Chapter 443: That One Strike, For Master to See

The light faded.

A solid, hard, cold sensation came from beneath his feet, carrying a smell of rust and aged blood mixed together.

Sun Wukong stopped.

He looked up.

Gray Heaven.

A low, oppressive, dead-gray sky pressed overhead, just like before he entered the Prison.

The ground beneath was reddish-brown.

The soil, soaked with the blood of gods and demons from countless epochs, was slightly sticky underfoot.

In the distance, broken giant divine weapons were lodged in the earth, like a slanted tombstone.

Wanshen Fenchang.

He returned.

The true Wanshen Fenchang.

Sun Wukong stood in place, scanning the surroundings.

When he first set foot here, his eyes were filled with anger and heroism; this battlefield was the enemy's display,

a graveyard of countless rebels, a sacrificial formation used to torment Master.

Now it's different.

He looked at those mountain-like demonic god corpses lying still on the ground.

He gazed at the vague, hill-shaped silhouettes of corpses on the distant horizon.

His heart was calm.

Like looking at a field after the harvest.

The work is done, people rest, the land should be renewed.

His gaze extended forward.

Crossing the sea of corpses, crossing the sea of blood, it fell upon the spot where the ultimate portal once stood.

The door was gone.

He himself had shattered it.

Those ultimate prisons once formed by golden law divine chains and black Power of Negation are now a field of Debris.

Black, gray, and golden shards littered the ground.

Like a pottery jar smashed by a child.

Sun Wukong looked at the pile of wreckage, without any smugness.

Nor any regret.

It was smashed, after all.

But the space behind the door still existed.

A fist-sized black hole floated above the wreckage, its edges tinged with faint gray light swirling, like a half-open eye.

It waited for him.

Waiting for him to enter.

Or rather, waiting for him to go back.

Sun Wukong withdrew his gaze, not hurrying to go over.

He turned in another direction.

His steps were neither fast nor slow, heading toward the center of the battlefield.

He bypassed a nine-headed dragon demon corpse, stepped over a Chaos Realm sword broken into three pieces, and finally stopped before a small hill made of a dozen corpses.

Summit of the corpse mountain.

A humanoid corpse lay there quietly.

The Golden Armor of the lock was shattered, leaving only a chest-sized piece still relatively intact, its golden scales dim.

His right hand clenched a golden Tiěbàng broken into two halves, gripping it tightly, knuckles protruding.

Sun Wukong climbed up, squatting beside the corpse.

He lowered his head to look at that face.

A face identical to his own.

Dry and shrunken, skin clinging to bone, long devoid of moisture.

Yet the corners of the mouth still held a slight curve.

Not a smile.

But Unyielding.

The kind of Unyielding that persists even in death, teeth clenched.

Sun Wukong stared for a long time.

So long that the surrounding wind stopped.

Then he extended his hand, brought two fingers together, and gently closed the corpse's eyelids.

The motion was very slow.

Very light.

As if afraid of hurting the other.

"You arrived here before me."

His voice was very low.

It's not said for anyone to hear; it's just said.

"You lost."

"But you didn't kneel either."

He withdrew his hand and stood up.

He came down from Corpse Mountain and stood on flat ground.

He lifted his eyes and looked outward.

The battlefield was filled everywhere with "him".

"Sun Wukong" clad in various armors.

One entirely jet‑black, its whole body covered with demonic patterns.

One shaved bald and wearing a Sēngpáo.

One with half its body turned into a mechanical structure.

One with only a single arm left, still in a punching pose.

Their forms varied.

They came from different times and spaces.

They walked different paths.

They used different methods.

All of them failed.

All of them died here.

Sun Wukong faced this sea of corpses and was silent for three seconds.

Then he raised both hands, clenched his fists, and pressed his left fist against his right palm.

Fist‑hold.

It wasn't a scholar's bow; it was a monkey's fist‑hold, full of jianghu spirit and a touch of roguish swagger.

His waist curved a little.

Not much.

Enough.

"I accept your concession."

Just two words.

After saying it, he straightened up, shook his shoulders, and turned around.

He faced the hovering black void.

The branch in his hand was still there.

It was ordinary, with two wilted green leaves, thin as a chopstick.

Sun Wukong lowered his head and glanced at it.

The branch began to change.

It wasn't a world‑shaking metamorphosis; there was no golden flash, no celestial phenomenon.

It simply grew very, very slowly in his palm.

