They... Are Human

"Great King, lead the way. Take me to your kingdom."

Xuanzang's voice was quiet, yet carried an unquestionable resolve.

Great King Yellow Wind stared at him blankly, that modest figure reflected in his golden pupils.

"Save...? How can you save them?" His voice trembled.

"This humble monk has a way."

Xuanzang offered no further explanation. He looked at A-Hu beside him, and A-Hu crouched with a low growl.

Xuanzang mounted the tiger's back and glanced back at the three mighty beings above the clouds, each wearing a different expression.

He said nothing more, merely bowing in their direction.

"Let's go."

A-Hu spread his wings and rose into the air, carrying Xuanzang toward the kingdom buried beneath the yellow sands to the west, guided by Great King Yellow Wind.

Sun Wukong followed close behind.

Zhu Bajie and Little White Dragon had arrived at some point as well and joined them.

Above the clouds.

Lingji Bodhisattva's face was dark as still water, veins bulging on the hand gripping the Flying Dragon Staff. "Great Bodhisattva, will you simply let him act so recklessly? That rat curse was tainted by a great demon's blood essence, and it gathers the calamity-bound fate and resentment of the Journey to the West!"

A wary chill crept into Lingji Bodhisattva's voice:

"Such filth would corrode even our golden bodies' magical power if it touched us, casting us down from our Lotus Pedestals. He is a mere mortal, resisting the baleful energy of heaven and earth with flesh and blood. This is no rescue-it will end with both his body and soul annihilated!"

Guanyin Bodhisattva watched Sanzang recede into the distance, her gaze deep as the sea. The Willow Branch in her hand trembled slightly, but she did not stop him.

"Venerable One, let us watch."

The Sihali Kingdom.

The former kingdom of gold was now nothing but shattered walls and ruins.

Hunched figures were everywhere amid the swirling yellow sand. They had rat ears and long, thin tails trailing behind them as they rummaged through the ruins for rotten food. Their eyes were numb and terrified, yet held a hunger that chilled the soul.

When Xuanzang and his companions landed in what had once been the palace square, rustling immediately rose all around them.

Countless pairs of eerie green eyes lit up in the shadows.

These were the people who had been transformed into rat demons. They feared sunlight and strangers, yet were drawn to the scent of unfamiliar people.

"This is my kingdom..."

Great King Yellow Wind descended from the air. Looking at his subjects, who could no longer even recognize him, he closed his eyes in anguish.

"They've already lost their minds... I am the culprit who turned them into monsters. All I can do is protect them, then watch them live or die on their own."

Xuanzang dismounted and surveyed his surroundings.

He saw not hideous demons, but countless souls trapped inside the shells of beasts, wailing day and night.

That hunger sunk deep into the marrow, that longing for light, that despair of being abandoned by the world.

He slowly extended his right hand, palm upward.

"The beings of Jambudvipa create differing karma. What, then, are the retributions they receive?"

"Master? What are you doing?" Sun Wukong sensed something was wrong and hurried forward.

Xuanzang did not answer. Instead, he looked at Great King Yellow Wind.

"Great King, lend me your 'divine wind.'"

"My wind?"

Great King Yellow Wind froze. "What for?"

"Use your wind to carry this humble monk's blood into every corner of the Sihali Kingdom."

Before his words had faded, Xuanzang drew his hand across Great King Yellow Wind's fork.

Blood flowed at once. It was not crimson, but suffused with a faint golden glow.

"Master!!"

Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Little White Dragon all cried out and started forward to stop the bleeding.

"Stand back!"

Xuanzang gave a sharp, quiet command.

He stood in the center of the square, letting his blood flow and drip onto the parched, cracked earth beneath his feet.

"All conditioned things are impermanent, subject to birth and death. When birth and death have ceased, stillness is bliss."

Xuanzang's voice rang through the wind and sand, vast and compassionate:

"At that time, Prince Sattva saw the starving tigress and thought to himself: This tigress is now starving, utterly destitute and exhausted, and will surely eat her cubs. If today I cast aside this body, I shall be casting aside a body filled with boundless filth and stench, filled with every suffering..."

The Red-Blood Buddha Wheel turned behind his head. The blood that fell to the ground did not seep into the soil, but became crimson lotuses blooming in the wind.

"Great King! Raise the wind!"

Xuanzang looked at the stunned Great King Yellow Wind and shouted sternly.

Great King Yellow Wind shuddered, his eyes instantly reddening.

"Yes... yes!!"

Great King Yellow Wind roared, hesitating no longer.

Whoooosh-!!!

A fierce wind suddenly rose.

It swept up the crimson blood mist and scattered it.

Wherever the wind passed, blood mist spread.

The divine wind transformed Xuanzang's blood into billions upon billions of tiny motes, scattering them into every corner of the Sihali Kingdom, over every rat-person hiding in the shadows.

Xuanzang's face was deathly pale, yet he sat cross-legged in the wind, one hand raised high in the Abhaya Mudra and the other forming the Teaching Mudra, chanting:

"If any living being sheds a Buddha's blood, slanders the Three Treasures, or dishonors the sacred sutras, they too shall fall into Avici Hell, with no hope of escape for countless billions of kalpas."

Wherever the wind passed, blood mist spread.

As the sutra resounded, the Red-Blood Buddha Wheel blazed with light, merging into the blood mist and entering the rat-people's bodies.

"Squeee-!!"

Piercing screams rose one after another.

It was the agony of baleful energy being purified.

The rat-people rolled on the ground. Their hard, filthy demonic hides began to fester and peel away, while the demonic blood within them was forced out little by little.

Then the Nectar Buddha Wheel revolved, showering down a white rain of nectar light.

That rain of light fell upon the festering wounds, swiftly growing new flesh, soothing the agony, and awakening their long-slumbering humanity.

"My... my hands..."

A "rat" rolling on the ground watched in terror as his sharp claws gradually receded, becoming calloused human hands once more.

"I can speak... sob... Father... Mother..."

Weeping, laughter, and anguished howls intertwined, erupting across this land that had lain deathly silent for a hundred years.

Xuanzang's voice grew weaker and weaker, but his recitation never stopped:

"From this day forth, before the image of Pure Lotus-Eyed Tathagata, I vow that throughout the hundreds of thousands of billions of kalpas to come, in all worlds that may exist, all beings suffering for their sins in the hells and the Three Evil Paths"

"I shall rescue, freeing them from hell and the evil destinies, from the Animal Realm and the Hungry Ghost Realm."

With his body alone, he bore an entire kingdom's karma.

Until the last rat-person shed their demonic form, until the last citizen stood up in bewilderment.

"Only after all those who suffer such karmic retribution have attained Buddhahood shall I attain perfect enlightenment."

Xuanzang swayed. At last, the two radiant Buddha Wheels could hold out no longer and shattered with a thunderous crash.

Like a withered leaf, he fell backward.

"Master!!"

Sun Wukong's eyes strained as though they would split. He caught the body, already almost cold.

Xuanzang's face was pale as gold paper, his breath thin as a thread.

"Wukong..." He forced his eyes open and looked at the people around him, who were regaining their human forms and weeping in bewilderment. With great effort, the corners of his mouth lifted into a faint smile.

"Look... they... are human."

Before his words had faded, his head drooped limply.

"Master!!!"