Chapter 493: Pale and powerless!

New Dao's crushing dominance!

The black ocean surged forward.

Slow and steady, neither hurried nor agitated, like dead water at high tide.

Sun Wukong didn't move.

He didn't dodge, didn't evade, didn't retreat half a step.

He took the iron staff off his shoulder, gripped it with both hands, and held it horizontally in front of him.

The dormant green patterns on the staff lit up again under the pressure of the approaching black tide.

It wasn't a flashy burst, but a quiet light that shone from deep within his bones.

Like spring grass pushing through cracks in stone.

Soundless and silent, yet you cannot stop it.

Yao shouted from behind him: 'Wukong!'

He didn't turn back.

"Don't be afraid."

After saying those two words, he raised the iron staff over his head.

That black ocean had already advanced to three zhang before his feet.

Everything it passed over vanished, even the void itself turning into an indefinable blank.

The old man behind the stone table set down his teacup, tilted his head, and watched him.

In those dead‑person eyes lay a hint of amusement at the spectacle.

"Catch or not?"

The old man's mouth twitched, unclear whether it was a smile or a sneer.

"Interesting."

Sun Wukong ignored him.

The pose of holding the iron staff aloft was maintained for three full breaths.

The light of the green patterns grew from dim to bright, then to brilliant, spreading from the staff up his arms, dyeing even his fur a jade green.

At the same time, the crimson‑gold destructive force that originally belonged to the Equal Heaven Path, deep within the staff, was awakened.

The two forces intertwined, rotated, and meshed inside the staff.

Green creation.

Crimson‑gold destruction.

Life and death, death and life, head to tail, each biting the other's tail.

They formed a perfect, self‑sustaining closed loop.

The light on the staff changed color.

Not green.

Not gold.

It was a third light produced by the two colors intertwining—hard to name the hue, but looking at it made one's heart feel hot.

Like sunrise.

The black tide arrived.

Sun Wukong brought it down in a chop.

All his strength, plus the two source powers endlessly circulating in that closed loop, were poured into this strike.

The instant the staff's blade cut into the black sea's surface——

There was no sound.

The most extreme collisions in the world are often soundless.

The old man's hand holding the teacup froze.

His eyes widened.

It wasn't an act.

It was genuine—he hadn't expected it.

The iron staff was not erased.

That black water, capable of nullifying rules, scattering cause and effect, and turning 'existence' into a joke, halted the moment it touched the staff.

It wasn't bounced away.

It wasn't driven back.

It simply failed.

The Power of Negation tried to negate the staff's existence, but the staff's destructive power negated itself first—then the Creative Force immediately restored it.

Negated?

No matter, it was recreated in the next instant.

Created?

Doesn't matter, because it's about to be destroyed again right away.

Destroyed?

No problem, the generative power promptly recreated it.

Life and death, death and life.

Endless.

No end.

Each time you negate it, it is reborn once.

If you negate it ten thousand times, it is reborn ten thousand times.

You negate until the heavens grow old and the earth turns to dust, the seas dry and rocks rot—it is still there.

Because the closed loop requires no external power to sustain.

It is its own fuel, its own result, its own meaning.

Negate what?

Negate the air?

The old man's hand was trembling.

The black liquid in the tea cup sloshed out, splashing onto the stone table.

He stared at the iron staff planted in the sea surface, stared at the changes happening around the point of contact, and finally an expression appeared on his face.

It was not that aloof indifference.

It was shock.

It was anger.

It was an incredulous 'this shouldn't be happening'.

The point of contact was changing color.

The black seawater, upon touching the iron staff, neither disappeared nor exploded.

It was—purifying.

It spread outward from the contact point in concentric rings, the black fading, like ink diluted in clear water.

First it turned dark gray.

Then light gray.

Then transparent.

Finally it became clear water, see-through to the bottom.

Real water.

Water with temperature, able to reflect starlight, living water.

"Impossible."

The old man stood up.

His chair was knocked over by him, tumbling through the void.

For the first time, his voice was no longer that casual tone.

It now carried emotion.

It now carried urgency.

