They buried them at dawn.
On a ridge above the ruins of the temple, three cairns of stone stood against the blood-orange sky.
Bajie's rake rested atop his mound, its tines bent but still proud.
Devrudra's broken chain lay coiled like a sleeping serpent over his grave.
Li Yan's map — the relic that had guided them here — was folded neatly beneath a flat, polished stone, its edges fluttering faintly in the wind.
No words were spoken at first. The sound of the wind through the broken mountains said enough.
Kael placed a hand on each cairn in turn, feeling the cold stone. He had no prayer to give — only the silent promise that their deaths would not be wasted.
That night, he sat apart from the campfire, writing in a weathered leather-bound book. The pen in his hand gleamed faintly in the firelight — long, slender, etched with patterns that seemed to shift when the light caught them.
Sena came over quietly, her bare feet barely making a sound on the stone. "I didn't know you kept a diary."
Kael gave a small shrug without looking up. "It's not for anyone else. Just… things I don't want to forget."
Her gaze lingered on the pen. "That's not just a pen, is it?"
He paused, then looked at it himself. "Found it the morning after my mother died. I'd passed out in the woods, woke up, and it was lying beside me. Never seen anything like it."
His thumb brushed over the engravings. "Feels… alive, somehow. But I've never heard it speak. If it's a relic, it's been silent my whole life."
Sena's eyes narrowed. "Dormant soul relics are rare. Some only awaken when they decide you're ready."
Kael set the pen down, looking into the fire. "If it's waiting for me… it might be waiting a long time."
The next morning, Tripitaka stood at the edge of camp, his travel pack over one shoulder.
"I'll return to the Tian Sect," he said. "They need to know what Tao Ye has become. And if we're to face Ottalaus, we'll need more than three relic users and a pen with secrets."
Kael nodded. "We'll meet again."
Tripitaka's eyes softened, just slightly. "You have the Great Sage's staff now. Prove you deserve it."
With that, he was gone, his steps carrying him down the broken path until the morning mist swallowed him.
Far away, in the highest chamber of a dark, cold tower, Ottalaus sat alone at his desk.
Before him, in a glass case, lay the stolen half of the Ruyi Jingu Bang — the prize he'd pulled from the India temple months ago.
He turned the case slowly in his hands, admiring the perfect golden sheen.
"A relic, torn from under their noses," he murmured. "Soon… the rest will follow."
But as he set it down, the gold shimmered. The perfect staff half rippled… then unraveled into a single, coarse monkey hair.
Ottalaus stared, his jaw tightening.
From the shadowy corners of the room, a faint echo of laughter rolled through — mischievous, wild, and unmistakable.
Sun Wukong's voice, carried on nothing but memory, whispered:
"Nice try."
Ottalaus' grip on the hair turned to a fist. "So… the game begins."