The Hero Returns

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The promised four days went by.

The Bull Demon King placed a bundle wrapped in cloth each on the shoulders of Su-hyeun, Sun Wukong, and the Roc Demon King.

He then said, "I've packed some snacks to eat on your way."

"Are you sending us off on a picnic somewhere far away or something? You know we're going there to fight, right?"

Although Sun Wukong said that, he was already drooling at the thought of food.

Before he could start undoing the bundle to take a look inside, the Bull Demon King snatched Sun Wukong's hands away from it and shook his head in disapproval.

"Once you start, you're going to finish them in one sitting, so don't. You should instead enjoy them when you feel hungry when you get there."

"But, big bro."

"A no is a no. And stop whining like a child. It's creepy."

The Bull Demon King's firm voice caused Sun Wukong to lick his lips from the missed opportunity.

The Roc Demon King stood tall with his hands behind his back, looked up at the sky, and spoke, "Let's stop dithering about and get going already. What will you do if the Heavenly World suddenly had a change of heart and departed sooner than scheduled?"

"No way. Those idiots hate changing their plans the most, you know. Second brother, you think the Heavenly World is like you? Busy saying this and then quickly saying something else," Sun Wukong grumbled while placing his hands behind his head. "If only I still had my Somersault cloud with me, going there would be hassle-free. Heck, if I knew this would happen, maybe I shouldn't have given it away to the littlest here. Looks like things will get annoying as we go there."

"You gave it to our littlest brother, so why are you blaming him? This won't do. I must smack some sense into you before you leave," the Bull Demon King tutted.

"Ah, big bro! I'll die if you smack me, you know!"

"You're an immortal, so why the fuss?"

"N—no, hang on a minute. If it's you, big brother, you might really kill me, you know? Ahk! Someone save Sun Wukong!"

Su-hyeun grinned at the sight of Sun Wukong moving exaggeratedly as he dodged the Bull Demon King.

What with the weight of the quest they were about to embark on being so heavy, the atmosphere should also be equally grave, yet Sun Wukong didn't act differently from how he normally did.

"If you're worried about our transportation, I have a way, so you can rest easy. I shall take good care of you both, brothers," Su-hyeun said.

"Eh? Really? Wait, did you figure out how to control the Somersault cloud already?"

"No way…Seriously?"

Sun Wukong and the Roc Demon King were stunned by that, their eyes growing wider.

They knew that Su-hyeun's speed of mastering the Sage Arts was already amazing, but it would be another story altogether for him to freely wield the Somersault cloud in only a matter of days.

Su-hyeun continued on, "It's still too early for me to transport all of you, but—"

"Hey, what the heck."

"I thought as much."

"You idiots! Will you listen to him until the end?"

Smack, bang—

Sun Wukong and the Roc Demon King formed deflated expressions before making identical sneers at Su-hyeun, only for the Bull Demon King to smack them in their heads.

They hurriedly covered their heads and crouched in pain. Although those smacks looked light, the resulting sounds were certainly not.

Su-hyeun alternated his gaze between Sun Wukong and the Bull Demon King before addressing the former. "Have you forgotten how I got here back in the beginning?"

"Ah, that's right." Sun Wukong kept rubbing his aching head and nodded.

Now that he thought about it, the Heavenly World above the clouds was the place where he met Su-hyeun for the first time.

Su-hyeun turned toward the wide front yard and called out, "Hey, Miru!"

Split—

At his call, Miru poked his head out from the empty air.

Gya-ong, gya-ong—!

As soon as it appeared, though, Miru turned its head away from him and narrowed its eyes as if it was angry about something.

Even its cries sounded unhappy. Su-hyeun remembered that no event during the past half a year or so required him to summon Miru.

"I—I'm sorry, Miru. Are you angry?"

Gya-ong—!

The tone of the dragon's cries didn't sound so good.

Su-hyeun had to work hard for a while to mollify Miru by stroking its head.

On the other hand, Sun Wukong and the Roc Demon King stared on with puzzled expressions at the dragon's unexpected entrance.

"A dragon?"

"So, it's a dragon. I thought they went extinct a long time ago, but you were actually rearing one?"

In this world, dragons were seen as a subspecies of Yogoes that the Taoist gods reared as their noble divine beasts.

However, they went extinct many moons ago. The Bull Demon King, who had already lived for hundreds of thousands of years, apparently hadn't seen one in such a long time.

"…I have a rough idea of a dragon's mobility since I heard some stories about it, but isn't this child a little too small for everyone to ride on?"

