Chapter 490: Seeds Take Root

The giant hand pressed down from the top of Heaven.

Countless gray-white light pillars shot forth together.

Sun Wukong stood at the exact center of the encirclement, hoisted his iron staff onto his shoulder, and bared his teeth in a smile.

The faceless giant face stared at his expression, its vortex eyes spinning faster.

It could not understand why this monkey could still smile.

Clearly, killing moves came from all directions.

Clearly, there was no retreat.

"Crazy?"

The giant face's voice was squeezed out of the void, tinged with uncertainty.

Sun Wukong did not reply.

He was waiting.

Waiting for that giant hand to fall to a position thirty thousand li above his head.

Waiting for all the gray-white light pillars to converge into the most concentrated angle.

Then he saw it.

The giant face no longer intended to strike separately with the light pillars and the giant hand.

The two forces gathered above his head, merged, and twisted and deformed.

The gray-white light condensed into substance; countless dimensional fragments were compressed into a straight line, then expanded from the line into a plane, and stretched from the plane into a huge shape.

An axe.

A gray-white giant axe that blotted out the sky and covered the earth.

The blade's width exceeded three star systems; the flowing patterns on it were not ornamentation but crushed remnants of timelines.

"Destruction. Negation. End."

The giant face's voice became solemn.

"See you off."

The giant axe was held aloft at the highest point of the void; the gray light on its blade reflected everything around as deathly white.

Then it fell.

It chopped straight down.

Toward Sun Wukong's celestial crown.

When Yao saw the outline of that axe, her pupils contracted sharply and all color drained from her.

She opened her mouth to shout.

But her voice didn't have time to get out.

Because Sun Wukong moved.

He took the iron staff off his shoulder, gripped it with both hands at the middle of the shaft, and stepped forward.

The staff tip pointed to the heavens.

Straight at the axe's exact center.

This posture looked like he intended to meet it head‑on no matter how you viewed it.

A single staff against an axe capable of cleaving star systems.

The giant face smiled.

That smile made no sound.

It was the vortex eyes suddenly slowing their spin, revealing a kind of charitable ease.

"As expected, just a stupid monkey."

It had seen too much.

Those living beings that struggled to the end always chose the stupidest method before death.

Using strength to counter strength.

Using existence to collide with negation.

The result was only one.

Body and bones shattered to dust.

The giant axe accelerated.

From a height of thirty thousand li it smashed down to less than ten thousand li.

The shockwave had already collapsed a large expanse of void beneath Sun Wukong's feet, and his monkey fur was blown flat against his skin by the mighty wind.

Five thousand li.

Three thousand li.

One thousand li.

Sun Wukong's eyes narrowed.

He gripped the iron staff tight; his arm muscles bulged, veins standing out one by one.

He still had a smile at the corner of his mouth.

But that smile changed its flavor.

Not arrogance.

It was calculated.

Five hundred li.

Three hundred li.

The blade of the giant axe was less than a hundred li from his head.

The heaven‑and‑earth‑destroying pressure almost flattened his bones.

His knees bent slightly.

The giant face saw this scene, its vortex pupils gleefully spinning faster.

He knelt.

The stupid monkey was about to kneel.

In the next instant.

Sun Wukong's wrist twitched.

Not upward.

It was a slight shift to the right.

He shifted only an inch.

The trajectory of the iron staff changed from 'head-on interception' to 'sliding past the edge of the axe blade'.

The giant axe descended with the power to crush three thousand worlds.

It struck empty air.

The axe blade swept past less than three feet from his left shoulder, the blast scraping countless scratches across the surface of his armor.

But it did not hit him.

Not even a speck touched him.

Boom.

The giant axe cleaved into the void, a huge rift spanning hundreds of star systems tearing from beneath his feet to the edge of his vision.

Sun Wukong's hair flew backward in the gale, his whole body turned sideways, standing three feet from the axe blade's edge.

He licked his lips.

Exhilarating.

The feeling of walking a tightrope on the line of death was too thrilling.

He just knew.

This thing is big, but it's stupid.

It was used to crushing everything, used to enemies either meeting it head‑on or turning and fleeing.

It had never encountered anyone who shifted the staff at the last moment.

"You!"

The giant face's voice changed tone.

