Pursuit of the Truth

The old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe had no idea how much time had passed, but his pupils suddenly shrank, and a grave expression appeared on his face. This was because he saw the golden light around Su Ming grow dimmer. In the span of a few breaths, it disappeared completely.

Su Ming’s eyes opened!

At the instant Su Ming he did so, the sky roared, and the ground trembled. A ripple filled with a powerful presence spread out from his body uncontrollably. Wherever it went, the sky would distort.

The fog in the area around him fell back at once, and a feeling of emptiness spread out from Su Ming’s body.

At the same time, his eyes became incredibly bright as if stars were contained in them. He seemed different from before, and there was a spiritual air about him. When he stood there, it looked like the sky had to lower itself a little and the ground had to sink a little before him. His existence seemed to be able to make the world tremble.

Su Ming swept his gaze across the ground. When he met the gaze of the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe, a brilliant light shone in Su Ming’s eyes. The light in the old man’s eyes also reached a piercing degree. Once the two of them exchanged a glance, they sensed that their presences were astonishingly similar.

They did not belong to cultivators, but Antecedental Spirits!

Both of them were nearly the same as the Predecessor of Dao Ocean and the Spirit of the Sand Earthlings. Su Ming felt like he had ascended to a higher plane of existence that was above all lives. It was as if he had taken a huge step forward from being a human to becoming an Antecedental Spirit!

He could change the laws in the world as he pleased. He could see the rules in the universe when he closed his eyes. In fact, Su Ming could even vaguely sense the will of Arid Triad existing in space. That feeling of having ascended to a higher plane of existence was indescribable. It was as if… he had escaped some shackles and become a life form that what he could previously only imagine.

If anyone compared Arid Triad’s will to a giant fireball akin to a sun and each person to a glowing spot, then if the flames of Su Ming’s life burned, he could destroy all lives. The flames of his life might not be able to compare to Arid Triad’s will, but they were much stronger than of all lives.

It was especially so for his soul. Once he devoured all the souls split up from him, he had become so strong that if he sent his soul outwards, he could wipe out a person from existence with just one thought.

He could kill a cultivator with just his mind. Even if that cultivator was an Almighty, it would still be difficult for them to fight against Su Ming’s will sweeping past them. There might be some Almighties who could fight against it, but it would intimidate them greatly.

It was as if he was a galaxy in this universe. He could even described as the will of heaven for a certain area. If he wanted a person dead, then they would die, because Su Ming’s will could change laws, disturb rules, and crush space.

This was the power of Antecedental Spirits. It was a state of life Successor Spirits could never reach, no matter how hard they practiced cultivation.

This was a strength Su Ming had never possessed before. The feeling as if he had control over other people’s lives and deaths made Su Ming sense the madness of existence when he opened his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath and slowly took a step forward.

With that one step, the world distorted. Booming sounds surged into the sky, and a huge vortex appeared. It spun with loud bangs. It seemed like there was an indistinct face in it, but if anyone looked closer, they would find it was just a vortex. Everything seemed to be just an illusion.

“You are…” A barely noticeable glint shone in the eyes of the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe.

“Our deal is still ongoing,” Su Ming said calmly.

He did not tell the old man directly whether he was still himself, but he knew that he was still himself. The soul with the blue light spreading out from it was indeed his origin soul. The blue light had guided Su Ming, providing him a way to find himself when he was lost.

In the beginning, Su Ming had not understand what the blue light was, but when he became an Antecedental Spirit, with his great soul and as a life form who could turn into the will of heaven, he understood that this was the power of his mother’s race fusing into his soul. It was the power of the foreign race the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe had mentioned existing in him.

The old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe narrowed his eyes. Just as he was about to say something, a thought appeared in his mind. He raised his head to look at the vortex that had appeared in the sky. Su Ming lifted his head as well. He might be slightly slower than the old man, but he was only one breath slower.

‘As expected, once he experienced nine splits and fused with all of them to become an Antecedental Spirit, he grew incredibly power. This is just his first success…’

While this thought might have entered the old man’s mind, he did not have time to analyze it more. Roars came from the vortex in the sky, and right after, dozens of figures manifested from within it.

Those figures did not belong to beasts, but to humans!

They were clearly cultivators. All of them were dressed in different attire, but most of their clothes were damaged. They were cultivators with fierce and murderous looks, but on their faces was bewilderment.

Their presence was incredibly strange. There was an ancient air to them along with a powerful intent for destruction. In fact, there seemed to be a will about their bodies. It seemed to be asleep, and it was not strong. However, it somehow gave off a feeling like it could destroy the entire universe.

At the instant Su Ming saw the cultivators, his heart trembled. He recognized one of them as Zhan Bai’s Master, the one he had seen in the picture from the inheritance of the Ancestral Spirit!

