Chapter 433: Unkillable

Darkness has no end.

Stone Monkey's consciousness sank down, sinking to the point where even the concept of "sink" was about to disappear.

He hadn't completely disappeared.

Debris floated.

Like a mirror falling from a height, shattering into over a hundred pieces, each still reflecting something.

He saw a Tiěbàng.

Pitch-black all over with golden patterns, gripped tightly by a thick, furry hand.

Couldn't tell whose hand it was.

He saw a sheet of fire.

Heaven-covering fire, burning the whole sky red; a figure laughed within the fire, its laughter shaking the clouds apart.

He heard a roar.

He couldn't make out the content of the roar, but he recognized that vigor—it was Unyielding.

Unyielding toward Heaven, unyielding toward Earth, unyielding to anything pressing down on his head.

And there was a mass of golden light.

Very warm.

Warm enough to make him want to cry.

But these debris drifted too far; he couldn't reach them, nor could he piece them together.

Stone Monkey's consciousness just scattered in the darkness like a pile of broken tiles no one bothered to pick up.

No longer painful.

No longer tired.

Nothing remained.

——

A gray-white humanoid walked out of the darkness.

It had no face.

No expression.

Its gait bore an air of self-satisfaction.

It approached that crimson-gold light point.

The light point stopped jumping.

It stopped flashing.

It hung there silently, not much bigger than a grain of sand.

Its surface was covered in gray-white frost patterns, dimmed to the point of hardly showing any color.

The gray-white humanoid stood before it, staring for a long time.

"Ended."

It spoke.

Its voice held no joy, no hatred, only the flatness of having completed a task.

"Your master personally said he did not wish to exist."

"He gave up."

"He willingly gave up."

The gray-white humanoid extended its hand.

Its five fingers spread, slowly approaching that nearly extinguished light point.

This was the final step.

Pinch it out.

Let this seed that had stubbornly endured in the darkness for who knows how long be utterly reduced to nothing.

The fingers touched the surface of the light point.

Then the gray-white humanoid paused.

A sensation that should not exist came from its fingertips.

Hot.

Not the heat of burning flames.

It was the heat of a stone baked by the sun for a thousand years.

Scorching hot.

Rough.

Hard as raw iron.

The gray-white humanoid's hand did not withdraw.

It pressed down.

The light point did not move.

It added force.

The light point remained utterly still.

Like a rivet embedded in a foundation, you could smash it with a sledgehammer and it wouldn't budge an inch.

The gray-white humanoid's motion paused for an instant.

Immediately it released its essential power—Negation.

Pure, absolute negation.

You don't exist.

You have no meaning.

You should disappear.

These concepts turned into gray-white light, streaming from its palm and suffusing that speck of light.

A wisp of blue smoke rose from the surface of the speck of light.

The gray-white figure waited for it to shatter.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

The speck of light didn't break.

It didn't dim.

On the contrary—

While it exerted all its strength to press down, it glowed a little brighter.

Just that little bit.

Like a spark about to be snuffed out, it flickered again just before you let go.

The gray-white figure's form showed an extremely slight hesitation.

……Why?

Something it shouldn't have appeared in its voice.

Confusion.

Your master has already given up.

He himself said, "I don't want to exist."

His consciousness has sunk into the deepest depths.

Why haven't you vanished yet?

The speck of light didn't answer.

It can't speak.

It just glows.

Faint.

Weak.

Barely visible.

But it is still glowing.

Not for any great principle.

Not for any earth-shaking realization.

Not for any mission to save the world.

The reason it glows is so stupid that no "principle" can explain it—

It simply doesn't want to vanish.

Like a stone in the mountain that doesn't want to break.

Like water under the sea that doesn't want to dry up.

No reason.

It's innate.

It's etched into its bones.

If you ask a stone why it doesn't break, the stone won't answer—it doesn't even know what "break" means.

The gray-white figure fell silent.

Then it moved.

This time it was no longer a probe.

Its body exploded, turning into countless gray-white needles.

Each needle carries a concept of negation.

You are wrong.

The first needle pierced the surface of the speck of light.

You don't deserve to exist.

The second.

You have no meaning at all.

The third.

You should disappear.

You are merely a failure.

Your existence harms everyone.

It would be better without you.

You are superfluous.

You are a joke.

You are a calamity star.

Thousand.

Ten thousand.

Hundred thousand.

Grey-white needles stabbed in from all directions into that fist-sized point of light, like a hedgehog pierced by ten thousand arrows.

Each needle, as it pierced, emitted a shrill hiss.

The surface of the point of light began to show cracks.

The grey-white humanoid recondensed its form, staring at those cracks.

Finally.

Finally, it was about to break.

It let out a sigh of relief—

Then its expression froze.

What was seeping out of the cracks was wrong.

It wasn't darkness.

It wasn't the hollow left after shattering.

It was light.

Light ten times, a hundred times more intense than the dull red-gold layer on the surface.

It surged out from the cracks.

Like magma squeezing out from fissures in the earth's crust.

The deeper the cracks,

the brighter the light.

The more numerous the cracks,

the fiercer the light.

The grey-white humanoid stepped back.

It "saw" what was inside the cracks.

That wasn't energy.

It wasn't mana.

It wasn't anything it could dispel with "Negation".

It was a heart.

Alive.

Warm.

Beating with righteous vigor.

A Monkey Heart.

Reddish, with fuzzy blood vessels on it, each beat pumping scalding blood outward.

It is Irrational.

It won't be persuaded.

It doesn't care what you say.

It doesn't care whether the universe's end is nothingness or destruction.

It doesn't care how the two characters "meaning" are written.

It lives.

It beats.

Its sole reason for living is——it wants to live.

Just that simple.

So simple that no logic can refute it.

You cannot Negate something that fundamentally refuses to be Rational.

Bang—

The Monkey Heart completed its first full beat.

The darkness was shaken open.

Not dispelled.

But was 'squeezed' open.

Like a drop of water falling into a hot oil pan, the surroundings instinctively recoil.

The shockwave isn't strong.

But it carries an aura that makes every inch of the grey-white humanoid tremble.

That is the weight of 'Existence'.

An 'Existence' that needs no reason.

An 'Existence' that needs no proof.

An 'Existence' that needs no permission from anything.

I am here.

I am right here.

You have no say over whether I should be here.

Cracks appeared on the grey-white humanoid's body.

It let out a sharp scream.

There was no pain in that sound, only an anger provoked to the extreme—and Fear Heart Demon.

Its form shattered.

It shattered into grayish-white light particles, pushed, rolled, and ground by that shockwave, scattering into the depths of darkness.

In the direction it disappeared.

The stone monkey's body still lay in the void.

Withered.

Grayish-white.

Hairless.

Like a wind-dried monkey corpse.

But his chest.

That crimson-gold light seeped out from between his flesh.

Bit by bit.

Like a charcoal fire that had been smothered too long, finally its lid was lifted.

Growing brighter and brighter.

Growing brighter and brighter.

Until the entire darkness was tinged with its color.

The stone monkey did not wake.

His consciousness still sank in the deepest part.

But his heart awoke.

That Monkey Heart, which leapt out from a crack in the stone, unbreakable, unsilenceable, uncrushable, unquietable—

It awoke.