The Tathagata orders the Victorious Fighting Buddha to descend from the mountain and travel the pilgrimage route backward on foot, exterminating every demon along the way. He has forgotten who he is, forgotten the Golden Cudgel, forgotten Flower-Fruit Mountain, forgotten the thirteen thousand years since he wreaked havoc in Heaven. He sees a demon and tries to deliver it; if he cannot, he destroys it. Golden light falls, leaving nothing behind. But the old acquaintances along this road still remember him: Tiger Vanguard waits beside his broken spearhead for the Great King to return, the White Bone Demon chews human bones on White Bone Mountain as she waits for him, and the mountain spirits and river monsters all call him Great Sage. He presses his palms together and says, “You have mistaken me for someone else, benefactor.” The farther he walks from Spirit Mountain, the more frantically the scriptures turn in his sea of consciousness, as if something is trying to crawl out from beneath the golden light.