The trunk thickened by one layer.

The leaves fell off.

The green outer bark peeled away, revealing a reddish‑gold wood grain inside.

No.

It wasn't wood grain.

It was a path.

Like tree rings, yet like fingerprints, circles spreading from the center of the staff toward both ends.

Finally it solidified.

A single staff.

Neither thick nor thin, neither long nor short, just the right size to handle.

Its entire surface was a reddish‑gold base covered with dark brown patterns, looking like a wooden staff used for decades.

It had no name.

It had no radiance.

It lacked any aura a divine weapon should possess.

It was as plain as something picked up from a yard.

But Sun Wukong's grip on it was as steady as a mountain.

He rotated the staff once in his palm.

When the staff's tip flicked open, a low hum resonated in the void.

It wasn't a divine skill.

It was merely the wind sound generated by pure force.

The movement flowed like clouds and water; his wrist turned, fingers relaxed, the staff slid out half an inch along the web of his hand then returned, the tip resting a point in his palm.

It was the opening move he had practiced a thousand times a thousand years ago on Fangcun Mountain.

Master stood in the corridor, cradling a tea cup, watching him train.

If he trained it wrong, he would be scolded.

Even if he trained it correctly, he would still be scolded, "Too slow, Monkey Head, try again."

Sun Wukong's mouth corner twitched.

He slung the staff over his shoulder and stepped toward the black opening.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps,

He stopped.

It wasn't hesitation.

It was that he sensed something.

From the deepest part of that pitch‑black opening, a thread thinner than a spider's silk threaded through endless darkness and Negation, bringing a faint warmth.

Extremely weak.

Weak to the point of almost non‑existence.

But Sun Wukong's Monkey Heart sensed it.

It wasn't hostility.

It wasn't a trap.

It was a heart beating.

Very slowly.

Very weary.

But it was still beating.

Master's Dao Heart.

Still inside.

Still alive.

Still waiting for him.

Sun Wukong's Adam's apple moved.

He said nothing.

He inhaled.

The breath carried the smell of iron rust, blood, and the ancient, ever‑present rot of Wanshen Fenchang.

He swallowed the breath into his lungs, compressing it.

Then he raised the staff.

Not toward the opening.

But toward Heaven.

At the gray firmament overhead that pressed the breath from him.

He lifted the staff from his shoulder, grasped it with both hands, and swung it in a circle.

Starting from the right‑rear, he traced a full wide arc, smashing straight upward.

No battle cry.

No Qi.

Just a single strike.

A plain, unadorned strike.

Just like the first form Master taught him.

The moment the staff tip touched the gray sky.

Heaven split.

It wasn't shattered; it was like a thin sheet of ice cracked, spreading dense fissures outward from the impact point.

Then light seeped through the cracks.

Crimson‑gold light.

It leaked out strand by strand from the fissures.

Sprinkling onto the reddish‑brown earth.

Sprinkling onto the corpses that had slept for countless epochs.

Where the light fell, the remnants of those demon gods began to transform.

It wasn't decay.

They turned into tiny golden stardust.

Particle by particle, they floated lightly upward.

The corpses of Sun Wukong from different times and spaces also transformed.

The chainmail Golden Armor dissolved.

The broken staff dissolved.

Those Unyielding faces also dissolved.

All turned into golden specks of light dust, rose up, pierced the cracks in the sky, and vanished.

The entire Wanshen Fenchang fell like a reverse golden snow.

Floating from the ground upward to Heaven.

Sun Wukong sheathed the staff and slung it back onto his shoulder.

He looked up at the stardust.

His mouth corner twitched.

"Walk well."

His voice was very soft.

After saying that, he drew his gaze back.

He turned to face the pitch-black cave entrance.

Three steps.

He walked the last three steps.

He stood at the cave entrance.

Darkness surged out from within, like a silent great mouth.

Sun Wukong did not glance further.

He lowered his head and touched the white porcelain tea cup he kept in his bosom.

The tea was still cold.

Not a drop was spilled.

"Master."

He lifted his foot.

"I'm here."

He stepped into the darkness.

His figure was swallowed.

Wanshen Fenchang returned to silence.

The gray heavenly canopy split above his head was slowly healing; the last thread of crimson-gold light seeped through the crack, shining on the edge of the black cave mouth.

The cave entrance trembled slightly.

Then it shrank a little.

It was as if something inside was tightening the entrance.

The door was closed.

Not letting him come out.