Pursuit of the Truth

‘A Divine Essence Treasure…’ A glint appeared in Su Ming’s eyes, and he swiftly stood up.

He clearly knew that he did not possess divine abilities which could make the world turn still and even allow him to magnify what he wanted to see, then be able to see fine details that he would otherwise be unable to see.

Even if he gathered Divine Essence in his eyes, he would still not be able to do this.

He had been stunned when it had happened. When he connected the pieces together at that moment, he knew that this was not his Art, but was due to Divine Essence in his eyes possessing some kind of connection with that eyeball that Su Ming did not understand. It was this connection that resulted in that divine ability, which he thought was incredibly powerful when he recalled it.

Su Ming’s eyes shone. At the instant he stood up, he took a swift step forward. He was so quick that he appeared beside Dijiu Mo Sha and the Hearer in the blink of an eye.

Almost at the instant he arrived, a roar that echoed in Su Ming’s heart came from behind the Hearer. Su Ming’s footsteps faltered, but as the Divine Essence Runic Symbols in his eyes shone, he recovered, and the brilliant light in his eyes grew even brighter. Without even sparing a glance at the man, he walked past him, then seized the air behind with his right hand.

With it, booming sounds surged into the sky, and an endless amount of ripples instantly appeared in the air. Other people could not see it, but Su Ming could faintly sense that the crack in the air was swiftly closing up at that moment.

Immediately after, an even more powerful roar echoed in Su Ming’s heart, showing faint signs of fighting against the power of his Divine Essence. When he connected this sound to the roar that reverberated in his heart, it was clear that it wanted to stop him from continuing. When he looked at the crack that was swiftly closing up, he was certain… that the eyeball worshiped by the Hearers… had noticed something terrifying. It sensed the threat Su Ming brought with him, which was why it refused the Hearers that had worshiped it for years, abandoning their tribe members. Instead, it chose to close the crack to prevent Su Ming from coming closer.

Roars that shook the sky shot up from the Hearers’ tribe at that moment. All the tribe members surrounding that eyeball had their hands pressed against their ears, and as they screamed in pain, blood poured out of their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Some of them even died straight away.

The old man who was incredibly frail, feeble, and was covered in festering wounds found his expression changing drastically. He did not know what had happened, but he could sense the terror coming from the eyeball.

It was as if the eyeball had sensed an existence that left it uneasy, and at that moment, it was swiftly closing up the tunnel it had opened.

The eyeball’s pupil was shrinking. The countless vengeful spirits in it were letting out piercing roars, because of which the Hearers either died instantly or let out pained screams, while Su Ming’s heart trembled. Due to that, his body showed signs of stopping.

“Who is it..? Who is it that is terrifying the Malicious Eye!”

With faltering steps, the feeble old man went up to the eyeball and raised his right hand. He pressed it against the creature, intending to sense and see the person who destroyed his tribe’s warriors and terrified the Malicious Eye to the point that it would not care about his tribe members’ survival, going back against its promise to exterminate the Ninth Tribe.

On Su Ming’s side, as his Divine Essence fought against those rumbles, he seized the air with his right hand, then yanked it swiftly outwards. His power erupted with a bang, and the air was immediately torn apart.

At the same time, a violent force erupted from the crack and charged straight towards him. As bangs echoed in the air, he instantly moved backwards, seized Dijiu Mo Sha, and brought him hundreds of feet away from the place. Then, Su Ming lifted his head swiftly to look at the crack he had torn open in the air.

Others would not find anything strange about this crack, but when Su Ming looked at it, he sensed that it was incredibly similar to that eyeball’s pupil.

Su Ming’s appearance and his subsequent act of seizing Dijiu Mo Sha to retreat stunned the latter momentarily. Soon though, he retreated without question himself as well. He might not know why Su Ming had suddenly come over, but the crack that had appeared behind that Hearer gave rise to a sense of danger within him that caused his heart to shiver. Because of this, he had an idea why Su Ming might have arrived.

As for that Hearer, he looked towards Su Ming with an enraged expression, but he did not move forward. Instead, he moved back swiftly, moving to touch that crack behind him.

Su Ming stood in the air and made no move to stop him. When he saw the man touching that crack and the desire to return to his tribe alive on his face, Su Ming smiled coldly.

At that moment, the man let out a shrill scream of pain. At the instant he touched the crack, he was not Relocated, but had all his vitality and his cultivation base sucked out of him. His body instantly withered away, and in the blink of an eye, he was reduced to skin and bones which soon turned into ashes.

Once the crack sucked out the man’s life force, it began to close up right before everyone’s eyes, just like how a person’s wound would heal. During that process, it also retreated swiftly, and in the blink of an eye, only a fine crack was left of it.

“So… you are afraid of me.” Su Ming moved forward and charged towards the rapidly closing crack.