It now carried—a hint of panic.

"This is impossible! My negation is absolute! Nothing can exist in my—"

Sun Wukong didn't let him finish.

He pressed down on the iron staff.

The staff sank deeper into the sea surface, and the purification range suddenly expanded threefold.

Clear water splashed up, hitting his face and running down his chin.

It was cool.

He wiped the water from his face with the back of his hand and broke into a smile.

He smiled like a child.

As happy as when he played in the water as a child in Mount Huaguo's Water Curtain Cave, carefree.

"What did you say just now?"

He pulled the iron staff from the sea, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and stepped forward.

His foot stepped onto the black sea surface.

The moment the seawater touched the soles of his feet, it automatically turned into clear water.

Another step.

Again, a circle of clear ripples spread from beneath his feet.

"Absolute negation?"

Third step.

He walked steadily, each step feeling like stepping on his own doorstep.

"Old thing, your absolute—"

Fourth step.

The iron staff swung down from his shoulder, tip forward, dragging at his side, like a farmer carrying a hoe along a field ridge.

"In the face of this staff of mine, it's worth nothing."

He carved a path across the sea surface.

On either side lay black dead water.

Beneath his feet was the clear stream he had stepped into existence.

The old man's body was retreating.

It was not a voluntary retreat.

He was being forced back.

With each step he retreated, a layer of black seawater beneath his feet receded.

The power he prided himself on was draining away, being expelled inch by inch by the light on that staff.

You!

The old man's face finally wrinkled.

For the first time, in an age so long it could not be calculated, an expression belonging to a 'living person' appeared on this face that had never lived.

It was embarrassment.

I am the first sigh before Chaos opened! I am the source of all 'Negation'! I am older than your Master! More eternal than the Heavenly Dao!

You monkey——

Sun Wukong did not stop.

He walked to a point twenty zhang away from the old man.

The clear water beneath his feet had already gathered into a small stream, flowing softly in the void, making a pleasant sound.

He raised the Iron Staff, pointing its tip at the old man's nose.

The same posture as when he had pointed with his index finger before.

But this time, light intertwining creation and destruction coiled around the staff's tip.

Have you finished speaking?

The old man's lips were trembling.

Not from cold.

It was from anger.

It was from fear.

It was a trembling of both anger and fear mixed together, the kind that leaves an ancient monster who has lived for who knows how many ten-thousands of years at a loss.

Sun Wukong took another step forward.

The old man retreated another step.

His back struck something—his own stone table.

Nowhere left to retreat.

Sun Wukong planted his feet, driving the Iron Staff into the ground.

At the point where the staff's base touched the darkness, green and gold light burst forth simultaneously; a sapling sprouted from that spot, swaying as it grew its first leaf in this realm that negates everything.

Next staff.

Sun Wukong's voice was flat.

Will you catch it, or run?

He tilted his head, imitating the old man's tone just now.

Think it over before answering.

You only have one chance.

The old man's face froze completely.

His right hand clenched, his knuckles emitting a creaking, crackling sound.

In those eyes that had never known warmth, fear and fury were wildly fighting each other.

The silence lasted three breaths.

Then the old man moved.

He did not catch it.

Nor did he run.

【159> He reached out his hand and pressed it against his own chest.

He stretched out his hand, pressing it against his own chest.

His palm sank into the skin of his chest.

It sank in.

His whole hand entered the chest cavity, as if feeling around for something inside.

When he pulled his hand out, his palm held an extra object the size of a fist.

A heart.

It was black.

But not that pure, deathly-silent black.

Cracks ran across that heart.

Light shone through the cracks—white light.

Sun Wukong's pupils contracted sharply.

He had seen that white light before.

He had seen it on his Master's Dao Heart.

Exactly the same frequency.

Exactly the same resonance.

The old man gripped that heart, lifted his head, and looked at Sun Wukong.

A smile finally appeared on his face.

Not mockery, not indifference.

It was the madness of 'smash the pot and stop caring'.

You think what your Master sealed back then was merely the 'Original Mistake'?

Monkey.

What he sealed—was my heart.