Chapter 472: The Old Heaven Collapsed

The Six-Eared Macaque's miserable cry still echoed in the void.

That palm-sized little macaque was nailed in mid-air by myriad swords; it couldn't even utter a whimper, only a pair of cloudy eyes kept rolling.

Bodhi didn't look at it again.

He turned his body, his gray gaze slowly sweeping over this battlefield.

A hundred thousand Heavenly Soldiers lay scattered in disarray, some pretending to be dead on the rubble,

Some clutched their severed hands and rolled on the ground, some knelt motionless in place, even their breathing suppressed to the minimum.

The situation of the Three Thousand Arhats was even worse.

Golden bodies shattered, littering the ground, revealing the gray, defeated flesh within; each looked no different from a mud monkey, lacking any semblance of Buddhist saints' dignity.

Farther off, the Jade Emperor huddled behind a broken pillar of a collapsed palace, his dragon robe torn beyond recognition of color, the twelve-beaded crown on his head askew to one side, with a broken jade pendant hanging.

The Tathagata was still buried in the ruins, half of his swine‑like swollen face exposed, his breath hanging in limbo.

Receiving Guide and Cundi had turned into two withered saplings, their leaves almost all fallen, shivering in the breeze.

As for Hongjun, needless to say.

A lump of mud lay on the ground, its eyeballs barely moving.

Bodhi took it all in.

He showed no expression.

Just like an old farmer looking at the chicken feathers and garlic husks littering his own yard.

Then he spoke.

"These heavenly immortals."

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the whole battlefield.

"The monks on earth."

"Each living tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years, immortal, enthroned above the clouds."

"But this old man has taken a look around today."

Bodhi's voice was plain and ordinary, like chatting about family matters.

"Not one of them does any real work."

As soon as these words were spoken, all conscious immortals and buddhas on the battlefield shrank their necks.

Nobody dared to make a sound.

Not even the atmosphere dared to stir.

"The Heavenly Court collects protection money, Ling Shan practices usury. The incense offerings of the mortal realm rise year after year; performing a ritual requires three livestock and five beasts plus a hundred years of merit."

"What about when demons descend to wreak havoc on the people?"

"They all shrink back, refusing to come out."

"Wait until the people are dead, the affair settled, then come out to collect corpses and perform rites—still charging a fee."

Bodhi shook his head.

"Since you enjoy being the lords of mortals so much,"

"then stop being immortals."

The old man's right hand reached out from his sleeve.

Five withered fingers spread open.

There was no flashy light effect.

There was no mighty surge of magical power.

But everyone felt it.

An irresistible sense of severance rising from deep within the marrow.

The first to scream was the Venus Star God.

"My... my immortal register!"

The old man's body exuded a layer of golden mist, which seeped out from his pores and drifted uncontrollably outward.

Next was the Pagoda‑bearing Heavenly King Li Jing.

The pagoda in his hand, once blazing with golden light, instantly dimmed, becoming a mundane lump of copper.

His visage changed rapidly, his nasolabial folds deepening, white hair sprouting at his temples.

"No… no…"

Li Jing clutched the now‑scrap‑iron pagoda tightly, his voice trembling.

Then came Nezha.

Then Erlang God.

Then Giant Spirit God.

Then the Four Heavenly Kings.

Then the Twenty‑Eight Lunar Mansions.

One after another.

Like eggs stripped of their shells, bare and naked, their true forms laid bare.

Golden mist surged forth simultaneously from the bodies of the hundred thousand Heavenly Soldiers, gathering in mid‑air to form a brilliant sea of light.

That was their divine register.

That was their mark of longevity.

That was the foundation that let them live forever, untouched by death, exalted above all.

Bodhi flipped his hand upward.

The sea of light compressed in his palm, compressed, and compressed again.

Finally it turned into a speck of light the size of a grain of rice.

Bodhi blew a breath.

The speck of light went out.

Ah!

My lifespan! My lifespan is draining!

Don't! I don't want to die! I've cultivated for eighty thousand years!

Who will come save me!

Cànjiào cries rose and fell, ten times more tragic than the wails of the Six-Eared Macaque.

Because those immortals felt the passage of time for the first time.

The true passage.

White hair grew wildly.

Wrinkles crawled all over the body.

Teeth loosened.

Bones ached.

Aging, something they had never experienced after living tens of thousands of years.

Now it all came back in a second.

"Old… old…" a once ethereal heavenly immortal knelt on the ground, looking at his hand back covered in age spots, his turbid tears falling in big drops.

I don't want to grow old…

Sun Wukong stood beside his master, staff on shoulder, watching this scene.

