Ten years. To an immortal, it was but a flicker of a candle, a momentary lapse in the grand tapestry of time. But for Sun Wukong, these ten years at the Slanting Moon and Three Stars Cave had been an eternity of transformation. He had arrived at Linh Tai Mountain as a mere stone monkey, driven by a primal fear of the Great Reaper. Now, as he descended from the heavens, he was something else entirely.
His once-weathered stone skin, cracked by centuries of exposure to the elements, had been remolded in the crucible of celestial cultivation. He now possessed a Celestial Form of transcendent purity. Within his veins, golden ichor surged like a subterranean river of fire, each pulse echoing the rhythmic cadence of the primordial universe. His breath carried the scent of ancient incense and ozone; his eyes, the Fiery Golden Eyes, could pierce through the illusions of the mortal realm and see the very foundations of reality.
Striding upon the Somersault Cloud, Wukong tore through the atmospheric veil like a golden spearhead. A trail of radiant light, hundreds of miles long, remained in his wake, a testament to his newfound majesty. Beneath him, the world was a blur of emerald forests and azure oceans, but his gaze was fixed on a single coordinate in the East: Flower-Fruit Mountain.
Within his chest, a profound sense of pride swelled, nearly eclipsing the spiritual energy in his dantian. It was a pride born of achievement, but also of a sacred duty.
He remembered the day he left. He remembered the smell of the damp earth in the Water Curtain Cave and the sight of a thousand monkeys, their eyes wide with fear and hope. He had knelt before them, his voice echoing against the stalactites: "Do not weep! I go to find the secret that even the Heavens fear. When I return, I shall bring the elixir of eternal life. I will tear our names from the registers of King Yama! I will make Flower-Fruit Mountain a sanctuary that shall outlast the stars themselves!"
That oath had been his North Star through a decade of grueling meditation and celestial tribulations. Every time a bolt of Heavenly Lightning struck his spine, he thought of the little monkeys waiting for him. Every time he felt his soul fragmenting under the weight of the Seventy-Two Earthly Transformations, he saw the blooming peach trees of his home.
As he crossed the final sea, a wide, confident grin spread across his face. He imagined the scene: The shock on the faces of the four elder monkeys. The way the young ones would tumble over each other to touch his radiant armor. He could almost taste the sweet, spiritual nectar of the mountain's springs. He envisioned himself standing on the highest peak, raising a hand to the sky, and commanding the very winds to serve his tribe.
He was a Supreme Genius. A Heavenly Sovereign in the making. He was the one who had conquered the Way.
But as the familiar silhouette of the mountain emerged from the horizon, the grin faltered. A cold, oily sensation crawled up his spine, a feeling no immortal should possess.
The Flower-Fruit Mountain he remembered was a beacon of life, draped in a permanent emerald mist of spiritual Qi. The mountain he saw now was a jagged, rotting tooth jutting out of the ocean.
A colossal shroud of Demonic Miasma thick, viscous, and as black as dried blood choked the peaks. This was not the natural fog of the sea; it was a parasitic entity, a Ma Sat Khi that seemed to breathe with a malevolent, rhythmic pulse. The vibrant aura that once reached for the stars was gone, replaced by a few sickly, flickering sparks of green, like the final, desperate gasps of a dying god.
Wukong's cloud slowed. The air around the mountain was heavy, saturated with the metallic tang of blood and the sulfurous stench of demonic rituals. He looked down, and for the first time in ten years, the Great Sage felt a tremor in his hands.
The towering cliffs were scarred with unnatural fissures. Great slabs of rock had crumbled away, revealing the mountain's interior like open wounds. Black smoke, thick and suffocating, billowed from the ravines, carrying with it the faint, distant Echo of a thousand screams.
"No..." he whispered, the word lost in the howling, stagnant wind. "It is an illusion. A trial of the heart. My mind is playing tricks."
He plunged through the miasma, his celestial aura clashing violently with the demonic fog. Sparks of golden light hissed against the darkness, sounding like a million dying insects. He landed near the stream that led to the Water Curtain Cave the legendary Spirit Vein that fed the entire mountain.
The sight that met him shattered the last remnants of his denial.
The stream, once so pure it could heal wounds, was now a sluggish, coagulated river of crimson. It didn't flow; it oozed. The stench of rot was so potent it threatened to overwhelm even his refined senses. And along the banks... the Thousand-Year Peach Trees.
These trees were the pride of the mountain, their roots intertwined with the very spirit of the earth. Now, they were a graveyard of stumps. They hadn't just been cut; they had been brutally executed. The scars on their trunks were jagged, made by rusted blades and demonic magic. The divine roots had been forcibly uprooted, leaving gaping, blackened holes in the earth. The wood was charred and putrid, oozing a dark, syrupy liquid that looked like the tears of the earth itself.
Wukong began to walk. His golden boots, which had stepped on the sacred clouds of Linh Tai, were now stained with the foul mud of his home.
With every step, he instinctively released a ripple of his Great Sage power. A golden wave of sanctity rolled outward, attempting to push back the filth. For a heartbeat, the ground would turn green, a small flower might struggle to bloom but then the miasma would roar back with a vengeful intensity, suffocating the life out of the earth once more. The mountain itself was resisting his healing. The mountain was... angry.
