Volume 4: The End of Secrets – Chapter 455: Beings from Beyond the Heavens

Wukong remembered something. After leaving the realm of Zhurong, he had thought that the secrets of the Xuan Kong Art had reached their pinnacle, with no room for further improvement. His discerning eyes were also just one step away from perfection. He couldn’t help but recall the time when he and Xuan Nu had ascended high into the sky to gaze down at the earth. He naturally wanted to see what this world was like again.

This time, he didn’t know how much higher he had climbed compared to last time. Wukong was overjoyed. He had already become a sage during his last ascent, and now he was even stronger than then. Perhaps one day, he might truly break through the limits of a sage. Kunpeng had said that beyond sages lay the Way of Heaven—a status equal to that of heaven and earth. Could those who mastered the Way of Heaven break free from this world?

The gale here was beyond imagination. By eye, Wukong detected a strange force within the wind—a force he had seen before in the Buddhist hells. It was the reverse-creation force that filled him with fear.

It was strange. Where did this wind come from, and how was it connected to the Buddhist hells? After some reflection, Wukong concluded that if Tathagata wanted to leave this world, he must be closely related to this force. Otherwise, why would he go to such lengths in the Buddhist hells to gather creation energy and transform it into reverse-creation force?

Since Tathagata was a being from beyond the heavens, he surely knew the purpose of this reverse-creation force. Therefore, his reasoning was absolutely correct. This was likely the only way to leave this world. Could this reverse-creation force come from beyond the heavens? If so, it meant there was a path between this world and the outside. If there was a path but no way out, then something must be blocking it. What could it be?

Full of doubts, Wukong reached his highest possible altitude and used the secrets of the Xuan Kong Art to look down.

Previously, when he and Xuan Nu had looked down from above, they had seen a corner of Dongsheng Divine Continent jutting out. At the end of that narrow island lay a huge, angular island, shaped exactly like an axe—identical to Pangu’s axe.

Now, as he looked again, the Pangu’s axe was indeed just as Xuan Nu had described. It resembled eleven different weapons, each clearly visible—Huntian Banner, Dunhuang Flag, the Four Swords of Exterminating Immortals… Their shapes were spot-on.

But what surprised Wukong even more was that as he climbed higher, the contours of the earth beneath his feet gradually became clearer. After using the Cloud Jumping technique countless times, he looked down again and was stunned to the point of nearly falling from the sky!

It turned out that this land was indeed formed from Pangu’s body! Pangu lay with his head facing due south, his right arm stretched out holding a giant axe, his left arm slightly bent, and his two strong thighs stretched northward in a bow stance, forming the land of Beiju Luzhou… The strange peaks and rugged mountains on the ground seemed as if Pangu were striving to create the heavens!

But that wasn’t even the most astonishing part. What made Wukong even more incredulous was that the journey from Chang’an in the Eastern Tang Dynasty to Ling Mountain in the Western Heavens—those 108,000 li—exactly crossed Pangu’s dantian!

Ah, now I see! No wonder when the Yin-Yang Divine Ape traveled along this path, it could awaken Pangu’s creative energy. This path was precisely where Pangu’s creative essence resided.

Wukong observed this land more closely. The Flower-Fruit Mountain, a blessed paradise, was exactly at Pangu’s right pulse point, while another blessed place, Wuzhuang Temple, was located at Pangu’s left chest, where his heart was… Kunpeng had said that the essence of creation in the world was divided into nine parts: Pangu had three, Kunpeng had two, the four great divine apes had one, and the rest was scattered throughout heaven and earth.

Pangu’s body was truly a manifestation of creation itself. Every vital part of his body was a blessed land on earth. Throughout the entire “Journey to the West,” there were only two places referred to as blessed paradises: the Water Curtain Cave on Flower-Fruit Mountain and Wuzhuang Temple in Xiniu Hezhou.

As for the journey to obtain the scriptures, it was naturally determined by Tathagata. Tathagata had long known that these 108,000 li led to Pangu’s dantian! The entire quest was under Tathagata’s control. Wukong naturally understood this, but without Tathagata’s mysterious techniques or divine eyes, how did he know that this land was Pangu’s body?

This doubt vanished quickly. Tathagata was an extraterrestrial being who came here with Pangu. He knew these things, so he didn’t necessarily need other means to know. Wukong ignored this unimportant detail and began to look around the land.

The ancients said the sky was round and the earth was square, but what Wukong saw now was that the land was also round, with the sky resembling a hemisphere covering the land. At the edge of the land, there was a hazy blue expanse beyond sight, while the eight pillars supporting the sky seemed right before his eyes, reaching all the way to the sky’s apex. Wukong raised his gaze upward and saw the eight pillars divided into nine sections, with each section further divided into eighty-one, intertwined at the sky’s peak.

Between those eight pillars, traces of a formation could be faintly seen. Wukong didn’t recognize this formation, but even from hundreds of thousands of li away, he could sense its mystery and danger.

At the edge of heaven and earth lay these eight pillars; everything else was emptiness. But due to the strong winds and the obstruction of this formation, it was utterly impossible to escape.