The earlier condescending ease had vanished, replaced by a furious rage at having been toyed with.

Sun Wukong didn't give it a chance to finish its scolding.

He used the force from twisting his body while dodging sideways, kicked off in the void, and shot past the axe's flank like a spinning cannonball.

The iron staff traced a half‑circle in its spin.

Smack!

Not a smash.

It was a slap.

The staff's flat side swept across the axe's flank.

That strike's force was not great.

At least compared to his usual strength that can shatter stars, this strike was absurdly light.

But the layer of green pattern on the staff's surface lit up the moment it touched the axe.

A supple force surged from the iron staff, seeping into the axe's surface from the point of contact.

Sun Wukong felt a strange recoil travel up his arm.

Not the numbness of a hard clash.

It was a sticky sensation.

Like sticking a hand into mud that pulls back.

He narrowed his eyes at the point where the staff met the axe.

Green.

A small clump of tender green sprouted from the contact point.

Not light.

Not energy.

It was vines.

Thin, newly grown, like bean sprouts just pushed out of the soil.

They took root in the axe's surface, drilling downward like roots.

One.

Two.

Ten.

One hundred.

The speed kept increasing.

Green vines spread wildly across the gray‑white surface of the giant axe, like an uncontrolled spring exploding from a dead patch of earth.

The giant axe began to tremble.

That trembling wasn't because it was hurt from being hit.

It was because something inside it was being sucked away.

"What is this!"

The giant face screamed.

The whirlpool eye pupil spun wildly, firing dozens of gray-white light beams trying to burn those vines.

The beams hit the vines' surface.

Useless.

The vines are not power.

They are not law.

They are not any target that its "Negation" power can recognize.

It cannot negate a growing plant.

Just like you can't erase a sprouting seed with an eraser.

The giant axe twitched, trying to retract.

The giant face wildly swayed in the void, trying to sever its connection with the giant axe.

But the vines had already climbed up along the axe's base into its power source.

Those fine green rootlets inserted into the gray-white energy channels, greedily drawing the gray-white power of "Negation".

For each bit sucked away, the vines grew a bit thicker.

For each bit they thickened, ten new branches sprouted.

The giant face struggled more violently.

The entire star field trembled along with its struggle.

But the more it struggled, the more violent its internal energy fluctuations became.

The more violent the fluctuations, the more nutrients the vines could absorb.

Just like a person who pulls harder on a thorn in their foot makes the wound bleed more, letting leeches drink more eagerly.

Sun Wukong withdrew his Iron Staff and stood far away, watching this scene.

Yao didn't know when she had drifted to his side.

Her mouth slightly open, she watched the gray-white axe being devoured by green.

"Is this what your Master taught you?"

Sun Wukong snorted.

"The old man taught me only two things in his lifetime."

"Swing the staff."

"And farm."

He hoisted his Iron Staff, gazing at the distant, frantically howling faceless giant face.

The vines had already spread along the axe to the edge of the giant face's main body.

Gray-white spots on the face began to sprout green, like a piece of dead wood from ten thousand years ago suddenly sprouting moss.

The giant face's howl shifted from rage to fear.

It began to retreat.

Retreating into the dark depths.

It wanted to flee.

Sun Wukong laughed.

This thing is far easier to deal with than before.

Because for the first time, it felt pain.

But his laugh hadn't lasted three breaths.

A dull thud echoed from the dark depths far away.

That wasn't a sound made by the giant face.

Deeper than the giant face.

Farther.

Older.

It was as if something that had slept through countless ages had been awakened by this commotion.

Sun Wukong's laugh froze on his face.

The green sprouts on the Iron Staff halted their growth at that moment.

Yao grabbed his sleeve.

In the dark depths, a voice slowly sounded.

Ancient.

Gentle.

Carrying a hint of irritation from being woken.

"Enough. You juniors have been playing around for too long; it's time to wrap up."

The faceless giant face's howl cut off abruptly.

In that whirlpool eye pupil, for the first time appeared a fear deeper than when facing Sun Wukong.

It wasn't looking at Sun Wukong.

It was looking at the darkness beyond.

Sun Wukong gripped the Iron Staff tightly, his heartbeat quickened.

The Senior Brother Master spoke of has arrived.