Pursuit of the Truth

Su Ming quietly stared at the resolve in the old man’s eyes, and he suddenly pitied him slightly. This was an old man who had lived in a constant state of guilt and regret, even though he was incredibly powerful. He was a mad old man who would do anything to change his tribe members’ fate.

“I will fulfill my promise,” Su Ming said softly.

“This is your serendipity. If you fail in the ascension of your spirit, you will become a soul without consciousness, but if you succeed, you will turn from a Successor Spirit to an Ancestral Spirit!”

The resolve in the old man’s eyes became firmer as he stared at Su Ming. When his words fell into Su Ming’s ears, his eyes suddenly shone.

“I’m a Successor Spirit?”

“Of course you’re a Successor Spirit. Based on the information I gathered from the cultivators who barged into this place, these so-called Successor Spirits and Succeeding Spirits appeared in the subsequent era, the one which came after my era ended.

“You obtained the real Berserkers’ Initiation from the Great Berserker Tribe, and you also obtained the Abyss’ Awakening from the Great Abyss Tribe. With these two together, you are no longer a normal Succeeding Spirit, but a Successor Spirit!

“Though with another step you could become an Antecedental Spirit, the gap between these two stages is a wide break between two eras. Without the All Spirits Hall, no matter how hard you would cultivate, it would be almost impossible for you to cross that gap. This is why this is your serendipity!”

When he listened to the old man’s words, Su Ming thought of the difference between him and the other Almighties in Arid Triad again. He recalled his battle against the cultivators from Saint Defier’s camp, and he understood the reason behind his victory.

“With my power, I can extract three examples of people succeeding in the ascension of their spirits from the passage of time. You only have three chances to copy them. Whether or not you succeed will be the main point during the three times you copy them. I wish you will succeed, but I must say that even during my time, there were incredibly few who could succeed in having their spirits ascend…”

The old man cast a complicated glance at Su Ming, then swung his arm. Su Ming immediately sensed the air around him distorting. In the blink of an eye, his vision blurred. When his world became clear again, they were no longer in a cave, but on a tall platform in white fog.

When Su Ming lowered his head to look down, he saw endless white fog along with some mountains which were barely discernible below.

“You’ve gone through the real Berserkers’ Initiation, so you can be considered a Berserker. Then the first ascension I will show you will be the sight of a powerful warrior from the Berserkers!”

A piercing, brilliant light shone in the old man’s eyes. His cultivation base erupted from him with a bang. The power of his cultivation base swept out in all directions, causing the sky to tremble and the fog on the ground to tumble violently. Su Ming nearly suffocated from it.

The old man’s act of spreading his cultivation base immediately caused Su Ming to see some illusions. It was as if the person standing before him was no longer the old man, but a vast expanse of mountains and rivers, a complete expanse of sky, a complete world, and an entire Expanse Cosmos!

All of this seemed to be contained in the old man’s body. As he stared him, Su Ming’s heart trembled. At the same time, he compared him to all the powerful warriors he had met in the past, be it Sui Chen Zi, the Predecessor of Dao Ocean, or the figure belonging in Avacaniya Realm he saw through the gap torn through Arid Triad in the Immortals’ Union. Then, his heart trembled again.

‘He’s indeed in Avacaniya!’

This was the first time Su Ming witnessed the strength of Avacaniya Realm. It was a strength that could make a world disappear if the old man wanted it, and the entire universe would have to change before him if he so desired. It was a strength which could not be put into words.

It… was a Realm which surpassed the word Realm, surpassed the heavens, surpassed space, and surpassed even the galaxy!

‘This is definitely not the power of Antecedental Spirits!’

Su Ming’s breathing quickened. He had met Antecedental Spirits before. Regardless of whether it was the Spirit of the Sand Earthlings or the Predecessor of Dao Ocean, they were definitely not as powerful.

“This is the power of those who have succeeded eight times in spirit ascension and are only one step away from becoming an Ancestral Spirit. Avacaniya… perhaps it fits into the Avacaniya Realm you speak of, but to me, if I succeed nine times in spirit ascension, I will not reach that Avacaniya you speak of… but Bhaashate! The Bhaashate Realm of the Ancestral Spirits!”

The old man raised his right hand and swung it against the sky. With it, the world roared. A huge vortex appeared suddenly in the sky. It spun and rumbled, then spread outwards in all directions. Wherever it went, the sky was reduced to countless shards. As cracking sounds echoed, the entire sky looked like it had turned into an expanse of land ravaged by a great famine.

It kept on cracking, and the shards swept in all directions. The fog on the ground tumbled backwards, and Su Ming immediately sensed the white ring on his finger buzz.

It came from it vibrating due to its instinctual reaction after running into a power which was much greater than it. These tremors caused Su Ming to understand that while the ring was a supreme treasure of Avacaniya, it was still weaker than the old man.

‘This old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe is a powerful warrior from Arid, and he’s more powerful than the Saint Defier who created this ring! Perhaps… he should be known as the Arid Deity!’

