Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal? Chapter 856.21: Six Ears

Chen Huaian, striding ahead, suddenly halted his pace just a bit.

A wave of murderous aura had unmistakably erupted right behind him.

No need to guess—he knew it came from Bi Yue Wu.

"In the end, you couldn't restrain yourself?" Chen Huaian sneered inwardly.

No big deal. Even against a mere True Spirit, he possessed the strength to clash.

In this Underground Palace, the final survivor remained uncertain.

Worst case, he'd activate the Sect Summoning Token and summon some subordinates for aid.

The absolute worst? He'd escape straight to the Cangyun Realm.

He simply didn't buy that Bi Yue Wu would pursue him there.

And with the three torn pages now collected, the foreboding sensation in Chen Huaian's heart intensified sharply. Undoubtedly, these fragments held tremendous significance, brimming with profound karma. They represented inheritances from those ancient seniors lost across endless reincarnation cycles.

The Nine Heavens Refining Profound Array existed solely to seal and contain these inheritances.

For they posed a real danger to the Celestial God Clan.

As to why they were merely sealed rather than obliterated...

He figured even the Celestial God Clan couldn't achieve their destruction.

Chen Huaian raised his gaze toward the highest floating peak.

Under roiling dark clouds, bolts of lightning cracked amid booming thunder.

A tremendous, sea-vast pressure emanated from that palace—an entity the Celestial God Clan failed to eradicate, the central seal of the Nine Heavens Refining Profound Array.

The mists and clouds parted.

The fourth floating peak loomed alone amid the fiercest gales of the Nine Heavens.

Unlike the eerie silence or blazing inferno of prior palaces, this one lay in shocking ruin.

Collapsed walls and debris everywhere, golden roof tiles smashed apart.

It resembled the aftermath of a cataclysmic battle that rent the skies. The main hall's entrance plaque had split in two long ago, with only the "Saint" character dangling shakily in the wind.

"Hiss—! What dense Demonic Energy!"

Bi Yue Wu's eyes, burned by the nine suns, hadn't healed completely.

Narrowing his watering eyes, he inhaled the ancient, domineering, defiant Demonic Energy lingering in the air through eons. This force repelled him on instinct, stirring deep revulsion.

"Looks like this fourth level houses some overconfident demon who bit off more than it could chew?"

He murmured under his breath.

The rest ignored him, trailing Chen Huaian into the hall.

At the hall's heart stood a towering stone statue, armored in chainmail golden plates, crowned with a phoenix-winged purple-gold helm.

It clutched a fractured iron staff, frozen in a skyward howl.

At first sight, it exuded grandeur and might, akin to the fabled Great Sage Equal to Heaven defying the heavens.

Wang Shouyi's gaze sparked: "This... isn't this the havoc-wreaker in the Heavenly Palace..."

"Shh—! Silence."

Chen Huaian cut in abruptly, tone grave.

He approached nearer.

Only up close did the mangled form beneath the imposing armor reveal itself.

The statue wasn't roaring defiance; it screamed in torment.

No golden fillet crowned its head. Instead, three arm-thick bone nails pierced its skull in a triangle, black stone blood trickling down its face, staining the eyes.

And its ears...

Not a pair.

Six ears cluttered the statue's head on both sides.

Every one lay in splintered ruin.

As though they'd caught some shattering revelation, self-destructing in madness.

Its knees were pulverized.

It refused to bow; its legs were snapped, compelling the kneel.

Kneeling on the floor, hands clenched the shattered staff in desperate grip.

Head thrown back, as if pleading to an absent figure in the emptiness.

"Is this... the Six-Eared Macaque?"

Chen Huaian lingered in the statue's shadow.

Golden script, laden with inescapable grief, materialized on the ruined staff.

Unlike the defiant proclamations of Shi Kuang, Hou Yi, and Zhongli.

On the broken staff, just a timid plea.

[Master... I'm sorry.]

[I... was never him after all.]

Boom—!

Chen Huaian jolted fiercely.

His mind plunged instantly into a charred, blackened battlefield.

Eight hundred cloud layers blotted sun and sky.

Celestial soldiers and deities hovered above, faces indistinct.

Chen Huaian glanced down at the staff clutched in his grasp.

Once more, he embodied the Six-Eared Macaque.

