An Immortal's Retirement: To Achieve Peace

Sun Wukong nodded his head. He had listened, which was surprising considering all the other options he had at his discretion.

He could have taken the information straight from my soul in a numerous number of ways, but instead, the Monkey King had sat down and listened.

I didn’t dare lie. I just spoke, telling him everything I knew. And he already knew where the child was. He had traced back my qi to Ah Marin and knew her exact location. After that, I didn’t have any reason or ability to lie to him so, I just spoke.

And he listened.

By the end of it, he sat there, thinking.

“Interesting,” he said. This time his tone was flat and filled with contemplation.

He just sat there, thinking for a moment. Which meant a lot when you realized that this was a being who could dream up a universe in a blink of a second.

While the silence incurred, I too, took a moment to think.

The plan had been simple. A lot of new things had suddenly appeared in my life. First among them was this Dao. This Dao of Peace was something I had no knowledge of, and while my ignorance was unfortunate, I doubted that it was something entirely new to the cultivation world. And the same could be said for the child. I didn’t know how to deal with her, but I was sure that there was some information I could borrow in order to educate myself on the topic.

And so I had left, leaving Ah-Marin and traveling to Lynoria, one of the safer places in the cultivation world. The goal had been to visit the Library of The Eternal Tome and see if they had anything that could help me with this stuff. I wanted to see if there was any useful information about my Dao or this child.

It should have been a quick journey. A week in Ah-Marin’s time probably less, but I had no idea how it would end now.

I always avoided those stronger than me. At least Dane had always avoided those stronger than him. He was a very careful man and I had thought that I was doing the same.

But clearly, I had let my mortal inhibitions take over. And more importantly, I had failed to take what I didn’t know into account. In retrospect, it all seemed obvious. Of course, a God-Imperium could sense her qi off of me.

Why wouldn’t they? I was like a mortal compared to these beings. They were creatures far beyond my understanding, and for some reason, I had thought that I could outsmart them.

And then there was Sun Wu Kong. I didn’t dare to think about the Monkey King. I imagined he could read my mind quite easily, and if I dared to think something… unflattering. Well, it would be better to not entertain the possibilities of those thoughts.

“Why are you out here?” WuKong finally asked.

“I- I meant to make my way to Lynoria, Great Sage. I was hoping to find knowledge to aid in my predicament.”

“To my place?” WuKong asked.

“Yes, Great Sage.”

“Ah, I was just heading over there. Come on, we’ll head out together.”

I nodded, trying my best to seem eager. Honestly, the idea of spending more time with this man scared the shit out of me, but the idea of refusing him scared the shit out of me even more.

Sun WuKong held out his hands, and as suddenly as the qi had appeared, it vanished. I watched in awe at the action. I knew what had happened now. He hadn’t shoved me into some realm to interrogate me or question me, but rather he had formed a realm, made purely out of his own qi and now he had gotten rid of it as he pleased.

It was similar to my own universe array, except that had taken me millions of years to set up and required multiple external qi sources to keep functioning. And yet he had done it without an ounce of effort.

I smiled.

I didn’t really know why I smiled. I should have been terrified, but a part of me found it so absurd that a technique I’d been building on for billions of years was just a mere thought for the man next to me. I guess that explained why Array Masters never made it far in this world. The powers and abilities we’d naturally had could easily be attained at higher ranks. We were just more convenient for the cultivator world.

“Something funny?” WuKong asked.

“Ah, I’m just in awe of your power Great Sage,” I replied.

WuKong held up his hand and suddenly, we were back in that little stream of qi. Pushing along towards the realm of Lynoria.

I stood there, silently wondering what in the world was going on right now. Why was a being so strong and powerful just… escorting me to another realm. None of it made sense at all.

Even taking all I knew about Sun WuKong from the various myths and legends. I still couldn’t find a good or suitable answer.

Back in the early days of the multiverse, very few beings had reached the realm of God-Imperium, and those that did kept their methods from others. Eventually, there was a gathering of sorts. The cultivators were divided into two groups, those of the righteous path and the demonic path.

Everyone was expected to be in one group or another and due to these severe divisions, you had constant and unbridled war between these two groups. That was until Sun WuKong came along. Sun WuKong, along with the help of Buddha, created the orthodox faction of cultivators.

It was a third faction, unbothered by either the righteous sects or the demonic, and while normally such dissonance wouldn’t be allowed, not many could stand up to the power of both Buddha and WuKong. Buddha, the strongest member on the side of the righteous and the first God-Imperium had stood alongside Sun WuKong after Wukong had defeated him in battle.

And back then, when the God-Imperiums numbered in the hundreds, the idea of fighting both the strongest and the second strongest cultivators in the world was not at all appealing.

And so the orthodox side was born and quickly grew into being the most powerful of the three factions. That led to lesser wars, as the more wars were fought between the two sides, the more cultivators would flee to the orthodox sects to avoid the conflict. Also, the orthodox sects would eventually start to interfere in the wars, stopping the conflict and issuing punishment to the individual parties for the offense.

After a certain amount of time, both sides learned to hold themselves back, both as a determent to their own shrinking forces and out of fear of judgment of the orthodox.

And all of that had been done by Sun WuKong.

So to call him scary would be an understatement, and as honorable as it was to spend time in his presence, it was also batshit terrifying.

“So, what do I call you?” WuKong asked.

“You can call me as you please Great Sage.”

“No, no. You are no longer Dane and yet you are no longer Bill. What is your name now?”

“I still go by Bill or Dane, Great Sage.”

“Dane it is then. Would you care to do me a favor, Dane?”

“I would be honored to aid you, Great Sage.”

As if I could say no.

“Would you look after Beast’s child for me?”

“You’re not going to take her, Great Sage?” I asked.

I half expected him to have taken her already, so the question caught me by surprise.

“No. It’s not my place to raise her,” WuKong commented. “If I raised every child my parents had ever had I’d be raising half of the God-Imperiums within existence. I’m no more her brother than you are.”

“But her bloodline, surely you must have some use for it.”

“Do not think me one of those demonic fools, child.”

“Of course, I was just asking if leaving such a valuable-”

WuKong held out his hand.

“Stop.”

I pressed my lips together with enough force to bend metal.

“Do you know what auras are?” He asked me.

“Of course, Great Sage.”

“Tell me.”

“A person’s aura is ambient qi that leaks from their body and out into the world. And as the qi comes from the soul, it will naturally be influenced by the soul and act in congruence with that person’s will.”

WuKong nodded.

“Yes, but it’s more than that. Aura is qi, qi that comes from the soul. It is stained with your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs, holding not only current thoughts but past thoughts as well. It carries the flavor of your very being. That’s how I knew your name, Dane.”

There was a small and tense pause before he spoke again.

“What makes you think I don’t see all that contempt you hold towards me, then?”