I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

Chapter 1108 May Disintegrate at Any Time

"Still alive." Sun Wukong withdrew his fingers, stood up, and patted the stone dust off his knees. "And he's even better than he was three days ago."

"What is he doing?" Stone squatted down next to Sun Wukong, looking up at him.

The stone can now understand most people's words. After breathing exercises in the cave for a few days, the spiritual energy has made its intelligence much more developed than before. Although it can't speak yet, it can hear without any problems.

"Sleep," Sun Wukong said. "Or maybe I'm dreaming."

Chu Yang was indeed dreaming.

After the golden elixir entered his dantian, it brought out everything hidden within his body.

All the memories he buried in the desert, the thoughts he suppressed at Qiyue Ridge, and the people he deliberately avoided thinking about at Huaguo Mountain were rearranged and recombined in a disordered way in his dreams.

He dreamt that Su Wanwan was standing at the entrance of a cave on Qiyue Ridge. Her tail changed from one to five, then back to one, in a continuous cycle. With each change, her expression would change, sometimes in pain, sometimes in laughter.

He dreamt that Bai tide was sharpening a knife under the moonlight. Water mixed with iron filings flowed down the whetstone, forming a silvery-gray stream. The stream stopped abruptly at his feet, as if it had been cut off by something.

He dreamt of his master's back as he walked through the desert. His master didn't turn around, but he knew his master was speaking. He couldn't understand a single word of what his master was saying, but he was very familiar with the tone of his master's voice—the tone of someone giving instructions before parting.

In his last dream, he dreamt of Yin Wuyai.

Yin Wuyai sat in the cave, not as a corpse, but as a living person.

His face was no longer withered leather, but had flesh and blood, and his eyes were deep-set with light gray pupils, unlike Lu Yuanzhou's dark brown. Yin Wuyai's eyes did not have that precise measuring sense, but a gentler, somewhat tired look.

He sat opposite Chu Yang, cross-legged, holding a peach in his hand.

The peaches are from Huaguo Mountain; they are big and red, with water droplets still on their skin.

"You ate my pill," Yin Wuyai said.

His voice wasn't the deep, majestic voice Chu Yang had imagined from an ancient monster; instead, it was very soft, as if he were afraid of waking someone.

"It was out of necessity," Chu Yang said.

"I know." Yin Wuyai broke the peach in half, handed one half to Chu Yang, and kept the other half for himself.

Chu Yang took the peach and took a bite.

The peaches in my dream had no taste; they felt like chewing cotton. But the peach juice felt real—cool and dripping down my chin.

"There is demonic energy in my golden core."

You felt it, didn't you?

,

"I can feel it."

"That demonic energy isn't mine." Yin Wuyai also took a bite of the peach, chewed it twice, and swallowed it. "It belongs to my junior brother."

His name is Yin Wuyuan, and he is my younger brother. He paused, as if recalling a story from long ago, needing to wipe away the dust of memory before he could see it clearly. "He went mad with demonic possession."

It wasn't a mistake in my spiritual practice; I was harmed by someone.

There was an internal strife in the Tiangang Sect back then. The specific reasons are too long to explain in detail, but in short, Yin Wuyuan was led into the demonic path and completely fell into demonic possession.

When I arrived, he had already killed seventeen people, including his most beloved apprentice.

Chu Yang remained silent.

"I subdued him," Yin Wuyai said, "but his demonic nature has seeped into his very bones and cannot be eradicated."

There is only one way—to seal him with my golden core, to lock him inside the core, and then to suppress him with my life.” He turned the peach pit in his hand over and over, “So I took him away from the Heavenly Gang Sect and came to this mountain.”

I passed away peacefully at the foot of the mountain, but my golden elixir continued to circulate, suppressing him for ten thousand years.

a thousand years.

His demonic nature has been almost completely worn away, leaving only the very core wisp, which cannot be eliminated no matter what.

That was the last trace of him as "Yin Wuyuan." Once it disappeared, he would cease to exist completely.

17

"So that wisp of black mist inside the Golden Core is your younger brother."

"yes.

"No, not exactly." Yin Wuyai placed the peach pit on the ground, flicked it with his fingertip, and the peach pit slid to Chu Yang's front. "After ten thousand years, his divine consciousness has long since dissipated, leaving only the purest demonic essence."

"No consciousness, no memory, like a ball of toxin refined to its extreme." He looked at Chu Yang, "When you swallowed the pill, the seal cracked slightly."

What emerged was not the real him, but his demonic nature.

Now it's inside your body, mixed with my divine power.