The Six-Eared Macaque donned unfamiliar armor, wielded the alien golden-hooped staff, body quaking. Not from terror, but exhaustion under the pretense worn too long. So long he nearly forgot his origins as a lowly gutter macaque, gifted only in eavesdropping tunes and tones.

Memory shards whirled like a lantern show.

"The Great Sage? Ha, he was furnace-fired into a Golden Core five centuries back."

"We require a stand-in. One to tread the Journey to the West for him, perish for him."

"Six-Eared, your hearing grasps truths. Impersonate him. Perform flawlessly, lest gods and buddhas mock the farce."

Thus, he donned the armor.

Mimicking the hero, he gnashed teeth, bellowed rage, brandished the staff.

He shielded the prattling monk, slaying fiends en route.

He believed his act flawless. Believed a mightier swing could demolish cruel destiny, rescue his master, forge him into the authentic... Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

Until Spiritual Mountain's base.

Until he struck at the cloud-throned silhouette.

That figure merely eyed his scroll and chuckled softly.

"This reincarnation unfolds thus: demon monkey Six-Eared, deluded in rebellion, falls to the staff."

One phrase.

Invisible "karma" crashed down.

The iron staff weighed like a mountain, unliftable.

Through his vaunted six ears rang universal mockery, the monk's despairing breath, his bones' crack.

"No matter your mimicry, you remain counterfeit."

"Your Book of Fate decrees: Death."

"This is destiny's fix, karma's iron law, immutable!"

Thud!

Three nails plunged.

All pride, labors—mere clownish antics before fate.

The world deemed the slain a false Wukong, the buddha-attainer the genuine Sage.

Unbeknownst.

The real Great Sage had ashed long prior.

The survivor? A spine-shattered puppet, soul-stripped demon, strung with controls, forever sutra-chanting... performer.

Memory's close.

A blood-puddled monkey knelt dying, scraping ground with fractured nails.

It sobbed like a lost child.

"Master... I don't want to attain Buddhahood... I just want to go back to Flower Fruit Mountain..."

The vision fragmented.

Chen Huaian's eyes flew wide, chest crushed as by a monolith.

The hall stayed in decay.

The statue knelt on, six ears burst, blood-tears streaming.

In stupor.

An alien memory segment bloomed in Chen Huaian's thoughts.

A sunlit afternoon.

A simian with furry face, thunder maw perched on a cushion, cheekily grinning, fidgety as pins, unable to settle. Nearby, another monkey, younger, six-eared, sat ramrod straight. It stole glances at its companion, envy glinting faintly.

A bitter tang choked his core.

Before Chen Huaian delved deeper.

Fresh golden text coalesced before him.

[The gods control karma.]

[To slay gods, one must not enter the game, must not submit to karma.]

[Only by becoming the 'variable' is there a sliver of hope.]

The variable?

Chen Huaian eyed the words, fingers instinctively clenching the Black Scales Sword.

The variable the Celestial God Clan hunted... was he it?

Thus, his past and future lay outside their script.

He, the ultimate anomaly?

Yet... that gray gas clung to him, signaling entrapment in the Celestial God Clan's reincarnation karma. How could he be the variable?!

In that flash.

Chen Huaian recalled White Sword.

Recalled Chen Wenyan.

White Sword could be his upper corpse. White Sword's form lacked the gray gas.

He'd cleaved the Three Corpses, letting a piece of self turn variable?

But why no recollection of severing the Three Corpses?

Why start with mere mortal cultivation?

Chen Huaian knit his brows, thoughts in chaos.

He sensed a near-grasp, yet it slipped away.

Never mind...

Press onward.

The truth might crown the topmost peak.

"Hoo..."

After ages, he exhaled heavily, bowing reverently to the statue.

"You are not a fake."

Chen Huaian whispered, "Daring to raise your staff against the heavens, you are the Great Sage."

His voice echoed.

Crack.

The statue's iron grip on the staff eased gradually.

A dull, faded yellow hair strand floated free.

In air, it morphed to a torn scripture page, landing in Chen Huaian's palm.

No mythic lifesaver hair.

The Six-Eared Macaque's sole act of "defiance" in life.

Its lone bid to break fate's chains, the rebel spark it bequeathed...