As the three continued their journey toward Edna, the landscape began to shift dramatically. Familiar forests and plains gave way to increasingly bizarre terrain—floating stones defying gravity, rivers flowing upward, and trees growing in impossible geometric patterns. This was the beginning of the Holy Meridian, the first of twenty places before reaching Edna.
"The laws of nature weaken here," Sun Wukong explained, his face unusually serious. "This is why most beings can't survive in this region. Their minds cannot process the contradiction between what they know and what they see."
Girmora, observing an inverted waterfall, turned to his companions. "But we're fine. Why?"
"Because," Hoghor grinned, tapping his horns, "we're weird enough already. Right? Former admin of the universe here!"
"That's not it," Sun Wukong shook his head. "It's because we've all experienced death in some form. I died and was reborn in the Eight-Trigram Furnace. Hoghor split his essence and returned. And you, Girmora…"
Girmora's eyes widened. "I… I never died."
"Did you?" Sun Wukong's golden eyes pierced into him. "The servant who blindly followed orders—wasn't he metaphorically dead? The you who now cracks awful jokes and throws pies at friends—isn't that a kind of rebirth?"
The silence that followed was broken by a slow clap from Hoghor. "Wow, that's deep. Being a Buddha really teaches you some profound stuff, huh?"
"Actually," Sun Wukong scratched his head, "I read it in a fortune cookie."
The tension broke as they all laughed, but their joy was short-lived. Before them, a massive wall of pure darkness loomed into the sky, seeming to devour light itself.
"The Gate of Nihility," Sun Wukong whispered. "The first of the Twenty Trials before Edna."
Hoghor stepped forward, squinting at the wall. "So… what's the trial?"
"To pass the Gate of Nihility, one must face their deepest fears," a voice echoed from within the darkness. "But beware, it's not about conquering fear. It's about understanding it."
The three friends exchanged glances. Without a word, they clasped hands and stepped into the darkness.
Inside, they found themselves separated, each facing their own nightmares.
Girmora stood before rows of identical servants, all mindlessly following orders, all wearing his face. "Join us," they cried. "Return to simplicity. Return to certainty. No more difficult choices. No more responsibility."
Sun Wukong faced a mirror reflecting his image as the Great Sage Equal to Heaven—almighty, feared by gods and demons, yet completely alone. "Power is freedom," his shadow whispered. "Why share glory with these lesser beings?"
Hoghor found himself back in the Tribunal dimension, but this time, he was offered limitless power. "You could protect them forever," the Tribunal's voice tempted. "You could ensure they never suffer again."
Each of them stood at a crossroads of choice. And slowly, they began to understand.
Girmora looked at his servant-self and realized his fear wasn't of returning to that state. His fear was that he had never truly left it. That every joke he made, every independent thought he had, was just another form of following orders—this time, the expectations of his friends.
Sun Wukong stared at his powerful shadow and understood he wasn't afraid of being alone. He feared that his connections with others made him weak and vulnerable. Caring for his friends meant he could never reach his full potential.
And Hoghor, faced with ultimate power, finally saw the truth—he wasn't afraid of being powerless to protect his friends. He feared his desire to protect them would lead him to control them, stripping away their freedom in the name of safety.
As this understanding dawned, the darkness began to fade. They found themselves on the other side of the gate, reunited but changed. Each could see in the other's eyes that they, too, had faced something profound.
"Well," Hoghor broke the silence, his voice slightly unsteady, "that… was intense."
"Indeed," Girmora nodded, then suddenly smiled. "But you know what would make us feel better? I have some new experimental cookies—"
"NO!" Sun Wukong and Hoghor yelled in unison.
The tension broke as they laughed again, but this time, it was a different kind of laughter—a laughter that acknowledged their fears and accepted them, rather than trying to hide them.
Ahead, twenty more trials awaited before Edna. But they had learned something valuable: true strength wasn't about being fearless. It was about being afraid and moving forward anyway, together.
"So," Hoghor looked ahead at the strange landscape, "what's the first trial?"
"The Trial of Memory," Sun Wukong answered. "Where all sorrows and silences become impossible."
"Oh no," Girmora paled. "Does that mean I have to admit what really happened to Wukong's stash of bananas?"
