A low, demonic laugh, like stones grinding together in the deep earth, echoed from the rubble. The figure of Elder Ming rose, brushing dust from his saffron robes. He stood unharmed, but his frail body began to tweak and contort, as if a great snake were coiling and uncoiling just beneath his skin. His eyes, once cloudy with age, narrowed into vertical slits, gleaming with ancient malice.
"Kekekeke," Jack chuckled, his own laughter a sharp counterpoint to the demon's. "So, a snake demon. Aren't you a little far from your nest on this high mountain?"
The monk's form hissed, the sound dry and menacing. "Shut up. I've been here for centuries. Several sages have passed through to check the seal on the sacred relic, and not one of them suspected a thing."
Jack's interest was piqued. "Oh? Other sages, you say?" His golden eyes lit up with genuine curiosity. "So there are others like me? What kind of sages, though? Is there a Frog Sage? How many sages are there? Are there platypus sages? Please tell me one of them is Perry the Platypus."
"Shut the fuck up!" the snake demon snarled, its voice a guttural rasp. "You are a chatterbox. I guess there is no need for me to wait anymore."
As Jack watched, the skin of the frail monk began to tear, peeling back to reveal shimmering, iridescent snake scales beneath.
"Eww," Jack said, wrinkling his nose. "Can you demons be normal when you're trying to change? Go to a changing room or something, like the rest of us."
The demon didn't bother with Jack's words. Its body contorted, bones snapping and reforming as it grew into its true form—a monstrous snake, already the size of a bus and still growing.
Jack saw this and his grin finally faltered for a second. "Uh oh." He immediately plucked a hair from his head, bit down, and in a puff of golden smoke, several dozen clones appeared around him.
"Alright, boys!" he commanded. "Bring all the monks and all the people around this mountain to safety. Now!"
As the clones scattered, leaping into action, Jack bonked the ever-growing snake demon squarely on the head with his Ruyi Jingu Bang.
…
Inside the infirmary, one clone appeared in a shimmer of light. He was about to grab Wudao and fly him to safety, but the burly monk held up a hand.
"No, thanks," Wudao said, his voice quiet but firm. "But I just want to know one thing. Is that thing… the one that influenced us to hate brother Tenzin?"
The clone tilted his head, considering it. "Well, yes and no," he answered honestly. "The feelings were all there to begin with. The demon just amplified them to a greater extent."
Wudao's gaze dropped to his own clenched fists. He muttered to himself, his voice filled with a dawning horror and self-loathing, "So… it all began inside me."
The clone wrinkled his nose. "Eww, that's gross."
Ignoring the comment, Wudao began to walk, not towards the exit, but in the opposite direction, toward the heart of the temple. Toward the main vault.
"Heyy!" the clone called after him. "Safety is down the mountain, not up there!"
But Wudao didn't look back. The clone watched him go, then sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Whatever."
…
The giant snake demon, its scales shimmering like black oil under the blazing sun, lunged with the force of a tidal wave. Its cavernous mouth, lined with fangs the size of daggers, opened wide, intent on swallowing Jack whole.
Jack, however, remained perfectly still. He nonchalantly picked his nose, a bored expression on his face as the shadow of the colossal beast fell over him. Just as its jaws were about to snap shut, Jack whispered, "Body Freezing Spell."
The world stopped. The snake, mid-lunge, froze solid, its mouth agape in a silent roar. Jack slowly sidestepped the monstrous, statue-like head, waving a hand in front of his nose. "Woohh," he said with a grimace. "Your breath stinks. Is there not a toothbrush in the demonic realm?" He patted the frozen snout. "Anyway, tag, you're it."
In a single, swift motion, he drove the Ruyi Jingu Bang forward, plunging it deep into one of the snake's massive, unblinking eyes.
The spell shattered.
A deafening, soul-tearing shriek ripped through the mountains as the snake thrashed wildly, its body convulsing in agony. The sacred temple grounds cracked under the force of its thrashing tail.
Jack leaped back, landing lightly on a temple roof, his staff shrinking back into his hand. "Lucky you," he called down nonchalantly. "My freezing spell has a cooldown."
