Apocalypse: A Journey to the West Rhapsody

A golden body can rust. The Dharma can grow corrupt.

I, Sun Wukong, Victorious Fighting Buddha.

I once shattered the Celestial Palace. I once protected the scriptures on the journey west. I once thought my merits were complete.

Until I discovered that every “meritorious deed” I performed while slaying demons was helping build a prison that held all living beings captive.

Until lies tarnished and rusted my golden body, and my name became a joke in the system.

They said I was insane. They said I had fallen into demonic ways.

They said that this “Buddha” of mine needed to be melted down and recast.

Then let it be done.

Back to where it all began: the filthy stone that gave me life, the Stone of Mending Heaven.

And I’ll bring along that amnesiac child who calls himself “Jiang Liu’er,” yet wears a prototype of the tightening fillet.

With these rusted bones, I’ll smash through Lingshan’s gilded dome.

And ask the Data Tathagata seated at the center:

“When you save all living beings, are you saving them…

or only your eternal, unshakable ‘rightness’?”

“If becoming a Buddha means closing my eyes, I would rather sink forever into the cycle of rust.”