A huge force slammed into me. My body twisted from the impact, and I barely held on to Ren’s back. I caught sight of my assailant’s weapon—a gleaming three-pronged spear.
Erlang Shen.
Relief flooded through me. I lowered my weapon and grumbled, “In the future, if you ever need to get my attention, please tap me on the shoulder instead of almost killing me—”
“You warriors are getting easier and easier to trick, you know that?” Erlang Shen interrupted. “Gods too. So naive.”
“What are you talking about?” I paused. Something was wrong. The two gods I’d grown used to seeing beside Erlang Shen weren’t at his shoulder. “Wait. Where are Guanyin and Nezha?”
“Ahhhh. You won’t be hearing from those two for a while.”
“Huh?”
Quick as a flash, the warrior god whipped around his spear and slammed it into my gut.
Pain shot up and down my body. And then I was tumbling through the air, falling toward the ground.
CHAPTER
26
That might have ended tragically if someone didn’t fly by and snatch me out of the air. With a thud and “oof!” I landed on a cloud, wobbling on my knees. I looked up toward my savior—Sun Wukong.
“Get up and fight,” barked the Monkey King. “There’s not a moment to waste!”
“But—but Erlang Shen, he—he betrayed—”
“Erlang Shen betrayed no one. He has always been the Jade Emperor’s right-hand servant and spy,” the Monkey King explained. “Have you opened your eyes now, warrior?”
The truth was almost too awful to bear. “So he … Erlang Shen … was never on our side?” I thought back and remembered how I’d found it odd that Erlang Shen was giving us another riddle to solve—as though he wanted to stall for time. Maybe he had. He’d been shady all along, and I’d ignored the signs.
“Of course he wasn’t on your side. And you’re all fools for thinking otherwise. Now, stop sniveling and get up. If you want to teach Erlang Shen a lesson, we’ll have to work together. I owe him a good pounding,” growled the Monkey King.
Sun Wukong was right. We were in the middle of a battle. This was no time to let the truth of Erlang Shen’s allegiances shake me.
I took in my surroundings, counting the opponents who circled us. I stopped after ten, because it was too depressing. High above, Ren was locked in battle with both the black dragons.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked. Sun Wukong and I circled on our cloud, back-to-back, weapons facing the Heavenly warriors. “Any specific formations you want to try out on Erlang Shen? Fancy techniques?”
“Destroy him! And everything else in our path!” roared the Monkey King.
Okay, that was pretty easy to understand.
We made a beeline toward Erlang Shen, who scattered spirits like they were made from paper. Five soldiers charged me from all sides. I swung the Ruyi Jingu Bang in a wide arc, pushing them back.
I hadn’t fought with the Monkey King’s weapon yet, but I’d fought many times with Fenghuang. The Ruyi Jingu Bang shouldn’t be too different. As Sun Wukong and I battled back-to-back, I soon found that I was both right and wrong about that. The magical staff was about the same size as Fenghuang, but that was where the similarities ended.
When I was the Heaven Breaker, my actions had pretty much been controlled by Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West. Wielding the Ruyi Jingu Bang was something I did completely on my own.
“Erlang Shen!” Sun Wukong yelled once we got within fighting range of the warrior god.
Erlang Shen brushed a pair of monkeys off his shoulders, as easily as though they were feathers. He sneered down at us, his eyes glowing bright with the fire of battle.
“Monkey,” he roared. “You’ve let yourself go since we last fought, I see. Eating too many peaches?”
“Eat this!” Sun Wukong opened his mouth and hurled out a column of flame. Erlang Shen dodged it and launched himself forward.
The two gods met in a clash of golden light and noise that seemed to shake the entire world. I rushed to the Monkey King’s aid, but a purple-skinned warrior leapt out of nowhere, brandishing two lethal-looking knives.
I blocked both of his attacks, first from the knife in his right hand and then his left. I delivered a finishing blow by knocking him over the head with the Ruyi Jingu Bang. The warrior fell backward and crashed into the warriors behind him, knocking them over like a roll of very angry dominoes.
The Ruyi Jingu Bang already felt more familiar to me than Jinyu’s sword. Maybe it was because of the sacrifice we—especially Ashley—had made to get it back from the Underworld. Maybe it was the magic of the Hungry Ghost Festival giving power to all the dead, including this weapon.
Every time I lifted the Ruyi Jingu Bang, I could picture Ashley’s face in my head, egging me on to keep fighting.
“C’mon! Is that the best you’ve got?” Erlang Shen blasted Sun Wukong with purple flames.
“Are you trying to roast me or tickle me with that pathetic fire?” The Monkey King rolled out of the way and unfortunately tumbled into a crowd of the Jade Emperor’s army. They surrounded him with their weapons pointed right at him.
Erlang Shen let out a deep, satisfied belly laugh. “It’s the end for you, Sun Wukong!”
“Not if I can help it!”
A streak of color shot through the sky, so fast it was almost like it had shot out of a cannon. The figure collided into Erlang Shen, sending the warrior god back with a roar.
I gasped at the sight of the familiar god who’d arrived on the scene: Nezha. He traced fiery circles with his hoop in one hand, his red spear grasped in the other.
“Erlang Shen,” he bellowed. “You traitor. Did you really think you could trap Guanyin and me in that cave for long?”
Erlang Shen circled back to Nezha on his cloud, already recovered from the boy god’s attack. “No. I didn’t need you to be trapped for that long, though. I’ve
