Chapter 78: Battle of the Minds

This was Old Wang’s spiritual world.

The entire realm was tranquil, like a grove of Zen staves kissed by morning breeze and dew. Every Pandaren elder on Misty Isle, sensing life’s end approaching, would come to the Zen Staff Forest, plant their staff into the earth, and sit cross-legged beside it in meditation. The staff would swiftly take root and sprout, and when the Pandaren elder passed away, it would grow into a tree. The elder’s soul would linger beside the tree, guarding it, merging into the wood. This was the Zen Staff Forest—the sacred ground of Misty Isle.

It was the place most deeply etched in Old Wang’s memory, for it was there that his master, Shang Xi, who had guided him and taught him both martial skills and wisdom, awaited. It was also there he felt the spiritual will of generations of Pandaren elders, received their guidance and aid, communed with the great turtle Shen-zhenzi for three days and nights, and thus, in less than two years, ascended to the rank of monk master, breaking a record that had stood among the Pandaren for ten thousand years, and laying a solid foundation for his later advancement to master and grandmaster.

Likewise, it was from there that Old Wang spirited away Ji Firepaw and Aysa Cloudsinger—and, most importantly, the little girl Lili Stormstout—embarking on a journey to the distant Eastern Kingdoms to save Azeroth in what could only be described as a reckless adventure.

Old Wang’s spiritual world maintained the Pandaren tradition: serene, harmonious, like the starry sky, like the abyss, like a windless sea undisturbed, like a silent ancient forest.

But now, darkness pressed from all sides, like a black sky.

A terrifying presence was invading.

Staring at the amorphous black beast, and at the blood-red eyes at its forefront, eyes brimming with madness and primal desire, Old Wang recalled the Sha he had encountered upon arriving in Pandaria years ago.

There was a resemblance. Both were magical entities without physical form, beasts saturated with negative emotions, continually affecting the bodies and minds of others, even possessing the ability to inhabit another’s body, using it as a vessel...

Neither cared for gender; male or female, it mattered not.

But differences remained. The Sha were divided into types. The Seven Sha represented seven distinct negative emotions: Fear, Anger, Hatred, Doubt, Despair, Pride, and Violence. Each Sha embodied only one, and its influence upon a “vessel” was singular.

The “Beast,” however, was different. It manipulated the vessel’s primal desires, wild animal nature, the original sin and innate evil of all living things. Once it possessed someone, it could endlessly absorb the sins of countless people in this world; the more crime, the stronger the Beast’s descent, the more savage its nature.

The Seven Sha lacked beastly ferocity.

To Old Wang, the “Beast” felt more akin to the wild gods of natural life, more like Goldrinn, the wolf demigod who dared to howl at the Moon Goddess.

But that was unimportant.

For whether Sha or Goldrinn, Old Wang was well acquainted with them. He knew all the wild gods of Azeroth, even the Loa demigods of the troll races; he had dealt with them all.

He was experienced in expelling LOA gods seeking to enter the material world, in banishing Sha possessing Zhu Taran or Garrosh, or other intruders.

“Was it you who blocked me from possessing her and descending upon Earth?”

“A mere ant dares to stand before a great god?”

“There is only one fate for you—death!”

An enraged voice rang out, blood-red eyes fixed upon Old Wang. A beast’s paw, thick with black fur, reached toward him.

“This creature isn’t weak… Interesting!” Old Wang smiled.

This was his spiritual world. The boundless darkness outside belonged to the Beast’s spiritual world. The Beast’s spiritual realm was fiercely suppressing and assaulting Old Wang’s domain, but the black giant beast Old Wang saw was not the Beast’s true form—merely its projection.

And even this projection’s power far outstripped any ordinary mortals; it was a force no ordinary person could hope to resist. No wonder Erika, trained harshly for over a decade by Stick Sage, had succumbed to the Beast’s dominance, eventually merging with it to become “Black Void.”

Yet so what?

The Beast, unable to fully descend, could only borrow Erika’s soul. The darkness outside was its spiritual world, but the black giant beast was in truth Erika’s nightmare, her phantasm.

This was a contest of spirits and souls, devoid of true power.

And in such a contest, the soul most stable, the will most resolute, the experience most profound, the techniques most varied—these determined victory.

This body, languishing for eighteen years, abstaining even from its nature for the sake of cultivation, was, at best, a fairly ordinary Pandaren monk master—like the elders of Misty Isle or the masters of Pandaria.

But the soul carried by this vessel—

Had been blessed by many dragon kings, wild gods, and Titan guardians,

Had grown stronger over decades of three intertwined lifetimes,

Had achieved wholeness through countless unions of soul and flesh, joy or agony,

Had been nourished in the Cradle of Life,

Had found resolve in the torment of the Seven Sha,

Had wandered like a demigod through the Emerald Dream, where time and space held no meaning,

Had witnessed epic wars in the time-reversed ancient conflicts,

Had received the blessings of all Titans in the Pantheon, save Sargeras.

Such a soul and spirit—how strong must they be?

“Filthy beast, dare you?”

“Soul and body, part as one!”

The soul detached from the body, floating in the spiritual world, swelling ever larger.

As the black beast’s claw, thick with fur, reached over, Old Wang was as small as its gray nails.

But when the claw arrived before him, the black beast was as minuscule as Old Wang’s white nails—pitifully tiny.

“Surprised? Caught off guard?”

You thought I was merely a slightly chubby youth, barely eighteen?

Sorry, but my soul is greater than you could ever imagine, my experience richer than you could ever hope for, my figure rounder than you noticed, my techniques far beyond…

In another world!

Old Wang reached out, as if to catch an ant, and seized the black beast.

Then, with a squeeze,

Crushed it.

The boundless darkness retreated at once.

Yet a pair of even more terrifying blood-red eyes appeared amid the darkness, separated by unknown distances of time and space.

“I will return!”

“You cannot stop me!”

“Even if you kill this girl, you cannot stop me, for there are many Black Voids in this world!”

“Even if you kill them all, it will not matter.”

“As long as there is evil and beastliness in this world, new Black Voids will be born.”

“I will descend, eventually!”

Darkness vanished completely. Around him, starlight blossomed—the stars of three lifetimes and worlds fused together, representing the cosmic sky of Old Wang’s subconscious, and his yearning for home.

“Descend?”

“Then come.”

“Next time you arrive, don’t leave.”

“I have experience in dealing with things like you.”

He shook his head, smiling.

“Mmm… ah…”

A moan sounded, drawing Old Wang back to reality.