Destruction of Erlang Shen

 The war was over. The heavens themselves seemed to hold their breath, the clouds stained a bruised purple and angry crimson from the celestial blood that had been spilled. On the blasted plains before the shattered Southern Gate, two figures remained. One stood, the other was broken at his feet.

Chi You, the War God reborn, loomed like a mountain of scarred flesh and blackened iron. His four eyes, two on his face and two on his torso, burned with the infernal light of a billion slaughtered souls. His bull horns swept back from a brow thick with rage and triumph. In his six hands, he held no weapon, for the only weapon he needed was the utter devastation he had wrought.

At his feet, half-submerged in a crater of his own making, was Erlang Shen. The Illustrious Sage, the God of Justice, the nephew of the Jade Emperor, was a ruin. His silver armor was rent and blackened, twisted into a cage of jagged metal that bit into his flesh. His divine spear, the three-pointed, double-edged blade that had cleaved demons and gods alike, lay snapped in two a dozen yards away. His celestial eye in the center of his forehead was squeezed shut, leaking a thin trickle of golden blood. One arm was bent at an impossible angle, and his legs were a mess of pulverized bone and torn muscle. He was conscious, just barely, suspended in an agony so profound it had transcended sound.

Chi You let out a low chuckle, a sound like grinding continents. He nudged Erlang’s head with the toe of his massive, iron-shod boot. "Look at you, little godling," he rumbled, his voice a chorus of malice and ancient power. "The paragon of celestial order. The perfect soldier. And now… just meat. Broken meat on a broken field. Where is your Jade Emperor now? Where are the armies you led with such pristine arrogance?"

Erlang’s one good eye fluttered open. The pupil was a pinprick of defiance in a sea of pain. A broken whisper escaped his lips, thick with blood. "He… will… unmake you."

Chi You laughed, a true, booming laugh that shook the very ground. He knelt, his massive form eclipsing the dying light of the heavens. With one huge hand, he gripped the front of Erlang's shattered armor and lifted him effortlessly. Erlang cried out, a raw, strangled sound as shattered ribs grated and torn muscles screamed.

"Unmake me?" Chi You purred, bringing Erlang's face close to his own. The stench of brimstone and ancient blood washed over the fallen god. "He had his chance. You were his finest tool, his most perfect weapon. And I shattered you. I broke his favorite toy. No, Yang Jian," he used Erlang's mortal name, a deliberate, intimate cruelty. "The time for unmaking is over. Now begins the time of… re-purposing."

With a grunt, Chi You tore the front plate of Erlang's armor away. The sound of rending divine metal was like a shriek. Beneath, Erlang's famed physique was a canvas of horrific injuries—deep gashes weeping golden ichor, bruises the color of a dying galaxy. But he was still a god. A faint, golden light pulsed from his chest, his Yang Core, the source of his immense power. It was weakened, flickering like a guttering candle, but it was still there.

"Ah, there it is," Chi You breathed, his four eyes fixated on the light. "The purity. The discipline. The raw, untamed power of the heavens, condensed into one perfect vessel. For millennia you hoarded it, wielded it with such… restraint. Such a waste."

His other hands began to move, not with the crushing force of a warrior, but with a terrifying, invasive precision. One hand traced the line of Erlang's jaw, forcing his head back. Another slid down his torso, fingers probing the wounds, eliciting fresh waves of agony that made Erlang's body convulse.

"You celestials are all the same," Chi You continued his monologue, his voice a hypnotic, venomous whisper in Erlang’s ear. "You believe power is a thing to be controlled, to be meted out in righteous, measured blows. You are wrong. Power is a thing to be consumed. To be devoured. To be felt in every fiber of your being until you overflow with it."

His hand moved lower, past the navel, to the shredded remnants of Erlang’s trousers. Erlang’s body went rigid. A new kind of fear, colder and more violating than the fear of death, lanced through him. "No…" he rasped, the word barely a puff of air. "Don't…"

"Don't?" Chi You mocked, his fingers deftly tearing away the remaining fabric. "But I must. Your power is tied to your essence, little god. Your core is a furnace, but the fuel… the fuel is the very life within you. The seed of your divinity. You kept it locked away, pure and untouched. A testament to your sterile, boring discipline." His hand closed around Erlang's groin, a grip that was both possessive and mocking. Erlang let out a choked, humiliated sob. "I, on the other hand, am going to be very, very undisciplined with it."

Chi You rose, dragging the broken god with him as if he weighed nothing. He strode from the battlefield, Erlang's useless legs dragging through the blood-soaked dirt. His destination was his command pavilion, a monstrous tent of flayed demon hide stretched over a frame of petrified bone. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of ozone and raw power. Demonic generals and monstrous lieutenants parted before him, their many eyes glowing with avarice and bloodlust as they gazed upon the captive god.