The snake, now with one eye socket pouring black, viscous blood, couldn't believe it. Its first move, its most powerful lunge, and it had lost an eye before it could even land a hit. It writhed, its good eye burning with a mixture of pain and pure hatred.
"So," Jack said, tilting his head with casual curiosity. "Why are you here? Surely there's a reason."
"A dead man shouldn't ask questions," the snake hissed, its voice a venomous rasp. It coiled its massive body, then struck again, its tail whipping through the air like a mountain-sized bullwhip.
Jack simply leaped from the roof, dodging the tail with an effortless flip. The attack shattered the ancient tiles where he had just been standing. "You know," Jack called out as he landed, "you're the one with an eye ripped out, right?" He twirled his staff. "Whatever. Making a roast snake can be added to my bucket list anyway."
The fight began in earnest. The snake demon was a storm of raw power, its movements causing landslides and cracking the very foundations of the temple. It struck with its tail, lunged with its fangs, and tried to constrict Jack in its massive coils.
But Jack was a whirlwind. He was having the time of his life.
He danced around the demon's attacks, using the Ruyi Jingu Bang not as a weapon of overwhelming force, but as a mischievous tool. When the snake's tail swept low, he used the staff as a pole vault, launching himself into the air with a cackle. When it lunged, he would shrink the staff to the size of a needle and give it a sharp poke in the snout.
"KEKEKEKE! A little to the left!" he'd shout, dodging a spray of venom that dissolved a stone statue.
The snake grew more and more furious, its movements becoming wilder, more desperate. It slammed its body against temple pillars, trying to crush Jack in the collapsing debris.
But Jack was always one step ahead, leaping from falling rock to crumbling wall, his laughter echoing through the chaos. He wasn't just fighting, he was playing. He was enjoying the raw, destructive dance, holding himself back just enough to savor every moment of the demon's frustration.
…
With each pained step, Cheng Wudao limped away from the infirmary, his destination clear in his mind: the main vault, the heart of the temple.
He glanced back over his shoulder just once. Even from this distance, the coiling, monstrous form of the snake demon was a sight of pure terror, its roars shaking the very mountain he stood upon.
But in his heart, another battle raged. The clone's words echoed, sharp and true: "...it was all there to begin with, the demon just amplified it..." The hate had always been his. The resentment, the jealousy—it was a poison he had nurtured in the silence of his own meditations.
He, who loved this temple more than his own life, who saw it as his only home, had hypocritically robbed his fifth brother of that same home. The weight of his guilt was a mountain far heavier than the one the temple was built on.
He finally arrived at the vault door. The cold steel stood in stark contrast to the blazing sun now rising high above. At its base, he saw them: the lock plates, flush with the stone floor. This was the key—a complex footwork sequence taught only to the direct disciples of the Abbot, a dance of body and spirit.
Taking a deep breath, Wudao took the first step, his foot landing softly on the first plate. Then the second, and the next, and the next.
As his body moved through the familiar sequence, his mind drifted back. He remembered the day his master taught him this very footwork, the sun warm on his back, the pride swelling in his chest. It was the happiest day of his life, the day he was truly marked as a disciple of the Abbot.
As he completed the final step, a single tear escaped his eye and dropped to the cold stone floor. With a low groan of ancient mechanisms, the vault door swung open.
Wudao looked outside one last time, at the crumbling pillars and shattered roofs. The temple was already on its way to destruction.
"I'm sorry master," he muttered, his voice thick with resolve. "I have to do this."
He stepped into the vault. Inside, the air was still and sacred. And there, at the center of the chamber, was the relic the temple had been guarding for generations. A simple, golden headband, half-way stuck inside a large, unyielding stone.
…
Far above the mortal realm, in the serene quiet of the highest heavens, the Jade Emperor sat alone on his Dragon Throne, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the carved jade armrest. Beside him, his most trusted advisor, Laozi, stood with his hands tucked into the long sleeves of his silken robes, his expression as placid as a windless sea.
They both gazed into a large, ornate bronze mirror that hovered in the center of the hall. It was no ordinary mirror; it was the Heaven-Peering Mirror, an artifact capable of seeing through the veils of realms and time. Through its shimmering surface, they saw the vault of the Hidden Headband Temple. They saw the seal, which had held one of the sacred fragments, now broken.
