Chapter 458: Smash from Inside!

Master and disciple resonate, shattering Heaven and Earth!

The monster's belly is not empty.

The moment Sun Wukong opened his eyes, a pungent sour stench rushed into his nostrils.

All around was viscous liquid.

Gold and black swirled together, bubbling with a foul smell, the temperature absurdly high.

When the liquid touched his skin, it made a hissing sound.

It was dissolving him.

This damned thing's innards are like stomach acid, trying to melt him entirely into nourishment.

Sun Wukong lowered his head and glanced.

The skin on the back of his hand had already reddened, as if scalded by boiling water.

It hurt, but he could still endure.

"Just this?"

He snorted.

As soon as his words fell, the liquid's concentration suddenly multiplied tenfold.

The originally mixed gold-black color turned into pure dark red, like molten iron in a boiling pot.

A heat wave wrapped in corrosive law power pressed down simultaneously.

Sun Wukong's eyebrows were singed off a bit.

The skin on his face began to blister.

He cursed, and his Monkey Heart jumped violently.

A crimson-gold light burst from his chest.

The battle armor woven from No Regret Dao Rhythm shone at this moment like a small sun.

The light expanded outward three feet.

All approaching corrosive liquid was bounced off; upon contacting the shield, it instantly evaporated into white mist.

Hiss.

Steam surged wildly, and within three feet around Sun Wukong a dry vacuum zone formed.

The liquid could not get in.

He stood inside the monster's belly, clean and dry.

"You want to melt this old man?"

Sun Wukong wiped away the lingering burn marks on his face, "This lousy belly of yours still lacks enough heat."

That's what he said.

But he knew, relying solely on defense wasn't a solution.

This thing's corrosive fluid kept secreting endlessly, its concentration ever rising.

The armor's light was strong, but it was also being consumed.

Need to be quick.

Find its core, settle the score with one blow.

Sun Wukong closed his eyes, extending all his senses outward.

Then he froze.

Not because he found the core.

But because he sensed another power.

Coming from outside.

Very far, separated by the monster's thick flesh walls, by distorted space and law.

But that power was too familiar to him.

Master.

Bodhi's aura.

Faint, like a wick about to burn out.

But steady.

Steady enough to put one's mind at ease.

That aura did not try to pierce the monster's body to find him.

It was simply outside, beating quietly.

Its beat frequency was exactly the same as Sun Wukong's Monkey Heart.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Like two people on opposite sides of a wall, pounding their fists with the same rhythm.

You strike, I strike.

Sun Wukong's mouth corners turned up.

He didn't hesitate, actively sending his Dao Rhythm outward.

A strand of crimson-gold No Regret intent peeled from the armor, passed through the three-foot shield, and plunged into the surging corrosive liquid.

The liquid frantically tried to dissolve it.

Useless.

No Regret Dao Rhythm is not power, not law, not anything that can be corroded and negated.

It is a kind of choice.

The choice itself cannot be destroyed.

That strand of Dao Rhythm passes through liquid, passes through flesh walls, passes through twisted space.

Outside, Bodhi leans against the broken wall, a thread of crimson-gold light reflected in his turbid old eyes.

He extends his withered hand.

In his palm, a light of the same color shines.

The two beams of light touch in the void.

Boom—

Not an explosion.

It is resonance.

Like two strings plucked simultaneously, emitting exactly the same tone.

That sound pierces everything.

It pierces the monster's flesh wall.

It pierces the corrosive liquid.

It pierces the double barrier of law formed by golden Heavenly Dao and black Negation.

Resonance.

The No Regret Dao Rhythm of master and disciple achieves spatial resonance at this moment.

Sun Wukong feels it.

At the instant that power floods into his body, his Monkey Heart beats more fiercely than ever before.

Not a single person's heartbeat.

It is two people's.

One old, one young; one master, one disciple, vibrating at the same frequency.

Damn it!

Sun Wukong roars violently, flinging his arms wide open.

The resonant power erupts from within his body.

Crimson-gold ripples spread in all directions, exploding whatever they touch.

The monster's inner wall suffers first.

The glands that continuously secrete corrosive fluid are swept by the resonant ripples and burst like balloons.