He didn't laugh.

He just took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

Back when he caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace, how did these things treat him?

Ten thousand Heavenly Soldiers surrounded and attacked.

The Supreme Old Lord hurled the Golden Club for a sneak attack.

The Tathagata slapped him down, pressing him for five hundred years.

While he ate iron pills and drank copper juice under Wǔxíng Shān, they were up in heaven drinking wine, admiring flowers, eating peach banquets.

Now it's settled.

All of them, damn it, reverted to their original forms.

You now know what a Mortal's life tastes like, right?

After Bodhi finished with the Heavenly Court, his gaze shifted.

It fell upon the bald heads of Ling Shan.

The three thousand arhats were so frightened they scrambled backward, some with weak legs collapsing straight to the ground, kowtowing like pounding garlic.

Senior, spare my life!

We wish to retreat to the mountains and forests, never again to concern ourselves with worldly affairs!

Please grant us mercy!

Bodhi's response was a single action.

He raised his left index finger and lightly drew a half-circle in the air.

The effect was even cleaner than that of the Heavenly Court.

The arhats' layer of radiant golden merit bodies, like an eggshell, cracked with a 'crack' and fell off in large chunks.

Revealing underneath were mortal bodies covered in scars and flab.

Some had beer bellies.

Some had bowed legs.

Some were bald, not a single hair left.

All sorts of ugly sights.

Those once solemn and dignified Buddhas and bodhisattvas are now no different from the most destitute beggars at the market.

One arhat stroked his shiny bald head and wrinkled face, then burst into loud sobs.

He cried so hard his nose and tears smeared his face.

My Buddhist Dharma… my Golden Body… I cultivated for 120,000 years… 120,000 years…

No one paid him any heed.

Everyone was busy crying for themselves.

Bodhi stood in place, left hand behind his back, right hand slowly retracting into his sleeve.

It's done.

Clean and tidy.

The Heavenly Court's divine register is gone.

Ling Shan's Golden Body is shattered.

The two supreme powers of the Three Realms.

In the snap of an old man's finger, they turned to ash and smoke.

After being a lord for so many years, it's time to taste what it's like to be a mortal.

Bodhi's voice was as faint as a breeze.

Sun Wukong's mouth corner finally turned up.

It curled up very high.

The great mountain that had weighed on his heart for many years shattered today.

It shattered cleanly.

He raised his head to look at Master's thin, withered back.

His nose felt a little sore.

But his tone remained that of someone begging for a beating: "Master, your work is Efficient—much more satisfying than when I, Old Monkey, smash people."

Bodhi ignored him.

The vast, sky‑covering Chaotic Demon God phantom on the old man's body was slowly retracting.

The towering giant shrank inch by inch, as if being stuffed back into a small box.

Bodhi's spine bent again.

His shoulders hunched once more.

His tattered Daoist robe swayed lightly in the wind.

He turned back into that thin, short old man.

But on the battlefield,

No one dared to regard him as an ordinary old man anymore.

All the Heavenly Soldiers,

All the Arhats,

The Jade Emperor,

The Tathagata,

Hongjun,

Every conscious being buried their heads deep.

They didn't even dare to glance in Bodhi's direction with their peripheral vision.

It was as quiet as a graveyard.

Sun Wukong was about to spout off a few more remarks when Bodhi suddenly lifted his head.

The old man's movement was very gentle.

But Sun Wukong noticed a detail.

Master's brow furrowed.

Since his rebirth until now, Master had never furrowed his brow.

"Master?"

Bodhi did not turn back.

His gaze was fixed on the trembling void at the edge of the battlefield.

The space there was twisting.

It was not a rift.

The entire void was bulging outward, as if something huge was pressing from the other side.

A breath seeped out from that distorted space.

It was very faint.

But that breath made the hairs on Sun Wukong's back stand on end.

It was not fear.

It was an instinctive alertness.

That breath was deeper than Hongjun's.

It was older than the Original Mistake.

It sounded like a sigh from the source of time.

Bodhi slowly slipped his hands back into his sleeves.

"Monkey."

"Huh?"

"I just told you that."

The old man's voice remained just as flat.

But Sun Wukong heard something different in it.

"Work's come."

The void's bulge grew larger.

That ancient, unfathomable breath grew stronger.

Then a voice came from deep within the twisted space.

Ancient.

Weathered.

Carrying a calm that had seen through everything.

"Bodhi, Junior Disciple."

"Long time no see, how have you been?"

Bodhi's eyes narrowed.

Sun Wukong saw Master's mouth corner twitch, as if he were chewing on a name.

A name that hasn't been mentioned for a very long time.