Chapter 489: Seed Breaking Ground

The tree's phantom was still growing.

Branches shot up from behind Sun Wukong, reaching into the dim void like a finger sprouting from dead earth.

Gray-white light pillars circled it, but could not find or touch it.

The swirling pupils on the faceless giant face paused for three breaths.

Then it spun up madly.

"Impossible."

Its voice carried emotion for the first time.

It was not anger.

It was confusion.

Sun Wukong ignored it.

He let go of Yao, took a step forward, and reached his right hand into the void.

Chaos Dao iron.

The iron staff drifting hundreds of thousands of li away, at the instant his palm opened, seemed seized by an invisible thread, its head turning, humming and trembling as it flew back.

Pa.

The staff's butt settled firmly into his palm.

When Sun Wukong grabbed it, he froze for a moment.

The iron staff had changed.

Before, holding it felt like embracing a volcano ready to erupt—violent, frenzied, wanting to smash everything around into dust.

Now that ferocious aura had subsided.

A thin halo of light rose on the staff's surface, soft and warm, like the hue of the sun just peeking over the horizon at dawn.

Sun Wukong turned his wrist, laying the iron staff across his front and gave it two glances.

"You've changed too."

He stroked the staff and muttered a sentence.

Then he sat down.

He sat cross-legged in the void, the iron staff laid across his knees.

Yao: "What are you doing?"

"Fuse."

One word.

He closed his eyes.

Within him, the Primordial Source of the Equal Heaven Path dwelled deep in his dantian, crimson-gold, scorching, bearing a violent aura capable of destroying heaven and earth.

Sun Wukong projected his will, like pulling a burning stick from a fire, and drew the Equal Heaven Path's Primordial Source out from his innermost depths bit by bit.

It hurt.

It hurt from the gaps in his bones.

It was something that had fused with him for hundreds of millions of years, now being forcibly torn away, like pulling a tree root grown in flesh outwards.

He clenched his back teeth and made no sound.

The Primordial Source had been pulled out, hovering before his chest—a crimson-gold ball of light, restless, crackling, filled entirely with the will to 'shatter everything.'

Then Sun Wukong did a second thing.

He sought the insight his Master had just implanted into his mind.

Deep in his heart lay a wisp of extremely faint, light breath, green, like a grass shoot pushing up from the mud after the first spring rain.

Void Qi.

It represented the power of creation.

Given by his Master.

Sun Wukong carefully drew out that wisp of breath and cradled it in his other palm.

The two masses faced each other, separated by his body.

Left hand: crimson-gold Primordial Source, violent as magma.

Right hand: Void Qi, fragile as a grass shoot.

He drew a deep breath.

Then he brought his hands together, kneading the two masses into one.

Boom.

It was not an external explosion.

It was his mind that blew up.

The moment the two forces met, it was like pouring water into hot oil—violently repelling, each devouring the other.

The crimson-gold sought to burn the green, the green to neutralize the crimson-gold, and they churned wildly in his palm.

A vein bulged on Sun Wukong's forehead, wriggling under his skin like an earthworm.

It was too painful.

Not bodily pain.

It was a tearing sensation at the soul level.

Two utterly opposed Primordial Sources clashed within him, each impact like someone sawing back and forth across his Divine Soul.

He opened his mouth, but no shout came out.

His teeth ground with a creak, and blood seeped from the corners of his mouth.

Wukong!

Yao Chong came over to help him.

Don't touch me!

He let out a roar, his voice cracking.

It wasn't anger at Yao.

He was afraid he couldn't control the chaotic energy surging inside him and might hurt her.

Yao stopped three steps away, fists clenched, nails digging into her flesh, watching his forehead sweat drop by drop.

Sun Wukong's hands were trembling.

The ball of mixed energy in his palm was like a bomb about to explode, the crimson‑gold and emerald‑green intertwining and pushing each other apart, extremely unstable.

He began to knead.

Like kneading clay, he squeezed the two forces together.

The surrounding space was bent and warped by the energy ripples leaking from between his palms,

distant gravel and dust were shoved aside by an invisible force, creating a vacuum zone around him.

Sweat dripped from his chin, floated into the void, and before it could fall three feet it was shattered into mist by the energy wave and evaporated.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Each time he kneaded, the repulsion between the two forces weakened a bit.

The crimson‑gold no longer tried to burn away the green; instead it began to wrap around it.

The green no longer tried to neutralize the crimson‑gold; instead it began to seep into it.

Like two snakes that had been chasing and biting each other, they grew tired, slowly coiled together, and turned into a single rope.

Sun Wukong's trembling lessened.

He opened one eye and looked at his palm.

The two colors were no longer opposing each other.

Gold and green wove together, flowing and merging, the light mass shrinking in volume,

density increasing, its form shifting from a chaotic vortex into a regular sphere.

Getting smaller and smaller.

Getting steadier and steadier.

Finally it became a bead the size of a marble, hovering silently in his palm.

Gold‑green interwoven.

Clear and crystalline.

Inside, something alive seemed to pulse faintly, beat after beat, like a heartbeat.

Sun Wukong stared at it for two seconds, then broke into a grin.

Then he snatched the Chaos Dao Iron from his knee and pressed the bead onto the middle of the staff.

He slapped it in with one palm.

Clang.

The iron staff emitted a deep, resonant hum, the whole shaft trembling.

The crimson‑gold staff began to change from both ends.

Green veins spread from where the bead was set, creeping like vines toward the tip and butt, inch by inch, tender green, vibrant, brimming with newborn vitality.

The iron staff was no longer just a lump of metal for smashing things.

It had come alive.

Sun Wukong rose to his feet, lifted the staff with one hand, and hefted it.

It felt light.

Not that its weight had lessened, but his heart felt lighter.

Holding it, he no longer felt that only one path lay ahead.

The Faceless Giant Face remained silent throughout the process.

But the moment the green pattern appeared on the staff, it stirred.

Its vortex‑shaped pupils dilated to the extreme, taking up two‑thirds of the face.

No!

Its voice exploded, surging from all directions with unprecedented urgency.

The whole star field shuddered.

All the gray‑white skin on the Faceless Giant Face began to peel and reform, turning into countless beams of gray‑white light ten times thicker than before, not aimed at Sun Wukong.

They were aimed at the iron staff in Sun Wukong's hand.

It wanted to destroy that staff.

Before it could become whatever it was going to become.

At the same instant, something stirred in the depths of the void.

The dimensional fragments that Sun Wukong had smashed and that had healed themselves began to reassemble, but not back to their original form.

They were being assembled.

Being spliced.

Being formed into a colossal hand spanning three star systems.

It pressed down from above.

Yao lifted their head and saw the shadow of that palm covering over; their face turned pale.

Sun Wukong raised his head.

Myriad light pillars came from ahead.

The giant hand fell from above.

He looked around and discovered he was trapped at the center of a spherical killing formation.

There were no gaps.

There was no retreat.

All attacks were aimed at the iron staff in his hand that had sprouted green shoots.

Sun Wukong hoisted the iron staff onto his shoulder.

"In a hurry?"

He laughed.

He showed a mouthful of white teeth.

The giant hand that covered the sky and blotted out the sun opposite him suddenly increased its falling speed tenfold.