Chu Yang looked down at his hands.

In my dream, my hands were clean and free of scars.

"Cultivating both immortals and demons."

"That sounds impressive," Chu Yang said.

"It is powerful," Yin Wuyai said, "but it is also very dangerous."

Immortal power and demonic power are two completely opposite forces. They can coexist because there was a gray mist in your body before you swallowed the pill. You should know what that gray mist is. The gray mist plays a neutralizing role, like a mediator, preventing the two forces of immortality and demonicity from colliding directly.

But the fog is not infinite.

Each time the Immortal-Demon Combo is used, the gray mist consumes one point.

The day the gray mist dissipates, divine power and magical power will clash head-on within you.

"and then?"

Yin Wuyai looked at him.

"Then you will become the second Yin Wuyuan."

It wasn't your fault, but the result is the same.

Chu Yang remained silent for a long time.

He put down the peach he hadn't finished eating. The moment the peach touched the ground, it turned into specks of light and scattered.

"Is there any way?"

"Before the gray fog runs out, find something to replace it," Yin Wuyai said. "Or you can become stronger yourself, strong enough to suppress both immortal and demonic powers without needing the gray fog." He stood up and patted off non-existent dust from his robe. "But you have to learn how to use them first."

The celestial and demonic power within you is like two unsharpened swords, each very heavy, but unable to harm anyone.

"How do I practice?"

"You know it yourself." Yin Wuyai turned and walked out of the cave, his figure growing fainter and fainter until he was almost transparent by the time he reached the entrance. "Practice your swordsmanship in the same way you practiced in the desert."

After saying that, his figure completely disappeared.

Chu Yang opened his eyes.

The dome of the grotto glowed with a warm yellow light under the illumination of the pearl.

He moved his fingers, and they obeyed.

He slowly sat up, supporting himself on the ground. As his back left the stone wall, the scabbed wound was pulled, causing a slight itch.

He raised his right hand in front of him, clenched his fist, released it, and then clenched his fist again, his knuckles making a crisp cracking sound.

The golden elixir is still in the dantian.

He could feel it not as a foreign object, but as part of his own body.

It no longer releases its power as frantically as it did when it was first swallowed; instead, it calms down, like a tamed heart, slowly rotating in rhythm with its breathing.

Immortal power flows out from the golden core, travels along the meridians throughout the body, and repairs wherever it goes.

Magic is different. Magic doesn't flow through the meridians, but rather attaches to the bones, like a dark gray membrane that wraps around every bone.

The two forces kept to themselves, each occupying their own territory and routes.

Chu Yang stood up and walked barefoot out of the cave.

It was dusk outside.

The waterfall's roar is ever-present, the peaches in the orchard glow red in the setting sun, and monkeys on the flat ground are preparing to start a bonfire.

Stone squatted beside the campfire pit, striking two flints together. Sparks flew onto the dry grass, which emitted a wisp of smoke before extinguishing with a hiss.

It frowned and tried again, knocking three times, but still couldn't light it.

The blue-eyed old monkey next to it couldn't stand it anymore, so it snatched the flint from its paw and struck it itself.

Sun Wukong sat by the pool, his feet soaking in the water, and was sharpening his golden cudgel with a whetstone.

The scorch mark on the golden cudgel was still there, but it had faded a lot. As he pushed and pulled the whetstone back and forth on the scorch mark, he muttered something under his breath, probably cursing Lu Yuanzhou's red blade for being too hard and scratching the cudgel so badly.

Stone was the first to discover that Chu Yang had come out.

It sprang up from beside the campfire, ran to Chu Yang, looked up at him, opened its mouth, and uttered a single syllable.

A short, clear sound.

"Chu"

Chu Yang looked down at it.

Stone kept his mouth closed, but his throat was moving, as if he was repositioning his tongue and teeth.

After a few breaths, it opened its mouth again.

"Chu Yang".

He pronounced the two words very heavily; his tongue almost got tied when he uttered the first one, but the second one came out much more smoothly.

Chu Yang paused for a moment, then squatted down to look Shi Tou in the eye.

"You can talk now."

Stone nodded vigorously, its tail whipping around like a windmill.

Sun Wukong turned his head from the edge of the pool and whistled.

"It would have been ready three days ago."

"On the first day I could say 'Sun,' on the second day I could say 'monkey,' and today I've finally completed your name." He held up the golden cudgel against the setting sun to examine the extent of the scorch marks' repair, nodded in satisfaction, then shrunk the cudgel and tucked it back into his ear. "It wakes up faster than you."

