This is no grueling pilgrimage to fetch scriptures and atone for sins. It is a revenge-fueled revolution sweeping across the Three Realms.
The moment the Stone Monkey was born, the consciousness of Lin Xuan, a modern man, came to coexist in the same body as Sun Wukong’s very essence.
When he opened his eyes, what he saw was no myth. It was a conspiracy.
What is the Journey to the West? A killing game laid by Heaven and Spirit Mountain together: rebellious demons are slaughtered, while obedient ones are tamed into dogs. The eighty-one trials? Eighty-one bloody paths paved with the demon clans’ corpses.
Lin Xuan won’t fetch the scriptures.
He’ll rally allies.
Deep beneath the Water Curtain Cave, he finds the military treatises and battle formations left by an ancient Demon Emperor, and turns a rabble into a battle-hardened army. He negotiates with the Dragon Palace, trading for the Golden Cudgel. He goes to Heaven and becomes the Keeper of the Heavenly Horses, runs the horses into the ground, and quietly commits the truth behind the Peach Garden’s worship to memory.
Then he rebels.
With one staff strike, he props open heaven and earth and holds back a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers.
From then on, the Three Realms have the Heaven-Equaling Demon Alliance.
He heads west, taking no disciples, only brothers:
A violent Tang Monk, a reincarnated god of slaughter who can shatter mountains with one punch.
A tactical Zhu Bajie, a logistics genius who plays dumb and feigns foolishness.
A netherworld Sha Wujing, an intelligence chief who commands vengeful spirits.
And the White Dragon Horse, the Black Bear Spirit, the Yellow Wind Monster, the Three Kings of Shituo Ridge, Red Boy...
He rewrites the eighty-one trials as eighty-one campaigns to bring new forces into the fold.
At last, a million-strong demon army marches on Spirit Mountain.
The uprising shatters the golden headband, shaking the Three Realms.
That staff strike did not shatter the Buddha’s golden body. It shattered a thousand years of shackles.
Heaven collapses, and Spirit Mountain changes its banners.
The Three Realms enter an age of great contention.
And that monkey, seated atop Flower-Fruit Mountain, gazes at the evening clouds filling the sky and says softly:
“Finally, I’ve finished rewriting this Journey to the West.”
Tradition says to finish the journey on your knees. I’d rather stand tall and kill my way through.
Good-looking (๑• . •๑)