Chapter 323: The Quest of the Heart's Study

The massive prison forged from pure order is being corroded from within, inch by inch.

Sun Wukong could clearly feel it.

The power of the 'Fixed Number' he had snatched from Hongjun was being depleted at a terrifying rate.

This damned thing devours even 'order' itself!

He dared not linger.

That wasn't fear.

but an unprecedented agitation and stifled frustration that left him feeling alien.

It was like punching into cotton—goddamn, the cotton was laced with deadly poison!

Hum!

Sun Wukong's figure vanished from the Star Sea.

The next instant.

His Original Spirit, weary and scarred, sank into the deepest reaches of his sea of consciousness.

Once again he arrived at that ordinary wooden study, floating in absolute nothingness.

Only here.

Only this small cottage, filled with his Master's presence, could grant his nearly exploding Monkey Heart a semblance of peace.

He spread his hand.

That was not a physical hand, but a manifestation of his Original Spirit.

On his arm.

That gray rust spot stubbornly persisted, and had even expanded a fraction more than before.

It was like a living creature.

A silent, greedy parasite devouring his soul.

Slowly.

yet utterly resolute!

Sun Wukong tried to mobilize the Source Power of his Way of the Equal Heaven to envelop and erode it.

But the result was exactly the same as before.

His Dao, upon touching the rust spot, was like a stream scraping against a stubborn rock,

not only failing to budge it in the slightest, but his own power was silently siphoned away by the stain.

His 'variable' became nourishment for this 'endpoint'.

This realization hurt more than being struck on the head with a club!

"Master..."

Sun Wukong lifted his gaze, surveying the empty study that nevertheless seemed filled with his Master's shadows everywhere.

For the first time, he muttered in a tone that was almost pleading and bewildered.

"What in the world... is this?"

His voice echoed in the absolute void, met with no answer.

Only deathly silence answered him.

That agitation surged up again.

Sun Wukong clenched his teeth!

He refused to believe it!

He couldn't believe his Master, who had calculated over billions of eons and fought against that damned Heavenly Dao for endless ages, had never seen such a damned thing.

The answer!

It must be here!

His eyes instantly locked onto the towering shelves that reached the heavens!

The next moment!

He charged forward like a madman!

He thrust out his hand, his divine sense surging wildly as he grabbed at the jade slips floating in the air.

One!

Another!

Sword Dao Universe·Seventy-third Deduction Record

Sun Wukong's divine sense surged in violently!

He saw a brilliant world where all things were swords, which ultimately, because its own sharpness was too keen to coexist, headed toward self‑destruction.

No!

Next!

Painting Dao Universe·One Hundred Ninety‑eighth Deduction Record

He saw a wondrous world where living beings could paint objects into reality, which ultimately, due to endless desire, exhausted the universe's primordial source and fell into void.

Still not!

Next! Next! Next!

Sun Wukong raved like a madman, crashing through this ocean of knowledge!

His divine sense turned into the most violent storm, sweeping over every jade slip on the shelves.

One volume!

One thousand volumes!

Ten thousand copies!

One million copies!

Energy exhausted.

Internal war collapsed.

CPU burned out by logic bug.

Invaded by extraterrestrial demons, died fighting.

……

He saw myriad ways of destruction, saw billions of possible failures.

The demise of each universe was accompanied by earth-shaking tragedy and unyielding struggle!

They all died in a blaze of glory!

But none!

Not a single one!

Like the Blue Star Federation, after reaching the so-called 'perfection' and 'endpoint', peacefully, calmly, willingly... self-extinguishing!

That kind of death is too quiet.

So quiet it made him feel fear!

"Why not!"

"Why!"

Sun Wukong grew increasingly agitated, that anger with nowhere to vent burned madly in his chest, almost devouring his sanity!

He suddenly waved his hand!

"Whoosh—!"

On the desk before him, piles of jade slips stacked like a mountain, he violently swept them all to the floor!

