Nothing But Wind

Sun Wukong smiled.

"Well. You've had yourself a nice little rest, haven't you?"

The air changed in an instant. His smile was bright and clear, the kind of smile a man wears ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on his way to a picnic.

Baekgwiwang's face, by contrast, was heavy as stone.

Wukong closed his fist around the steel staff and drew it free.

"Those internal injuries of yours should be all patched up by now. Waiting any longer is starting to bore me."

Baekgwiwang shut his eyes. Emotions flickered rapidly across his face.

"We were sworn brothers once, though. Consider it my last courtesy to you, Elder Brother."

"..."

"You had your reasons too, didn't you? You were wounded. Fight me now and you'd lose for certain — so you figured you'd stall for time, recover a little. And if I really let you live, well. That would've been even better."

Wukong had already seen straight through him.

And still he had waited, unhurried. It was the confidence of a man who knew he could cut Baekgwiwang down in a single stroke whenever he pleased — recovered or not. And it was the last scrap of lingering affection for a sworn brother who had once stood at his side.

Baekgwiwang felt all of it. He understood.

The closed eyes opened. The tightly sealed mouth parted.

"Little Brother."

His face was chilling. He drew a pair of twin swords.

"Two swords?"

Hadn't he used only one against Namgung Jinbaek? Wukong grinned, as if this were entertaining.

Baekgwiwang's face was strange. Expressionless, emptied of feeling — and yet what rose from it was a vicious, choking yin energy. A frost-edged wind seemed to howl around him, a wind thick with the killing cold of the northern sea.

"You have neither the Somersault Cloud nor the Ruyi Jingu Bang right now, Little Brother."

Wukong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did not answer.

Beneath snow-white brows, pale eyes gleamed.

"I will ask you something, Little Brother."

"Ask away, Elder Brother."

"Without the Ruyi Jingu Bang — a weapon without equal across the Celestial Realm, the mortal world, and the Underworld — can the Golden Monkey truly overwhelm one of the Seven Great Sages?"

Wukong still did not answer.

Wind began to gather slowly around Baekgwiwang's twin swords.

"Little Brother. I, too, was one of the Seven Demon Kings."

A vortex formed around the twin blades. Aura and wind tangled together, whirling into a violent cyclone. The dragon-coil gale swelled as if it meant to swallow the swords whole. The wind spun at a maddening speed. To be caught in it would be to have one's entire body shredded.

Even Wukong could not escape a wind that swept the entire surroundings. All things were caught in the gale.

And then, in a single instant, Baekgwiwang understood something.

Wukong's feet were planted. He did not move an inch.

Enormous trees snapped and tore free and went flying — and still Wukong stood in silence. He stood firm and still, like a great boulder facing the wind head-on.

But even a boulder is worn down in the end. The wind carves it, and carves it again, until it is dust, and the dust is scattered and gone. That is the way of the world.

Wukong was not a boulder.

Stillness within motion. To move fiercely from within stillness. To blaze loudly from within silence. To move with the wind, inside the wind. Not against it. He surrendered himself to the current. In a wind that bared vicious fangs, ready to shred everything to pieces — he became one with the wind.

In the moment of realization, Baekgwiwang's skull rang with a dull, heavy shock.

Wukong's voice spread low, like a murmured chant. Clear and distinct, cutting through the raging wind.

Wind may shatter stone. It cannot pierce the heavens.

The arrogant name he had given himself. Wukong spoke it once more, staring into Baekgwiwang's eyes as they filled with horror, enunciating every syllable.

The one who holds and rules the vast heavens entire — the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.

Wukong looked at Baekgwiwang, unhurried.

"Tongpung-daeseong. Baekgwiwang."

A quiet calling. A resonance so strong it punched through every sound and every wave of energy. Baekgwiwang's body went rigid.

The corner of Wukong's mouth lifted.

No matter how fierce the wind. Even if it could carve stone, hurl trees, and smash mountains to rubble. It was still nothing but wind.

The Demon King who pierces the wind — Tongpung-daeseong, Baekgwiwang.

Beneath the sky — nothing but wind.

The dark steel staff punched through the gale. Blood-red light dyed the world crimson.

The sky cleared.

"Kh—!"

Lying on his back, staring straight up at the heavens, Baekgwiwang coughed up a handful of black blood. He could not move, so the blood slid back down his throat. Only after a violent fit of coughing could he roll his one remaining eye.

"Beneath the sky, is it."

He pierced the wind. He seized every wind in his grasp and ran wild with it. In his past life. In this one. No one can go against the wind. Even those who endure are eventually broken and snapped. That is the way of the world. The world beneath the sky, that is.

"A frog in a well. So that's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what I was."

A bitter lament spilled out. No matter how savage the wind, it cannot defeat the sky. Beneath the sky — nothing but wind.

The fading light of a life. This was the result.

Wukong clicked his tongue and pressed his palms together.

"I'd wish you rebirth in the Western Paradise, but I don't think that's happening."

"..."

"Go to hell. Or be reborn as a beast and wash your karma clean."

"Karma."

Baekgwiwang wanted to say something. But the blood surged back up and clogged his throat. The life in those pale eyes, locked on Wukong, slowly drained away.

Wukong pressed his palms together once more. As he turned, a peculiar expression crossed his face — a trace of bitterness mixed in.

"...You should have just lived and washed the karma away. Why go and pile on more? Why?"

A small regret for a man who had once been his sworn brother. Wukong sighed and started slowly toward where his companions waited.

That was when it happened.

A sinister energy surged from behind him. A vast shadow rose, hazy and indistinct. Wukong's body whipped around like a thunderbolt. He thrust the steel staff out with both hands.

"...Baekgwiwang!"

