WU KONG

Chapter 3: Whispers in the Wind

The wreckage of the banquet hall glowed with residual malice, its once-pristine jade shards now oozing black ichor. Sun Wukong crouched atop a half-melted pillar, his inspector’s torc casting jagged shadows across the celestial debris. The air still hummed with the echoes of fleeing immortals—their panic lingering like the stench of burnt hair.

“Clever rats,” Wukong muttered, plucking a strand of silver thread from the rubble. It squirmed in his grip, emitting a high-pitched whine that made his teeth ache. *Soulthread.* Forged from the lifelines of condemned mortals, it was the preferred tool of underworld smugglers. Yet here it lay in heaven’s inner court, still warm from Minister Qiu’s unraveling schemes.

The thread suddenly stiffened, pointing northwest toward the Constellation Vaults. Wukong grinned. Traitors always left breadcrumbs—arrogance disguised as caution. He leaped into the fractured sky, following the thread’s pull through layers of reality that folded like poisoned origami.

---

The Vault of Unseen Stars loomed ahead, its obsidian doors engraved with shifting zodiac patterns. A place even most celestials feared—repository of forbidden astrological charts and contracts signed in godly blood. Two guards flanked the entrance: stone-faced deities with features carved from meteorite rock, their eyes hollow pits swirling with cosmic dust.

“Halt.” Their voices harmonized into a single dissonant chord. “No passage without—”

Wukong’s torc flared, its dragon-shaped flames licking the obsidian doors. The guards’ stony flesh cracked, revealing writhing void beneath.

“You’re not celestial-born,” Wukong observed, sniffing the ozone stench leaking from their fractures. “Modified star golems. Interesting.”

The guards lunged, their spears trailing comet tails. Wukong spun his staff, the Ruyi Jingu Bang expanding to crush one golem against the vault doors. The other’s spear shattered against his torc, releasing a burst of corrupted starlight that etched smoking craters into the ground.

“Who retrofitted you?” Wukong demanded, pinning the remaining golem with his staff. “Which ministry authorized void-core constructs in a restricted archive?”

The golem’s mouth split into a jagged smile. “Authorization… unnecessary… when shadows… command…”

Its head exploded into a cloud of black needles. Wukong batted them aside, but not before one grazed his cheek. The wound burned with unnatural cold—*hellfrost*, a substance banned since the Yellow Springs Rebellion.

“Oh, this is getting good,” Wukong growled, kicking the vault doors off their hinges.

---

Inside, the vault defied logic—an infinite library where shelves stretched into nebulas, their scrolls chained with lightning. The soulthread led him past constellations imprisoned in crystal orbs and screaming comets bound in eclipse silk. Finally, it anchored itself to a nondescript alcove where a single scroll hovered, its wax seal bearing the mark of the Karmic Ledger Office.

Wukong unrolled it. The scroll’s “paper” was human skin—ten thousand donors, their pores still weeping ghostly tears. The text shifted between languages: celestial script, demonic glyphs, and the trembling handwriting of damned scholars.

“*Project Eclipse,*” Wukong read aloud. “*Phase One: Redirect mortal karma through artificial reincarnation loops. Phase Two: Harvest excess soul energy via—*”

A blade kissed his throat—a whisper-thin edge that split atoms as it moved.

“Curiosity killed the monkey,” purred a feminine voice.

Wukong didn’t turn. His reflection in the blade showed a woman draped in funeral silks, her face hidden behind a mask of frozen tears—the signature guise of a Mourning Star, elite assassins who served only the Celestial Throne itself.

“You’re late,” Wukong said. “The cleanup crew should’ve arrived before the inspector.”

The blade pressed deeper. “You weren’t meant to survive the hall.”

“Disappointing your masters?” Wukong’s tail crept upward, coiling around a nearby shelf. “Let me guess—the Karmic Ledger Office hired you to erase Minister Qiu’s trail. But why send a Mourning Star? Unless…” He smirked. “...this goes higher than the ministers.”

