Chapter 445: You can block blades and spears, but you can't guard against a cup of tea

The heat drifted past.

Sun Wukong stared as that wisp of curling white smoke passed through the first layer of silk thread, his heart leaping to his throat.

But nothing happened.

The silk thread did not contract.

The trap was not triggered.

Those dense, spiderweb-like rule patterns hung there silently, invisible to the water vapor passing through them.

Just like an iron fence designed to stop a tiger, it was useless against an ant squeezing through a gap.

It wasn't that it didn't want to block.

It was that it simply "couldn't see."

Its trigger condition was set in stone—force.

Any form of force touching the net would cause it to contract, to drag, pulling both target and source deeper into the void.

But what counts as force for temperature?

What kind of threat is the steam rising from a cup of tea?

This thing can't even scald a mosquito to death.

So the silk thread remained still.

The trap made no sound.

The rules did not recognize it.

The heat just swaggered through the myriad silk threads, as if strolling through its own backyard.

Sun Wukong watched this scene, the corner of his mouth twisting.

He did not laugh out loud.

But that feeling could not be hidden.

The heat arrived before the Dao Heart.

There was no thunderous commotion.

It was just a light wisp of white smoke circling that grain‑sized point of light half a turn and sticking to it.

Like a pair of hands in winter covering another pair of frozen hands.

No effort was made.

It simply stuck.

It slowly seeped its own insignificant warmth across.

The Dao Heart's light flickered once.

Very faint.

So faint that if you weren't staring, you wouldn't notice it at all.

But Sun Wukong was counting.

Before, that point of light pulsed once every ten seconds.

He had counted it over a hundred times, knowing it by heart.

Ten seconds.

Ten seconds.

Then after the heat wrapped around it——

Nine seconds.

It had sped up by just one second.

One second.

On a battlefield of this scale, one second counts for nothing.

But Sun Wukong laughed.

It was a genuine laugh.

The kind where he grinned wide.

Because he knew what that second meant.

It meant the Master felt it.

Felt warmth.

Felt that someone was outside.

After being frozen in this sunless, ghostly place for who knows how many tens of thousands of years, a trace of human warmth seeped in.

The Master received it.

In the darkness, it fell silent for a moment.

That kind of abnormal silence.

Like the stillness before a storm when the air is sucked dry.

Then a voice exploded, sharp and urgent.

"What did you do?!"

The voice of the Original Mistake changed tone.

Before, no matter how arrogant or vicious, it was at least level, looking down from above, possessing that composure of "everything under control."

Now it's gone.

Now this voice has a jagged edge.

It carries panic.

Sun Wukong didn't lift his head.

He held the tea cup in his hand, continuing to transfer the warmth from his chest into the porcelain wall.

Monkey Heart jumps a little, warms a bit.

Jump a little, warm a bit.

The tea went from lukewarm to warm.

The steam at the cup's rim went from one strand to three, five, then a dozen strands.

All the steam drifted in the same direction.

Three zhang away.

Dao Heart.

Like a dozen invisible threads connecting master and disciple.

"I'm asking you!"

That voice grew more urgent: "You did——"

"Brewing tea."

Sun Wukong replied lightly, "I already said it. Hard of hearing?"

Silence.

It lasted about two seconds.

Then the darkness moved.

A stream of gray-white air surged from all directions like wind, rushing straight at the steam drifting toward the Dao Heart.

Power of Negation.

It wanted to blow away this steam.

The gray-white air swirled up to the steam.

It passed through.

It touched nothing.

The steam continued to drift.

Steady.

The gray-white air spun in place, like a cat's paw that missed its mark, hanging there.

Another came, stronger.

This time it carried the essence of "Negation" that can dissolve concepts.

It touched the steam.

It passed through.

Still nothing happened.

Sun Wukong finally lifted his head.

His crimson-gold eyes held a "looking at an idiot" expression.

"You're negating nothing."

His voice wasn't loud, but crystal clear.

"It's water vapor."

