Buddha-Eater: Sha Wujing's Myriad Realms Stele

Beneath the Flowing Sands River, what sank was not skulls, but the souls of nine generations of pilgrims. The beads around Sha Wujing’s neck are no prayer beads, but nine Buddha-devouring bones, each formed from the head of a “false Buddha” he tore apart with his own hands.

The pilgrimage is complete, and Mount Lingshan has bestowed its honors. Yet he glimpses a fading trace of the Golden Hoop Spell in the eyes of the Victorious Fighting Buddha. As Bajie drunkenly curses at the Southern Heavenly Gate, Tang Sanzang closes his eyes and recites the Tightening Hoop Spell, and the White Dragon Horse weeps blood at the Western Sea, only Sha Wujing silently tightens his grip on his staff.

Heaven suddenly issues the “Decree to Exterminate Demons in the Name of All Buddhas,” ordering the slaughter of every survivor of the old pilgrimage. Sha Wujing tears off his prayer beads, and nine heads soar into the sky, transforming into a towering blood monument. Its inscription glows crimson: “I am the General Who Rolls the Curtain. Today, I will tear apart Mount Lingshan and bury all the Buddhas!”

From then on, the eight-hundred-mile Flowing Sands River surges backward into the nine layers of Heaven. A wordless scripture, burned by the Tathagata, resurfaces from the riverbed. It reveals the truth: all five members of the Journey to the West were “sacrifices”...