Crackle—

Green pus splatters everywhere.

Sun Wukong does not stop.

A second wave of resonance follows immediately.

Stronger.

More violent.

Within the monster, the meridians formed by the intertwining of Heavenly Dao Law and Power of Negation are shattered.

The golden and black energies lose their conduit constraints and begin to run rampant inside it.

It is as if someone smashed all the pipes inside a precision machine.

Coolant, fuel, and waste are all mixed together.

Outside.

That ten-thousand-zhang tall aberrant monster suddenly stops expanding.

Its body begins to spasm uncontrollably.

A miserable howl erupts from its giant mouth full of fangs.

That sound is not something any living being could produce.

Sharp.

Piercing.

Carrying a grating metallic frequency.

The entire void trembles along with it.

In the distance, the remaining dimensional bulwarks shatter like glass across the ground.

The monster's devouring vortex stops.

The heaven-swallowing giant mouth, in spasm, closes and opens again, having completely lost control.

Hongjun's expression changes.

He lowers his hands clasped behind his back.

In his golden vertical pupils is reflected the monster rolling and wailing; his brow furrows for the first time.

Not right.

He extends his right hand, pointing his index finger toward Sun Wukong's direction.

Golden Heavenly Dao Law threads shoot from his fingertip, attempting to pierce the monster's body and Suǒdìng the monkey inside.

The threads touch the monster's surface.

They bounce off.

Hongjun's eyelid twitches.

He increased his force, ten fingers simultaneously shot out law threads.

All bounced off.

It wasn't the monster resisting.

It was its internal resonant frequency that shook all external force probes into Debris.

Hongjun couldn't lock onto Sun Wukong.

「…」

The corner of his mouth tightened into a line.

Inside the monster's belly.

Sun Wukong had already found the target.

In the center of this chaotic mess of organ wreckage, a fist-sized thing was spinning wildly.

Golden and black light inside alternately flashed.

That was the core consciousness of this deformed product.

The last remnants of the Original Mistake and Heavenly Dao Law Debris twisted together, forming a distorted consciousness aggregate.

It was screaming.

Begging for mercy.

Trying to flee outward.

Sun Wukong gave it no chance.

Three steps.

He only took three steps to reach it.

The Tiěbàng was held in his hand, scarlet-gold light flowing along its shaft.

Monkey Heart and the Master's Dao Rhythm reached their peak vibration at the same moment.

All power gathered at the tip of the staff.

That was not a spell.

Not a divine ability.

Not any fancy technique.

It was something a teacher devoted his whole life to teach a student.

It was the answer sheet a student handed in after traveling ten thousand miles.

It was No Regret.

The Tiěbàng was raised overhead.

"Get lost!"

A staff strike fell.

Light.

The entire Universe turned white.

A scarlet-gold light pillar pierced from the monster's abdomen through its skull, shooting straight out.

The light pillar was as thick as a hundred-zhang ancient tree, carrying terrifying energy capable of rewriting reality, bursting from the top of that fang-filled skull.

The monster's wail cut off abruptly.

Its body cracked at a visible speed.

What seeped from the cracks was not blood, but pure white light.

More and more.

Brighter and brighter.

Like a paper lantern lit from within.

Then it exploded.

No sound.

A ten-thousand-zang high monstrous flesh mountain shattered in silence into billions of light fragments.

Golden, black, all were swallowed by that scarlet-gold strong light.

Crushed.

Evaporated.

Returned to nothingness.

Not even a speck of dust remained.

Original Mistake, this time, died completely.

After the light faded, the void returned to silence.

Sun Wukong stood there.

The Tiěbàng was carried on his shoulder, his body covered in blood, his battle armor mostly shattered.

But his eyes shone terrifyingly bright.

He turned his head and glanced toward the Master.

Across half the battlefield, Bodhi raised a finger at him.

He nodded.

Sun Wukong grinned.

Then his gaze turned to Hongjun.

That old thing stood far away, its composure completely vanished.

What replaced it was a cold scrutiny.

It was as if he were reassessing an underestimated weapon.

Sun Wukong drove the Tiěbàng into the ground.

"Next, it's your turn."

Hongjun didn't speak.

But the golden crack behind him silently expanded to three times its size.