Chapter 495: A Feint Shot!

Deprive the malicious Primordial Source!

The old man moved.

It's not a human way of moving.

His spine arched from his back, segment by segment pushing outward, stretching the flesh until it twisted and deformed.

Black scales surged outward from within, each swelling, thickening, and sprouting barbs.

The brittle sound of bones stretching echoed inside the golden cage, making one's teeth ache.

Sun Wukong stayed still, watching.

The old man's body swelled to a hundred zhang tall within three breaths.

The human shape had long vanished.

In its place stood a gigantic beast entirely jet‑black.

Its limbs were on the ground, back arched, and its whole body was densely covered with barbs.

Each barb was as long as an adult's arm, its tip emitting a dim, cold glow.

Those barbs were not lifeless; they writhed and breathed, like fangs growing out of flesh.

The most disgusting part was that each barb's base housed a mouth.

The lips moved, silently chewing on something.

The beast's head turned.

It had no eyes.

Its whole face was a mouth.

A mouth that could swallow a small mountain.

Inside were layers of teeth, extending deep into an unseen throat.

Yo.

Sun Wukong tilted his head, twirling the Iron Staff in his hand.

Getting bigger makes it useful?

The beast's reply was very direct.

It opened that gigantic mouth that filled its entire head, something churning deep in its throat.

A surge of Black Fire burst out of its mouth.

It wasn't ordinary fire.

Where that thing passed, even the void itself shrank, withered, and died.

The Light Wall of the golden cage, where Black Fire licked, emitted a shrill wail.

The Dao Rhythm beneath the Bodhi Cloth shuddered violently in that instant.

This fire doesn't burn matter.

It burns "Existence Sense".

Things it touches don't turn to ash—they become as if they "never existed".

Sun Wukong's pupils reflected the all‑covering Black Fire.

He stepped to the left.

Just one step.

Black Fire brushed his right shoulder, snatching away three monkey hairs.

Those three hairs vanished in midair without even burning.

As if they had never grown.

Sun Wukong looked down at his bare right shoulder.

Damn, my hair.

He cursed, pushed off the ground, and leapt upward.

The Iron Staff traced a gold‑green intertwined arc in mid‑air, whistling, and slammed hard onto the beast's back.

Bang!

Several black scales flew from the impact point, tumbling in the void.

Where the scales fell away, gray‑white flesh was exposed, and a twisted human face writhed beneath it.

The beast let out a deep, muffled roar.

It wasn't pain.

It was annoyance.

It didn't even turn its head.

A massive claw covered in barbs swept sideways.

Its speed was mismatched to its massive body.

Sun Wukong couldn't dodge in time, holding the Iron Staff horizontally before him.

The claw struck the staff.

The whole arm's bones trembled, the skin at the webbing turned pale.

He was knocked back two steps.

His foot crushed the fresh water on the ground, splashing droplets.

Two steps.

Just two steps, but for Sun Wukong that was already humiliating enough.

He shook his numb arm, flexed and extended a finger twice before sensation returned.

"This dog thing's skin is harder than Wǔxíng Shān."

He muttered a curse under his breath.

It can be struck, but the efficiency is too low.

What good is breaking off a few scales?

That thing has at least tens of thousands of them on its body.

Bit by bit he gnaws, and when he strips this monster clean, Bodhi's cage should fall apart.

He needs to change tactics.

The beast turned around again.

This time it didn't spew fire.

All the spines along its body rose at once, each tip coalescing into a black orb of light.

Tens of thousands of light balls lit up together, outlining the beast like a glowing hedgehog.

Then, a volley of ten‑thousand projectiles fired simultaneously.

Sun Wukong dodged left and right, and the Iron Staff in his hand swung into a shield.

A golden‑green light screen blocked most of the attacks, but a few projectiles slipped through the gaps, grazing his battle armor and leaving several gray‑white spots on it.

Those spots spread slowly.

The Dao Rhythm battle armor's repair speed could suppress the corrosion.

"We can't keep draining like this."

Sun Wukong landed back on the ground and made a motion that no one could understand.

He retracted the Iron Staff.

The staff shrank and he tucked it behind his ear.

Then, with both hands empty, he charged toward the beast.

Bare‑handed.

The beast's reaction was confusion.

A pause visible to the naked eye.

