Namgung Clan’s Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal

19. A Paradoxical Existence

A Martial Duel is a place for mutual exchange.

‘So this is what it’s like.’

It wasn’t just Wu Jing who gained something from the Martial Duel.

Sun Wukong also had an epiphany.

Until now, he had been creating a Mental Cultivation method using Demonic Power. It was still incomplete.

The two flows still couldn’t coexist. Was it because Demonic Power was at the core? It was fundamentally different from the Mental Cultivation humans used. After about seven days, Sun Wukong grew quietly irritated.

‘Are you telling me that this great Sun Wukong is inferior to human tricks?’

Of course. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of geniuses had inherited and refined these arts throughout history.

How could he expect to perfect it in just seven days?

Especially when it was such a radical attempt to combine two different concepts of Mental Cultivation.

Even Sun Wukong, the peerless being, had never walked this uncharted path.

But the fact that no one had walked it meant that, someday, someone would.

He saw the possibility in the Martial Duel.

‘It’s about creating a path through form and style.’

Sun Wukong was a complete novice when it came to Martial Art Skills.

He’d always just swung his fists, kicked, and rampaged—his enemies would fall in droves.

That was what fighting meant to him.

So, the Martial Forms of Martial Art Skills felt refreshingly new.

‘Was it to better control unruly energy that they focused so obsessively on form and style?’

He copied everything from Wu Jing’s opening stance to every attack.

At first, it felt awkward.

To follow a set Martial Routine, from the opening stance to the prescribed forms and styles?

But that only lasted a moment.

With each Martial Form he performed, he absorbed it. By the time he reached the Ten Moves, he was executing the forms even more perfectly than Wu Jing.

He hadn’t just mimicked the forms Wu Jing had mastered over years and decades—he had completely internalized them as his own after just ten exchanges.

The final, Eleventh Move, he performed exactly as he envisioned.

It was practically the creation of a new Martial Art Skill.

‘Form and style are the essence of Martial Art Skills. I finally get it.’

How could humans so easily wield Internal Qi, a force so difficult to control?

‘Even if Internal Qi isn’t Demonic Power, at its core, it’s something humans shouldn’t be able to control. The reason it’s possible through Mental Cultivation is because of their relentless obsession with form and style.’

It was an excessive fixation on form and style.

A single breath, the slightest movement of energy.

They were so strict that every movement had to follow the prescribed form and style.

Only then could they move.

It meant that Internal Qi could only be moved in the most efficient, perfectly proven way.

‘The Mental Cultivation I’m trying to create didn’t have any of that.’

Sun Wukong considered how to apply this to his own Mental Cultivation.

Instead of simply controlling Demonic Power through breathing, he would control it according to form and style, just like humans did.

‘To do that, I’ll have to find the most perfect form, and the most certain path.’

Precisely because he was a novice in Martial Art Skills, Sun Wukong paradoxically forged a new path.

The ideal of all martial artists.

A stage where one breaks free from the rigid system of form and style and lets the Martial Art Skill flow naturally, as the body leads.

Sun Wukong was a self-born existence. He had no biological parents.

He was the embodiment of Self-Preservation, the ideal that all Daoists aspired to.

He was a being already free from any system.

Trying to create new forms and styles to fit into a system was the exact opposite of his nature.

Paradoxically, that meant he could create the most perfect forms and styles.

He could directly perceive the most flawless and efficient Martial Forms, born from countless generations of genius and endless trial and error.

So.

‘I can eliminate all the trial and error.’

Sun Wukong quickly sank into deep contemplation.

*

Sun Wukong spent a while lost in thought.

He was immersed in applying the insights he’d gained from the Martial Duel with Wu Jing to the creation of a new Mental Cultivation.

When you focus on something, your senses become sharper and more sensitive.

Suddenly, he felt someone’s gaze.

He was used to being watched in the Namgung Clan.

The eyes of surveillance. Sun Wukong understood. His identity was still uncertain.

He accepted it to some extent. As he’d warned Muhwa before, as long as they weren’t blatantly spying on him, he didn’t care.

But this gaze was blatantly obvious.

It was brazen.

If that was all, Sun Wukong wouldn’t have snapped out of his thoughts feeling annoyed.

‘It’s from above.’

A gaze looking down from high above.

‘If it’s a human, they couldn’t possibly be looking down from the sky.’

Sun Wukong widened his eyes and tilted his head up, glaring into the air.

“…!”

It was an owl.

The moment he felt their eyes meet, the owl flapped its wings in a panic and flew off.

“Huh.”

Sun Wukong stared in the direction the owl had flown for a while.

The mountain behind the Namgung Clan’s wall.

Sun Wukong’s mind worked quickly. A faint smile appeared on his lips.

‘As expected, some things never disappear, no matter how much the world changes and time passes.’

Demons had been wiped out from this world. The last Demon, the Bull Demon King, had knelt and gone to the Heavenly Prison in the Heavenly Realm.

Even if the Demons were gone, not every element that made up that era had been erased.

After all, even humans of today have existed since the past.

Sun Wukong’s interest was piqued.

And at the same time, he was a little dumbfounded.

‘A young one, perhaps.’

It saw him, even made eye contact, and then ran away?

Sun Wukong stood up. It was late at night. As a Retainer of the Clan, he should have informed someone if he was going out at this hour.

But Sun Wukong didn’t need to bother.

The moment he took a step, his form leapt over the wall and dashed up the mountain in an instant.