The Jade Emperor's lips pressed into a thin, displeased line. "Entrusting such things to humans," he said, his voice carrying the weight of eons, "was truly our biggest mistake."
Laozi bowed his head slightly. "We had no choice, Your Majesty. The Agreement has forbidden us from dwelling on Earth for far too long."
The mirror's image sharpened, showing Cheng Wudao, his face a mask of grief and determination, reaching a trembling hand toward the golden headband embedded in the stone.
"Surely that human is not going to touch it himself, will he?" the Jade Emperor asked, a note of disbelief in his tone.
"We do not know, Your Majesty," Laozi replied calmly. "Over the centuries, their teachings about the fragment have warped, to the point that they no longer even know what they are guarding."
The Jade Emperor let out a sigh, a sound like the shifting of ancient mountains. He turned his gaze away from the mirror, a look of profound disdain on his celestial face.
"This is why I only allow immortals to join our heavens' ground."
…
As Cheng Wudao walked closer, the sacred relic came into focus for the first time. It was a golden headband, simple yet radiating an ancient power, with a loop of metal facing inward on each side. Strangely, it didn't just sit within the stone, as he peered closer, he could see the faint, ethereal outline of a face beneath it, as if the stone itself wore the circlet.
He reached out a trembling hand, his fingers just inches from the cold metal.
"You better not touch it."
The voice, sharp and laced with amusement, echoed from behind him. Wudao flinched and spun around. Jack Hou was there, somehow having made his way closer, with the giant snake demon hot on his heels. The temple grounds outside the vault had been turned to rubble in their chase.
"That thing's interesting," Jack said, turning on his heel to face the monstrous snake. The Ruyi Jingu Bang in his hand shifted, growing in an instant to its true, colossal size. With a grunt, he lifted the massive pillar and gently placed it on the giant snake's head.
"Don't crush its head, please," Jack said to his staff. "Just keep him in place."
As if it understood, the staff plopped down, its immense weight not crushing the demon, but pinning it firmly to the ground like a nail through a board. The snake was subdued, unable to move.
Jack strolled back into the vault, his hands in his sleeves. "What are you doing?" he asked Wudao.
"I will give this to Elder Ming—I mean, the demon snake—to let the temple go," Wudao confessed, his voice heavy with desperation.
Jack sighed, shaking his head. "Oh, you innocent, big, burly monk. You don't make a deal with a demon, not when you have all the advantages. You need to learn a lot about how this world works, huh?" His gaze drifted to the headband. A wicked grin spread across his face. "Oh, shiny. I'll be yoinking that for my collection, then."
"Wai—!" Wudao cried out.
But Jack's hand had already closed around the headband. He pulled it free from the stone with impossible ease. He turned his head back to Wudao, a taunt ready on his lips. "What? Can't have an outsider touch your sacred relic?"
Then he realized Wudao was frozen still, his hand outstretched, his mouth open mid-protest. Jack looked outside the vault. The snake's massive tail, which had been thrashing moments ago, was also frozen mid-air. It was as if time itself had stopped.
"What the fuck?" Jack muttered. He reached out to touch Wudao's head, but his hand passed straight through him, like a ghost through a wall. He looked down at his other hand. The golden headband rested there, free in his grasp.
Jack walked out of the vault. Far on a distant horizon, the frozen images of the monks were flown away by his clones, who also froze in place. Then approached the true-sized Ruyi Jingu Bang still pinning the motionless snake. As he was about to touch it, a voice spoke from behind him, calm and amused.
"It's really big, huh?"
Jack spun around to see who else could speak in this frozen moment. There stood a figure, radiating a power that was both familiar and overwhelmingly ancient. He wore brilliant golden armor and had two long pheasant tail feathers trailing from his headdress. But what caught Jack's eye was the faint, phantom mark on the figure's forehead—the mark of a headband he no longer wore.
The figure continued, his lips curling into a grin that mirrored Jack's own. "It was a pillar I stole from Ao Guang's palace. It was hilarious. Kekekekeke."
**A/N**
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**A/N**