The Hero Returns

"…"

"…"

Silence descended in the room for a long while.

Just one more time, he said.

That promise sounded like nothing special. However, they all knew what that simple promise meant for the Bull Demon King.

It was the same thing as dipping his toes back into the pool of lingering attachment that he had already left behind.

To dip his toes back in the regrets and ties that the Bull Demon King couldn't leave behind until the very last moment took some considerable determination on his part.

"You don't have to do that, big brother." And that was precisely why Sun Wukong rejected the offer while hurriedly waving his hands. "If you want to help, then why don't you help me by repairing this thing, big brother?" he said.

"Your Ruyi Jingu Bang?"

"It broke while I was fighting our little brother, see. Can you repair it?"

"A battle where Ruyi Jingu Bang actually broke? Just how fierce was your fight? I thought I told you so many times not to fight like that since you're all brothers."

"No, uh, it was only a little sparring session, just punching and kicking and stuff, you know? It was nothing serious, so you don't have to worry. Anyways, big brother, please repair it for me? Please?"

"You can leave it to me. I can always help you with something like this. This will not count as my earlier promise, however."

"No, bro. I told you, this is fine for me."

Sun Wukong took out the broken pieces of Ruyi Jingu Bang and handed them over to the Bull Demon King. Even though the two halves of the shaft should've been very heavy, he handled it without any trouble.

Afterward, Su-hyeun and Sun Wukong exited the Bull Demon King's residence.

When they took another look at the house, they thought that it oddly seemed familiar to both of them for some reason.

"You know, it looks like our old house. Doesn't it, Third Brother?"

"Yeah. You think so, too?"

"It's a bit bigger, but yes."

"This big brother of ours. It looks like he still hasn't woken up yet or something. Since he has ascended, he should've forgotten about us and just enjoyed his new life."

"Yet you still came to see such a person?"

"Well, I'm beyond help, to begin with," Sun Wukong smirked deeply, then began walking a bit faster. "Let's go and quickly get this done with. I mean, it'll take ages for us to go around a place this humongous, right?"

"You're right. But," Su-hyeun activated Insight to take a look at the distant horde of monsters rushing in after picking up their scent. "It looks like sister-in-law is about to start fighting them."

"I guess big brother already knows?"

"Seeing how he's letting her be, maybe she's not the type to go around picking unnecessary fights."

"You worried, though?"

Su-hyeun nodded, "I don't know anything about our sister-in-law, after all."

"Is that so?" Sun Wukong quickly stepped forward as if to say what was there to even think about. "Let's go and take a look then."

* * *

The Bull Demon King's barrier was surprisingly wide-ranging. It seemed that he wanted to give Lang Mei as much room to wander around as she would like.

Even so, she still walked all the way up to the boundary of the barrier. That was where a massive horde of monsters that poured out from the dungeon had congregated.

"You aren't Yogoes and obviously not beasts either…"

Lang Mei reached out to touch the hard surface of the barrier. Beyond the wall, monsters angrily headbutted it.

However, this barrier would never be broken by something like that. Even then, these monsters continued to attack despite the threat of cracking their own skulls just so they could kill Lang Mei before their eyes.

"Just what are you?"

Rampaging around for the sake of killing and nothing else, these creatures didn't even possess a simple desire like appetite or anything like that.

Lang Mei wordlessly reached out some more toward the monsters.

Shu-wuwu…

Her hands passed through the Bull Demon King's barrier without much trouble.

But when that happened…

"It's too dangerous."

Grab—

Su-hyeun grabbed Lang Mei's wrist and brought her arm back inside.

"You say it's dangerous?"

"Yes. You could easily lose your—"

"But what's so dangerous about them?"

When she asked that, Su-hyeun glanced at the monsters outside the barrier. The creatures that were letting out blood-curling howls and growls while baring their fangs in Lang Mei's direction had all suddenly gone very quiet.

But that wasn't even the end of the story.

"Blood?" Su-hyeun quietly observed.

Blood began trickling down their eyes, noses, and even ears. Their eyes became bloodshot, all the focus in their irises now gone.

But Lang Mei hadn't done anything yet? At least it looked like she hadn't.

