Great Sage Equal to Heaven Sun Wukong

After the Golden Cudgel touched the mountain, Five Finger Mountain was quiet for two days.

Goten stopped washing over the Seal. He was waiting.

Waiting for that awakening presence to open its eyes completely, waiting for the man trapped deep within the mountain for five hundred years to decide whether he truly wanted to answer him.

On the morning of the third day, he got his answer.

The mountain split open—not from an earthquake, but from a crack that began inside and stretched from the foot of the mountain halfway up its slope.

The crack he had washed over for three days and three nights was torn open from the other end by a force inside the mountain.

Golden light surged from the crack—not a gentle glow, but a straight pillar of gold that shot into the sky and burst through the clouds, turning every cloud for a hundred miles golden.

Everyone stood up at once.

Goten didn't stand—he was already in front of the mountain wall.

Golden light fell across his face. He reached out—not to touch the light, but to catch what was falling from it.

A fragment hovered an inch above his palm—all gold, with sharp edges, like a piece of broken metal. A fragment of the Golden Cudgel.

He gripped the fragment. A current of power surged into his arm and coursed through his entire body. In that instant, he formed an unbreakable connection with the Golden Cudgel.

This was a transfer of power across five hundred years. Not through the Seal, but through this fragment.

The fragment warmed in his palm. A completely new power was breaking through the Seal and awakening, as if to say, I'm here. Come find me.

The crack in the mountain kept widening. More fragments flew out—not toward him, but in different directions, toward every corner of the Three Realms.

The Golden Cudgel had been smashed by Sun Wukong himself after he became a Buddha and before his soul reincarnated. Now its fragments were scattered throughout the Three Realms.

Goten tightened his grip on the fragment and looked up at the golden light scattering in every direction. "The Golden Cudgel is broken."

Zixia's voice was calm. "It isn't broken. It's been released. After Sun Wukong became a Buddha and before his soul reincarnated, he smashed it himself. Now the fragments are scattered throughout the Three Realms. That way, no one can monopolize its power."

"Then how do we put it back together?"

"Find all the fragments. The Golden Cudgel will reunite on its own."

Goten looked down at the fragment in his palm. It glowed like a beating heart.

Zhi Zun Bao stood before the mountain wall, his hand still pressed against the handprint.

When he saw the fragments of the Golden Cudgel flying away, one had flown toward him. It stopped three feet in front of him and circled him once.

Then it flew off into the distance. It hadn't been coming to him—it had been looking at him.

"It recognizes me." Zhi Zun Bao's voice was low.

Zixia didn't answer.

But she knew the Golden Cudgel recognized him, of course. That trust could never be worn away by time.

It was Sun Wukong's own aura. Even after reincarnation, the Golden Cudgel couldn't mistake him.

Goten tucked the fragment into his clothes and stood up.

He watched the scattered golden lights vanish in every direction. Suddenly, his task was clear: leave Five Finger Mountain, travel throughout the Three Realms, find every fragment, and reunite the Golden Cudgel.

He opened his hand. The fragment rose and tilted toward the northwest.

"What's over there?"

To the northwest lay a barren stretch of the Gobi Desert. Farther northwest was the Flowing Sand River.

Zhu Bajie's expression changed. "I'm not going. I'm not going to the Flowing Sand River. That's..." He paused. "That's where I stayed after I was banished to the mortal realm."

Sha Wujing said nothing. But when he heard the words "Flowing Sand River," his hand tightened slightly around his carrying pole.

"Then we're going." Zhi Zun Bao slung the wooden stick over his shoulder. "We can't just leave a fragment of the Golden Cudgel at the bottom of the Flowing Sand River."

Sand spread beneath their feet—the boundless Gobi Desert. Ahead lay the Flowing Sand River, eight hundred miles of shifting sands, where even a goose feather couldn't float in the Weak Water.

The first fragment of the Golden Cudgel lay at the bottom of that river.

The Heavenly Court. Lingxiao Palace. The Jade Emperor sat on the Nine-Dragon Throne with his eyes closed, his fingers tapping a steady rhythm on the armrest. He was counting whether the golden light lasted one incense stick or two.

If it lasted more than three incense sticks, then this wasn't an ordinary loosening of the Seal. The Seal had been broken.

When the third incense stick burned down, the golden light hadn't disappeared. The Jade Emperor opened his eyes.

"Li Jing, summon the Four Heavenly Kings, the Twenty-Eight Mansions, and the Nine Luminaries. Surround Five Finger Mountain and crush them."

"Your Majesty—"

"I don't want to hear another 'but.'" The Jade Emperor's voice wasn't loud, but each word struck the ground like a nail. "Yang Jian was defeated. Nezha was defeated. I spared Fangcun Mountain out of respect for Patriarch Bodhi. But now the Golden Cudgel has been broken, and Sun Wukong's aura has appeared in the Three Realms again. Do you know what that means?"

Li Jing fell silent for a moment. "It means someone opened the Seal on Five Finger Mountain."

"No." The Jade Emperor looked at him. "It means he has returned."

The golden pillar above Five Finger Mountain was visible even from the Heavenly Court, ten thousand miles away.

Outside the South Heaven Gate, Heavenly Soldiers stood in formation on the clouds, every gaze fixed in the same direction: west.

Every pair of eyes in the Three Realms was watching that golden light. Everyone knew whose aura it was.

Five hundred years later, that name had returned to everyone's thoughts: Great Sage Equal to Heaven Sun Wukong.