Its eyeless massive face tilted, and a grinding‑metal sound emanated from between its teeth.

It seemed to be laughing.

As if mocking an ant that had dropped its weapon.

Sun Wukong ignored whatever reaction it had.

When he ran to the beast's feet, his footing suddenly slipped.

His whole body tumbled forward.

Snap.

Face down, he landed solidly on the ground between the beast's two front legs.

Dust smacked his face.

His body was covered in black debris and an unknown slime.

He lay on the ground unmoving.

His eyes half‑open, staring at the massive mouth above him that was lowering.

He held his breath.

Motionless.

The beast indeed fell for it.

It lowered its head, its myriad teeth slowly parting, and a putrid stench rose from deep within its throat.

It was about to bite.

To swallow this monkey lying on the ground in one gulp.

At the moment its massive mouth reached its widest—

Sun Wukong's eyes lit up.

Not metaphorically.

They truly lit up.

A scarlet‑gold light burst from his pupils.

This was what he had been waiting for.

He pressed both hands together at his chest, interlacing his ten fingers, fingertips touching.

Monkey Heart thumped violently in his chest.

Both Creation and Destruction Source Power surged from his dantian, coursed through his meridians into his arms, and twisted together at the interlaced fingertips.

It was not an attack.

It was not defense.

It was a seed.

He shoved the seed into the beast's mouth.

His palm pressed against the teeth still trying to close, delivering the power inside.

Directly into the throat.

Directly into the deepest part of its body.

The beast's movement halted.

Its massive body froze in place.

Then it began to tremble.

The sound coming from inside was not like a Cànjiào.

It was more like something inside it was growing wildly, pushing its flesh and bones apart.

Gold-green light seeped out from the gaps in its scales.

One, two, ten, a hundred—

Finally, the entire beast's body turned into a glowing lantern.

It was howling.

That sound pierced the Light Wall of the golden prison, carrying who knows how far into the void.

It was pain.

It was true pain, emanating from the Primordial Source.

Sun Wukong rolled out from under the beast's feet and brushed off the dust.

As he stood up, his face still bore the mud prints from where he'd fallen, but the corners of his mouth were turned up.

The beast's scales shattered in a burst.

It wasn't smashed by blows.

It was pushed open from within.

Where each scale fell off, a gold-green vine sprouted.

The vines dug into its flesh and blood, frantically drawing.

But what they drew was not life force.

It was that black, Negation-filled Primordial Source of malice.

The vines pulled those malice out of the beast's vessels, marrow, and Línghún, thread by thread.

Like pulling threads from a wound.

The beast was shrinking.

A hundred zhang, fifty zhang, twenty zhang, one zhang—

Black scales littered the ground.

All the barbs were broken.

The mouths embedded at the base of the barbs also closed, no longer chewing.

What remained curled up in the center of the prison, only three zhang in size.

Grayish-white skin, withered flesh, like a cicada shell drained of moisture.

And the malice Primordial Source stripped from within it—

was condensing into a pure black sphere the size of a fist, hovering before Sun Wukong.

The sphere's surface roiled with countless twisted faces and silent howls.

Sun Wukong reached out and grabbed it in one grip.

A cold sensation and a stabbing pain came from his palm.

The sphere struggled in his hand, trying to erode his skin.

But his Monkey Heart gave a beat.

A warm current surged from his chest to his palm.

The black sphere grew still.

The withered husk on the ground twitched.

An old man's face emerged from the grayish-white flesh, his eyes half-open, lips trembling.

"You... you..."

His voice was hoarse beyond recognition, as if someone were choking him while he spoke.

Sun Wukong crouched, waving the black sphere before him.

"Looking for this?"

The old man's eyes locked onto the sphere, his pupils full of disbelief.

Sun Wukong slipped the sphere into his bosom and brushed off the dust on his hands.

He stood up.

He lowered his head to look at the withered old thing on the ground.

"Without this thing, you now—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

The ground beneath his feet cracked.

It wasn't shattered by a strike.

It was something from deep down pushing upward.

A crack appeared on the Light Wall of the golden prison.

Bodhi's voice came from the direction of Fangcun Mountain, his tone urgent for the first time.

"Monkey, don't move—what's sealed inside that sphere isn't his power."

"It's his Master's."