Wukong's eyes flew wide.

Wukong's gaze sank low.

"So when the vessel of a human body shattered, this is what came spilling out."

Which meant the thing before him was a soul.

"A soul can walk and move even without a body."

Even after leaving the flesh, a soul can wander this earth and live on — if its rank is high enough. Like Tang Sanzang's soul, which still exists after leaving the body, and whose flesh has yet to rot.

Baekgwiwang's fangs jutted viciously below his lips.

"Great Sage, Equal to Heaven..."

He looked down at his own body, sheathed in white fur, and murmured as if in rapture.

"This is it. This is the power of my past."

The innate power of one of the Seven Great Sages. He could feel that power at its full strength. This was the demon itself, having torn free of the limits and the prison of a human body.

Wukong's eyes sank lower. A massive frame that easily exceeded ten feet. Fur like frost, bristling stiff and pure white. Hidden among that white fur, Baekgwiwang's eyes glittered and rolled.

Wukong let out a sigh.

A rank as lofty and noble as Tang Sanzang's?

Don't make me laugh.

The only one like that in the mortal world is Tang Sanzang.

At most an incense stick's time. No — not even half that.

Already the dense tips of the fur were beginning to blur. There is only one fate for a soul without a body. It slowly scatters, loses its identity, and falls to the level of a mere vengeful ghost. Even the soul of Baekgwiwang, one of the Seven Great Sages, was no exception.

No — the fact that he could wield this power at all, even for a brief moment, was itself a display of a Great Sage's achievement. But the time granted was vanishingly short.

Baekgwiwang seemed to realize it too. Killing intent poured from him.

"Little Brother. Be this elder brother's companion on the road to the afterlife."

"Eh, we're a little too awkward with each other for a journey that long."

Wukong cackled and gripped the dark steel staff. His mouth was smiling, but his face was astonishingly calm.

If this was the innate power of a Great Sage, even Wukong could not be certain of an overwhelming victory. With the Ruyi Jingu Bang, he wouldn't have worried. But at the level of the Seven Great Sages, the slimmest of margins often decides the match. The soul before him — Tongpung-daeseong, Baekgwiwang — held the full power of his past.

Defeat? That's a joke.

A faint smile touched Wukong's lips.

He had fought countless times. Every one of them what the martial artists of Murim called a life-and-death duel — the thin line where life and death split apart. Wukong had lived on that line. And he was still alive.

In short: the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong, was invincible and immortal. Undying, as well. For him, there was no such thing as defeat.

But even Wukong would have to endure pain.

This is the killing line.

He stood now on a blade's edge, the line between life and death.

This thing will vanish on its own if I just wait.

All he had to do was stall.

Or I could just leave this place.

If Wukong truly set his mind to fleeing, the only one who could catch him was the Tathagata. You can leap all you want — you're still in the Buddha's palm. Which is precisely why only the Tathagata could do it.

But Wukong scattered every one of those thoughts with a laugh.

Barely half an incense stick's time.

"Wouldn't the time you've got left be a little too precious to waste, Elder Brother?"

Wukong's dantian resonated. Crack. Crack. Sparks caught. The sparks became fire. The fire became a wildfire. The wildfire became a vast inferno.

Baekgwiwang felt it. The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, standing squarely before him.

"He doesn't have the Ruyi Jingu Bang. He clearly doesn't."

What he held was nothing but a staff of dark steel. Without the Ruyi Jingu Bang, he should have been the same as Baekgwiwang — one of the Seven Great Sages.

In eyes torn wide with horror, a sky of blood-stained yoryeok was reflected. No — a vastness the eyes themselves could not contain. And at its center, Wukong's golden light shimmered as if dancing.

"So you were already... just by existing... the king of all demons."

A small realization. But the belated truth was swallowed by the sky and swept away without a trace.

A gust of wind swept through and was gone. As if something had been there — nothing left but a breeze.

Wukong let out a deep breath and sprawled on his back, staring up at the sky.

"If King Yama has anything to say about it, tell him I'll turn the Underworld into a wasteland."

At that quiet mutter, something stirred deep in Wukong's robes. A small mewl. Nyaa.

A black cat poked its face out and sprang free. It stretched its whole body in a long arch, then spoke with a gloomy expression.

"Reincarnations of demon kings plotting war against the Celestial Realm. For the Seven Great Sages to be behind a conspiracy like this..."

After consuming the predecessor Myodu-eung's Inner Core, Wukong no longer had to simply wait for Heaven to open a channel. If he wished it, he could communicate with Master Janggyeong like this.

The moment he grasped Baekgwiwang's true identity, Wukong had opened a faint line of communication with the Celestial Realm. It was only enough to listen — but that was sufficient. Master Janggyeong had heard the entire battle with his ears, and understood it.

"Pass all of this on to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the ones upstairs."

"Yes. I must. For something this terrible to be happening..."

"And."

Wukong recalled Baekgwiwang's words.

"What did he mean, saying the Tathagata is growing weaker?"

"Great Sage Sun, I don't know that either."

"Hrm."

Master Janggyeong was the most virtuous soul in the Celestial Realm. The mere fact that Wukong respected him was proof enough. Many in Heaven respected Master Janggyeong, and spoke their troubles to him without reservation.

"Even you don't know? The Master Janggyeong whose ears are said to be sharper than the Clairvoyant Eyes?"

"The truth is..."

Master Janggyeong let the words trail off. Wukong's eyes gleamed. But he did not press. He waited, calm.

Master Janggyeong was fair to all things in the world. If he judged that Wukong was permitted to hear it, he would speak.

How much time passed?

Master Janggyeong sighed, set a forepaw on Wukong's chest, and carefully opened his mouth.