Five hundred years passed.

In the great Tang Empire, the Emperor Taizong found himself haunted by restless spirits, victims of wars he had waged. Only sacred Buddhist scriptures from the Western Paradise could bring peace to these souls.

A call went out across the empire: who would undertake this journey?

"I will go," said a young Buddhist monk named Xuanzang—soon to be known as Tripitaka, or Tang Sanzang. "To bring the scriptures back for the salvation of all beings."

The Emperor, moved by the monk's devotion, named him his sworn brother. He gifted him a purple-gold cassock, a nine-ringed monk's staff, and a white dragon horse.

The Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin herself, appeared before the monk.

"Your journey will be treacherous," she warned. "Demons in countless forms will seek your flesh, for legend says that eating the flesh of a holy monk grants immortality. But you shall not travel alone."

She told him of the prisoners she had prepared: three disciples, each a fallen immortal, each waiting beneath their own unique punishment.

"Travel west. Speak the holy words. Free them. They shall be your protectors."

Thus began the journey that would become legend. Tang Sanzang set forth from Chang'an, riding west toward the unknown, armed with nothing but faith and the promise of companions yet to be found.

Before him lay eighty-one tribulations, demon kings, enchanted mountains, and the long, winding road to the Western Paradise.

Behind him lay everything he had ever known.

It was, as all great journeys are, a beginning disguised as an ending.