Chapter 344: Master's Silhouette

What a vicious method!

What a poisonous plot!

Sun Wukong's teeth ground together with a clacking sound, almost shattering!

His eyes bloodshot, he stared fixedly at the living prison that imprisoned the heart, constructed from the deaths of an entire civilization!

The raging fury of being toyed with nearly burned his reason to ashes!

He finally understood!

He finally understood why that damned cur hiding behind the scenes, after he laid down billions of divine order chains sealing the entire Blue Star Federation, would show not the slightest reaction!

He had thought it was his seal taking effect, temporarily isolating the pollution of that "Absolute Malice".

Now it seems, that is simply the most ridiculous joke under heaven!

The other side wasn't afraid at all!

The other side was delighted to see it succeed!

Because this Living Chain, formed from the 'Heart-Dead' of an entire civilization, once fully formed, needs no external force to maintain!

It will operate on its own!

It will function like the most precise perpetual motion machine, day after day, year after year, never ceasing,

sucking every ounce of strength from that imprisoned heart, draining away every trace of its vitality!

Until……

Until this heart is completely exhausted!

Being utterly "Negated"!

He, Sun Wukong, that self‑important Great Sage Equal to Heaven, that savior who personally laid the seal.

He had unwittingly become the final and strongest safeguard of that vicious scheme!

What he sealed was not the enemy!

What he sealed was the last possible hope for this heart to escape!

How ironic!

How absurd!

Pfft—

A surge of extreme humiliation and fury shot straight to the celestial spirit!

Sun Wukong could no longer hold back, vomiting a mouthful of golden reverse blood!

His body trembled violently from extreme fury, and his golden eyes blazed with a killing intent so mad it would make gods and buddhas shudder!

Yao was frightened out of her wits by his appearance, rushing forward to support him, her voice trembling with tears.

"Wukong! How are you? Don't scare me!"

Sun Wukong paid no heed.

He merely stared fixedly at the heart bound by billions of undead chains, his mind holding only one question.

One that made him feel a bone‑deep chill.

This heart……

Whose is it?

Whose heart is it, that the cur hiding behind the scenes would expend an entire "gray" civilization's future, using such vicious, ruthless means, to forge it into chains, into a prison, and also utterly suppress and wear it down?

What does the owner of this heart mean to that cur?

Is it fear?

Is it a threat?

Or…… something else?

Sun Wukong forced himself to draw a thread of calm from the fury that could burn everything.

He knew now was not the time to go mad.

Before he figured all this out, he must not act rashly!

He drew a deep breath, that breath seeming to carry the chill of ten‑millennia‑old dark ice, forcibly suppressing the surging killing intent in his chest.

He slowly closed his eyes.

Then he opened them once more!

Fiery Golden Eyes!

This time he did not look at those ferocious chains, nor at those pitiful 'Living Dead'.

All of his mind and will condensed into a single beam, focusing entirely on that heart struggling to beat!

He wanted to see through it!

He wanted to see it completely!

He wanted to excavate its true identity from the depths of this heart's Primordial Source!

With his gaze, each beat of the heart, each faint halo it emitted, was infinitely magnified and dissected within his Divine Soul!

Gradually.

On Sun Wukong's face, the ferocity twisted by anger slowly faded.

In its place came an indescribable, utter astonishment and bewilderment.

Because……

From each beat of that heart he sensed an aura he knew intimately, one etched deep into his very marrow!

What aura was that?

It was the aura of Creation, the first life born from the primordial chaos stone before heaven and earth were split apart!

That is, facing the Heavenly Dao's "Fixed Number", preferring to fail again and again, also wanting to break through head bloody, also wanting to blaze a new path, the aura of the 【Variable】!

That is, in the Heart Study, after countless billions of deductions failed, still able to laugh wildly, writing that line "Defeated here, yet no regret" on the files, the aura of the 【Indomitable】!

Creation!

Variable!

Indomitable!

No Regret!

These auras, like successive thunderbolts, continuously and fiercely struck Sun Wukong's Divine Soul!

His pupils, in an instant, suddenly contracted into the most dangerous, finest needle points!

His breathing halted!

His heartbeat also halted!

The whole world seemed to drift away from him at this moment!

A thought that made him unable to breathe, made him disbelieving, and made his Divine Soul tremble,

Like the most terrifying nightmare, it madly surged up from the deepest recesses of his mind!

No……

No!

Impossible!

Absolutely impossible!

Sun Wukong roared wildly in his heart, denying this absurd conjecture to the extreme!

How could that be possible!

Master he...... Master he isn't already...

His body began to tremble violently uncontrollably.

He slowly, slowly raised his right hand.

That hand trembled like a leaf in autumn wind.

He reached out his hand, across the endless void, toward that heart bound by billions of chains, struggling to beat, touching it bit by bit.

His movement was very slow.

So slow it seemed as if an epoch had passed.

His fingertip drew ever closer to that heart.

Ten zhang.

One zhang.

One chi.

One cun.

Just as his fingertip was about to touch the surface of that heart, that tenacious beating halo of life!

An aberration suddenly arose!

Hum—

That enormous heart seemed to sense his arrival!

Its beat frequency suddenly quickened a bit!

Immediately, the surface of the heart, that originally faint halo of life, suddenly surged violently!

Light and shadow intertwined!

Finally, it condensed into an extremely clear, extremely lonely silhouette!

That silhouette, Sun Wukong will never forget for eternity!

That silhouette, alone, just stood silently in the endless dark void.

Before him were billions of bubble-like universes, constantly arising and perishing, ultimately heading toward the cold Deathly Silence of failed universes.

He just stood there, watching.

Again and again he tried.

Again and again he failed.

Again and again, facing that despairing, eternal Deathly Silence.

His figure looked so weary.

His shoulders seemed to bear the weight of billions of worlds.

His loneliness seemed deeper and colder than the endless void.

But he had never given up.

He had never retreated a step.

That silhouette had once brought tears to Sun Wukong's face in the Heart Study.

That silhouette had once given Sun Wukong boundless courage in the final battle.

That back had……

It was Master!

It was Bodhi Patriarch!

"Eh……"

From Sun Wukong's throat came a sound like a beast's wail, a hoarse sob.

His mind was a complete blank.

His world completely collapsed.

All the blood color on his face faded away completely in that instant, leaving only a sheet of dead ash.

He felt as if all his strength had been sucked out; his whole body, with a 'plop', fell straight down, kneeling in the icy void.

His golden eyes, once so arrogant as to dare scorn even the Heavenly Dao, now held only endless emptiness and stupor.

He just stared foolishly and obsessively at that familiar back.

Gazing at that heart, bound tightly by billions of ferocious chains, each beat enduring endless pain and torment...

Master's heart!

At this moment, Sun Wukong finally understood.

This heart, imprisoned and used as a sacrifice.

This heart, representing Creation and Variable, is unyielding.

It turned out to be...

It turned out to be his master, Bodhi Patriarch, the heart formed from a Dao Heart that had vanquished all ages and knew no regret!