[Journey to the West] [Li Shimin] [Great Tang] [Immortals and Buddhas] [Black Myth] [Struggle for supremacy] [The rise of a great power]
Li Shimin wakes up as the Tang king in a parallel Journey to the West. The moment he opens his eyes, a copy of Journey to the West appears in his mind.
Seeing the fate laid out in the book, where his soul wanders through the underworld and the immortals and Buddhas manipulate him at every turn, he laughs in fury.
“Ah, what boundless salvation! What compassion! So the people of my Great Tang are nothing but livestock raised for you to harvest the fortune of the land?”
From that moment on, the entire story of Journey to the West changes.
Guanyin offers a treasure? I’ll gladly take it, then send it straight to the research institute to be decoded.
Wukong guards my carriage? I’ll win him over. How can the Great Sage Equal to Heaven be a lackey for Spirit Mountain?
On the pilgrimage, the iron cavalry of the Great Tang clears the way, while the Immortal-Engineering Artifacts of the Institute of Practical Studies pave the road.
When the Buddhas of Spirit Mountain finally await the Pilgrim, they see Xuanzang clad in a humanist kasaya, with a sea of human battle flags rising behind him.
Seated high on his dragon throne, Li Shimin looks down upon the heavens. “I permit this scripture to be retrieved. But the fortune of the land must be divided by the rules of humankind.”
