Ch 208: Avalokitesvara’s Utter Dismay! The Western Pilgrimage Plan Thrown into Chaos

Wandering through the desolate lands, Chu Mo grappled with a pressing question.

“So, what’s my next move?!”

Should he follow the Journey to the West script, first rescuing Sun Wukong, then the White Dragon Horse, Pigsy, and Sandy, enduring the eighty-one trials, successfully obtaining the scriptures, and returning to the Great Tang?

“Doing it that way… it’s just too predictable! And the quality of the Heroic Spirits I’d get…” Chu Mo frowned. Sure, there’d be Golden ones, but he wasn’t interested in run-of-the-mill Human-level spirits.

“Looks like it’s either claiming the Jade Emperor’s throne in Heaven, or the Buddha’s seat in the Western Paradise. Or maybe one of the Five Emperors!” A strange light flickered in Chu Mo’s eyes.

“But something’s off,” Chu Mo mused, scratching his head. After gaining the Netherworld Emperor’s power, he’d braced himself for a major crisis after transmigrating. Yet now, everything was eerily calm… and nobody should be targeting the calamity’s protagonist, right? Even back in the Xu Xian days, the celestial beings thought twice about messing with him!

“Whatever, first, I’m finding Sun Wukong!” Chu Mo’s gaze hardened. Guided by the mental map, he unleashed the Space Ancestral Sorcery. The void warped, and Chu Mo materialized before a colossal mountain.

At the summit, a yellow divine talisman was plastered, adorned with swirling calligraphy of Buddhist characters, radiating an odd, sacred energy.

“…You… are you my master?!” Sun Wukong blurted out, eyeing the kasaya-clad figure with suspicion. Despite his imprisonment, his inner power still pulsed. Using his Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze, he sensed the extraordinary nature of this man.

For a moment, he thought he saw the Great Jade Emperor himself. The scale of this man’s power was far less, but the essence was remarkably similar! It felt like the highest laws of the universe were interwoven within him!

Chu Mo flicked his finger, sending a brilliant ray of divine light hurtling towards the Five Fingers Mountain seal. But wisps of mist materialized, deflecting the attack as if by magic.

A woman in white, cradling a jade vase, stood on the peak, radiating celestial light. It was Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Mercy.

Avalokitesvara gazed at Chu Mo, her expression a mix of emotions, a sharp pain throbbing in her mind. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! The holy monk of the Journey to the West was supposed to be devoid of any supernatural power… let alone this power, the power of that forbidden race from ancient times…

The power of the top twelve of that race! And it’s spatial manipulation…

Did this mean that this man could spirit Sun Wukong away, or even just teleport himself to the Western Paradise and grab the scriptures in a heartbeat? What was the point of this grand calamity then? It’d be a complete farce!

How could this possibly resolve the world’s karmic debt?

“Are you Golden Cicada, or… Jiang Liuer?” Avalokitesvara asked softly.

“Right now, I’m just Tang Sanzang,” Chu Mo replied, dodging the question.

After a long silence, Avalokitesvara sighed, a hint of pleading in her voice. “Could you please go back to where you were, and… follow the script?”

Avalokitesvara felt utterly out of her depth. If she hadn’t been watching from the start, she’d swear someone had swapped Tang Sanzang out mid-journey! This whole game was in utter disarray.

“What if I say no?” Chu Mo asked, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“Forgive me!” Avalokitesvara gently plucked a willow branch, and a drop of sacred dew cascaded down, brimming with unimaginable divine power, a sealing force beyond description.

Chu Mo remained unfazed. The power of Space flowed within him, a luminous glow in his eyes.

In the next instant, six spectral worlds began to spin slowly around him.

Avalokitesvara’s face changed for the first time. “…The Six Paths of Reincarnation? Impossible!”

High in the heavens, the Jade Emperor’s eyes snapped open, filled with shock and disbelief. The Netherworld Emperor and the Six Paths of Reincarnation were two entirely different things!

“And the Space Ancestral Sorcery… is Houtu orchestrating this? But it can’t be… if she could do this, how could things have turned out the way they did?” The Jade Emperor couldn’t wrap his head around it.

The six vast worlds rotated like a millstone, devouring and bearing everything. The sacred dew vanished into those realms, leaving no trace!

