Chapter 439: Breaking the Cocoon!

Bodhi Patriarch.

Four characters.

Like a key shoved into a rusty lock, it clicked.

The lock shattered.

The door opened.

Behind the door was not a room—but a sea.

The sea of memory.

Images of a hundred million years flooded in all at once.

The monkey troop of Mount Huaguo screeched in his ears.

The morning bell of Fangcun Mountain rang above his head.

That strand of sunlight that seeped through the stone crevice where Five Elements Mountain had pressed for five hundred years.

Every grain of yellow sand he had stepped on along the pilgrimage road.

The exhilaration of sweeping Lingxiao Hall aside with a single staff strike during the great havoc in Heaven.

The scorching surge of Chaos Dao churning in his veins.

Yao's smile.

Yao's tears.

Yao's final glance back as she turned into a light shield.

Master's Dao Heart beat alone in the darkness.

The nonexistent face of the Original Mistake.

It all came back.

Not a drop missing.

The stone monkey knelt in the void, both hands clutching his head.

It wasn't pain.

It was too much.

Like someone forcing an entire river into a bowl, the bowl creaking.

His skull was swelling.

His veins were bulging.

His divine soul was screaming.

But he gritted his teeth, held firm, and didn't spit out a single mouthful.

These were his.

His life.

His path.

His people.

No one dare think of stealing even a single image from his mind again.

His body began to change.

It wasn't a voluntary change—the memories were too heavy for the stone monkey's shell to contain.

His three-foot withered frame strained outward.

His joints cracked.

Creak, creak, creak.

Stretching segment by segment.

Three feet became four.

Four feet became six.

Six feet became over a zhang.

The grayish-white monkey fur began to burn from the roots.

It wasn't fire.

It was the color itself changing.

The grayish-white receded, and crimson gold surged up.

One strand.

Ten strands.

A hundred strands.

Countless.

Golden fur exploded over his body in the windless air, each strand like a miniature golden blade.

That pair of withered monkey claws tightened, expanded, then tightened again in the swelling.

His joints grew thick.

His tendons stood out.

His finger joints returned inch by inch to their most familiar curve—the curve of gripping an iron staff for untold hundreds of thousands of years.

Linked golden armor oozed out from his body's surface.

It wasn't put on.

It grew from his flesh and blood.

Golden scales layered over one another, covering his chest, arms, and shoulders.

Finally, it was those eyes.

In the amber pupils, golden flames churned, firelight reflected the images of two millstones.

No longer a stone monkey.

Standing in this shattered void was Sun Wukong.

He was the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

He was the madman who overturned the Heavenly Court, shattered Ling Shan, and fought all the way from the Three Realms to the Chaos Edge Wilderness.

But he did not fly into a rage.

He did not roar.

He didn't even grit his teeth.

He just stood there.

His two feet planted in the void, his spine ramrod straight.

The monkey heart in his chest beat.

Once.

Once.

Once.

Not hurried.

Not panicked.

Not fierce.

Steady as an old bell.

Chaos Dao flowed quietly through his meridians.

Golden, gray, and black—three forces intertwined and spun.

There was none of the previous violent outburst, none of the urge to smash the whole universe when enraged.

It was something that, after walking every road, falling every fall, losing every battle, could still stand.

Very quiet.

Quiet to the point of being frightening.

Then——

The prison collapsed.

It was not shattered by him.

It collapsed on its own.

The blue sky above cracked like glass, spiderwebbing.

The earth beneath melted like a sugar cube.

In the distance, the fake Huaguo Mountain began to peel from the top down, revealing the gray-white skeleton beneath.

The peach forest scorched.

The mountain rocks shattered.

The Water Curtain Cave crumpled like a ball of paper, shriveling to a black dot and vanishing.

The carefully constructed prison could not withstand Sun Wukong's 'real' presence.

It was not broken by force.

It was its 'false' nature encountering his 'true' weight that it could not bear.

Sun Wukong stood there, watching the world in all directions recede like an ebbing tide.

There was a slight curve at the corner of his mouth.

It was not mockery.

It was a confirmation of 'I, the old man, am still here.'

"Impossible——"

That voice came.

The last time.

No more disguise.

No more calm.

No lofty posture.

Only naked, undisguised fear trembled.

"Impossible! Your Dao Heart I crushed! Your memories I erased! How could you——"

The voice grew sharper and higher.

Like a string stretched to its limit.

"How can you still stand up!"

Sun Wukong moved.

Not to turn back to find the source of the sound.

He patted his own chest.

