Chapter Seventy: The Divine Treasure Emerges

“This… is this truly the answer I’ve been searching for all along?”

Sometimes, after relentless pursuit, when you finally stand before the ultimate truth, you are seized by a sudden regret, wishing you had never begun the journey at all.

If this is the answer, should you still continue forward?

Hua Sheng gazed intently at the glass-encased incense before him, suddenly struck by how cruel a thing time is.

Time, at its whim, forces you to accept what you once never wished to face.

It bestows upon you what you longed for but could not obtain, yet takes away even more. Even if you ask nothing of it, time will still rob you of your most precious things.

In the end, it will carry away even you yourself.

The red ember atop the incense flickered, each pulse marking the relentless passage of time. Now, it had burned to its very end.

In that instant, Hua Sheng understood: this stick of incense was the final chance bestowed upon him by the Buddha Victorious in Battle. It was up to him to choose—would he confront his fate or flee from it?

Heaven’s gifts always carry heavy burdens. If you wish to avoid suffering and torment, you are free to cast them away.

You can choose to give up.

And so, this incense, standing upon the porcelain cup, was the last trace of mercy from the Golden Staff of Destiny.

“Do not run! Do not run! Do not run!” Hua Sheng chanted the words over and over.

“I will never run away!” He suddenly straightened, resolve burning in his eyes.

Once again, the heavens above churned with wind and cloud, while the weighty Buddha-light pressed upon him, almost suffocating.

Within the thick clouds appeared the figure of Sun Wukong, the Buddha Victorious in Battle.

“Little Daoist from the Academy of the Arcane Arts, have you made your decision?” Sun Wukong asked.

“Disciple Hua Sheng, I have come to an understanding,” Hua Sheng replied through gritted teeth.

“And what have you understood?” Sun Wukong pressed.

Before Hua Sheng’s eyes flashed images of the white jade bridge of his youth, the lantern festival in the pear garden, and the celestial cranes soaring in the sky.

“Disciple has comprehended the teachings of the Victorious Buddha!”

Looking down at the world beneath his feet, Hua Sheng spoke each word with solemn clarity.

“I have come to understand the loneliness of the Golden Staff of Destiny—the reason it tramples on the Celestial Court, why it is so unrestrained, so indomitable, so firm in abandoning itself. Its solitude is my solitude, and I am willing to share that loneliness with it! Even if I must face utter annihilation, even if I am damned for eternity, I am still willing to give all I have for this mortal world!”

Each word was a blade carving deep wounds into his heart.

“The world is vast beneath the heavens, yet wherever one goes, man is always ensnared by a single word,” a resounding voice echoed from the sky. “Little Daoist, do you regret coming here?”

“Disciple was merely momentarily lost in pain, but has never regretted it!” Hua Sheng replied, kneeling with his hands pressed together.

“To understand the great love of all beings, to do what mortals cannot, to bear what mortals cannot endure,” declared the Buddha Victorious in Battle, “only then are you worthy to borrow this divine weapon from me, Old Sun!”

The clouds parted, and the giant, golden-robed figure of the Buddha Victorious in Battle appeared in the sky.

Before him manifested a glittering sacred artifact, radiating with golden light, descending slowly from the heavens. Hua Sheng reached out both hands to receive it. Yet as the light drew nearer, the artifact shrank in size.

Only when it was before him did Hua Sheng see clearly: it was a jet-black necklace, the pendant a three-dimensional inverted triangle, within which a crimson flame roiled endlessly.

The black necklace slid gently around Hua Sheng’s neck. He lifted the pendant. On its face, golden characters proclaimed: “Iron-Banded Golden Chain.” On the reverse, in fine script, was carved: “Great Sage Equal to Heaven.”

The title “Great Sage Equal to Heaven” meant little to Sun Wukong now, a mote in the ocean of time, vanished like smoke. Yet here it was, engraved upon this pendant.

“Little Daoist, this Iron-Banded Golden Chain is the resting place of the Golden Staff.”

A vessel for the Golden Staff? Hua Sheng realized at once—he lacked the magical powers of Sun Wukong and could not stash the staff behind his ear as the Monkey King had done.

If this necklace was the container for the Golden Staff, then where was the staff itself?

Kneeling again, Hua Sheng boldly asked, “Disciple humbly begs the Victorious Buddha for guidance. Grant me the method to retrieve the Sea-Calming Treasure.”

Sun Wukong replied, “Wear this chain, and you will obtain it. Guard the Sea-Calming Treasure well. When your fate with the divine weapon ends, I shall require you to return it. Only while you wear the Iron-Banded Golden Chain can you wield the Sea-Calming Treasure. Should any dare use it for evil, this chain will take their life!”

With these words, the Buddha Victorious in Battle vanished from the sky.

Hua Sheng composed himself and prostrated toward the heavens.

Only now did he grasp that the Iron Chain was not merely the vessel for the Golden Staff, but a restraint upon the one who wielded it. Only by wearing it could he command the staff’s power.

As the chain settled on his neck, Hua Sheng’s vision burst with golden light, his blood surged, and his body felt lighter than air. It was as if a martial master had cleared every meridian in his body. Celestial energy poured forth from his fingertips in surging tides, seemingly inexhaustible. In awe, he thought, “What boundless power and magic!”

Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the ground beneath him—the entire skyscraper began to shudder.

Could it be? Was the Golden Staff about to reappear in the world? But where was it hidden?

A deafening boom rang out!

The steel and concrete at Hua Sheng’s feet split apart, revealing a fissure a full meter wide—a cataclysmic tremor, despite the skyscraper’s design to withstand even a magnitude nine earthquake without such destruction.

The entire building shook violently. The tempered glass curtain walls twisted under the strain, shattering and cascading hundreds of meters toward the ground.

“This is bad! At this rate, the building and everyone nearby are in grave danger!”

Even at such heights, Hua Sheng could hear the screams rising from within the tower.

The tremors intensified, the fissure beneath him widening from one meter to two. Then another thunderous crack split the floor, forming a cross-shaped rupture, each arm two meters wide.

What was happening? Could it be…? A sudden intuition struck Hua Sheng. The Golden Staff was not hidden somewhere inside the building.

The truth was—the entire skyscraper itself was the Sea-Calming Treasure!

Hua Sheng’s heart pounded wildly. If the Shanghai Tower reverted to the Golden Staff, would not the hundreds of people inside plummet from the sky to their deaths? At this thought, he immediately recited the Immobilizing Incantation, pressed his palm to the rooftop, and shouted, “By the Emperor’s command—Fix! Fix! Fix!”

Instantly, the building’s exterior halted its shaking. Though the outer curtain wall was stabilized, the inner structure still trembled. More fissures snaked across the rooftop, as if some colossal thing was about to burst forth.

There was no doubt—the Sea-Calming Treasure was breaking free of steel and concrete!

Pouring all his power into the building, Hua Sheng focused on holding the structure steady. As long as the skyscraper stood firm, the Golden Staff could separate itself from its bonds.

Suddenly, the rooftop erupted with a roar as a massive golden pillar shot skyward. Chanting incantations with all his strength, Hua Sheng pressed down on the floor. The immense pillar was adorned with gleaming dragon patterns, climbing nearly a hundred meters before revealing a shaft of jet-black shot with crimson light. The Sea-Calming Treasure scraped against steel and concrete with a grinding roar, sending up a choking blizzard of dust and debris.

Meanwhile, the nearby Huangpu River began to churn violently. A colossal pillar of water shaped like a dragon rose and coiled around the skyscraper, transforming it into a dragon soaring through the sea!

Purple energy swirled around the iron pillar, twisting into dozens of dragon shapes that wrapped tightly around its body.

Hua Sheng braced himself against the tower while watching this behemoth rocket skyward.

Once the coiling dragon pillar broke free of the rooftop, it did not stop rising. It soared into the sky, gradually shifting from vertical to horizontal. Then, with a thunderous clap of lightning, the Golden Staff spun in a full circle, dispersing the clouds in all directions, boring a vast hole in the sky over ten kilometers wide!

Such a scene of awe-inspiring grandeur left all who saw it dumbstruck.

As the building ceased its trembling, Hua Sheng recited the Immobilizing Incantation once more, anchoring the skyscraper firmly in place. Then, mounting a cloud, he leapt toward the giant staff in the sky.

The Golden Staff hovered silently in the air. As Hua Sheng drew near, he could feel its deep, resonant vibration pounding in his ears. He thought to himself, When Sun Wukong was still the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, he wielded this divine weapon to shake the underworld and sweep the Celestial Court, leaving gods and immortals alike in awe. If not for the protective power of the necklace gifted by the Buddha, a mortal like me would long since have been shattered to pieces.

Hua Sheng ascended further, drawing close enough to reach out, only to meet invisible resistance, as if the very air around the staff was growing denser. When he could go no further, the Iron-Banded Golden Chain at his chest began to flash alternately gold and red, and he felt himself break through the magical barrier surrounding the staff. The air around him whipped into a dragon-shaped hurricane.

In that instant, his fingertips brushed the staff’s cold surface—one finger, two, three—until his whole palm pressed against it. He shouted, “By the Emperor’s command—Shrink!”

Obediently, the staff shrank. “Smaller! Smaller! Smaller!” he commanded, and the staff compressed again and again, until it was slim enough to hold in his hand.

Gripping it tightly, Hua Sheng spun the staff in his grasp. With a tremor that shook the earth and sky, the surrounding hurricane shattered with a single crack and vanished. Behind him, a rainbow of nine-colored light burst forth, illuminating the night as if it were day.

At the same time, he noticed that the script embroidered on his Daoist robe by the Celestial Maiden now blazed with fiery red, the pattern flowing and leaping like living flame.

“So this is the legendary Golden Staff of Destiny?”

Hua Sheng fixed his gaze upon the fabled divine weapon in his hand, unable to believe it was real. He had never imagined the day would come when he could hold the Golden Staff himself.

At that moment, he glanced down to see the dark mass of people gathered below. The commotion had drawn nearly the entire city into the streets.

With a bow to the crowd, Hua Sheng grasped the Golden Staff, flipped backward, and like an arrow loosed from the string, shot through the clouds, trailing a nine-colored radiance, racing southward toward the battlefield of the Guardians of Heaven and Earth.