The land of the Demon Realm knew no mercy.
The sky was dead, a bruised, sickly blue, and the ground was cracked like a parched rice paddy in a drought, coughing up red dust.
Two shadows walked through that desolate canyon.
"Haa... Haa..."
Lucifela's breathing grew rough, and her steps faltered.
In the Heavenly Realm, it would have been a distance covered with a single flap of her wings, but now, only the skeletal remains of wings, half-burnt and blackened, were left on her back.
It was the worst possible situation, with even her divine power leaking out like water from a broken jar.
Enduring the sharp gravel and the demonic energy piercing her lungs, she stumbled and was about to lean against a rock.
"Hey, Feathers. You out of juice again?"
Son Goku, walking ahead, stopped.
With his Ruyi Jingu Bang slung horizontally across his shoulders, he looked back, one corner of his mouth curled in a smirk.
He showed no signs of fatigue.
Rather, he looked bored to death, as if he were out for a leisurely stroll.
"Just a moment... I need a moment. The air in the Demon Realm... is too heavy..."
"Tch. They say angels are tough, but you're soft as tofu. How are you gonna collect all those 'scraps of paper' like that?"
Son Goku clicked his tongue and flopped down onto a rock.
He pulled a shriveled Demon Realm fruit from his robe, wiped it roughly on his clothes, and took a bite.
"Ptooey! Ugh, tastes like garbage. Nothing's decent here. The fruit is bitter, and the guys are weak."
Son Goku threw the fruit away in irritation.
He had come out into the world after 500 years, but there was still no 'fun' to satisfy his wild nature.
At best, there were only petty demons popping out along the road.
Small fry not even worth swinging his Ruyi Jingu Bang at.
"Boring. I'm bored out of my mind. Isn't there anyone worth pulling up a whole mountain and throwing it at?"
Just as Son Goku let out a big yawn.
Whoosh-
Suddenly, the wind direction changed.
The hot wind blowing from the south stopped, and a cool, dry wind came down the canyon from beyond the north.
Instead of the smell of fishy blood, it was the musty smell of death one might find in an old tomb.
"...!"
Lucifela, catching her breath against the rock, sprang up.
Her faded gray-blue eyes trembled.
It wasn't just wind.
The fragment of scripture engraved in her body, or perhaps her angelic intuition that hadn't disappeared even though she had fallen, was screaming.
Thump.
A heavy vibration as if her heart was sinking.
An invisible wave struck her soul.
"The star in the North... has gone out."
Lucifela's voice trembled thinly.
Son Goku tilted his head crookedly.
"Star? What nonsense is this in broad daylight?"
"One of the scripture fragments has fully awakened. But this... is not light. A very cold Abyss has opened its eyes."
Lucifela wrapped her arms around herself.
The northern sky.
To the naked eye, it was just cloudy gray clouds, but to her eyes, it was visible.
The sight of a massive 'Black Sun' ascending, devouring all colors of the world.
"I don't feel... the energy of the living. Only cold, dead silence."
It was as she said.
There was no life in the wind blowing from the north.
An absolute silence of death, where even the sound of insects had ceased.
Son Goku snorted and looked askance at the north.
His pupils momentarily slit vertically, flashing with the golden light of his Fiery Golden Eyes.
"Ah, those boneheads?"
He was already seeing it.
The thick gray aura of death rising from the land far to the north.
"The smell was musty, so I lost my appetite. Let's leave them be. It's no fun playing with guys who are already dead. No impact when you smash them, and they don't even scream."
"But... if we leave that massive power alone, the entire Demon Realm might be covered in death..."
"Worry about yourself, Saintess. You can't even walk properly, and you're worried about others?"
Son Goku waved his hand dismissively and stood up.
"Let's go. Staying here will just ruin my mood."
Just as he was about to take a step.
Skitter, skitter...
It wasn't the sound of wind.
A chilling friction sound like thousands of legs scratching against rock.
And a disturbing noise like a boiling kettle began to leak from the cracks in the canyon rocks.
[...Light...]
[...Hungry... Give me light...]
Too murky to be the cry of a beast, and a bizarre whisper lacking the intelligence of human speech.
"...What is this trashy noise?"
Son Goku's brow furrowed.
Simultaneously, a golden light, bright enough to hurt the eyes, sprang up from the dark shadows of the canyon.
Kieeeeeeek-!
It wasn't just one.
Dozens, no, hundreds of monsters poured out from rock crevices, burrows, and cliffs.
They were low-level Demon Realm creatures like goblins, wolves, and insectoid beasts.
But their forms were horribly twisted.
As a side effect of picking up and eating microscopic fragments of the scripture, their muscles had swollen abnormally like balloons, tearing their skin.
Through the torn flesh, instead of red muscle, unstable golden energy boiled and dripped like lava.
'Golden Devourer'
Walking time bombs with no reason, only destructive instinct and appetite left.
[Saintess... It's light...!]
[Eat... Tear... Eat!]
Greedy golden glints shot out from their empty eye sockets.
Their target wasn't Son Goku.
It was Lucifela, who harbored a faint divine power within her body from the impact with the scripture.
To them, she was a lighthouse in the dark and the most appetizing prey.
"Kyaaak!"
