Pursuit of the Truth

Su Ming stared at the galaxy. With his power, he could see very far away, and his gaze could penetrate the whirlwind beyond the ripple. There, he saw a group of people approaching swiftly from the distance.

Chen Wen was in the lead along with Si Ma Yu. They were followed by… a headless man who was leading thousands of cultivators. He was striding forward at a calm pace, and when he swung the axe in his hand, the whirlwind would be blown to the sides with a roar, revealing a path for everyone to travel.

Su Ming stared at the headless man, and the excitement as well as the sentiment in him mixed together. Her had been separated from his senior brothers for more than one thousand years. At that time, he was still slightly naive, but now, he had completely grown up and become mature. Yet even if a longer time had passed, the friendship between him and his fellow brothers would be like aged wine. It would only continue getting better and would not disappear.

“Eldest senior brother…” Su Ming mumbled.

There was no surprised delight on his face, and neither was there excitement. This was because both of them had grown up, and because there was no need to have any sort of external expression for real friendship. It existed in the heart and soul, and it was a sort of… brotherly love which would allow them to understand what the other felt the moment their gazes met!

Su Ming brought his right hand up and put away the locust he had been refining. He then stood up, and with a smile on his face, he slowly walked forward. His eldest senior brother’s arrival was a great joy in his life. This was the first reunion since he was separated from his senior brothers more than a thousand years ago. There was no way he could just sit around and wait for his senior brother to come to him. He had to welcome him!

While Su Ming could see his eldest senior brother, his eldest senior brother could not see him. When around a dozen breaths passed, the headless man moving through the whirlwind suddenly came to a pause, and while he had no head and his expression could not be seen, his hand which held the battleaxe shuddered slightly.

His murderous aura gradually disappeared. He stopped, and with the eyes of his soul, he stared into the distance. Gradually, he smiled in his heart, and joy filled him.

The whirlwind in front of him howled at that instant. A white ripple spread out swiftly and violently. As it expanded, the whirlwind fell back to reveal a vast, empty galaxy, and in that galaxy was Su Ming walking over with a smile.

When Chen Wen and Si Ma Yu saw him, they immediately wrapped their fists in their palms and bowed deeply.

“Greetings, master!”

With the black hood covering his face, Su Ming slowly approached the area. He walked past Chen Wen and Si Ma Yu to arrive right in front of the headless man.

Su Ming was silent. The headless man, too, remained silent.

All the people in the area were quiet.

The silence lasted till Su Ming pulled back the black hood and revealed to the headless man an incredibly unfamiliar face. However, the eyes of that unfamiliar face made the battleaxe in the headless man’s hand disappear, and he spread his arms wide open.

With a smile on his face, Su Ming opened his arms wide as well, and under the gazes of thousands of cultivators, the two people hugged each other for the first time after one thousand something years had passed!

Neither of them spoke. As the fellow brothers hugged each other, they patted each other’s backs hard, as if they wanted to show the friendship which had lasted for more than a thousand years in that one hug.

“You’ve grown.”

Eldest senior brother took a step back and stared at Su Ming. His voice was filled with an ancient and sentimental air. In held nostalgia along with the will to protect the ninth summit even if he had to destroy the universe for it. This was something that he shared with his junior brother.

He had said a single sentence. It were two simple words, but they contained everything that had happened in the past one thousand something years. Su Ming’s eldest senior brother was not used to expressing his thoughts, and his ancient voice quivered at that moment. Perhaps the others would not be able to sense it, but Su Ming could detect it.

“I’ve grown…” Su Ming said with a smile while staring at his eldest senior brother. His expression held the nostalgia for the ninth summit, his fond remembrance of his senior brothers… and his longing for home.

…..

Chen Wen and Si Ma Yu sat cross-legged in the empty space, occasionally raising their heads to stare at Su Ming and the headless man, who were beside the Relocation Rune in the distance.

The thousands of cultivators took the initiative to sit down to meditate away from Chen Wen. They were quiet and did not move.

No one dared bother Su Ming and his eldest senior brother.

When Su Ming sat down beside the Relocation Rune, a pot of wine appeared in his hand. Another pot of wine appeared beside his eldest senior brother. He did not drink it, but occasionally, he would tap it with his right hand, and the wine in the pot would reduce.

When Su Ming saw him drinking in this manner, a hint of pain appeared on his face.

He would never forget how his eldest senior brother had beheaded himself in the land of Berserkers to turn into Xing Gan. Even if a long time had passed since then, the memory of that moment still remained in Su Ming’s heart.

“When you were forced into Divine Essence Star Ocean, I made the decision to leave the land of Berserkers with the second and Hu Zi once I woke up. We wanted to step into the galaxy belonging to the Immortals and search for you in the Barren Lands of Divine Essence!” eldest senior brother said hoarsely, then tapped the pot of wine with his right hand. At that moment, he finished all the wine in it.