His palm struck the golden armor, emitting a dull metallic clang.

"You didn't crush my Dao Heart."

His voice was not loud.

Hoarse, with a dry fatigue.

But each word that fell, the collapsing space also trembled.

You didn't even touch it.

The voice screamed: "Impossible! I myself——"

"Those you crushed," Sun Wukong interrupted it, "my memories, my pride, my confidence——"

He tilted his head.

Those are outside things.

He took a step.

Where his foot stepped, the void burst open like thin ice, a large hole.

The edges of the hole were scorched black, spitting golden sparks.

He took a second step.

The darkness above his head was stepped into a patch of Heaven light.

It was not some holy light.

It was coarse, icy, and reeked of blood.

It was the light of the real world outside.

The true Monkey Heart is not in the brain.

Third step.

Not in memory.

Fourth step.

Not in Principle.

It's here——

He raised his right fist.

Then he smashed it down onto his own chest.

Bang!

A dull roar exploded.

It was not self-harm.

It was a declaration.

That fist struck his breastplate, and the force it released blew all the debris within a hundred zhang radius outward.

The throbbing sound coming from his chest——heavy as a war drum.

The entire collapsing space was stunned into a pause by that sound.

It needs no reason.

Sun Wukong withdrew his fist.

No need for memory.

No need for strength.

Even if you beat me back to a worm——

He grinned.

A mouth full of white teeth.

Bloodstains still lingered in the gaps between his teeth.

But that smile was more blinding than any divine ability.

It's still beating.

Do you know why?

Darkness was silent.

Even the Fear Heart Demon's scream was choked by this question.

Sun Wukong's smile grew wider.

Wide enough to show his back teeth.

Because it's stupid.

Those two words fell.

The whole Prison was split open down the middle.

The collapse accelerated.

Tenfold.

A hundredfold.

All the debris was shrinking back, pressing toward the center——not a natural dissolution.

It was that voice making a final struggle.

All the shattered Fake Mountain, Fake Water, Fake Sky, Fake Earth——gray-white debris gathered into a heaven-covering, earth-enveloping giant wave.

It surged in from all directions.

They wanted to crush Sun Wukong into powder.

They wanted to grind him and this space together into nothingness.

The wave's crest rose higher than the stars.

The voice carried the madness of a desperate all-or-nothing gamble.

Sun Wukong gazed at that wave.

He did not move.

He lowered his head and glanced at the thing in his left hand.

That cup of tea was still there.

White porcelain, chipped, ice-cold, half-drunk tea.

He bent over, gently placing the tea cup on the void beside his foot.

The cup actually stood upright steadily.

In this world where everything is shattering, a cup of cold tea remained utterly still.

Then Sun Wukong straightened his waist.

Facing that gray-white wave capable of grinding stars to dust.

He inhaled through his nose and spat out the bloody phlegm in his throat.

The spittle was wrapped in crimson-gold light.

A small lump.

Compared to the huge wave, it wasn't even as good as a grain of sand.

But it flew out.

It struck.

Sizzle—

At the center of the gray-white wave wall, a hole burst open.

Small.

Round.

Then the hole expanded.

Like a piece of cloth ignited from the middle.

The fire line spread in all directions.

In a breath—the entire sky-covering wave wall evaporated.

Not even a scrap remained.

The Heart Prison shattered.

It shattered completely.

It shattered cleanly.

Light shone in from outside.

It was not warm.

It was icy cold.

It was coarse.

It carried the smell of rust and blood.

It was the light of the real world.

Sun Wukong narrowed his eyes.

His golden pupils contracted a little from the light's sting.

He did not shield them.

He just stood there facing the light for a while.

Then the corner of his mouth twitched upward.

"Yo—"

He bent over, picked up the cold tea cup beside his foot, and tucked it into his bosom.

He raised his head and glanced outward.

The Heaven outside is red.

It is a red made by striking.

In the distance something is burning, howling, and fighting.

Sun Wukong hoisted the Chaos Dao iron that he had somehow been gripping in his hand.

The Stone Staff was unadorned, ash-covered, looking no different from a firewood stick.

"Out there they're still fighting."

He took a step forward.

As the foot stepping onto the Prison ruins touched down, the void of Wanshen Fenchang trembled.

Just that once.

It was very slight.

Yet all beings still fighting on the entire battlefield—friend or foe—stopped their movements at the same instant.

All gazes turned toward the same direction.

There stood a monkey.

His whole body was crimson-gold.

His eyes held blazing flames.

He held a Stone Staff.

He cradled a cold tea.

He walked out alive.