Beneath the cold pool at the base of Wuzhi Mountain, a dim greenish phosphorescence shimmered. The Buddhist chain around Sun Wukong's neck was deeply embedded in his flesh, and five centuries of suppression had covered the stone monkey's body with dark cyan moss. Nine-fold Buddhist seals revolved atop the cliff; whenever the midnight chanting reached its peak, those chains inscribed with the swastika symbol would ooze golden liquid, trickling down the Monkey King's rugged spine into the cold pool. At the bottom of the pool lay a thick sediment of monkey hair—every strand torn out by his own hands in agony.
On the eve of the seven-hundredth sixty-year Samsara cycle, the mountain deity arrived, shuffling forward with a gilded bronze pot. Today, the old man was acting unlike his usual self; his cloud-shoes were stained with the distinct sandalwood fragrance of Flower-Fruit Mountain, and his cuffs still clung to half a leaf of phoenix-tail banana from outside the Water Curtain Cave.
"Great Sage... it is time for your meal." The mountain deity's voice trembled as he aimed the spout of the bronze pot toward Sun Wukong's cracked lips. At this hour in the past, the monkey would always spit a mouthful of molten copper and hurl the curse "filthy wretch," but today he remained eerie in his silence. The moment the old mountain deity leaned down, he suddenly noticed the Monkey King's mouth split wide to his ears, with bluish-purple electric arcs flickering across his ghostly white fangs.
"Old fellow," rumbled a thunderous voice from deep within Sun Wukong's throat, vibrating the bronze pot so hard it hummed. "This copper juice is mixed with the soil of Flower-Fruit Mountain, and the iron pellets are wrapped in the mud of the Water Curtain Cave—did you truly think Old Sun could not smell the stench of my children's blood?"
The mountain deity stumbled backward, dropping the bronze pot as it splattered crimson liquid across the ground. That was no molten copper at all; it was clearly monkey blood congealed into a paste! Streams of dazzling golden light burst from Sun Wukong's eyes, piercing straight through the nine layers of mountain rock all the way to Dongsheng Shenzhou. He saw the skies above Flower-Fruit Mountain blanketed in gloomy thunder, with one hundred thousand monkey souls pierced through their shoulder blades by pale gold threads, drifting along the Celestial River toward the East Sea. The front few old monkeys had fragmented souls, faintly bearing the appearance of those who had crowned and poured wine for the Monkey King in days gone by.
"What a Buddha who delivers all souls! What a Jade Emperor whose grace covers the living!" Every chain on Sun Wukong's body clanked and rang, while Buddhist scriptures and incantations burned scorching, acrid green smoke upon his skin.The old wounds from his rampage through the Heavenly Court five hundred years ago suddenly ruptured, and divine golden blood seeped along the iron chains into the mountain, tracing a bizarre totem upon the rock face—it was unmistakably the soul-refining spell Rulai had secretly cast when pressing down his five fingers!
The mountain deity transformed into a gust of wind, seeking to flee, but was pinned to the rock face by a single hair from the monkey. That grayish-white hair suddenly ignited with a Karmic Fire that could burn the heavens, its glow reflecting a horrifying truth: Rulai's palm strike five hundred years ago had not only suppressed the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, but had also refined every living creature of Flower-Fruit Mountain into soul-locking nails. The skeletal remains of the seventy-two cave demon kings had been cast into dark iron chains, the primordial spirits of thirty-six thousand monkeys condensed into Buddhist mantras, and the spiritual springs of the Water Curtain Cave drained dry and poured into the alchemy furnace—no wonder the peach trees on Wuxing Mountain never bore fruit; their roots were sucking up nothing but the blood and marrow of the monkey clan!
"Bring a message for me." Sun Wukong's fangs snapped the Buddhist chains, and dark golden demonic energy surged from his seven orifices. "Tell that bald donkey in the Western Paradise that the debt owed by the Dragon Palace of the East Sea, Old Sun will collect it with interest!" The shattered chains suddenly came alive, transforming into nine giant pythons with golden scales that wrapped around the mountain deity, every single scale inscribed with the names of the monkey clan of Flower-Fruit Mountain.
When the mountain exploded with a deafening crash, the temples of Lingshan beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens instantly cracked. The prayer beads spinning in Rulai's hand suddenly snapped, and one hundred and eight relics plummeted into the sea of clouds. The Demon-Slaying Platform standing before the Hall of Miraculous Mist trembled violently, its soul-fixing needle turning autonomously toward the east, its tip oozing black blood.
Sun Wukong's primordial spirit transformed into a crimson-gold meteor piercing the firmament, trailing a hundred-thousand-zhang-long chain of resentment behind him. Amidst the ruins of Wuzhi Mountain, the fractured Golden Net shed its golden light, revealing densely packed blood curses spelling out the word "slave." Those incantations suddenly writhed and reassembled as if alive, forming half a roll of the *Heavenly Slave Pact* in midair—and the opening chapter read shockingly: "The demonic monkey Sun Wukong, forever to serve as the Heavenly Court's running dog"!
Deep within the East Sea, the Sea-Pacifying Divine Needle sensed its master's presence and suddenly shattered nine chains of black ice. The Great Yu inscriptions emerging upon the staff resonated with the Monkey King's demonic energy, carving eight earth-shaking words into the ocean floor: "Sweep away all demonic vapors, and re-establish the cosmos." Tens of thousands of aquatic creatures watched in terror as, within that streak of gold splitting the horizon, a towering silhouette of a Demonic Ape vaguely roared up to the heavens, its forty-eight thousand hairs transforming into a fiery rain that burned the sky, scorching the night sky of the East Sea until it shone as bright as day.
The Flat-Peach Mother Tree in Yaochi swayed without any wind, and thirty-six hundred immortal peaches burst simultaneously, their juices congealing in the air into a bloody prophecy: "The demonic monkey emerges, the Heavenly Court falls." The Queen Mother, who was playing a game of go with Chang'e, dropped the glazed cup from her hand. The celestial nectar within it hit the ground and transformed into a ferocious monkey face, splitting its cavernous mouth in a grin as it declared, "Old hag, the peaches in your Yaochi are nothing compared to the sweetness of my Flower-Fruit Mountain!"
Deep within the ruins of Wuxing Mountain, a wisp of Buddhist consciousness quietly awakened. Rulai's voice echoed through the void: "Rebellious monkey, all you have broken free from is the first layer of shackles..." Before the words faded, the remnant tight-fill curse swelled explosively, transforming into a swastika-shaped Golden Net that blotted out the sky and descended upon Dongsheng Shenzhou. Innumerable monkey souls wailed within the net, yet the moment they touched Sun Wukong's primordial spirit, they were dyed crimson by the towering demonic energy—the Golden Net actually condensed in midair into eight blood-red words: "Break through Lingshan, slaughter every false Buddha!"
By now, monstrous billows had risen across the East Sea. Sensing its master's fighting spirit, the Sea-Pacifying Divine Needle displayed scenes from the primordial creation upon its shaft: a stubborn rock splitting apart within the Hongmeng, half of it transforming into the Five-Colored Stone for Mending the Heavens, and the other half condensing into the defiant stone monkey. The instant Sun Wukong's primordial spirit grasped the divine iron, the memories sealed five hundred years ago came flooding back like a torrent—it turned out that the so-called rampage through the Heavenly Court was merely a warning from the Heavenly Dao regarding the corruption of the Heavenly Court!