven and earth—they existed as a single chaos, with no separation between sky and land, the world entirely formless.

Then Pangu swung his axe, cleaving the chaos, prying it apart; with his hands he pushed the chaos upward to form heaven, and with his feet he pressed the chaos downward to form earth.

One could say all existence originated from chaos.

First came chaos, then the separation of heaven and earth—this is the origin of the world as people understand it.

To all beings, the world's absolute beginning was chaos.

But is this truly so? The answer is no; Huáguó's divine histories record that before chaos came the Primordial Five Greats.

The world's absolute beginning was not chaos; before chaos stood the Primordial Five Greats, even more ancient than chaos.

What are the Primordial Five Greats?

According to records: Tai Yi, Tai Chu, Tai Shi, Tai Su, Tai Ji—these are the Primordial Five Greats; only after them came chaos, and only after chaos did heaven and earth separate, giving birth to all celestial worlds.

Is there a connection between Tai Chu within the Primordial Five Greats and the Tai Chu Era?

Yes.

The Tai Chu Era gave birth to life; more precisely, it birthed the world's first living beings.

The early phase of the Tai Chu Era was precisely Tai Chu of the Primordial Five Greats; the middle and late phases of the Tai Chu Era were Tai Shi, Tai Su, and Tai Ji.

This era is called the Tai Chu Era, not the Tai Ji Era, Tai Shi Era, or Primordial Five Greats Era, for one reason alone: the world's first living beings were born in the Tai Chu Era; no life existed in the preceding Tai Yi Era.

Thus it cannot be called the Primordial Five Greats Era; and because the Tai Chu Era is the earliest era from which life can be traced, it was named Tai Chu, not Tai Shi, Tai Su, or Tai Ji.

These smaller epochs are classified within the Tai Chu Era.

Of course, the point is not this; the point is, according to Huáguó's divine myths, before chaos stood the Primordial Five Greats—was Tai Yi of the Primordial Five Greats the world's absolute beginning?

No.

The world's absolute beginning was void.

Nothing existed—not air, not space-time, not time, not even the Dao.

After an unfathomable span of time, void transformed into Tai Yi, giving rise to space-time, time, the Dao… and only then did life emerge in Tai Chu.

At this moment.

Kamikawa Mitsu gazed ahead, his expression slightly strange.

He understood the origin of the world; thus, the change before him instantly revealed where he was.

"Did the Gate of Reincarnation bring me… to the world's absolute beginning, the void? Or is it showing me the evolution of the world, starting from the primordial void?"

He stared fixedly.

Before him, something was gestating—drops of water were gathering.

Those drops were not water; they were Dao, they were time, they were air—taking the shape of water droplets before Kamikawa Mitsu.

"So this is why the River of Time takes the form of a river, not something like a Mountain of Time or a Train of Time? In the Tai Yi Era, all forms were water."

Unbidden, Kamikawa Mitsu recalled a folk saying.

Water is the source of life; all things in the world cannot exist without water.

It seems the ancients did not deceive me; perhaps the reason water is the source of life is not merely because it sustains life—its deeper meaning points to the primordial transformation of Tai Yi.

In his thoughts, the water droplets before him changed.

Logically, the transformation of the Tai Yi Era should be a long process—but now, as if its progress bar had been accelerated a trillionfold, the changes sped up to a pace instantly visible to the naked eye.

One drop after another gathered; the droplets became small puddles, then small ponds, then small pools, slowly evolving into streams.

If this transformation continued, it would eventually become a river.

Perhaps, if it continued further, the river might become something else—but Kamikawa Mitsu had not yet confirmed it; so far, the world remained in the state of the River of Time.

Yet in his view, the River of Time could no longer evolve.

The River of Time had been severed, rendered incomplete, unable to continue evolving.

If the River of Time could be restored, perhaps it might evolve further—but into what, Kamikawa Mitsu did not know.

Soon.

When the water droplets became small puddles, Kamikawa Mitsu saw.

The puddle was like a mirror—as if the puddle contained not water, but an entire realm, a true heaven and earth!

"The Tai Chu Era…"

Kamikawa Mitsu's deep eyes gleamed—he now understood: the Tai Chu of the Primordial Five Greats, the so-called early Tai Chu Era, was exactly this? The world within the puddle was the Tai Chu Era.

"It seems some Huáguó myths are not merely legends or human imagination."

Seeing the heaven and earth of the Tai Chu Era, he recalled the chaos that followed the Primordial Five Greats.

Huáguó mythology speaks of Pangu splitting heaven and earth—but if heaven and earth already existed in the Tai Chu Era, how could there be a later tale of Pangu splitting them?

Perhaps Pangu's act of splitting heaven and earth was not the creation of the world itself, but the forging of a world—like the Immortals or the Supreme, who could casually craft a realm.

Or perhaps Pangu split the heavens and earth of the late Tai Chu Era, after they had shattered.

Kamikawa Mitsu did not forget: the First Divine Spirit had destroyed the Primordial Realm of the Tai Chu Era due to his obsession with cleanliness.

After a brief hesitation, Kamikawa Mitsu stepped forward, drawing near the puddle—the Tai Chu world within it appeared in his mind's eye.

It was merely a small puddle.

Yet within it…

Heaven had no limit; earth had no edge.

Vast, ancient, eternal matter filled everywhere—just breathing here for a few days could extend one's life by hundreds of years; beings born here would likely possess naturally long lifespans—living a few thousand years would be considered short-lived, while tens of thousands would be common.

Great medicines litter the ground, yet even dogs won't eat them; divine herbs and immortal herbs cover every mountain and field.

Towering Taichu mountains rise one after another, ancient pines vast and desolate, their heights unknown by tens of millions of zhang; some mighty ridges between them unleash colossal, majestic waterfalls that crash down, shaking the earth for ten thousand li with reverberations, and in the impact of their fall, give birth to entire worlds.

That destructive force was like the collision of cosmic laws, comparable to the gestation of earth, wind, water, and fire, the evolution of chaos.

Birth and death, cycling endlessly.

If all sentient beings saw this, they would surely curse aloud.

This is too terrifying—they spent their entire lives in warfare, fighting through blood and sweat, enduring countless hardships to reach their current realm, yet all they could manage was carving out dependent paradises and blessed lands upon the foundation of the world itself; whether they would ever have the chance in this lifetime to forge an independent world remains unknown.

Yet here, a single waterfall from Taichu just… smashed out countless worlds.

Is opening heaven and earth this simple?

Where are earth, wind, water, and fire?

Where is cosmic law?

Even the Immortals, upon seeing this, would ache for hours—every one who reached Immortality was an invincible titan of their age, each forged through blood and fire, countless trials of life and death.

Frankly speaking, no one dares claim they reached Immortality without effort; all paid dearly in hardship to attain it, gaining the transcendent power to open and establish independent worlds.

Yet in Taichu, their proudest ability—creating worlds—was utterly ordinary; a single waterfall could accomplish it.

It's simply too devastating.

……