The assassin hesitated—a fatal mistake. Wukong’s tail yanked the shelf down, burying them both under an avalanche of screaming scrolls. He rolled free, clutching the Project Eclipse document, and bolted toward a glowing rift in reality—a smuggler’s portal hidden behind a tapestry depicting the First Celestial War.

The Mourning Star’s curse followed him through the tear: “The Throne itself will flay your soul!”

---

The portal spat him into a derelict temple floating in the Sea of Chaos—the buffer realm between heaven and earth. Cracked pillars oozed primordial mist, and the floor mosaics depicted forgotten gods devouring their own children.

“Dramatic,” Wukong muttered, studying the Project Eclipse scroll. Its final section detailed Phase Three: *Merge celestial and mortal realms to create a unified energy grid.* The signature at the bottom made his fur stand on end—an imprint of the Jade Emperor’s personal seal, but subtly altered. The dragon’s claws gripped an extra pearl.

A familiar scent made him turn. Tang Sanzang stood in the temple’s ruined archway, moonlight glinting off his nine-ringed staff.

“You’re far from your pilgrimage route, monk,” Wukong said.

“As are you from your inspection duties.” Tang’s gaze fell on the scroll. “That document is a death warrant.”

“Since when do holy men meddle in celestial affairs?”

“Since those affairs threaten to drown the mortal realm in celestial greed.” Tang approached, his shadow merging with the temple’s carvings of suffering souls. “The Jade Emperor’s seal you hold? A forgery.”

Wukong’s eyes narrowed. “Impossible. Only the Imperial Scepter can—”

“Can create perfect replicas, yes.” Tang drew a symbol in the air—a nine-petaled lotus that pulsed with eerie familiarity. “Unless one possesses the Ninefold Yin Stamp, lost during the War of Heavenly Division.”

Recognition struck Wukong. “Your scars—the rings beneath your robe. They’re not from mortal torture, are they?”

Tang’s smile held centuries of sorrow. “We all bear the marks of our past lives, Great Sage. Even those who’ve forgotten them.”

Before Wukong could respond, the temple shuddered. The mosaics liquefied, forming into a colossal mouth that spewed acid and discordant hymns.

“Seems your friends found us,” Wukong said, igniting his staff.

Tang chanted a sutra that solidified the air into a shield. “This goes beyond heaven’s corruption. What we’re uncovering…”

“Is a coup against the cosmos itself,” Wukong finished, leaping into the maw of the living temple. “Try to keep up, monk!”

---

In the chaos that followed—a ballet of staff strikes and resonating mantras—Wukong glimpsed the true scale of the conspiracy. The temple’s attacks weren’t random; they targeted the scroll specifically, trying to erase Project Eclipse from existence. When the last monster fell, dissolving into a puddle of molten stardust, Wukong turned to find Tang Sanzang studying a mural previously hidden beneath the floor.

It showed a monkey and a monk standing back-to-back against a tidal wave of eyes.

“Prophecy or warning?” Tang murmured.

“A distraction.” Wukong tossed him the scroll. “You seem to know more about this than Buddha let on. Start talking.”

But the monk merely pressed his palm against the mural. The painted monkey’s eyes glowed gold. “The Ninefold Yin Stamp resides in the Palace of Forgotten Virtues—a celestial stronghold abandoned after the Third Heavenly Purge. If we wish to—”

A tremor interrupted him. The vision shattered as reality reasserted itself, leaving them standing in the ruins of an ordinary mortal temple. Outside, dawn painted the horizon with bloody brushstrokes.

“They’re rewriting the past,” Tang said grimly. “Erasing evidence as we uncover it.”

Wukong cracked his neck. “Then we’ll move faster than their lies can spread.”

**Next Chapter: "Masks of the Divine" – Sun Wukong and Tang Sanzang infiltrate the derelict Palace of Forgotten Virtues, where celestial truths rot alongside the gods who abandoned them.**