He threw Erlang down onto a cold, obsidian altar in the center of the tent. The impact sent a fresh explosion of pain through Erlang's body, and for a moment, the world dissolved into a white-hot haze. When his vision cleared, Chi You was standing over him, a terrible smile on his face.

"Let the lesson begin," Chi You announced to the assembly of monsters. "Watch closely. This is how you truly break a god. You don't just kill the body. You defile the spirit. You don't just scatter the power. You drink it."

He placed one hand on Erlang's chest, directly over his flickering Yang Core. A surge of corrupt, demonic energy poured into the fallen god. It was not a healing force. It was a parasitic, agitating power, designed not to mend but to stimulate. It bypassed the shattered nerves and broken bones, sinking deep into Erlang's very essence.

Erlang gasped as a bizarre, unwanted heat pooled in his belly. It was a vile mockery of life, a puppet-master's touch pulling strings deep inside him. His body, his disciplined, perfectly controlled body, began to betray him. Despite the agony, despite the humiliation, he felt a stir of arousal. It was a sickening, foreign sensation, forced upon him by Chi You's demonic Qi.

"Feel that, Illustrious Sage?" Chi You chuckled, watching the conflict on Erlang's face. "That is the feeling of your precious control slipping away. Your body knows what I want, even if your mind rebels. Your divine essence is crying out to be released. Let me help it."

His other hand went to work, his touch expert and degrading. Erlang squeezed his eyes shut, tears of shame and fury tracing paths through the grime and blood on his face. He tried to fight it, to focus his will, to smother the reaction. But he was too weak, his body too broken, and Chi You's power was too absolute. The demonic Qi was a poison in his veins, stoking a fire he couldn't quench.

"That's it," Chi You crooned, his voice dripping with predatory delight. "Don't fight it. This is your new purpose. You are no longer a warrior. You are a well. And I am going to drink you dry."

His breath hitched. The pressure built, an unbearable, agonizing friction of spirit and flesh. He was a god of control, of martial and mental perfection. This complete loss of sovereignty over his own body was a torture worse than any physical wound. His back arched against the cold stone, a pained, involuntary spasm, and with a guttural cry torn from the depths of his soul, he climaxed.

It was not a release. It was a hemorrhage of power.

A brilliant, golden light erupted from him, a torrent of pure celestial energy that flowed not outwards as a weapon, but upwards, into Chi You. The War God inhaled it, his four eyes glowing brighter. He shuddered with ecstasy, a look of ravenous satisfaction on his face. "Yes… Yes! So pure! So potent!"

Erlang fell back, limp and gasping. He felt… hollowed out. A significant fraction of his divine power had been ripped from him, siphoned away in the most debasing manner imaginable. The faint golden light of his Yang Core was visibly dimmer.

"Oh, don't look so sad," Chi You mocked, his hand already moving to begin the process again. "We have only just begun. I want all of it. Every last drop of heaven's grace that they poured into you."

The cycle repeated. Again and again, Chi You used his demonic Qi to force Erlang’s broken body to the brink, and then with a cruel, practiced touch, pushed him over the edge. Each climax was a new level of hell, a violent expulsion of his very being. The divine light of his Yang Core flickered and waned, the golden ichor of his wounds flowing slower, turning a paler, more mortal shade.

His mind began to fracture under the strain. The lines between the excruciating pain of his injuries and the forced, sickening pleasure blurred into a single, unending torment. He was trapped in a nightmare of sensation, a prisoner in his own flesh. His thoughts became a disjointed stream of memories: training on Mount Yuquan, fighting alongside the Monkey King, the stern, approving face of his master, the terrified faces of the mortals he had sworn to protect. These images flashed before his eyes, only to be consumed by the leering, triumphant face of Chi You and the feeling of his power being drained away.

"Do you remember what they called you?" Chi You whispered, his voice a constant, insidious presence as he worked. "The Guardian of the Riverlands. A protector. A hero. What will they call you now, I wonder? When they see you like this? Broken. Used. Emptied."

Erlang could no longer form words. He could only whimper, the sounds of a broken animal. The defiance in his eye had long since been extinguished, replaced by a dull, vacant horror. He had been a god. He had stood against the armies of hell, had faced down calamities that could shatter worlds. And he was being unmade by touch and torment on a cold slab of rock.

The process went on for what felt like an eternity. Hours bled into a timeless agony. The gathered demons jeered and laughed, their cruel voices a chorus to his degradation. With each forced release, he felt more of himself slipping away. His divinity, his strength, his will, his very identity. It was all being milked from him, consumed by the monster that loomed over him.