Then, intricate patterns of the Great Dao erupted across Chu Mo’s body. Great Power: Formation! He shielded himself from all heavenly divination.

With a silent smile, Chu Mo vanished into the void once more.

“…No!” Avalokitesvara snapped out of her daze, belatedly realizing, and her eyes blazed with divine light, scanning the surroundings. But the more she looked, the more a chill ran down her spine. She realized… she’d lost Tang Sanzang!

This…

“Pwahahaha!” Sun Wukong roared with laughter, trying to slap his thigh, but the Five Fingers Mountain was too heavy. Still, the mountain trembled slightly, its light intensifying. “I used to look down on this monk… but now, I think he’s pretty interesting!”

After five hundred years of imprisonment, he was suddenly told to escort a monk to the Western Paradise. Sun Wukong wasn’t stupid. He’d figured out the real story… He’d been planning to see if he could sneak back to Flower Fruit Mountain after being freed. If not, he’d spend a few decades escorting the monk.

◈◈◈

But…

“Hey!” Sun Wukong called out lazily. “Because of you, my master can’t free me! How about you let me out?”

Avalokitesvara ignored Sun Wukong, soaring into the sky, desperately searching. When she realized she couldn’t find him anywhere, cold sweat broke out on her brow…

◈◈◈

The Western Paradise.

“…How is this possible?” The Buddha was bewildered. “Was that the formation created by the Master of Heaven? No!”

Though similar in essence, there were vast differences. It was more like… a later imitation…

But if it was just an imitation, and it was this perfect… even obscuring the heavenly secrets! Even he couldn’t detect his whereabouts…

“Tang Sanzang, who are you?!” The Buddha murmured, a tidal wave of questions crashing in his mind. If it were him or the Jade Emperor, given time, they might be able to create something similar, but… Tang Sanzang, or Golden Cicada, could never do it!

Unless Heaven itself had carved out a similar formation for him to copy… but that was impossible!

“Is it you?” The Buddha turned his gaze eastward, a deep look in his eyes. He suspected the Jade Emperor, suspected Empress Houtu, whom he thought had lost consciousness, and even the Five Emperors, who were up to who-knew-what! But after careful thought, it didn’t add up.

A moment later.

The void opened.

Avalokitesvara stepped out, offered a Buddhist bow, and said with a bitter smile, “Honored One… I!”

“No need to explain,” the Buddha said, shaking his head. “It’s just a minor setback on the pilgrimage. With the calamity upon us… he can’t escape. The karmic debt will force him to make the right choice.”

The Buddha felt a nagging unease. He couldn’t track the man either… But he maintained his composure. Even if Golden Cicada knew, he couldn’t defy fate!

Back during the Investiture of the Gods, the Master of Heaven had seen through everything, but he still had to play his part!

◈◈◈

Meanwhile…

Chu Mo, concealed in the void, continued his journey, following the path of the Western Pilgrimage. He saw Pigsy at Gao Village, saw Sandy, saw the White Dragon Horse. Saw…

“Huh?” Chu Mo stopped abruptly, a spark of interest in his eyes. He realized he was at Yellow Wind Ridge.

Huang Feng-Guai was pacing back and forth, clutching his three-pronged fork, a frown etched on his face. “I wonder when Tripitaka Master will arrive.”

Chu Mo silently studied Huang Feng-Guai, sensing the terrifying power within him. It felt as strong as Avalokitesvara… Of course, that didn’t mean Huang Feng-Guai was on the same level as Avalokitesvara. It just meant his strength was at the upper limit this world could handle.

In other words, in the mortal realm, his power was capped at the same level as Avalokitesvara.

“No wonder Sun Wukong was unstoppable in Heaven, but after being knocked down to Earth, he was evenly matched with everyone.” Chu Mo clicked his tongue. Limited by the world, the top-tier cultivators were all roughly equal. Even the Bodhisattvas could only subdue these demons by using the tricks they’d set up when they banished them to the mortal realm… Or…

They’d already made a deal with these demons when they banished them, and both sides knew they were just putting on a show.

“I can’t take him head-on in my current state. But…” Chu Mo chuckled to himself, moved dozens of kilometers away, and gently waved his sleeve. A whole patrol of demon soldiers instantly appeared before him.

They saw Chu Mo, and their eyes widened in horror, but before they could cry out, they exploded into a cloud of blood.