Indeed, no discernible type of energy circulated within her body.

What did move was…

"The energy inside the monsters?"

She was supposed to be a sorcerer of some kind. Sure enough, she was a user of a unique technique.

The monster horde consisting of thousands of individuals suddenly screamed at the same time before collapsing lifelessly on the ground.

Now that was a surprising ability, indeed. She didn't even directly touch these creatures, yet she still caused their energies to flow in the opposite direction.

The reason why the Bull Demon King wasn't too worried about her seemed relatively clear now.

"First Brother said she was the sorcerer who showed up to kill him in the past, didn't he? I guess there was no embellishment in that story."

If she hadn't died from the Bull Demon King's mad rampage, then there shouldn't be that many enemies capable of threatening her life back then.

At the very least, she was one of the strongest humans Su-hyeun currently knew.

"It seems that my worries were unwarranted."

"Do you know something about these creatures?" She asked Su-hyeun with a rather serious look on her face.

Her expression and tone of voice right now were noticeably different from when they chatted back in the house.

Su-hyeun had to contemplate his answer for a moment before shaking his head, "No, ma'am. I don't know much about them."

"Really?"

"Yes. But that doesn't mean I can just let them be, though. Please stay here, sister-in-law. We'll be back soon."

"But brother-in-law," she called out to Su-hyeun, stopping him just as he was about to exit the barrier. "I'm different from my dear husband. I wish to help."

Her voice became noticeably more forceful just then.

"Even then, do you still not know?"

"Unfortunately, no," Su-hyeun hurriedly bade her goodbye and left.

Sun Wukong wordlessly alternated his gaze between the two before quickly following Su-hyeun.

When the duo exited the barrier, the horrendous stench wafting out from the monsters stung them in the nose without warning.

Sun Wukong hurriedly blocked his super-sensitive nose with one hand, "Why did you lie, little bro?"

"If I told her the truth, sister-in-law would've also become a participant in this war, Third Brother."

"That's not supposed to happen?"

"I wouldn't be able to look at First Brother's face if that happened, you know. Besides, we don't know if sister-in-law is also strong enough to look after herself during the fight."

"Well, yeah, you have a point there."

Snap, pop—

While saying that, Sun Wukong loosened his muscles and popped his joints.

Even though they were leisurely chatting away, they had already walked past the path filled with mountains of monster carcasses.

Sun Wukong spoke up first, "Alright! So, how should we do this? I don't think we need to stick around together for this one."

"For now, let's take our time dealing with the dungeons in this place first."

"There won't be any amusing enemies in this place, right?"

"Yes. I'm sure there won't be any tough monsters around here."

"You think so? Ah, well, I'll just keep pestering First Brother to spar with me or something while we stay here," Sun Wukong muttered as if he was disappointed by something, then created his clones.

They easily numbered in the several hundred.

That was a considerable number, but the current Sun Wukong found it not that hard to maintain them. Besides, they weren't even created from the medium of his hair.

Nonetheless, the clones of this strength level should be more than enough to deal with monsters pouring out from the dungeons.

Su-hyeun followed that example.

"Arise."

Shu-wuwuwu—

His summons began rising from his shadow.

Prince Nezha, Kali, Gluttony, Gyges, and many other Predators that had become Su-hyeun's summoned creatures showed up. He felt his Death Aura stat decreasing at an alarming rate, but he wasn't really worried about that.

"Let's meet again in the First Brother's house one day from now."

After all, he was thinking of enjoying a break after taking care of all the dungeons that appeared in the Path to Reincarnation.

"Alright, let's do that. Later."

Paht, pa-pa-pa-paht—!

Sun Wukong and his clones all vanished from the spot.

Su-hyeun issued a new command to his summons next, "Complete and utter annihilation of all dungeons. That's your task from now on."

The summons all nodded at the same time after hearing his command. Prince Nezha, famed for his loyalty and personality befitting a warrior, even knelt before Su-hyeun.

However, Su-hyeun hurriedly waved his hand since Death Aura was constantly seeping out of him even as they wasted time like this. "Okay, okay. Disperse."

* * *

Night descended on the Path to Reincarnation.