The sage-like old man who was originally dressed in long robes and had a head full of white hair was like a wild beast at that moment. When he opened his mouth, there was even saliva dripping down. Upon coming out from the vortex, he looked swiftly towards Su Ming with fierceness in his eyes.

When he looked over, Su Ming sensed his presence of an Antecedental Spirit became chaotic, as if the dozens of figures had an inborn ability to form some kind of restriction on his status as an Antecedental Spirit. Su Ming even had a feeling that his presence was some sort of supplement for them. They would close in on him to devour him without a care for the cost.

“Thirty-six Arid Beasts. Su Ming, I will help you hold them back. You’ve just become an Antecedental Spirit right now, so you need to stabilize your body, cultivation base, and your soul. This moment is critical for you, but your existence is the best food for these Arid Beasts.

“You must try to restrain your presence. Merge your cultivation base, body, and soul into one and stabilize your status as an Antecedental Spirit. I will buy time for you, but you must hurry!”

As the voice of the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe echoed in the air, he took a step forward. With a swing of his arm, a ripple spread out until it enveloped the thirty-six figures. Once the old man prevented them from moving forward, a chilling glare appeared his eyes, and he fought against the thirty-six figures with loud booming sounds in the air.

A freezing glare appeared in Su Ming’s eyes. Without any hesitation, he sat down. When he closed his eyes, he had his soul spread through his body and circulated his cultivation base, quickly fusing the three into one before stabilizing them, just as the old man had told him to do. He continuously retrieved the presence that had spread out from his body, intending to completely lock it in his body.

But his presence was too strong. Even the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe had given him a few attentive glances previously, so it was completely impossible for him to restrain the presence in a short period of time.

Just like that, two hours passed.

During those them, the old man from Heavenly Spirit executed his divine abilities and activated his cultivation base to fight against the Arid Beasts. The cultivators roared like wild beasts. They had no cultivation bases nor any divine abilities. All they relied on was some sort of instinct.

But they could not be wiped out of the plane of existence. Even if the old man from Heavenly Spirit Tribe had monstrous power, he could only watch helplessly as they manifested again after their bodies crumbled.

After two hours passed, roars came from the vortex once more. This time, hundreds of figures appeared.

The old man’s expression became darker. He knew that at that moment, what Su Ming needed the most was time, and he had to be the one to buy it for him. With a cold harrumph, the old man formed a seal with his right hand and pointed at the sky. It instantly roared, and a horsetail whisk appeared next to the old man. When he swung it, illusory shadows appeared in the sky. As rumbling sounds rang out, the fight continued.

All of Su Ming’s attention was placed on restraining his presence. By then, he had already managed to keep it to a boundary of only about ten thousand feet. Slowly, it turned to one thousand feet.

When it reached five hundred feet, the vortex in the sky rumbled again. This time, thousands of Arid Beasts appeared.

When they saw that Su Ming’s presence was becoming lower due to him restraining it to the point that the five hundred feet had been reduced to one hundred feet, the thousands of Arid Beasts in the sky roared together before suddenly crumbling and turning into countless glowing spots. The old man’s expression changed, and the glowing spots swiftly gathered together.

Then, like a long river, they shot through the old man’s body and rushed towards Su Ming. When it closed in on him, it turned into a huge, ferocious face that opened its mouth to devour him.

The face was several hundreds of thousands of feet in height, making it look like the sky was sinking. It was also fast enough to instantly reach Su Ming’s head. At the instant it opened its mouth wide and was about to devour him, Su Ming opened his eyes. All his presence had been completely restrained in his body.

He lifted his head and with an aloof gaze looked up at the face above him, which was as big as the sky itself. The face came to an abrupt halt at that instant. While being less than one hundred feet away from Su Ming, it stared at him, and Su Ming, too, stared at it.

This lasted for only a few breaths before the ferocious face suddenly smiled. It made the face appear even more ferocious, but the next second it disappeared. At the instant it vanished, a crimson bolt of lightning shot out from the center of its brows and shot up towards the vortex in the sky. Soon after, the vortex faded away among loud booms, and the sky gradually calmed down.

When the old man saw this scene, his expression instantly changed.

“Arid Disaster…”

“What is an Arid Disaster?”

None of Su Ming’s emotions could be seen on his face. He slowly stood up and stared at the sky as it returned to normal while he asked this question calmly.

The old man was silent for a moment. A hint of pain appeared on his face when he began to speak slowly.

“Once you succeed in spirit ascension, most of the time, the things that appear are Arid Beasts. If you have help or if you can deal with them on your own, there will be no problems for you in the future, but sometimes, it is the Arid Disaster that appears, though it is very rare…

“The power of the Arid Disaster is strong enough to destroy all wills. I went through it once, and it is the reason why all my people died. Even I don’t know how I lived through it, since halfway through it, I lost consciousness.

“When I woke up, the Arid Disaster was gone, but all my people were dead. I also found my hand buried in my grandson’s chest…

“The Arid Disaster will not come immediately, but will descend on you within a year…”