Pursuit of the Truth

“Run! All Heaven Traversers, run to the tree crowns! This person isn’t someone you can fight!” As the rotting old man roared, he moved forward instead of retreating and charged towards Su Ming.

The Heaven Traversers in the area were already shocked by the fact that Su Ming had managed to kill the other old man. Without any hesitation, they withdrew by turning into long arcs that charged towards the forest on the ground.

Su Ming looked coldly towards them. Once he averted his gaze, he looked at the old man coming towards him while roaring. Unstable ripples were spreading out of his body. His eyes were crimson, and a rotten stench came from his entire body. Judging by the crazed look on his face, it was clear that he wanted to self-destruct to hold his opponent back.

Su Ming raised his right hand, and a gourd appeared in his hand. A five-colored light flowed out of the gourd, and Su Ming swept his left hand across the gourd.

“Treasured gourd, please kill them!” Once he said these words, an eye instantly appeared on the gourd. It blinked once, and right after that, a small person with a sharp blade flew out. It turned into a stream of flowing light that instantly went after the fleeing Heaven Traversers.

At the same time, the old man closed in on Su Ming. His body swelled up in a bizarre manner, and a loud bang shot out from his body, a clear indication that he had chosen to self-destruct. As his body exploded, the energy from it instantly spread through the area.

The ground trembled, and the sky roared. This was a self-destruction triggered by someone who had attained great completion of World Plane Realm. If the power of the explosion spread out, it could destroy the planet, but the old man executed some unknown method and restrained the power in a set area. Because of that, once this area was destroyed, it would turn into an eternal black hole.

The black hole would deliver a huge amount of damage to the planet, but since the explosion had been limited, the planet would not shatter.

The sky and earth lost their color while the wind and clouds surged about. Just as the destructive power from the explosion was about to submerge Su Ming, the old man’s head disappeared. Before he died, a ferocious sneer appeared on his mouth.

Quite a large number of fleeing Heaven Traversers raised their heads while on the ground. When they looked towards the explosion in the sky, hatred appeared in their eyes.

Su Ming remained as calm as ever. He was not afraid of his enemy’s self-destruction. Almost the moment the destructive power of the explosion spread towards him, he raised his right hand and drew a circle in front of him.

“That which exists between the past and the future is Destiny,” he stated flatly. He swung his right arm forward, and the Art possessed by all Abyss Builders was immediately executed. As Su Ming’s level of cultivation increased, he could use his race’s inborn ability with more and more ease.

What he wanted to change was not the already dead old man, but the area around him. As the world continued being destroyed by the destructive force, Su Ming’s inborn ability reversed the flow, causing the destruction to go in reverse. After a moment, when the ripples of destruction dissipated, what appeared before the Heaven Traversers’ eyes was Su Ming standing in the sky completely uninjured while staring at them with aloof eyes.

Almost the instant they saw him, screams of pain echoed in the air, and all of them were due to the small human from the gourd slaughtering its targets. It moved so quickly that in an instant, it had already beheaded three people.

Screams of pain traveled outwards, and Heaven Traversers fled even faster. The shock they felt in their hearts and souls could no longer be described with words. To them, the strength of the intruder this time already surpassed their expectations.

Blood rain poured down from the sky as Su Ming stood and watched the heads of Heaven Traversers flying into the air with an aloof expression. There was not a single hint of compassion in him. He came to this place to kill. Even if they were weaklings and their power was not great enough for them to stand against him… the only thing they could blame was themselves for being born Heaven Traversers.

If they wanted to blame someone, they could only blame the powerful warriors of their tribe, because they should not have chased down Su Ming’s Master!

“I will not attack unless I am attacked… You have not attacked me in the past, but if I learned that someone among you chased after my Master in the past and did nothing about it, then it would be presumptuous of me to still call myself his disciple.

“Heaven Traversers, I will make you pay.”

As Su Ming mumbled that, the slaughter on the ground reached its end. There were only four of Heaven Traversers who could be considered the fastest left alive. As shrill screams of pain echoed in the air, these four Heaven Traversers fled into the forest. A glint appeared in the small human’s eyes. He raised his head to glance towards Su Ming, then rushed towards him and disappeared into the gourd.

“Not enough… essence… Replenish it… and you can activate the second-tier Divine Art.” Once the small human flew into the gourd, the buzzing voice belonging to the gourd echoed in Su Ming’s heart.

Su Ming put away the gourd and walked down towards the ground, where the forest was. If he wanted all Heaven Traversers in this planet die, then the four people who fled could not escape death.

However, at the instant Su Ming was about to descend into the forest, he suddenly frowned. An incredibly dense wave of life force erupted from the ground, the ocean in the distance, and the endless forest.

That life force was so thick that it practically had corporeal form. It created a layer of fog that covered the forest. That fog did not spread outwards but surrounded the area to form a sort of defense which was so strong that Su Ming could tell that only those possessing the power of Solar Kalpa Realm could break it.