"WHAT happened to those bananas?!"
"Look!" Hoghor quickly pointed forward. "The first trial! Let's face it right now!"
As they walked on, bickering and laughing, the sacred path to Edna seemed a little less terrifying. After all, they had faced their deepest fears. What could be worse than that?
The answer, as they would soon discover, was plenty. But that is a story for another chapter…
Somewhere in the Tribunal dimension, unseen entities observed their progress with keen interest.
"They passed the first step ," one voice said.
"Yes," another responded. "But the Tribunal will be different. Especially when they learn what truly awaits them at Edna…"
"Should we warn them?"
"No. Some truths must be discovered the hard way. That's why it's called the Tribunal of Truth."
And in the distance, the peak of Edna loomed, its summit hidden in clouds that seemed to close around it entirely, its shadow vague, awaiting those brave or foolish enough to seek its secrets.
Hoghor, Sun Wukong, and Girmora stood at the threshold of the first trial, still processing the revelations about the path before them. What they had initially believed to be a straightforward journey proved far more grueling—twenty trials, each demanding five years of unwavering dedication.
"One hundred years," Sun Wukong calculated, his voice heavy. "The road to Edna demands a full century of our lives."
Hoghor traced the ancient stone marker that detailed the trials. "Each trial shatters something within us only to rebuild it stronger. The Gate of Nihility is merely the first."
The cloaked figure they pursued had left a message carved into the stone: "Only those who survive all twenty trials may reach Edna. Many have entered. None have ever completed them."
That night, as they made camp, each silently reflected on what they had endured at the Gate of Nihility. The shallow fears they had initially confronted were only the surface; beneath lay a deeper, far more haunting truth.
Hoghor sat apart from the fire, his crimson eyes unfocused. The shadow of the Tribunal's infinite power had not been his true fear. In the darkest moments of the trial, he had seen his childhood home—the day when everything changed. His demon parents, peaceful scholars who had chosen to live among humans, lay lifeless on the floor. The villagers who had slain them stood with bloodied weapons, their faces twisted in fear and hatred of what they did not understand.
Young Hoghor had hidden in the cellar, listening as the villagers justified their actions: "They are demons. They cannot be trusted. Better to kill them before they kill us." On that day, he learned that fear could turn anyone into a monster. His pursuit of power, his desire to protect, all stemmed from that cellar—from a powerless child who could not save his parents.
Hoghor had once been a beloved, child, brought up into a world where his kind seldom took pity on humans. From a very young age, he harboured a unique concept of justice and of peace between his people and mankind, which is the essence of an idealistic dream that has cost him dearly. His idealism rejected by his parents, who were powerful beings that backed his would be assassins, were mercilessly executed and slaughtered before him at the tender age of 120 or a human equivalent of eight Hoghor had the power and might as well as the intellect of any adult.
Life became a nightmare for the young Hoghor. Assassins waited in the shadows, blades smeared with the magical poison specially bred for his kind. Dark wizards, however, cast curses intended to sap the strength from a soul and tear flesh from bone. Every blow added new scars, a finger here, a foot there, until Hoghor became the horrible specter of himself, one leg and one arm of a man.
The curse that afflicted his body was vicious. He suffered in this maimed existence for a mere ten thousand years, but each day represented the indomitable strength of his will. But when the healing time finally arrived, it was no blessing. As his form reformed it was impossibly agonizing: new flesh sprouted from the scars of the accursed, his bones lit the fires of hell as they rebuilt themselves, his organs bent and reshaped from the powerful but malign magic. Every moment of recovery threatens to drain his essence, a curse so cleverly crafted that even a second's hesitation could see his soul devoured by the same forces trying to restore him.
Girmora, typically eager to serve others, sat stiffly near the fire. The trial had forced him to confront memories long buried. He had not been born a servant; he had been made one. His birth parents, high-ranking celestial bureaucrats, had treated him as a project, not a child. Every imperfection met with "correction." Every failure brought "discipline." They broke his spirit under the guise of perfecting him, until serving others became the only way he felt worthy of existence.
The endless line of servile reflections he had witnessed in the trial did not show his fear of becoming a servant again—they revealed his terror of facing what had created that servitude. Each identical face bore wounds like his own; each hollow expression masked the same screams he had silenced.