Despite being a dragon, Miru's size wasn't all that big on the outside.

Not only was there a question of how fast Miru could fly, but it was also not much bigger than a tiger. Therefore, having three people ride comfortably on its back seemed to be a tall task even if it was capable of rapid flight.

"Hey Miru, can you give us a ride?"

Gya-ong—!

Miru shot a glare at Su-hyeun with a sulking expression and then turned its head away again.

He wondered if the dragon would choose not to listen to him out of all that anger, but not too long afterward, Miru's body began to gradually get bigger.

Kku-duck, kku-du-duk—

Its slender legs that stood on the ground lengthened and thickened. Even its face that looked juvenile was soon covered with thick scales, and eventually, its whole body took on the figure of a near-mature dragon.

Boom—

Rumbleee—

When its front leg stepped forward, the ground rumbled and quaked ever so softly. Its previously cute-sounding cries had also morphed into something that better suited a dragon.

Sun Wukong saw this transformation and asked the Bull Demon King, "I was wondering why it looked way smaller than the one I saw the last time, but this was why, eh? Now, that's so mysterious. Big brother, have you seen anything like this before?"

A dragon that could freely alter the size of its physique.

Not only Sun Wukong, who didn't know much about dragons, to begin with, but even the Bull Demon King found this sight unfamiliar to behold despite having seen dragons a few times in the past.

"Even I have not heard about such a thing before. Not only that…" The Bull Demon King studied the transformed Miru before carrying on, "As it's a red dragon, this child must be a descendant of a divine dragon."

"A divine dragon?"

"I only heard about some stories, and it's also my first time seeing one. When I was a young boy, dragons still existed, and I got to see one every now and then. That…probably implies that even back during the height of the dragon race's prosperity, there weren't that many individuals in existence."

Growl, grrrr—

Miru rubbed its head against Su-hyeun for a bit and then let him ride first on the back of its neck before shifting its head toward the Bull Demon King and the other two Yogoes.

"Miru's telling you to climb aboard." Su-hyeun waved his hand, signaling them to hurry.

While Sun Wukong and the Roc Demon King stood there staring at Miru in amazement, the Bull Demon King smacked them both in their backs and pushed them forward.

"Ouch! Why did you push us like that?"

"Be careful on your way and come home soon. I'll prepare a tasty feast to coincide your return, so come back healthy, too."

Sun Wukong grumbled loudly again, but the Bull Demon King just waved his hand slowly a couple of times before walking back inside the house.

His actions or expressions didn't display much concern. Sun Wukong dazedly stared at the Bull Demon King for a second or two before smiling brightly. "Alright. We'll be back soon, bro."

"Indeed. Take care of yourselves."

Now, normally, the Bull Demon King would've smacked Sun Wukong for the impolite speech, but at least this time, he didn't say anything else.

Leap—

Sun Wukong lightly leaped and climbed on Miru's back. The Roc Demon King did the same.

Kiii-ah-ohhh—!

Once all three of them securely climbed aboard its back, Miru raised its head toward the heavens and let out a loud roar.

Su-hyeun rubbed the dragon's back and spoke softly, "Let's go."

Flap—

Miru's wings spread open wide.

Toward the skies above.

Toward the Heavenly World.

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Shu-wuwuwu—

This wasn't his first time to feel what it was like to fly past the clouds. For one, riding in an airplane would also let you experience going past the clouds.

However, riding on Miru's back and facing the winds while flying upward gave off a completely different vibe to that of riding in an airplane.

"Hey! This kinda feels different from riding on the Somersault cloud."

Sun Wukong looked really excited judging from his expression.

Unlike the soft and stable Somersault cloud, Miru's back was rough from all of its scales, and the flight itself was also quite noisy, but maybe that was why the sensation of flying felt so much faster.

When they rose past the clouds, the fog got thicker, and their vision became murkier as a result. Eventually, though, they arrived at another world located far above the clouds.

Boom—

The location Miru arrived at after about one hour of flying was a rather familiar place—the ground still gave off intense heat as reddish energy lingered in the skies above and the tall cliff that rose from the solid earth that existed on the world above the clouds.

"That's the eight-way trigram Crucible."

They were at heaven's prison where the Heavenly World's criminals were locked away. It was also the location of the eight-way trigram Crucible that imprisoned Sun Wukong.

"Now why did you have to come here of all places? This is bad luck, man," Sun Wukong said.

"Well, it can't be helped since this is the only place Miru knows in the Heavenly World."

"But everywhere above the skies is the Heavenly World, you know."