"When water boils it gives off smoke; that's a physical phenomenon, not the Great Dao, not a law, not a concept."

"How do you negate? Negate water evaporating? Negate heat conduction?"

"If you negate those two, your own set of rules will collapse too."

The darkness grew quiet.

That kind of choked silence.

Sun Wukong lowered his head again, continuing to drink his tea.

A puzzle piece in his heart finally fit snugly.

The tortoise shell his master used as a table leg pad.

He had long realized a layer—solving problems with the most unnoticeable means.

But only today did he truly grasp the bottom.

Not "unnoticeable".

But "not worth mentioning".

All the defenses, traps, and rules the enemy designed were built against "threats".

Concept-level attack?

Defend.

Law-level impact?

Defend.

Chaos Dao overwhelming?

Defend.

Saint-level divine ability?

Defend.

It blocked every conceivable high-end threat.

Not a drop leaks.

Flawless.

But it never imagined needing to guard against a cup of hot tea.

Because a cup of hot tea is not a threat.

In its analytical system, a cup of hot tea doesn't even count as "data".

Master is truly awesome.

Sun Wukong silently swore a curse word in his heart, treating it as praise.

Hide the answer in the most stupid and rustic place, waiting for this dumb monkey to smash his head into it.

Three zhang away, the Dao Heart's beat changed again.

Once every eight seconds.

Once every seven seconds.

Once every six seconds.

The light is getting brighter.

It is not the violent brightness of a dying flare, but a slow, steady, gradually recovering brightness.

Like someone who has been unconscious for a long time, their eyelids began to twitch.

Almost awake.

Almost there.

A violent tremor came from the darkness.

It was not a sound.

It was the entire void space shaking.

The Original Mistake panicked.

It really panicked.

It no longer tried to blow away the heat.

A grayish-white beam of light condensed from the deepest darkness, sharp and fierce, pointing straight at the Dao Heart.

It wanted to destroy it directly.

Since it couldn't be kept, it would shatter it.

The speed at which the beam shot out was extremely fast.

But it wasn't fast enough.

Because Sun Wukong moved at the instant the beam began to condense.

He did not charge.

He simply stood up.

He stepped forward one step.

Just one step.

He happened to block in front of the Dao Heart.

He faced the beam.

He still held the teacup in his hand.

He did not exert any force.

He did not activate any law.

The scarlet-gold battle armor in the form of his old Dao robe on his body lit up on its own.

A warm, moist light.

Not glaring.

Even a bit old-looking.

Like winter sunlight shining on an icy window pane.

The beam struck.

No explosion.

No impact.

There was none of the expected "collision" movement or sound.

When the grayish-white destructive light struck that layer of warm scarlet-gold radiance, it was like snowflakes falling on a sun-warmed stone slab.

It dissolved.

It dissolved silently and without a trace.

Clean and neat.

A scream exploded from the darkness.

It was not anger.

It was fear.

Pure fear.

Sun Wukong stood in place.

He didn't even change his posture.

He glanced back behind him.

The Dao Heart's beat—once every three seconds.

The light steadily increased in strength.

It was no longer a candle about to go out.

It was a star buried beneath the ashes, burning through layer by layer the dead ash covering it.

It's going to get bright.

It's really going to get bright.

Sun Wukong turned around.

Facing the boundless darkness.

He brought the tea cup in his hand to his lips and blew away a fragment of tea leaf floating on the surface.

He took a sip.

It was warm.

It was just right upon entering the mouth.

He set the cup down, resting it at knee height, holding it casually.

His crimson-gold eyes shone in the darkness like two lamps.

The corner of his mouth curled.

His voice was not loud.

But each word struck, making the darkness tremble.

"Master is about to wake up."

"You—"

He paused for a beat.

In that beat, all the tremors in the darkness froze.

"You can't escape."

As his words fell, the Dao Heart behind him throbbed violently.

That beat brought light.

Carrying an aged, stubborn, unwilling-to-lose will.

From deep within the darkness came a—

shattering sound.