The altar itself wasn't what drew every eye. What was truly striking were the figures who appeared alongside it. Some of the monsters wondered aloud why a band of ragged bandits would be standing up there. But those who had planned this entire westward journey — and those who knew the Monkey King personally — all went pale at once.
They realized, in that instant, what they'd forgotten to account for: where the reincarnated Monkey King himself had gone.
Now the answer was plain. He had been hiding in the belly of the mountain all along, sitting comfortably while everyone else scrambled beneath him.
"My dear audience, how did you enjoy the show I directed for you today? Quite the spectacle, wasn't it? And Guanyin Bodhisattva — no need to glare at me like that. Did the excrement I smeared on you earlier smell good? Heh... when you go around scheming against others, did you ever think someone might be scheming against you too? Was that stone stele fun to study? Did you get to the bottom of it? Can't make sense of the words on it, can you? Well, the answer's simple enough — everything written there just says that I, Supreme Treasure, am your father. Hahahaha..."
Arrogant laughter rang out. The two demon kings who had just been locked in brutal combat with Guanyin led their followers forward, one after another, and knelt before Supreme Treasure.
"Greetings, Master Priest!"
The Bodhi Ancestor knelt right along with them, performing the exact same gesture. The Jade Emperor's face turned ashen, as though he'd swallowed a mouthful of filth. The Tathagata's expression twitched even worse than that. And as for Guanyin Bodhisattva — she looked ready to grind her silver teeth to powder from sheer rage.
All three of them had been played by a monkey. It was outrageous beyond words. Over a single stone tablet, Lingshan and the Heavenly Court had very nearly gone to war — and the words on that tablet had been written by him the entire time.
The Tathagata invoked the Buddha's name, his voice cold.
"Amitabha... Wretched creature. You've made fools of every living being here — do you have any idea what awaits you for this?"
Cold words, carrying the accumulated fury of the Three Realms. There was always a price for mocking men like these. For those at the top, pride sometimes mattered more than anything else in the world.
"Pah—" Supreme Treasure spat, and grinned. "And you dogs — do you know what's waiting for you, for forgetting that the God of Eternity exists? You toyed with people's lives and thought there'd be no consequences? Let all my believers hear me now — I invite the God of Eternity to descend..."
The order rang out. Countless monsters dropped to their knees together, and outside Wuyue Mountain, the faithful among the common people knelt as well, one after another. They were all wretched, suffering people. The immortals had never shown them mercy; their lives had always been miserable.
The Tathagata's eyelids twitched, a chill settling into his heart. Could there really be something to this monkey's claims? The thought alone was enough to shatter his composure. He reached out to strike the man down where he stood.
This blow was the Tathagata's strongest technique — sealing space, freezing time, gathering the full weight of supreme Buddha-power into his palm. Forget a reincarnated Monkey King; even Guanyin herself would lose her very soul if struck by this palm.
But his strike was stopped cold by a beam of golden light. The earth shuddered again and again as countless golden runes rose up from the ground.
"Great God of Eternity... I beg you, spare a moment to look upon this filthy world. Your believer, Supreme Treasure, offers you millions of monsters in sacrifice..."
The words rang out, loud and clear, reaching every ear. Every monster who hadn't joined the faith dissolved screaming into motes of light, drawn toward the altar. Seeing that his attack had failed, the Tathagata roared, "Jade Emperor! What are you waiting for? If this monkey succeeds in sacrificing us both, we'll both suffer for it!"
He didn't understand how Sun Wukong had come to this. But letting things continue as they were would clearly end badly for both of them.
Boom.
The Jade Emperor struck, and sword energy rained down from the heavens — hundreds of millions of blades falling like a storm, terrible as rain. But a rippling wall of gold blocked much of it. Demon King Peng and the others cried out together, "The God of Eternity is invincible!"
"The gods are invincible!"
The prayer went on and on. Barely half an incense-stick's time had passed, and the Tathagata had already spent everything he had. Just as he was about to draw breath and strike again, a cold, crushing gaze fell from directly overhead. In an instant, the Tathagata's own body froze in place, as though someone had pressed pause on the world itself. Great beads of sweat rolled down his face.
It wasn't only him. In that moment, every living thing that hadn't sworn faith to the cult felt a wave of fury wash over their features. The Jade Emperor's attack halted abruptly, and even the heavenly soldiers and generals around him showed naked horror.
The Tathagata forced down his fear and looked up at the sky. What had once been a dim and ordinary heaven had turned into an absolute, pitch-black night — but this wasn't the starry sky he knew. In the darkness, countless enormous planets hung suspended. And what terrified the Tathagata most of all was that among the shining stars stood a single, colossal temple, glowing with an unearthly light.
The pressure bearing down on them all radiated from that temple. His fingers, his body, his very soul trembled. Then the weight increased, just slightly, and the Tathagata collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
At that same moment, within the eternal temple, Liu Che looked down upon that world and asked the women beside him, "Which of you wants to go down to the lower realm?"
"Can you kill this Tathagata?"
"I can."
"Then I'll go. The other sisters have earned some rest..."
Chi Lian said it with a smile. Had she been born into that world herself, she wouldn't have shown the ruthlessness of her past; instead, she carried a certain gentleness now. That was the gift the temple had given her. Once, as Princess Red Lotus, she had still carried hatred in her heart. But after watching the long sweep of history play out again and again, that hatred had slowly faded. The struggles of mortals always ended the same way, in the end — and even hatred served no purpose anymore. Better to look back, retrieve the fragment of her father's soul, and let him find a good family to be reborn into. That was the only thing left for her to do.
Chi Lian stepped outside the temple, set her feet upon a red lotus blossom, and descended toward the lower realm in an instant. It took only a moment. In that other world, people saw a goddess appear, standing atop a red lotus as she drifted down from the sky.
Supreme Treasure immediately slammed his forehead against the ground and cried out, "Master Priest Supreme Treasure greets Goddess Chi Lian..."
"Greetings, Goddess Chi Lian!"
The demons and the common people, hearing the priest's cry, echoed it back and forth among themselves.
Chi Lian smiled warmly and said, "There's no need to stand on such ceremony. Some trivial matters made it inconvenient for the gods themselves to come, so I came in their place. Now then — you immortals, you Buddha, why is it that I hear this little one speak of a sacrifice to the gods, and yet you choose to attack the altar? Do you think my god is so easily trifled with?"
Her voice was soft, but it carried a killing intent beyond imagining. In her hand appeared a long sword shaped like a crimson snake wreathed in flower-bone patterns, held loosely in the fairy's slender fingers.
The Tathagata and the Jade Emperor both went rigid with shock, their faces awash in undisguised horror. Because both of them understood, in that instant, that if they didn't flee now, they might never get the chance again.
———
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