Chapter 448

When those six words entered his ears, Sun Wukong felt no heroic ambition, no tragic resolve—nothing at all.

Clean.

Only a feeling remained.

He felt steady.

From the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, he felt steady.

Master is here.

Master is alive.

Master told him where to hit.

Then Sun Wukong just needs to swing his staff—nothing else.

This is the easiest job of his life.

He took the staff from his shoulder, gripped it, and tested its weight.

The weight of the crimson‑gold long staff set his heart at ease.

The gaunt old man behind him leaned in the void, could barely stand, his strength estimated to be less than that of a three‑year‑old monkey.

But Sun Wukong wasn't panicked at all.

Because Master never fights with his fists.

Master relies on those eyes.

Those eyes that have pierced the Chaos Era, deduced countless heavenly secrets, and pored over the universe's fundamental logic tens of thousands of times.

Sure enough.

A faint cough came from behind him.

Then came Bodhi Patriarch's dry, hoarse voice.

There.

The gaunt finger lifted.

It trembled.

Pointing toward a direction in the darkness that looked empty.

Three inches to the left.

Sun Wukong didn't ask why.

He didn't turn back to look.

He didn't even think much about it.

He had already swung the staff in a wide arc.

His body moved before his mind.

The crimson‑gold long staff trailed a golden arc of light as it smashed hard into the seemingly empty void.

Boom!

The void was like a mirror shattered by a hammer.

As the fragments sprayed outward, a fist‑sized gray‑white light ball burst from the 'non‑existent' crack.

Its surface was covered with dense negation runes, spinning wildly as it tried to re‑conceal itself.

Too late.

The staff's residual force shattered it.

The gray‑white fragments exploded in the void, dissipating into wisps of residual smoke.

That was an anchor point of the Original Mistake hidden in this space.

Its root.

Its foot.

One of the supports of its existence here.

——!

From the depths of the darkness came a short, stifled grunt of shock and anger.

The Original Mistake's voice sounded.

With an uncontrollable loss of composure.

How did you see that?

This question wasn't aimed at Sun Wukong.

It was aimed at Bodhi.

Those anchor points exist in the interstice of concepts, hidden in the gap between 'non‑existence' and 'non‑existence'.

They cannot be found by strength.

They cannot be scanned by divine abilities.

Even if Hongjun Daozu himself arrived, it would be impossible to pinpoint them precisely in this void.

Because they fundamentally do not belong to any category of 'existence'.

Bodhi did not answer.

He didn't even lift his eyelids.

His finger twitched slightly.

He changed direction.

Seven feet above.

The voice was plain and bland.

The tone was exactly the same as when, on Fangcun Mountain, he pointed at the bookshelf and told the little monkey, 'Take down that Nan Hua Jing.'

Sun Wukong tapped his toe, and his figure leapt off the ground.

The staff's shadow cleaved down.

Another crisp sound rang out.

The second anchor point shattered.

"Underfoot."

As Sun Wukong landed, he thrust the staff tip downward.

Boom.

The third.

"Upper rear."

Bodhi's voice had no fluctuation.

Sun Wukong turned and strode forward.

"Step back two paces, then strike."

He stomped his foot, then retreated two steps.

He swung the staff.

He smashed.

The fourth gray-white anchor point exploded into powder under his staff.

Fast.

Too fast.

Every time Bodhi's finger moved, the direction changed.

Sun Wukong's staff followed the command and smashed down, without a hint of hesitation.

The master and disciple's coordination was as smooth as flowing clouds and water, reaching an uncanny degree.

No explanation needed.

No confirmation needed.

No eye contact needed.

Master pointed.

The monkey struck.

It was a matter of Heaven's constant, earth's righteousness.

Crimson-gold streams of light surged wildly in the void, the staff's shadow filling the sky.

With each staff strike, a gray-white anchor point hidden in the Concept seam was shattered.

Five.

Eight.

Twelve.

The domain of the Original Mistake was contracting at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Those anchor points were the nails it had driven into this space, the framework of its 'existence'.

Smashing one took away a fraction of its foothold.

"Stop!"

The Original Mistake's voice changed.

From initial shock and anger it turned to agitation.

From agitation it turned to furious embarrassment.

"Bodhi! You half-dead cripple, what eyes do you have to look with?!"

"Your mana is exhausted! Your Dao foundation is shattered! With what do you calculate the heavenly secrets?!"

Bodhi's finger halted in mid-air.

He tilted his head and glanced at the hysterical sound coming from the depths of the darkness.

Just eye.

Those turbid old eyes held no emotion at all.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"I've watched you for tens of thousands of years."

The voice was dry and hoarse.

Calm.

"Your flaws, old man, I know where they are even with my eyes closed."

The darkness trembled.