Wukong watched for a long time and increasingly felt that this world was nothing short of a highly realistic giant furnace, with those eight towering jade pillars forming its framework. The world itself was the furnace, used to torment all living beings! Since this place was a furnace, someone must have created it. Was it Pangu? Or the Tathagata? No! Neither of them had such power! If the Tathagata possessed the ability to create the world, why would he trap himself within it? Pangu claimed to have been an enemy of the Tathagata for countless years, so his abilities were likely similar to the Tathagata’s—not much stronger—and thus he too lacked such power. No one else in this world could surpass Pangu and the Tathagata, so there was no need to consider others. Given this, the answer became clear: the one who created this furnace must be someone from beyond the heavens! With this thought, Wukong was astonished by this person’s prowess—creating such a furnace that contained the entire world required immense courage and imagination. But there are always those greater than others, and in this world, anything is possible. Wukong quickly steadied his mind and began to ponder the purpose behind this furnace’s creation. If someone controlled this furnace, then every twelve cycles, the world would revert to chaos. This made sense—since this person could create the world, he could also destroy it. The twelve cycles were, in fact, determined solely by humans. It was like a group of cockroaches hiding in a drain: at meal times, when someone cooked and washed dishes, water flowed down the pipe, which for those cockroaches was a disaster. They didn’t know where the water would take them or where it came from; they only knew that every four or five hours, a destructive force would arrive. Some cockroaches, being stronger, could cling to the pipe walls and survive, while the weaker ones were swept away or ended up in sewers or septic tanks, with no control over their fate. If this world’s furnace was indeed created by humans, then everyone in it—whether mortals or immortals, Pangu or the Tathagata—was no different from those cockroaches. They knew the world would revert to chaos every twelve cycles, but they were helpless, with only a few strong individuals able to find ways to cling to the pipe walls and survive those cycles. Had Pangu, Kunpeng, the Seven Divine Apes, the Tathagata… all of them achieved this?

What on earth was the purpose of this person in creating the furnace for heaven and earth? Since he could control the Calamity of the Primordial Origin, then, as the Queen Mother said, the Calamity of the Primordial Origin was nothing but nonsense—claiming that excessive creation had torn apart heaven. Their method of using the Creation Furnace to shape heaven was also utterly wrong and missed the mark entirely.

Thinking of this, Wukong couldn’t help but recall those dozen or so thousand-foot-long jade pieces he had just obtained. These truly were peerless treasures. The Jade Emperor and Queen Mother were merely at the peak of the Hunyuan Golden Immortals—how could they possibly know such a method to condense creation?

When he was on Fangzhang Immortal Island, he had seen nine veins of creation leading to Kunlun Immortal Island, but he had never understood how formless creation could turn into solid thousand-foot-long jade.

Creation was like nothingness; turning it into a solid form was countless times harder than turning water vapor into ice. Wukong didn’t believe the Jade Emperor and Queen Mother had such ability—or rather, they themselves couldn’t fathom this method.

The creation contained within those thousand-foot-long jades was truly infinite.

Although Wukong had obtained many immortal herbs and elixirs from Kunlun Immortal Island, combined, their creation was but a fraction compared to those jade pieces. Considering that it took the Five Divine Apes tens of thousands of years to drain all the creation from those jades, one could imagine just how dense and profound it was.

What puzzled Wukong even more was that the Jade Emperor and Queen Mother, despite having ready access to creation, were unwilling to use it and instead focused on plundering mortal lands. Wasn’t that like a wealthy person begging for food or possessing treasures without realizing it?

Recalling that the Jade Emperor and Queen Mother were originally two children brought here by Buddha, Wukong increasingly felt that behind those thousand-foot-long jades, Buddha’s shadow loomed…

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That day, in the Jade Pool, the Jade Emperor and Queen Mother sat together joyfully, both looking pleased. Over the past 120 years, the Queen Mother had spent many peaches and elixirs, using the Great Immortal of the Central Yellow Pole in the back garden of the Jade Pool to create a new world, and finally reared five more saints—what a tremendous joy!

As they drank together, an immortal official rushed in with news: “Many monks have arrived on Kunlun Immortal Island, seeking to seize the thousand-foot-long jades!”

The Jade Emperor and Queen Mother exchanged a glance, showing suspicion. Monks? Coming to seize the thousand-foot-long jades? Who sent them? Was it Buddha? Why “seize” rather than “take”?

The Jade Emperor waved for the official to leave and said to the Queen Mother, “The thousand-foot-long jades were promised to be refined for him—why would they come to seize them?”

The Queen Mother closed her eyes and thought for a while before opening them and saying, “A test!”

The Jade Emperor replied, “Perhaps… it could also be Maitreya from the Spirit Mountain?”

The Queen Mother said, “If it were Maitreya coming to take it, we certainly wouldn’t give it. But if it’s the Tathagata, then we can let him take it. We’ve endured for tens of thousands of years; it doesn’t matter if it’s just this once!”
The Jade Emperor nodded and called out to the outside, “Someone!”