Chu Yang walked to the edge of the pool, squatted down, and scooped up water to wash his face.

I splashed cold water on my face, washing away the stone dust and sweat that had accumulated over the past three days, which then flowed down my neck and into my collar.

He wiped the water off his face, then sat down by the pool, standing shoulder to shoulder with Sun Wukong.

"Will Lu Yuanzhou send someone again after he goes back?" Chu Yang asked.

"No." Sun Wukong picked up a peach from the side, rubbed the fuzz on his clothes, took a bite, and said, "That person keeps his word."

He said he wouldn't pursue her anymore, and that was that.

Besides, you've already swallowed the golden elixir; there's no point in them chasing after you—they can't exactly cut open your stomach to take it out.

"What did he mean by his last sentence? Did he say that the demonic nature within me would one day turn against me?"

Sun Wukong paused for a moment while chewing the peach.

"I don't know."

"But he's not trying to scare you." He swallowed the peach flesh. "I saw what you looked like after you swallowed the pill."

That silver-haired, gold-eyed look—it doesn't seem like you.

It's not that they don't look alike, it's that they give off a different vibe.

Normally you're like a sword sheathed; that other time, you were like a sword drawn from its sheath, but with a thread still wrapped around the hilt that you couldn't control.

Chu Yang remained silent.

He looked at the sunset and his own face reflected on the water. The reflection in the water was broken and pieced back together by the ripples from the waterfall, repeating this several times.

"I have to practice," Chu Yang said. "I'll be in charge of that line once I've practiced it enough."

Before dawn the next day, Chu Yang began practicing his martial arts.

He didn't practice on flat ground, nor did he practice in a grotto.

He went to the back of Flower Fruit Mountain—a barren, rocky mountain covered with exposed black rocks, devoid of soil, trees, and anything else.

Sun Wukong said that this mountain is called "Drying Scripture Platform". It was the place where he dried the scriptures he retrieved from the river on his journey to the West. After the scriptures dried, he left, and the Drying Scripture Platform was abandoned. No one has come here for hundreds of years.

The mountain is made of a single piece of obsidian, so hard that even a normal punch from Sun Wukong could only leave a white mark on it.

Chu Yang stood on top of the Sutra Drying Platform.

Before dawn, the eastern sea surface was tinged with a very faint grayish-blue light, and the stars were still shining overhead.

He took off his shoes and stepped barefoot onto the obsidian. The surface of the stone was cool, and the coolness seeped in from the soles of his feet, traveled up his legs, and was melted away by the heat of the golden core when it reached his dantian.

He stretched out his right hand and concentrated his immortal power in his palm.

Orange-gold light shone from his palm, just like when he fought Lu Yuanzhou three days ago, but much smaller, only the size of a fist, and the light was unstable, flickering like a candle flame in the wind.

He held the ball of light up to his eyes, then clenched his fingers and crushed it.

The light peeked through the gaps between the fingers, drifted a few inches, and then vanished.

too weak.

It wasn't that his immortal power was weak—the immortal power reserves in his golden core were enough for him to squander for hundreds of years—but rather that his control over it was too weak.

He was like a beggar who suddenly inherited thousands of acres of fertile land. The land was full of grain, but he didn't know which hoe to use, when to sow the seeds, or how to irrigate it.

He stretched out his left hand, trying to summon magic.

A dark gray aura peeled away from the surface of the bones and gathered in the palm of the hand.

Magic is harder to control than immortal power—immortal power flows, has direction and rhythm, while magic power is attached to the bones, does not flow, does not respond, and you have to use the strength of your body to pull it out.

The dark gray aura condensed in his palm for half a breath before dissipating. It condensed again, then dissipated again, repeating this process seven or eight times until it finally formed a small gray ball the size of a thumb.

The surface of the small ball was pitted and irregularly shaped, and gray mist kept drifting out from its edges, as if it might disintegrate at any moment.

Then he tried to release the force of both hands at the same time.

With celestial power in his right hand and magical power in his left, two beams of light shone brightly in the dim light of dawn, one orange-gold and the other dark gray.

He took a deep breath and slowly brought his hands together. When the two forces were half a foot apart, they began to repel each other. The immortal power was repelling the demonic power, and the demonic power was also repelling the immortal power. The repulsive force pushed his palms to both sides, and the muscles in his arms tensed up, with the veins bulging on the back of his hands.

He clenched his teeth and enveloped his hands with the gray mist from his body, creating a barrier between the celestial power and the demonic power.

Guided by the gray mist, the two forces finally stopped repelling each other, and he slowly put his hands together.