Su Ming’s heart trembled when he saw the countless shards group together as if creating another sky. As they shone, the light descended on the ground, and time seemed to change…

A figure appearing on the platform in front of Su Ming. It was incredibly tall and built. Waves of aura belonging to Berserkers with which Su Ming was familiar with spread out from it, for the person was not holding any of it back.

Even though Su Ming could only see his back, the resonance created due to them being Berserkers made him feel like he had met an incredibly familiar person when he saw the man. The person was covered in scars that had already healed. While he stood on the platform, he looked like he was standing above the world, and the earth had to submit to him. The sky also had to lower its head to him.

“Berserker!”

“Berserker!!”

“Berserker!!!”

Deep roars came from the area below. When Su Ming lowered his head to look, he saw countless Berserkers on the ground beneath the platform. They stood there while shouting loudly. Their presence was so great that it felt as if their roars shot through the sky like long arcs, causing the ground and the sky to tremble.

“This is 83rd Elder of Berserkers having his spirit ascend countless years go. This is the first time he has his spirit ascend, but in the end, he failed. Observe well, this is me using my power to tear apart the universe and extract one of the memories from the will of Arid Triad Expanse Cosmos while hiding the act from it.”

The voice of the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe echoed in Su Ming’s ears. His figure slowly appeared beside Su Ming, and with a sentimental gaze, he stared at the man’s back.

Su Ming’s pupils shrank. The old man’s words were imprinted at the bottom of his heart. ‘So… when a person’s cultivation base reaches a certain level, they can tear through the universe, hide it from the will of Arid Triad, and extract its memories…

‘But he’s hiding. That one word is enough to tell that even with his power, there is still a difference in power between him and the will of Arid Triad.

‘He can only hide from it… instead of completely disregarding Arid Triad’s will and forcefully extracting its memories.’

As Su Ming thought all of this, he cast his attention on the Berserker in front of him. He saw the man throw his head back and roar. All his veins popped up on his body, and a thick power of Qi erupted with a bang from his body. The blast from it did not contain any ripple of power from his cultivation base, but the Qi was strong enough to overpower all forms of cultivation and crush all barriers.

“Berserkers… they are a tribe who can fight against the God race among the Saint race of Shu. The power of their physical body has become so strong that it cannot be described with words,” the old man beside Su Ming mumbled as if talking to himself, but he also seemed to be talking to Su Ming.

At that moment, when the man roared, a ripple spread from his body. It was an airwave, and it spread through the sky, making it distort like it was about to be torn apart. Then, the hall Su Ming had seen before appeared!

It was the Spirit Descension Hall, the one with countless red figures that had appeared to chase Su Ming!

Once the hall descended, it floated in midair. Immediately after, the sky behind it distorted again, and a huge hall with endless golden light shining from it came down!

When compared to the Spirit Descension Hall, this hall was like an adult before a child.

The descended golden hall was completely revealed in the mid of the rumbles. It was so large that it seemed to have no end to it, and Su Ming could vaguely see two large words carved on the plate hanging on the hall.

All Spirits!

“Only one Spirit Descension Hall will appear during the first spirit ascension. When I went through my eighth spirit ascension in the past, eight Spirit Descension Halls appeared to surround the All Spirits Hall,” the old man said faintly.

Once the huge, golden All Spirits Hall appeared, its golden light immediately spread one hundred thousand feet into the distance. It instantly painted the sky and earth golden, and countless figures shot out from the hall.

They were not the red figures who had chased after Su Ming, but people dressed in long robes. There were men and women among them, and they levitated outside the golden hall.

It seemed as if the ranking system between them was very strict. The person right above all the others had golden light shining from him which extended to one hundred thousand feet, and it was filled with a mighty pressure which caused people to suffocate. Below him were three people, and below them were eight people, then seventeen people, then thirty-nine people, followed by eighty-six people, and the final row contained eight hundred and eighty-one people.

“This is…” Su Ming stared at the two thousand odd figures before the hall.

He could tell that they were not real people, but seeds formed by some sort of aura which resembled energy. Their arrangement also seemed to be based on some sort of rule. There were ten horizontal rows. If he did not include the sole figure at the top row, then there would only be nine rows.

“These are the positions of the Ancestral Spirits, and there are a total of 2,603 of them! Spirit ascension means choosing one of those standing in the position of the Ancestral Spirits and fusing with them. The first time, you can only choose those at the bottom row, and you can perform analogies between them with the ones above. You will need luck in this. If you are lucky, you can slowly fuse with them nine times until you reach the one and only figure at the topmost row.

“Making different choices will also mean different levels of compatibility. You will need to try again and again, but only one, highly valuable person who has the right to go through spirit ascension will appear in each race once every few centuries. For their people, they will make a gamble with the mind that they will be sacrificed… If they fail, they will die and become mindless souls who only know to kill!

“Each race will remember the order of those who failed in the fusion so those in the future generation can try the others that do not guarantee failure,” the old man said slowly and sighed.