The Roc Demon King piped up, "Nah, this location is pretty good. The prison guards should have been dispatched to the other side to get ready for the war against the surface world, anyway. This is perfect for avoiding getting spotted too early."

He nodded in satisfaction when he did not pick up any presence of the gods within the gentle breezes. On the other hand, both Su-hyeun and Sun Wukong made expressions that were completely different from his.

"Eh, it's a bust, then."

"You're so right. We can also blame you, third brother, for decreasing their numbers a lot after leaving the eight-way trigram Crucible."

Their reactions caused the Roc Demon King to look back at them with a puzzled expression.

"What do you think we came here to do?"

Su-hyeun asked a rather obvious question, which was promptly answered by Sun Wukong.

"Second brother, it's the Heavenly World wanting to wage a war."

"Then what about us?"

"It's not war, but…"

Bang—

Sun Wukong smacked his fist into his other palm and smirked deeply. "We came here to cause chaos."

"Chaos…?"

The Roc Demon King didn't look like he understood it yet.

Su-hyeun sighed deeply. Whether it was Sun Wukong or the Roc Demon King, he already knew that they were blessed with simpler personalities, but even then, their discussion would go nowhere fast at this rate.

In the end, Su-hyeun took it upon himself to explain things to the Roc Demon King. "There are only three of us. And our ultimate aim is the Jade Emperor's head. Meaning, there's no need for us to fight the entire Heavenly World, you know."

Su-hyeun clearly explained their goal.

From the perspective of the Heavenly World, this really was a war. Well, they would be sending out a massive army led by several generals, after all. Not to forget, they simply had no choice but to wage a war if they wanted to completely exterminate all humans and Yogoes that lived on the surface world.

However, this group's aim was not the extermination of the Heavenly World but simply to eliminate the Jade Emperor.

Su-hyeun continued on, "It doesn't matter whether we resort to assassination or we march straight into the Jade Emperor's imperial palace. As long as we cut his head off, our job's done."

In other words, it's to take down the king. Like in a game of chess, once your king had been taken, it would be impossible to carry on, after all.

"So, what you're saying is that this fight isn't a war, but—"

"Why are you thinking too hard about it?" Sun Wukong simplified this whole situation for the Roc Demon King. "We just have to do what we've been doing all along, that's all."

What they had been doing all along.

Not just anyone's but Sun Wukong's way of doing things.

And his way was, unsurprisingly, straightforward and simple-minded as well.

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The Heavenly World.

Although that name implied that this world was a noble, divine realm where gods lived, in reality, it was far closer to being yet another massive nation.

A large city was built around the imperial palace of the Jade Emperor, and then, there were several generals and lower-ranked gods subordinated to them protecting this city.

"Not too many days to go."

"You mean the policy to exterminate the humans and the Yogoes?"

"I heard that it'll start in five days? I wonder if this is alright, though."

"What can we do? Other than following orders from the higher-ups, that is."

The gods that were patrolling the outer perimeter of the city chatted among themselves, white breaths from the cold weather escaping from their mouths.

Nothing much of note happened so far. Their jobs mainly entailed inspecting anyone wanting to enter the city, and once their identities had been confirmed, they let them through. That's all.

"If that happens, we'll end up fighting the Great Sage Heaven's Equal again, right?"

"Ugh, that insane monkey bastard. Just thinking about him gives me the creeps."

"Now I remember, you participated in that war against the Great Sage, didn't you? How was it?"

"Don't bring that up, friend. I don't even want to talk about it." The god receiving that question shook his head, looking weary. He felt goosebumps breaking out on his skin after thinking about fighting the Great Sage Heaven's Equal one more time. "Besides all that, I have no idea why we're wasting our time out here. Just who would show up and—?"

"Don't be like that and please just tell me. Tell me more about what this Great Sage Heaven's Equal is like…Hey, man. What's gotten into you?"

The patrolling god who was persistently asking questions discovered his partner's expression and became completely confused. His gaze eventually shifted in the direction where his partner's pale-as-paper face was looking at.

In the far off distance, he could see three figures—a white-haired man with a small physique, another man that somewhat resembled a bird, and finally, a normal-looking human male.

"Get bigger—"

Considering the distance, those words should have been almost inaudible, yet the voice sounded incredibly loud in the patrolling god's ears.

And the moment the rest of that man's voice resounded…

"Ruyi."

KA-BOOOOM—!

Yet another calamity descended on the Heavenly World.

And its name was the Great Sage Heaven's Equal, Sun Wukong.