The jade slips rolled and scattered across the floor.

The whole study was in disarray.

Sun Wukong panted heavily, his golden eyes filled with bloodshot.

Just then.

A piece of antiquated jade slip rolled out from that heap of disordered scrolls.

Just right, it stopped beside his foot.

On the jade slip, the two characters were carved with the oldest Dao patterns.

【Void】.

Sun Wukong's breath caught!

His heart pounded wildly!

Void!

Master's Dao!

It is also his own, Void Seed!

That's right!

It must be this!

That damned rust spot, negating everything, devouring everything, reducing all to deathly silence!

Isn't this just an extreme form of 'Void'?

The way to counter it must be in here!

Sun Wukong, as if grasping the last straw, bent down and clutched that jade slip tightly in his hand!

His divine sense, with a hint of trembling and endless expectation, probed in without hesitation!

There was no imagined world-destroying power.

Nor was there a method to oppose that 'Negation' will.

Recorded within the jade slip was Master Bodhi Patriarch's conception of the Void Great Dao, the most primordial and core.

That was a piece of Chaos, warm, filled with infinite possibilities of the 'origin'.

【Void, not emptiness, but the beginning of all things.】

【Because it is non-being, it can give rise to being.】

【Because it is empty, it can contain all phenomena.】

【It embraces all, gives birth to all.】

……

Passage after passage, filled with innovative and inclusive text, flowed in Sun Wukong's mind.

This aura, he is too familiar with it.

When the Zeroers erased his existence, on the brink of collapse, it was this power that let him break and then rise!

When Yao's divine soul was about to dissipate, it was also this power that gently reshaped it!

This is the Dao of Creation!

This is the Dao of Protection!

This is the Dao that gives 'possibility'!

Sun Wukong was completely stunned.

He stood frozen in place, still tightly clutching that jade slip emitting a warm glow.

His expression shifted from ecstasy to bewilderment, then to deep bewilderment.

How could……

How could it be like this?

He thought he had found the antidote that counteracts the deadly poison.

As a result, however, he discovered that this damn thing was a bowl of the most nourishing jade nectar!

These two……

Utterly opposite!

Wait!

Utterly opposite?

In Sun Wukong's mind, it was as if a bolt of lightning that split the ancient darkness had flashed and exploded with a boom!

He suddenly lifted his head, and in his dazed eyes burst two clusters of radiant divine light of insight, blazing to the extreme!

He figured it out!

He finally figured it out!

Master's 【Emptiness】 is creation, is inclusiveness, is the "addition" that gives birth to all things!

Yes, positive infinity!

And that damn rust spot corroding him, that force of the "endpoint," is negation, is termination, is the "subtraction" that erases everything!

Yes, negative infinity!

They are fundamentally not the same thing!

They are the two extreme, opposing, ultimate sides of the same Great Dao!

If we say, the path that Master and he walk, this path full of "variables" and "possibility," constantly creating the 【Way of Emptiness】.

It is "positive"!

So, that force which corrodes him and leads everything to the "endpoint," to "absolute stillness," to "perfect deathly silence".

That is, the... "opposite" of this Great Dao!

It is the... dark side of 【Emptiness】!

It is an existence that even Master's deductions never recorded, an absolute taboo.

Having figured all this out, Sun Wukong not only did not feel relieved, but rather,

A chill, heavier and icier than before, surged from the soles of his feet straight to his celestial spirit crown!

He knew what the enemy was.

But so what?

Knowing the principle of the plague doesn't mean one can create an antidote!

A problem that made his Dao Heart tremble, an ultimate question, surfaced in his mind.

Master……

Master, the old man, had deduced for countless eons, exhausting his life.

He created it, this 【Way of Emptiness】 that represents "positive".

Then……

Back then, had he ever encountered the opposite side of this Great Dao?

Had he ever found a method to counter this ultimate "corrosion"?