Sun Wukong, the mighty Monkey King, sat atop a floating stone, his golden staff resting on his lap. His visions within the trial had delved deeper than solitude. He had seen himself once again within the Heavenly Army, a general revered and feared. But this time, he saw through the masks worn by the celestial beings. Their divine grace concealed celestial arrogance. Their heavenly justice masked heavenly cruelty. He had raged against Heaven not out of ambition, but because he had glimpsed the rot beneath its flawless facade.
His fear was not divine retribution, but that Heaven's corruption had seeped into him during his years as the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven. Somewhere within him lurked the same capacity for divine cruelty disguised as divine justice.
"The second trial begins tomorrow," Sun Wukong finally said, breaking the heavy silence. "The Trial of Burning Memories."
Girmora read from the ancient texts they had gathered. "Five years reliving our worst memories, experiencing every moment as though it were happening again. No shortcuts, no escape from the pain. The trial only ends when we fully process the trauma we carry."
"That's not the hardest part," Hoghor added, his voice unusually calm. "The texts say we must understand our tormentors. Not forgive. Not excuse. Merely understand the fear and pain that drove them to harm us."
The weight of this knowledge settled within them. Five years of facing not only their pain but the humanity of those who inflicted it. The first day, confronting their fears, now seemed simple by comparison.
"Five years, and then five more, and five more after that," Sun Wukong murmured. "By the time we reach Edna, we will be entirely different beings."
"If we reach it," Girmora corrected. "The marker says no one has ever completed all twenty trials."
Hoghor stood, walking toward the entrance of the second trial. The ancient symbols carved into the stone pulsed with a faint glow. "The cloaked figure made it this far. They are somewhere ahead of us, facing the same ordeals."
"But why?" Girmora asked. "What is in Edna that could justify a century of suffering?"
"The power to decide life and death," Sun Wukong answered. "To alter not only the future but the past. To heal wounds before they are ever inflicted."
They all understood the temptation. Hoghor could save his parents. Girmora could escape his brutal childhood. Sun Wukong could prevent Heaven's decay from spreading.
"But changing the past..." Hoghor began.
"Would change who we are," Sun Wukong finished. "All that we have suffered has made us what we are."
"Then why continue?" Girmora asked. "If we don't plan to rewrite our pasts, why endure these trials?"
The answer came slowly, thoughtfully. "Because understanding our pain may be more valuable than erasing it," Hoghor suggested. "The cloaked figure seeks Edna to change their fate. We must reach it to understand why fate unfolded as it did."
As the first light of dawn touched the horizon, they prepared to enter the second trial. Twenty stone gates stretched into the distance, each representing five years of confronting different facets of themselves. The Trial of Burning Memories. The Trial of Melting Identities. The Trial of Eternal Solitude. The Trial of Shattered Faith. On and on they marched, each promising its own unique transformation through suffering.
"A century of trials," Sun Wukong said, adjusting his golden staff. "Good thing I'm immortal."
"And I'm a demon," Hoghor added. "We age differently."
They both looked at Girmora, who gave a faint smile. "The texts say time flows differently within the trials. We won't age physically—only spiritually."
As they stepped through the second gate, the air thickened with memory. The five-year journey through their worst moments had begun. Their only solace lay in knowing they faced it together, even as each experienced their own private hell.
Somewhere ahead, the cloaked figure pressed onward, perhaps already transformed by the trials they had endured. The path to Edna stretched endlessly before them, promising not only power at its end but understanding. Whether that understanding would bring peace or further anguish remained to be seen.
The Trial of Burning Memories began, and their world dissolved into the past. Their hundred-year journey had commenced.
In the distance, the summit of Edna remained shrouded in clouds, patient as always. It had waited millennia for someone to complete its trials. It could wait another century.
The cloaked figure, already three trials deep, paused briefly on their path. They had felt the trio enter the second trial. "So much pain yet to process," they whispered into the empty air. "I wonder if they'll understand when they learn the truth of Edna..."
But that truth was still seventeen trials away, and each trial would demand its pound of flesh before revealing its lesson. The road to understanding was long and fraught with suffering.
The transformation had begun.