**Time Period**: Three hundred years after Tang Sanzang and his disciples returned from their pilgrimage, the Celestial Court discovers that the Western Paradise has suddenly vanished, and strange phenomena begin appearing across the Three Realms.
- **Setting**: Beginning with the shattered Ninth Heaven, the story reaches the forgotten Primordial Chaos Domain and ultimately leads to the Ruins of Return, where all Buddhas have been annihilated.
- **Central Conflict**: The Three Pure Ones discover that the pilgrimage to the West was, in fact, key to an ancient demon god being reborn. The resentful spirits of the monsters subdued along the way are gathering to form a new Demon God of Chaos.
### Chapter Overview
- **Disaster at Spirit Mountain**: Taishang Laojun discovers that the Western Paradise's Spirit Mountain is shrouded by a mysterious black lotus, and every Buddha's golden body has turned to stone.
- **The Golden Cicada Vanishes**: Tang Sanzang, now the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit, suddenly disappears, leaving behind only half of a broken nine-ring monk's staff.
- **Dark Currents Emerge**: Black blood seeps from the coiled-dragon pillars in the Hall of Miraculous Mists. The Jade Emperor discovers that an unknown force is devouring the Celestial Court's fortune.
- **Demonic Mists Return**: A lion-drawn carriage appears in Chang'an. Jiuling Yuansheng, missing for three hundred years, returns to the mortal world bearing an eerie Buddhist radiance.
- **The Gate to the Ruins of Return**: A bronze gate engraved with scriptures that defy the Buddha emerges beneath the Eastern Sea. Dark golden chaos seeps through its cracks.
