WU KONG

Chapter 7: Thrones of Ash

The Celestial Palace hung suspended in a web of dying light, its once-opulent spires now cracked and weeping streams of liquid gold. Sun Wukong stood at the edge of the Bridge of Ten Thousand Virtues, watching the last loyal star guardians crumble to dust under the weight of their own oaths. Beside him, Tang Sanzang knelt in meditation, his sutras weaving a fragile shield against the corrosive lies permeating the air.

“The rot’s advanced faster than I thought,” Wukong muttered. The palace’s foundations pulsed like infected flesh, tendrils of black smoke curling from its gates. “Even heaven’s immune system’s given up.”

Tang opened his eyes. The irises had turned translucent, revealing constellations swirling within. “The Nine-Tailed Sage’s influence spreads through deception. Every corrupted edict, every rewritten law—it’s all fuel for her resurrection.”

A tremor shook the bridge. The jade tiles beneath their feet liquefied, revealing visions of the palace’s true state—corpses of minor deities strung like puppets from celestial threads, gardens where flowers bloomed with human faces, and at the center, the Jade Emperor’s throne room glowing like a necrotic heart.

Wukong cracked his neck. “Time to give the old man a house call.”

They crossed the disintegrating bridge, Wukong’s staff scattering the illusions. The palace gates hung askew, guarded by stone lions whose eyes tracked them with unnatural hunger. As they approached, the beasts’ granite flesh rippled, transforming into twin copies of Erlang Shen.

“Persistent vermin,” the simulacra hissed in unison. Their spears flickered between reality and metaphor.

Tang raised his staff. “Reflections of a fading god. Strike the third eye.”

Wukong moved faster. His staff became a blur of golden arcs, each blow landing with the precision of a calligrapher’s brush. The false Erlangs shattered into shards of broken promises, their screams echoing through the hollow palace.

The throne room doors exploded inward before they could touch them. Inside, the air shimmered with the greasy sheen of compromised reality. The Jade Emperor sat slumped on his throne, his dragon robes reduced to moth-eaten rags. His face—once a masterpiece of celestial authority—had melted into a featureless mask dripping with liquid jade.

“Visitors…” The emperor’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “Come to witness the glorious sunset of heaven’s reign?”

Wukong’s third eye pulsed. Behind the crumbling facade, he saw the truth—a marionette of yin threads controlled by a pulsing mass embedded in the throne itself. Tang gasped.

“The throne… It’s become a tumor of corrupted karma.”

The Jade Emperor laughed, bits of his jaw flaking off. “Karma? A quaint concept. We are all just stories in the end.” His hand gestured, and the walls dissolved into pages from the Library of Flesh. “The sage was right. Truth is a disease. Lies are the cure.”

Wukong launched himself at the throne. The emperor’s form dissolved into ink, splattering across the chamber to reform as a towering monstrosity—part dragon, part scroll, all hunger.

“Careful!” Tang shouted. “His body’s a living manifesto now!”

The abomination struck. Its claws tore through space itself, leaving gashes that bled starlight. Wukong danced between attacks, each near-miss erasing fragments of his history. He glimpsed moments vanishing—a memory of stealing peaches here, a battle scar there.

Tang’s sutras flared. “Your staff! Infuse it with your true name!”

Wukong understood. As the creature lunged again, he pressed the Ruyi Jingu Bang to his chest and roared: “I am the stone that rejected heaven! The fire that burns lies to ash!”

The staff ignited with primordial truth. The next strike landed, tearing through the abomination’s ink-flesh. It screamed in a thousand voices—emperors and peasants, gods and mortals—all victims of corrupted histories.

The throne room collapsed into a storm of burning parchment. At its eye, the tumorous throne pulsed. Wukong raised his staff for the killing blow.

“Wait.” Tang grabbed his arm. “Look.”

Within the tumor’s translucent membrane floated the Nine-Tailed Sage—or what remained of her. Her nine tails formed a cocoon around a glowing embryo, its heartbeat syncing with the palace’s death throes.

“A backup plan,” Wukong snarled. “She’s using heaven’s collapse to rebirth herself.”

Tang traced a sutra in the air. “The throne isn’t just a seat of power. It’s a forge. She’s reforging herself into something that can survive reality’s end.”

The sage’s voice slithered into their minds. *Why fight the inevitable? The celestial order was always a house of cards. I offer something stronger—a world built on glorious, beautiful lies.*

Wukong’s staff wavered. The embryo’s glow promised oblivion—a clean slate where no one would remember his failures, his regrets…

Tang’s sutra flared white-hot. “Remember the village!”

The memory struck like a lightning bolt—a mortal settlement they’d saved from drought demons months earlier. Children’s laughter. An old woman pressing steamed buns into Wukong’s hands. Real, unglamorous truth.

Wukong roared. The staff came down.

The throne shattered. The sage’s scream shook the multiverse. As the palace collapsed around them, Wukong glimpsed the embryo’s true form—not a monster, but a mirror reflecting his own face twisted by endless rage.

Tang’s sutras wrapped around them. “Hold on!”

Reality folded.

---

They materialized in a field of silver grass beneath a sky torn open by dying realities. The air smelled of ozone and lotus blossoms. Wukong’s staff lay broken, its halves still steaming from the throne room’s destruction.

Tang knelt nearby, vomiting black ink. “She’s not gone. That was… a limb. A fingertip.”

Wukong stared at his reflection in a shard of celestial glass. The face staring back wore the Jade Emperor’s crown. He shattered it. “Where?”

“Everywhere. Nowhere.” Tang collapsed onto his back. “The sage is becoming what heaven feared most—a story that writes itself.”

A shadow fell over them. Wukong reached for his broken staff.

“Peace, Great Sage.” The voice carried the weight of collapsing stars.

Buddha stood outlined against the bleeding sky, his usual golden sheen replaced by the dull glow of tarnished bronze. Behind him marched the remnants of heaven’s forces—ash-covered star generals, bodhisattvas with cracked halos, and surprisingly, the Dragon King of the West clutching a broken trident.

“Took your time,” Wukong spat.

Buddha’s smile held no mirth. “Even enlightened ones struggle to admit when their house burns.” He gestured to the horizon where new constellations fought for dominance—some shaped like foxes, others like inkblots with teeth. “The sage builds her new reality from heaven’s corpse. We must strike at her narrative heart.”

Tang struggled upright. “The Well of Origin. Where all stories begin.”

A murmur ran through the celestial remnants. The Dragon King paled. “That place is forbidden! Its waters show truths that drive gods mad!”

Wukong picked up his staff’s halves. “Perfect. Let’s go make some tea.”

**Next Chapter: "Primordial Waters" – The coalition forces march to creation’s birthplace, where the Nine-Tailed Sage’s rebirth threatens to rewrite existence itself. Sun Wukong must confront not just the enemy, but the story he was born to become.**