That irritating voice refused to leave Sun Wukong alone, lingering constantly at his side.
"Enough! Shut up! Stop talking!"
Sun Wukong clutched his head and threw it back, roaring in pain and fury at the sky.
Yet the angrier he became, the more delighted that voice seemed, chattering endlessly in his ear.
"Sun Wukong, you're nothing but a pitiful wretch, living in a world woven for you by others, lost in a beautiful dream, knowing nothing and unwilling to wake up!"
"Sun Wukong, you're a coward! How pathetic!"
"I, Old Sun, am not a pitiful wretch! I am the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the Monkey King, Sun Wukong!"
Sun Wukong roared at the heavens. Wild winds rose around him, and the ground beneath his feet cracked inch by inch. The earth split apart, and chunks of rubble fell into the widening fissures.
A powerful, brutal aura suddenly erupted from Sun Wukong's body.
The voice seemed greatly pleased by Sun Wukong's reaction, its tone carrying a trace of excitement.
"That's more like it! That's right—you're Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven! You're a Spiritual Stone Monkey. This is how imposing you should be!"
"Sun Wukong, Sun Wukong..."
The voice suddenly became distant and ethereal, as if it came from the farthest reaches of the sky. "Zi Xia, do you still remember her?"
"Zi Xia... that battle five hundred years ago, the Havoc in Heaven—do you still remember it?"
"Do you still remember that bloody storm from back then?"
"Do you remember it all?"
"Zi Xia, Zi Xia, Zi Xia?!" Sun Wukong clutched his head in agony and rolled across the ground. "Who is Zi Xia? Who is Zi Xia?!"
"What exactly did I, Old Sun, do five hundred years ago?!"
"What happened five hundred years ago?"
Suddenly, the