The gray-white aura in all directions suddenly surged.

The Original Mistake no longer hid.

No longer dodging.

All the power scattered in the void frenziedly gathered, condensing into a huge gray-white humanoid.

It had no face.

It had no features.

There was only a blank outline tens of thousands of feet high.

Its target is not Sun Wukong.

It is Bodhi.

Kill the eyes.

Dig out the heart.

If you can't beat the staff-wielding monkey, kill the old man who shows the monkey the way.

The ten-thousand-zhang tall figure stepped forward, and the void was cracked like a spiderweb under its foot.

The second step.

The gray-white giant palm had already swung toward the old man leaning in the void, thin as a withered branch.

So fast that even light couldn't catch up.

But there is something even faster than it.

A crimson-gold streak of light sliced in horizontally just before the giant palm of the figure fell.

Sun Wukong's figure appeared before Bodhi.

He gripped the staff with both hands, holding it horizontally above his head.

The giant palm struck the staff.

Boom—

The shockwave burst from the point of contact, pressing Sun Wukong's feet three cun into the void ground.

The veins on his arms bulged like snakes.

His teeth clenched, making a creaking sound.

His spine emitted a protesting crack.

The weight of this palm surpassed any attack he had previously endured.

Original Mistake had placed all its bets on this strike.

Sun Wukong's knee bent an inch.

A low growl was squeezed from his throat.

But he did not kneel.

He did not retreat.

The three-cun-deep pit beneath his feet continued to sink—four cun, five cun.

He gritted his teeth and held firm.

The veins on his face bulged one by one.

The Bodhi threads behind him remained still.

It wasn't that he didn't want to dodge.

It was that he truly had no strength left.

The only thing he could do left was one thing.

He could only serve as the eyes.

Bodhi lifted his violently shaking hand, swept aside the air raised by the shockwave before him, and his murky old eyes stared at the torso of the ten-thousand-zhang figure that had been exposed after Sun Wukong blocked it.

He looked for three seconds.

In those three seconds, his nearly ruined magical eyes burst forth with their final brilliance.

Then he spoke.

His voice was almost drowned out by the shockwave.

But Sun Wukong heard it clearly.

Every word came through crystal clear.

"Its chest."

"Slightly to the left."

"There's a crack."

He paused half a beat.

"It ate too much—indigestion."

"One staff strike can pierce it."

Sun Wukong finished listening.

His eyes lit up.

A laugh leaked from between his teeth.

Not a bitter laugh, not a mad laugh.

It was the exhilarated, extreme laughter of a hunter who finally spotted the prey's flaw.

He no longer bore it head-on.

His arms sprang upward, using the downward force of the giant palm to launch himself entirely.

His body flipped three times in midair.

His toes touched the void.

He followed the staff.

The crimson-gold staff rotated half a turn in his hand, changing from a sweep to a thrust.

The staff tip, like an enraged crimson-gold venomous snake, struck with pinpoint accuracy at the left side of the gray-white figure's chest.

Original Mistake sensed the threat.

It wanted to dodge.

Its body began to lean backward.

The Power of Negation condensed into a shield before its chest.

But it was too late.

This staff strike was too fast.

So fast that its conceptual defense had not yet formed when the staff tip arrived.

Pfft.

A muffled thud.

It wasn't heavy.

It was even slightly light.

But that sound caused the entire void to freeze for an instant.

The staff tip plunged into the chest of the gray‑white humanoid.

Three cun.

Exactly three cun.

Cracks spread outward from the puncture point.

One.

Two.

Ten.

The gray‑white "skin" cracked open like a dried riverbed.

What seeped from the fissures was not blood.

It was black, twisted, something belonging to the Error itself.

The movements of the towering humanoid froze.

All attacks ceased.

All the Power of Negation dissipated.

Only one sound remained in the whole dark space.

A Cànjiào.

Not a furious roar.

Not a startled hiss.

It was pure pain, emanating from the Primordial Source.

It felt pain.

For the first time in hundreds of millions of years.

Someone had left a wound on the true form of the Original Mistake.

Sun Wukong withdrew his staff, landing it before his master.

He glanced at Bodhi.

The old man leaned against the void, his eyes half‑closed.

He had used up the last of his spirit.

But a faint curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Very faint, very faint.

It was hard to tell whether it was a smile or a twitch.

Sun Wukong turned back, facing the towering crack‑riddled humanoid that was emitting a shrill sound.

He hoisted the staff onto his shoulder.

"Master."

His voice was not loud.

"Next, where should I strike?"

A muffled reply came from behind, as if squeezed from between his teeth.

"... Everywhere."

Bodhi's voice was hoarser than before.

But the next sentence set Sun Wukong's blood ablaze.

"Every cun of its body is a flaw."