Journey to the West: Starting With Pangu’s True Form

In the prehistoric world of Journey to the West, Daoists attain sainthood by severing the Three Corpses, while Buddhists seek merit and virtue.

As Zhu Buyi navigates his way among immortals and Buddhas on the pilgrimage, he discovers that severing the Three Corpses means obeying Heaven’s heartlessness, while seeking merit means demanding payment from all living beings. For the sake of some supposedly inescapable fate and inscrutable heavenly secrets, the Jade Emperor can ignore a thousand miles of starving people, and the Buddha can forgive demons for eating humans. It is the saints who are truly the most selfish and heartless of all.

Zhu Buyi declares, “In this life, my dharma name is Wutian. I will not sever the Three Corpses or seek merit. I will prove the Dao through strength and overpower all the saints. With the divine Pangu Axe in my hands, I’ll cut down gods and Buddhas, reshape the cosmos, and make Heaven’s will change for me!”