“You are my junior brother, our youngest junior brother. We might have different blood flowing in our veins, but we are cultivators of the ninth summit. Destiny has gathered us together, so we… will be family which is much closer than those that share the same blood!

“Since you were willing to give up on the status of the God of Berserkers and go to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence for us… then as your senior brothers, we could give up our lives for you!

“You don’t know how many times I saw Hu Zi crying on his own while drinking and staring at your cave abode after you left and I woke up…

“Your second senior brother has also changed a lot. Most of the time, his expression is dark. I know that he hated himself for not being strong enough, for not being able to change what transpired.

“I know it because that hate exists in my heart as well!

“After you left and we woke up in succession, the three of us decided that we will become stronger no matter what price we had to pay, and we would grow stronger for the rest of our lives. We had to become strong enough to decide our own destinies!” eldest senior brother explained hoarsely. When he raised his right hand, another pot of wine appeared. He patted it, and all the wine within it disappeared.

Su Ming stared at his eldest senior brother quietly. He watched the headless man who was incredibly tall and strong, and a smile appeared on his face. It held the ancient feeling of time that had passed as well as a will that Su Ming could cling onto.

Because the person before him was real. He was one of the few real existences in his life. This did not mean that he was real in terms of his physical body, but his soul, his will, and his friendship towards Su Ming.

All of it was real.

After experiencing all the things he did and going through Su Xuan Yi’s plans, Su Ming no longer had the courage to believe in real or fake, because once he believed in something and became serious about it, then if all the things he believed ended up being mere falsehoods once more, the damage would be incredibly great.

But Su Ming firmly believed that from the day he stepped into the ninth summit, that place had been real. His eldest senior brother, his second senior brother, and Hu Zi were all real!

The three of them were the most precious things in Su Ming’s heart. They were the treasures in his life for which he would give up the world.

Su Ming had thirsted for blood before, had been cold-hearted, enveloped by madness, but there was always a fragility in his heart which only a few people could understand. That fragility came from all his family members and the ninth summit.

“How… did all of you leave the land of Berserkers?”

Su Ming stared at his eldest senior brother. He could sense the murderous aura emanating from the other’s body. It was definitely not from ordinary slaughter, since it was a monstrous killing intent which could only be formed after surviving in a sea of blood for years.

“The land of Berserkers…” Eldest senior brother fell silent for a moment. “If you could head to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence for us, then we could go out to search for you.

“We were willing to obey that damn ancient will from Yin Death Region and become its generals to conquer the other continents in Yin Death Region. We fulfilled his requests, one after another. I don’t know how the second and Hu Zi got through it, since they did not mention it, but Hu Zi had automatically forgotten about those memories once we left.

“But I do know that I killed countless lives during those conquests… I obtained my power through murder. My level of cultivation isn’t high, but my murderous aura is beyond compare!

“If I had to say that I cultivated something, then I cultivated a path of murder, a river of souls!”

When eldest senior brother said those words, he raised his right hand and swung it. In an instant, the galaxy roared, and a long river manifested. It went on without end. Within it, countless living spirits howled shrilly and roared while struggling. Their voices did not dim with time.

“As for how we walked out of Yin Death Region, it’s because… of it!”

Eldest senior brother pulled his hand back and seized his chest. Immediately, it turned into a bloody mess. As flesh and blood flowed out from his wounds, a complicated Brand formed on his chest.

That Brand looked like the face of a ghost, and it was laughing hideously.

“This Brand is known as Dark Dawn’s Ghost. Only when we took upon this Brand and became Dark Dawn Expanse Cosmos’ Sacrificial Children did those ancient wills let us leave Yin Death Region.

“It’s the same for your second senior brother and… Hu Zi.

“Once we left Yin Death Region, we split up. I made your second senior brother enter any sect he liked to practice his cultivation. With his status as the Phantom King, he could change his form in any way he wanted and blend in with the children of all families to perfect his Phantom Dao!

“I had your third senior brother join the Immortals’ Union and raise from the bottom, because he was too honest and straight. It is both good and bad, but if we spared the rod, the child would grow up spoiled. I had to make him suffer a bit so he would practice the laws of his original form as a Rune in the battlefield, creating… his own Dao!

“As for me, I joined one of the many races and became their sword to train myself. Then, I turned against them to practice my Murderous Dao!

“I made the three of us split up so we could use our own methods to search for the path to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence and you. If it was not because of the war with Morning Dao Sect, we would have long since headed out to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence…”

Eldest senior brother’s words were calm. In fact, it did not sound like he was describing dangerous experiences, but since Su Ming knew his eldest senior brother’s personality, he knew that what they had lived through was much more difficult compared to what his words entailed.