“Let us… not interfere with each other…” A buzzing sound mixed with screeches and an old, ancient air travelled out swiftly from the rapidly closing crack. That sound echoed in the world and stirred up an endless amount of lingering echoes.

“Let us not interfere with each other, heh. If I was not powerful enough, would you still have said those words?” Su Ming asked flatly. He continued closing in on the crack, then raised his right hand and seized the closing crack once again with his fingers.

With a loud rip, the crack was torn open again. This time, Su Ming did not stop. While enduring the roars in his heart and the violent force charging at him from the crack, he rushed inside.

When he stepped into the crack, the roars from the Malicious Eye in the Hearers’ tribe reached their most intense state. Under the barrage from that voice, the old man with his right hand on the Malicious Eye became the first whose body instantly dispersed… After him, all the Hearers around the eyeball immediately died wretched deaths. When they fell on the ground, their bodies withered, and they turned into ashes that vanished into the air.

All of their life force was absorbed by the Malicious Eye during that moment. The eyeball flew up swiftly from the now completely silent tribe formed by black towers and fled into the sky.

During that moment, at the spot where the Hearers died in the tribe, a booming sound rang in the area where the Malicious Eye had previously stayed. A huge crack tore through the air, and Su Ming walked out.

The moment he did so, he raised his head and looked at the hastily fleeing Malicious Eye in the sky.

“Become my eye…” Su Ming said calmly. He did not chase after it, but lifted his right hand and seized the air in the direction of the sky. With a loud bang, a huge hand appeared high above.

That hand was several tens of thousands of feet big, and it was swiftly charging towards the Malicious Eye to seize it.

“No!”

A furious roar came from the Malicious Eye. As it reverberated in the air, it stirred up a large amount of ripples. They crashed into the palm coming towards it from the sky. As booming sounds surged into the heavens, the palm crumbled and disintegrated. The Malicious Eye shot through then and left into the distance once more.

“You and I were fated to meet today…” When Su Ming said these words flatly, he still remained unmoving, but the Duke of Crimson Flame walked out of the air right in front of the Malicious Eye with the sea of fire behind him. When he raised his left hand, the sea of fire turned into a gigantic hand that rushed forward to seize the Malicious Eye.

“Damn it, I refuse!”

Within the cloudy and smoky hue of that Malicious Eye’s pupil were countless malicious spirits roaring ferociously. Some of them had even rushed out of the eyeball to turn into endless ghosts. Quite a large number of them were Hearers, and they all rushed towards the fire palm the Duke of Crimson Flame had created.

At the instant they touched each other, booming sounds rose into the air. The fire palm fell apart and turned into endless embers in a sea of flame that plunged down to the ground. The Malicious Eye noticed a crack that did not have any flames in the plunging sea of fire, and in a flash, it shot out of there, looking as if it was about to fly out of Su Ming’s gaze.

But Su Ming remained as composed as ever.

“… this is your Life,” Su Ming uttered the latter half of his sentence calmly and completed what he had intended to say.

At the instant he said these words, a gigantic shadow appeared right in front of the charging Malicious Eye. That shadow was that of a tree, and it was… the projection of Su Ming’s Ecang!

The appearance of the Ecang projection brought a presence that filled the world and turned into a suppressive force which made the Malicious Eye to let out a screech filled with despair.

“Ecang! Damn you, Ecang! You killed my original body in the past to offer it to Old Man Extermination in exchange for your eternal life… You ambushed me when I was at my weakest when I segregated my Malicious Eyes! If that was not the case… how could you have been my opponent?!

“I… am the first eye that was born before even the universe was even created! I am the first eye that witnessed the rise and fall of the universe! I… I won’t accept defeat!” The roars from the Malicious Eye were filled with an indescribable madness and hatred. It rushed straight towards Ecang’s projection.

When it rushed over, it started expanding rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, it grew to be one hundred thousand feet tall and stood erect in the air. With a bang, it crashed into Ecang’s projection.

However, at that instant, a hand stretched out of the Ecang’s projection. Compared to the gigantic eyeball, this was an incredibly tiny hand. When it crashed into the Malicious Eye, a shrill scream of pain reverberated in all directions.

Booming sounds surged into the sky, but Su Ming stood his ground and remained still.

Once the booms subsided and Ecang’s projection disappeared, a handsome, long-haired man dressed in purple stood in the sky with a presence that could allow him to look down on the world. In his hand, he held an eyeball.

The eyeball was currently gray, but there was smoke and clouds surging within it, as if the rise and fall of the universe was contained within its pupil.

Naturally, the purple-haired man was Su Ming’s Ecang clone!

This was the first time Su Ming had successfully used his Ecang clone as a tunnel and his soul as a guide in Divine Essence Star Ocean to summon his Ecang clone.

“You are mine. This is… your Life,” Su Ming and his Ecang clone said together.