The day deepened, and then the darkness covered the world. Frigid silence came to visit the residence now that Su-hyeun and Sun Wukong weren't around.

Lang Mei enjoyed the tea brewed by the Bull Demon King. She then went outside the house again.

Since he told her not to go outside the barrier, she decided to take a stroll within the designated area.

"How unfair, though," she pouted while thinking about Su-hyeun and Sun Wukong from earlier. "They don't even want to share the truth with me."

She could easily tell by looking at Su-hyeun's eyes that he definitely knew something. He knew about the "dungeons" and the monsters that came out from there. That was what his eyes were saying.

Not only that, but Su-hyeun was a lousy liar, to begin with.

His words contained his consideration toward her. She knew that his reply was definitely a lie meant for her sake.

Just in case, she also asked the Bull Demon King, but he, too, replied in a similar way.

"Dear, I'm not sure what's going on, either."

While saying that, the Bull Demon King serenely drank the tea he had brewed himself—the tea that tasted so much better than anything she could brew.

She got a bit upset by his reply, which was why she went for a stroll on her own.

She wanted to help.

The Bull Demon King seemed not as keen, but she was different. She had seen far too many discarded corpses of people on the Path to Reincarnation, whose deaths were caused by the monsters' ambushes.

The Path to Reincarnation was the world where those without sins or those who had paid for theirs temporarily stayed for the promise of moving onto the next world. Dying in this place was the same as being erased from existence itself. She knew this all too well. That was why she shed so many tears at their unmoving bodies.

She couldn't stay still and do nothing. However, the Bull Demon King didn't seem to care about any of that. To him, the only thing that mattered was Lang Mei and nothing else.

Step—

After walking for a long while, her steps gradually slowed down. She eventually came to a complete stop then raised her head.

"Who goes there?"

No one replied to her question.

Not even a single breeze blew inside the barrier the Bull Demon King had created, so even the common sounds of rustling grass could be heard.

Lang Mei asked again, "Are you just going to follow me around in silence, then?"

"You're surprisingly perceptive, lady."

The stranger still didn't reveal itself, only allowing his voice to be heard.

But she didn't care. It would be fine as long as they could hold a conversation. At least, that was what she thought. She was only curious about why this being was following her around, so what the owner of the voice looked like didn't matter to her.

"How did you get in here?"

"It wasn't that difficult, you see."

"Meaning you're strong enough to come and go as you please?"

"Correct."

"And your purpose is?"

"Aren't you a bold one? Are you not scared?"

"I'm not really familiar with something like that."

When she replied like that, a laughter-like sound came back to her as a response. This quiet little chortle sounded so clear within this still forest.

"I thought I might be able to satisfy your curiosity."

"My curiosity, you say?"

"Indeed. Weren't you curious? Why are the dead people staying in the underworld dying again? And just what are these dungeons that keep appearing in this world?"

"You can tell me all about those things?"

"Of course."

Shu-wuwuwu—

At that moment, a massive shadow loomed over Lang Mei's figure from behind.

"That's because I've created them all."

She turned her head to look behind her.

This being's face wasn't visible. It was impossible to tell whether this "person" was a man or a woman because of the hair cascading down their shoulders.

This person's chin seemed slender but, at the same time, angular and thick from some other angles. The faintly visible corners of this creature's lips were curling up just a little.

Lang Mei stared at this being and then asked, "It was you?"

"Correct."

"Hmm. I see," she nodded as if she understood, then turned her head elsewhere. "That's what this person said, dear?"

"Since when did you know I was here, dear?"

Step, step—

The Bull Demon King stepped out from behind a tree.

Ominous aura was spreading out from all around him. There shouldn't be any winds blowing here. Yet, the bone-chilling winds suddenly filled up the surroundings to envelop not just Lang Mei but even the "shadow" standing behind her.

"Hello, Shiva."

"Well, hello there, Bull Demon King."

"Why don't we take our time introducing ourselves? For now, I'd prefer that you distance yourself away from my wife."

Ruuuumble—

The ground began trembling loudly.

While maintaining his serene expression, the Bull Demon King's narrowed eyes opened wider.

"Because I'm about to get very angry, you see."