Journey to the West: Capturing the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord at the Start

The Celestial Emissary Xuan Yuan Zhi Mo Zhen Jun, on a divine mission to patrol the Western Continent of Niu-He-Zhou, arrives at the Yellow Flower Monastery. There, he finds demonic miasma shrouding the sky and poisonous vapors coiling in every direction. The Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord blocks his path. Without a word, they clash in fierce combat—the Emissary wielding his whisk to transform it into a white python, while the Demon Lord's sword spits green pestilence; the Eight-Trigram robe billows with purple mist against the thousand-eyed golden cloak's yellow gleam. One is a true immortal before the Grand Luo, the other the venomous king beyond the Spider Cave—all bound by karmic reckoning, their might revealed on this narrow road. At first, the Demon Lord fights with his blade, but after thirty exchanges he falters, leaping to the hilltop and tearing open his robe to unveil his thousand eyes. The Emissary counters with divine magic, forcing him back to his true form—a giant centipede, still writhing and twisting. ...But that is only the fantasy. The real story is far simpler: In that year, a six-year-old novice Daoist boy named Lu Zhao, returning to the monastery after playing in the stream, spotted a golden centipede dozing in a crack between rocks. Seized by a childish whim, he reached out and pinched it between his fingers. (Set eight hundred years before the Tang Monk's pilgrimage, this adaptation stays faithful to the original novel's spirit while offering a light, fitting twist.)