*

Nonhuman Register

Name: Owl Demon

Type: Owl Mountain Spirit

Title: Earth God

Domain: Anhui Province, Waryong Mountain area

Power: Mountain Spirit level

*

‘Not human.’

The owl twisted its neck mid-flight to look behind.

Its feathers felt drenched with sweat.

As an Earth God and the sacred Mountain Spirit of Waryong Mountain, it had never felt this way before.

It realized instinctively. This was not a human. This being possessed an immense aura, as great as the strongest of humans.

And yet, not human!

Was he an Earth God, a Mountain Spirit like itself? No.

The owl simply couldn’t understand.

‘I need to get back to my nest and offer a prayer to the Grand Marshal Tai Shang. Something nonhuman has appeared in the Mortal World.’

As it soared through the sky, piercing the clouds—

Its outstretched wings trembled.

An unbelievable sight filled its vision.

‘…!’

A golden figure shimmered atop a thick branch of a giant tree.

“You sure fly fast. I had to work hard to catch up, Owl Demon.”

Beneath the shimmering gold, a human with gently arched brows.

His face showed a hint of mischief, but the owl felt its breath catch.

The sinister energy flowing around him.

It had heard of this before.

From its predecessor, who had passed down the title of Earth God.

In the past, Earth Gods could not leave their domains.

If they did, they’d be eaten.

‘…By Demons?’

By Demons, exactly.

The owl’s snowy white feathers trembled.

“To think you don’t recognize the great Sun Wukong—must be a young fledgling who only recently became a Mountain Spirit.”

Realizing he’d been seen through, the Owl Demon flinched.

Sun Wukong burst out laughing.

As if finding it cute, he ruffled the Owl Demon’s head.

The Owl Demon was completely flustered. Fortunately, the touch was surprisingly gentle. Even as it trembled, it tried to show the dignity of an Earth God.

“Why do you think that?”

“Have you ever seen a Demon?”

“So you were born after the Demons disappeared. You were born in a good era.”

As he spoke, Sun Wukong stroked the Owl Demon again.

It was definitely a gentle touch, but the Owl Demon’s fur stood on end.

As a Mountain Spirit sensitive to Spiritual Power, it could sense things humans couldn’t.

The Demonic Power Sun Wukong exuded hit the Owl Demon directly.

“Do I look like a Demon to you?”

At that, the Owl Demon fell silent, a chill running down its spine.

Higher Demons?

Those were the truly vicious ones who preyed on Earth Gods and Mountain Spirits.

Sometimes, they were so cunning they could even trick an Earth God…

Thinking that far, the owl wanted to escape Sun Wukong’s grasp.

As if reading its mind, Sun Wukong chuckled.

“A higher Demon? This Sun Wukong is no such creature.”

The Owl Demon’s voice became exceedingly polite. As a Mountain Spirit, it had some divine power in its own domain, but it was nothing compared to a true Immortal in the heavens.

“An Immortal? I’m not something so unimpressive.”

Then what was he?

While the Owl Demon’s mind spun in confusion, Sun Wukong’s voice thundered.

“I am Sun Wukong, the Great Demon of Huaguo Mountain, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, child.”

Great Sage Equal to Heaven… Sun Wukong?

The word “Great Demon” was shocking enough, but the Owl Demon froze at the next revelation.

A faint memory surfaced.

—Beware of Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. He’s a Great Demon who toyed with the Heavenly Realm, defeated Immortals, and bested all sorts of gods! He’d swing the Ruyi Jingu Bang at the Earth Gods and Mountain Spirits, beating them for information, that mad Stable Keeper! That manure-shoveling Stable Keeper! If he ever descends to the Mortal World, run for your life!

<…That mad Stable Keeper?>

The words slipped out before it could stop them.

Instantly, Sun Wukong’s face twisted.

Like an Evil Slayer. His two eyes glowed red, and a crushing aura pressed down on the Owl Demon. It froze in place.

The aura of a Great Demon, only ever heard of in stories.

The power of those who trampled even the Immortals in the sky—Owl Demon felt its life in danger.

Thankfully, Sun Wukong soon withdrew his aura.

“Phew. Seems your predecessor was one of those I gave a good beating. I’ll let it slide this once. But if you ever say that word again, I’ll boil you whole.”

Sun Wukong resisted the urge to pluck all its feathers right then.

What could such a young Mountain Spirit possibly know?

He wasn’t even interested in the little spirit’s identity.

A Mountain Spirit.

The Earth God of this domain.

‘It must have witnessed everything that’s happened around here.’

Nonhuman beings do not interfere in the human world, the mundane world.

They don’t care at all—except in rare cases.

The exception is spiritual matters.

When a spiritual master or shaman offers a ritual and prays to the Mountain Spirit.

Praying for a prosperous month, for example.

That’s when a powerful force is generated, and the Mountain Spirit responds.

“Do you remember anything unusual happening down there at the Namgung Clan recently?”

“Something spiritual, something you could sense?”

If someone’s soul disappeared or was destroyed, humans wouldn’t know.

But a Mountain Spirit would. They would sense it keenly.

Especially if it was Tripitaka’s soul.

A soul that once belonged to a Buddha, with immense presence.

At Sun Wukong’s question, the Owl Demon thought for a moment, then its eyes widened.

At those words, Sun Wukong’s face brightened.

“What happened?”

The Owl Demon gathered its thoughts and cautiously began to speak.