Chapter 386: The Weight of Lies

The towering pure black shadow finally and completely dissipated.

The words, like the most venomous curse, still echo in this Deathly Silence void.

But that terror that could crush the entire Multiverse faded away like receding tide, disappearing without a trace.

Sun Wukong, who had been clinging to life by that Unyielding, crazy will to not lose, suddenly felt his body go limp.

The nerves, taut to the extreme, suddenly relaxed, and a mountain‑like wave of weakness and excruciating pain instantly engulfed him.

He could no longer hold on; his knees buckled, and he was about to kneel straight down.

"Wukong!"

A startled cry, tinged with sobbing, rang out.

Yao's figure, like an Illusory Dream bubble, instantly appeared at his side,

using her slightly ethereal shoulder, she firmly supported his falling, mountain‑heavy body.

Sun Wukong's body was so heavy.

So heavy it seemed to press down the whole Universe's failures and regrets.

Yao exhausted all her strength, barely managing to let him lean on her so he wouldn't collapse in a mess.

"You… you just…"

Her voice trembled violently, as if after surviving a catastrophe.

Her gaze, however, was fixed, nailed onto Sun Wukong's blood‑smeared back.

There, a grotesque sight.

The battle armor had long turned to void; flesh seemed gnawed away by something out of thin air, a huge chunk gone, bone exposed!

Upon the stark white bones, a wisp of gray death‑energy swirled, so chilling that a glance could freeze one's Divine Soul.

"You… did you do it on purpose?"

Yao's teeth were chattering.

She wasn't a fool; she saw everything.

The monkey deliberately used his own back to bear that lethal erasing force!

Sun Wukong strained his mouth, trying to pull out his trademark, nonchalant Smile.

He wanted to say, "Old Sun's fine."

This little wound is nothing!

But the wound tugged, a piercing, bone‑deep pain that even a Chaos Dao body could not escape,

causing his Smile to freeze instantly, drawing a sharp breath, pain making his teeth chatter.

It looked indescribably miserable.

Indescribably heartbreaking.

He leaned on Yao's shoulder, feeling her softness and worry, breathing softly, and explained his crazy plan in the simplest terms.

By self‑harm, he drew all the enemy's attention.

By threatening the master's Dao Heart, he created a logical loophole in the enemy's reasoning.

Seizing that fleeting 1.3 seconds, he used the enemy's force in reverse to lay an absolute shield for the master.

With each sentence, Yao's complexion grew a shade paler.

When she heard Sun Wukong daring to use Bodhi Patriarch's time‑worn Dao Heart as a stake in this high‑risk gamble,

Yao's face instantly turned as white as paper!

A fear deeper than that faced when confronting the Original Mistake seized her heart.

"How could you dare…"

Yao's voice was light, yet like two poisoned ice spikes, it pierced Sun Wukong's ears.

The lingering dread, like a breached dam, flooded her.

That dread instantly turned into an uncontrollable, aggrieved rebuke!

"How could you gamble with the master's heart!"

Her eyes reddened instantly.

Tears, like beads whose strings had snapped, fell uncontrollably.

"What if…"

"What if you don't stop?"

"What if your hand just trembles a little?"

"That's the master! It's the last thing the master has left!"

"Do you know… do you know I just… I really thought…"

She could say no more, covering her mouth, her shoulders heaving violently, emitting suppressed, painful sobs.

Sun Wukong fell silent.

Each of Yao's words struck his heart like a heavy hammer.

He slowly raised his right hand.

The hand that had just grasped Chaos Dao iron, hovering above the master's Dao Heart,

trembled ever so slightly.

He knew better than anyone.

Yao was right.

Just now, he was dancing on the tip of a blade.

Doing a backflip on the cliff edge!

As long as his 【No Regret Monkey Heart】, in that final instant, has even the tiniest hint of hesitation.

There is that tiniest, slightest wavering.

As long as the excruciating pain that erases his back influences his judgment by even one ten‑thousandth of a breath.

Then that Tiěbàng will smash down.

The consequences are unimaginable.

He would shatter with his own hands the thing he most wishes to protect.

He would become the greatest sinner in this world.

Just thinking of that possibility—a cold fear a hundred‑million times stronger than physical agony—races from his tailbone straight up to his Heavenly Spirit Crown!

He won.

Tactically, he once again toyed with the lofty final enemy in the most Irrational way.

But he feels no joy at all.

This heavy sense of guilt for disrespecting his Master's Dao Heart is like a new invisible shackle.

It clamps tightly around his Monkey Heart, which should have feared neither Heaven nor Earth, and should have been without any taboo.

He won the tactics.

But he feels he has lost something more important.

An unprecedented fatigue rising from deep within his Divine Soul floods over him like a tide.

This surpasses even his three‑day, three‑night battle with Hongjun.

And his five‑hundred years crushed beneath Wǔxíng Shān.

And yet feels more exhausting.

A kind of mental exhaustion.

He suddenly, for the first time, begins to doubt.

Doubts himself.

This "Irrational" of using any means for victory—

This "madness" of being willing to gamble everything to overturn the board.

Will it eventually become a "perverse logic" that harms his own people, those he wishes to protect?

Just like today.

He hurt Yao in this way.

He desecrated his Master in this way.

If even the people closest to him are hurt by his own "Dao"…

Then is his "Dao" still on the right path?

This thought is like the most poisonous seed.

Once it takes root in his heart, it grows wildly!

It coils around his 【No Regret Monkey Heart】, absorbing his "guilt" and "self‑doubt", blooming a flower of evil called "Wavering".

Sun Wukong's gaze dimmed little by little.

The haughty, unruly spirit that once looked down on the world seemed to be drained.

He had never been so bewildered.

At that moment.

Just as his mind falters, at the most fragile moment of his Dao Heart!

【Warning!】

A cold, emotionless mechanical alert tone.

Without any warning, it boomed directly in the depths of his Divine Soul!

This sound, Sun Wukong, is incredibly familiar!

Yet it is also utterly unfamiliar!

【Detected host "No Regret Dao Heart", due to generating 'Self‑Negation' logic, a … faint logical fissure appears!】

The cold alert tone was like the most precise, sharpest Divine Soul steel needle!

Puff—!

It pinpointed and pierced the newly‑formed, most fragile fissure on his Dao Heart!

Sun Wukong's body suddenly stiffened!

Immediately, an indescribable, tearing agony erupted from deep within his Dao Heart!

"Ugh—!"

He let out a painful groan, and his Chaos Realm eyes instantly filled with Bloodshot!

If the previous injury was merely flesh‑deep pain,

then now is the Dao Foundation Pain!

That 【Order】, 【Negation】, and 【Variable】 fused 【No Regret Monkey Heart】 he painstakingly reforged in despair,

the self‑believed indestructible, Indestructible through Eons 【Chaos Monkey Heart】.

The 【No Regret】 Dao Heart he relies on to confront and overcome everything.

It cracked!