‘As expected of the four venerated races, the protection of the planet alone is already incredibly powerful. Looks like Heaven Traversers were careless just now; otherwise, if they had just hidden themselves here, it would have be enough to cause me quite a large amount of trouble.’ Su Ming swept his gaze across the fog in the forest.

‘The entire cultivation planet is rejecting my presence. Heaven Traversers have been acknowledged by the planet, so me wanting to kill them would mean that I am going up against the cultivation planet itself.

‘It was the same with the old man’s divine ability just then. What he executed was the power of kismet gathered on him after he was acknowledged by the planet.’ Su Ming remained silent for a moment before a cold smirk appeared on the corners of his lips.

He raised his right foot and stomped in the direction of the forest. His body immediately sank, and once he touched the fog, his power erupted from within him. Booming sounds reverberated in the air, and he forced his way into the fog until he eventually touched the ground in the forest.

The fog around him was so thick that he felt as if he was surrounded by seawater. When he wanted to move, his body was tangled by countless threads, making it difficult for him to even lift his foot. The grass on the ground wound itself around Su Ming’s legs, and as the trees around him swayed, they blocked his sight. The sky was dark, and the ground trembled irregularly. The ocean roared and howled, and even the air he breathed in thinned out. All of this was due to the cultivation planet rejecting Su Ming.

If the cultivation planet was sentient and was a person, then its hatred towards Su Ming would have surely reached its peak.

“Since you don’t like me, there is no need for you to continue existing.” Su Ming could sense the planet’s hatred towards him and how it rejected his presence. With a cold sneer, he slowly raised his right hand and pushed it against the ground. As he closed his eyes, wisps of red smoke appeared on his right index finger.

More red smoke appeared, and they gradually formed a ring [1]. After a moment, a red ring manifested on Su Ming’s right index finger!

The ring was blood red, and it was shining with a strange light. At the instant it appeared, the Curse’s dense power erupted and surged into the ground from Su Ming’s right hand before spreading out.

The ring was Su Ming’s treasure, and it was the source of his Curse.

Since this planet rejected Su Ming, then Su Ming chose to Curse the planet… and have it destroyed.

If the planet was destroyed, then it would no longer possess such dense life force. If it had no life force, it would no longer be able to offer protection. In fact, Su Ming even had an idea in his mind. Since the planet had a soul, he wanted to know whether… the planet would absorb the remaining Heaven Traversers’ life force to replenish its life force once it was almost completely drained.

Su Ming smiled faintly. A freezing glare shone in his eyes, and the power of the Curse spreading out from his right hand continued expanding on the ground. The earth trembled. The trees swayed so violently that it sounded like they were roaring. The ocean howled, and the thunder in the sky rumbled.

“I curse you… that your ground will be shattered!” As Su Ming spoke, the red ring on his finger began flashing as if it was a red eye. Immediately, cracks appeared on the spot against which Su Ming had pressed his palm. The cracks continued spreading outwards, and in the blink of an eye, they had already spread in all directions.

“I curse you… that your trees will wither!” Su Ming stated flatly, and the trees around him started withering rapidly. Wails shot up into the air. They were without sound, but Su Ming could detect them, and they were reverberating all through the air.

“I curse you… that your ocean will dry up and your stones will shatter!”

“I curse you… that your life force will disappear!”

Su Ming pushed his right hand even close to the ground, and immediately, the planet rumbled. An incredible rebound shot up from the earth, the sky, the forest, and the ocean. That rebound swiftly rushed towards Su Ming.

It was as if it wanted to dispel the Curse and send it back to Su Ming’s body so that the Curse would turn against Su Ming and attack him.

Su Ming smiled coldly. He raised his right hand and seized the withered grass under his feet before swiftly beginning to weave the blades of grass together. In just ten breaths, a round ball of withered grass was woven, and in Su Ming’s eyes, this ball was made in the cultivation planet’s image.

He bit the tip of his tongue and coughed up a mouthful of blood on the ball of grass, then with the ball in his right hand, he pushed down on the ground once more.

“I curse you… that you… will be destroyed!”

Su Ming’s voice was calm, but at the instant his words tumbled out of his mouth, anyone who saw this cultivation planet in the outskirts of Heaven Traversers’ territory would be able to see that its green lands were swiftly turning gray right before the eyes. As that gray shade spread out, the ground rumbled, and countless cracks covered it. The trees withered and rotted together. The water from the ocean evaporated until it turned into black drops of rain that fell on the ground.

A cultivation planet that was filled with an abundance of life fell into decay in the blink of an eye, as if it had died!

“I curse you… that your sky will become dull from here onwards and forever more!” Su Ming raised his head at the withered forest.

Translator’s Note:

1. Ring: Su Ming obtained it in his fight against Madam Ji. In chapter ‘The Death of Madam Ji’.