Finally, after a dozen, or a hundred—he had lost count—climaxes, it happened. With one last, pathetic spasm, he gave up the last dregs of his celestial power. There was no flash of golden light this time. Only a faint, sad shimmer, like the last light of a dying star. The glow in his chest, his Yang Core, went out.

He was empty.

The change was immediate and profound. The divine resilience that had kept him alive through his catastrophic injuries was gone. The pain, which had been a roaring inferno, became a dull, crushing weight. He was just a man now. A broken, dying man.

Chi You drew back, a look of supreme satisfaction on his face. He was radiating power, crackling with the stolen celestial energy he had absorbed. He seemed larger, more terrible than before. "It is done," he boomed. "The vessel is empty. The god is dead. All that remains is the shell."

He looked down at the shivering, pathetic figure on the altar. Erlang Shen was barely recognizable. His legendary beauty was gone, replaced by a mask of slack-jawed despair. His eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing. His mind, shattered by the endless cycle of violation and power loss, was gone. There was no one home.

"But the lesson is not quite over," Chi You said softly, a new, chilling intent in his voice. "A trophy must be properly prepared for display."

He reached down and grabbed a handful of Erlang's long, black hair. With a savage roar, he pulled. Erlang screamed, a thin, reedy sound, the first sound he had made in hours. The tearing of his scalp was a sharp, grounding pain in the fog of his broken mind. Chi You held the thick hank of hair aloft like a banner. "The pride of the heavens! Severed!"

His demonic minions cheered.

But he wasn't finished. Two of his six hands clamped down on Erlang’s head, holding it immobile. Another hand, its fingers tipped with jagged claws, moved towards his face. "You saw too much truth with these," Chi You sneered, his clawed thumb pressing against Erlang’s right eyelid. "You judged the world with a clarity I find… irritating."

The world disappeared in a flash of white-hot agony as the claw plunged in. A wet, tearing sound echoed in the tent, followed by a scream that was barely human. Chi You ripped the eye from its socket and held the gory sphere up for all to see. He repeated the process with the left eye, the gruesome sound of its destruction echoing Erlang's choked sobs.

Now, only the third eye remained. The celestial eye. The source of his divine insight, his truth-seeing gaze.

"And this," Chi You whispered, his voice almost reverent in its cruelty, "this is the greatest heresy of all. The eye that claimed to see the heart of all things. Let's see what I see in its heart."

The pain was beyond anything Erlang had ever imagined. It was a violation that struck at the core of his soul. When Chi You’s claw hooked into the divine organ and tore it from his forehead, something inside him broke forever. The last connection to the heavens, to his past, to himself, was severed. He was plunged into a world of absolute darkness, absolute pain, and absolute silence as unconsciousness finally claimed him.

When he awoke, it was to the sound of a crowd. A massive, terrified crowd. He couldn't see them, but he could hear their gasps, their sobs, the horrified whispers of his own name. He was hanging, suspended by chains wrapped around his mangled limbs. A cold wind blew against his mutilated body.

He was on display.

Chi You's voice boomed over the crowd, amplified by demonic magic. "People of the Celestial Realm! Mortals of the Earth! Look upon your champion! Gaze upon your protector!"

A wave of despair washed over the assembled masses. There, hanging from the ruins of the Southern Gate, was the thing that had once been Erlang Shen. His body was a wreck of scar tissue and half-healed wounds. His head was a bloody mess, his hair torn out in patches, his face a triptych of empty, weeping sockets. He was a grotesque effigy, a monument to a broken god.

"This is the might of your Jade Emperor!" Chi You roared. "This is the strength of your 'justice'! I took your finest warrior, your purest hero, and I drained him of his power! I broke his mind! I took his eyes so he could never again look upon you with judgment!"

Erlang could hear them. The people he had fought for, bled for, nearly died for a thousand times over. He could hear their faith shattering like glass. He tried to speak, to offer them some comfort, some last ounce of defiance, but no sound would come out. A raw, guttural keen was all he could manage. His desecrated body was a testament not to his failure, but to their new reality.

"He is my trophy now," Chi You declared, his voice ringing with absolute triumph. "He will hang here for all eternity, a reminder of the day your heavens fell. A reminder of the new order. My order. The age of gods is over. The age of Chi You has begun!"

The crowd was silent, a vast, collective entity frozen in horror and despair. All they could do was stare at the blind, broken figure hanging in chains, the empty vessel that was once their greatest hope, displayed for all the realms to see not as a fallen hero, but as a prize. A thing. A warning. And in the black, silent, painless void that was now his mind, Erlang Shen, for the first time, knew nothing at all.