He stopped before a particularly large stump. He recognized it. This was the "Ancestor Tree." Ten years ago, he had sat on its highest bough, tossing peaches down to a crowd of cheering youngsters. He had promised them they would eat these peaches forever.
He reached out, his fingers trembling as they touched the jagged surface of the wood. He channeled a massive surge of Celestial Qi, desperate to find a single spark of life, a single cell that hadn't been corrupted.
There was nothing. The spirit root had been sucked dry, harvested like grain. The soul of the tree had been extinguished.
A sharp, stabbing pain erupted in Wukong's chest. It wasn't the physical agony of a wound; it was the psychological horror of a broken promise. He had spent ten years becoming a god so he could save them from death. But while he was away learning how to live forever, death had come to his doorstep and feasted.
His pride, once a towering monument, was now a crumbling ruin. He felt like a fool. A stone monkey who had played at being a saint while his brothers were slaughtered.
He moved deeper into the valley, toward the residential caves. Silence followed him a heavy, unnatural silence that felt like a weight on his shoulders. There were no bird calls. No rustling of leaves. No playful chattering. Only the sound of his own breathing, which had become ragged and shallow.
He passed the Cave of Hundred Springs. The entrance was smeared with long-dried blood. On the stone walls, he saw the marks the desperate, broken fingernail scratches of monkeys who had been dragged out into the dark. He saw small, white fragments of bone scattered in the dirt.
His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Where is everyone?" he roared, his voice cracking the silence. "I am back! Your King is back!"
Only the wind answered, a low moan that sounded like a mocking laugh.
Finally, he reached a secluded, high-altitude grotto. His Fiery Golden Eyes pierced the darkness within. Inside, he saw movement feeble, twitching, pathetic movement.
He rushed inside, his aura illuminating the cave with a harsh, golden light. What he saw made him fall to his knees.
A dozen old monkeys lay on the cold, damp stone. They were the elders of the tribe, the ones who had taught him how to find fruit when he was just a babe. But they were no longer recognizable. Their fur had fallen out in clumps, their skin was stretched tight over their ribs, and their limbs...
Their hands and feet had been pierced by Black Iron Spikes, pinning them to the rock walls like macabre specimens. Their eyes had been clouded by cataracts and pain, but within the pupils, he saw the flickering, sickly green glow of Soul-Binding Magic. They were being kept alive artificially, their lifespans stretched by demonic torture so that their suffering could feed the mountain's new masters.
As Wukong's light hit them, they shrieked. The sound was a high-pitched, rattling whistle of pure agony. To their shattered minds, his holy light was a searing brand.
"Shh, shh," Wukong choked out, retracting his aura until he was shrouded in dim shadow. He crawled toward the eldest among them, an old gibbon whose white beard was matted with filth. "Elder... it's me. It's Wukong."
The old gibbon's head rolled languidly toward him. His eyes struggled to focus. He spoke not with his mouth, but through a shattered, agonizing telepathic link that burned into Wukong's brain.
"Immortal... leave us... the Spirit Root is gone... the Heaven-born are gone... The Western Demons... they came... they took the Spirit Veins... for their pills... they killed the young... they kept us... to watch the mountain die... The King... he is a myth... he never came... he never came..."
Wukong felt as if a cold blade had been driven through his throat. He grasped the elder's withered hand, his voice a broken sob. "I am here! I am the King! I am the Stone Monkey who went to Linh Tai! Look at me, Elder!"
The old monkey's eyes widened for a fraction of a second. A single tear of blood escaped his eye. He looked at Wukong not with joy, but with an unbearable, soul-crushing pity.
"You... came back..." the elder whispered. "But you brought... nothing... but light... to a world of... shadows..."
With a final, rattling gasp, the elder's body went limp. Because Wukong had channeled his Qi to speak, the holy energy had inadvertently burned away the demonic threads holding the elder's life together. The old monkey had died because Wukong touched him. His soul shattered into gray, lifeless sparks, denied even the peace of the Underworld.
Wukong sat there, cradling the cooling, shriveled corpse in his golden-clad arms.
His ten years of cultivation. His Seventy-Two Transformations. His Cân Đẩu Vân. All of it was worthless. He had returned to a nấm mồ (mass grave). He had returned to find that the very Heaven and Dao he had worshipped and studied had allowed this to happen.
He stood up slowly. The golden light in his eyes didn't just fade; it inverted. The radiant gold was replaced by a dark, shimmering abyss a void filled with a cold, murderous clarity.
"My people..." he whispered, his voice sounding like grinding stones. "My home."
The mountain wind howled again, but this time, Wukong didn't hear a lament. He heard a demand for blood.
Flower-Fruit Mountain was no longer a sanctuary. It was a monument to his failure. And as he looked up at the darkened sky, toward the distant, shimmering lights of the Celestial Court that had turned a blind eye to this slaughter, a single thought took root in his soul.
If this is the Order of the Heavens... then the Heavens must burn.
He looked at the dead mountain one last time and asked the silence:
"I returned to bring life. But since life is gone... will you accept my rage instead?"