Lucifela screamed and stepped back.
In her current sealed state, she couldn't handle that terrible Hive Mind.
Monsters with jaws open wide enough to dislocate rushed toward her, drooling yellow saliva.
A moment of despair.
A massive shadow was cast before her eyes.
Thud.
A rough, large hand blocked her view.
And a voice, utterly carefree and indifferent, was heard.
"Hey, Feathers."
It was Son Goku.
He yawned widely, loosening his shoulders as if he didn't care at all about the hundreds of monsters swarming behind him.
In his hand, he was already holding the dark red steel staff, the Ruyi Jingu Bang.
"Stand back a bit."
"...Pardon?"
Son Goku winked one eye and grinned.
His canines flashed.
"I'm swatting flies. Don't want guts splattering on your clothes."
With those words, the wolf-type devourer at the front opened its maw and leaped, aiming for Son Goku's neck.
A speed that would have chewed off a normal soldier's head before they could even react.
But to Son Goku, it was slow motion worthy of a yawn.
Whoosh- Thwack!
Son Goku flicked the wrist holding the Ruyi Jingu Bang lightly.
The end of the staff struck up at the wolf's snout with invisible speed.
Crunch!
There was no scream.
The giant wolf monster's head simply exploded, turning into golden dust and disintegrating in mid-air.
Golden droplets of blood scattered in the void.
Before the blood could even hit the ground, Son Goku spun the Ruyi Jingu Bang and rested it on his shoulder.
[Kiek! Enemy!]
[Kill! Take the light!]
Ignoring the death of their comrade, the rest of the devourer swarm surged in like a tsunami.
A golden wave covering the sky.
A catastrophic scale that would have given even Yuan Shao or Cao Cao's northern armies a hard time.
But Son Goku curled the corner of his mouth into a smirk.
His deep amber eyes slit vertically, and the unique golden flames of the Fiery Golden Eyes flickered.
"I was hoping to loosen up a bit after a long time."
He adjusted his grip on the Ruyi Jingu Bang with one hand, as if shooing away annoying bugs.
"Where do these shiny shit-flies come from, buzzing around?"
Vroom-!
Son Goku swung the Ruyi Jingu Bang wide.
A simple horizontal slash.
No magic, no technique.
It was a pure storm created by overwhelming 'Mass' and 'Speed'.
Boom-!
The atmosphere screamed.
A massive fan-shaped shockwave was generated along the trajectory of the Ruyi Jingu Bang.
Dozens of devourers within range exploded simultaneously.
Golden blood and flesh scattered in all directions like fireworks.
With a single swing, the topography of the canyon changed.
"Kuhaha! Weak, too weak! Isn't there anyone sturdier?"
Son Goku roamed the battlefield as if excited.
Every time he slammed the Ruyi Jingu Bang down, an earthquake occurred, and every time he struck up, monsters became stars in the sky and disappeared.
It wasn't a battle.
It was a unilateral 'cleanup' and the play of an apex predator.
*
Only a minute later.
The screams of the noisy devourers vanished.
All that remained were golden bloodstains scattered on the ground, and Son Goku standing unscathed in the center.
"Phew."
Son Goku grumbled as he shook off the debris from the Ruyi Jingu Bang.
"Can't even warm up. Why has the standard of the Demon Realm dropped so much? 500 years ago, there were at least some guys worth fighting."
Lucifela stared blankly at the scene.
Out-of-specification power that eliminated monsters who had swallowed the power of scripture as if shooing away flies.
It was a moment to realize once again why he was called the 'Great Sage, Heaven's Equal' and why Tripitaka had been so wary of him and sealed him.
"What are you doing? Not coming?"
Son Goku, who had approached before she knew it, snapped his fingers in front of Lucifela, who was standing dazedly.
"Ah... Yes, I'm coming."
Lucifela snapped out of it and began to walk again.
But where should they go?
The North was already taken over by 'Death'.
Going there would surely mean having her soul robbed before she could even retrieve the fragment.
Then the remaining place.
"..."
Lucifela closed her eyes for a moment and focused on the energy of the scripture permeating her body.
The ability she gained when colliding with Tripitaka,
Avoiding the cold energy of the North, the direction where the needle fluctuated violently.
"...It's the South."
Lucifela opened her eyes and pointed to the southern horizon.
"South?"
"Yes. There... a river is boiling. It feels like a very hot and violent power, the opposite of the coldness of the North. It is the power of chaos itself, whose master has not yet been decided."
At Lucifela's words, Son Goku's eyes sparkled.
Rather than the cold smell of corpses, the hot smell of fire was his preference.
"Hot stuff? That's good. Perfect weather for a sauna."
Son Goku grinned, slinging the Ruyi Jingu Bang over his shoulder.
The smile revealing his canines held anticipation for a new fight.
"I hate dead guys. I need guys jumping around lively to have a taste of beating them up."
He looked at the South, the horizon where red heat haze was rising.
There, unlike the North, the acrid smell of sulfur and the heat of boiling steel were vibrating.
"Let's go, Feathers. To watch the fire."
The shadows of the two stretched long toward the south.
Leaving the 'Twilight' of the North behind, they now began walking toward the boiling 'Furnace'.