Pursuit of the Truth

“You’re just asking for death! Forget the lot of you, even that strongest malicious fiend of yours will not be my opponent!”

The purple-robed man’s lips curled into a cold sneer. While taking a step forward, he lifted his right hand, then pointed forward. Immediately, three incense sticks manifested, and when they were lit up, they charged towards Su Ming’s senior brothers.

The eight yellow-robed people cackled, and greed appeared on their faces. With one move, they turned into eight yellow lights that charged towards the two hundred thousand cultivators beneath them. It was as if those cultivators were the best supplements to these people.

When the incense sticks formed by the purple-robed man’s divine ability closed in on Su Ming’s senior brothers and the three of them cast their divine abilities in preparation for a fight to the death, the tree which was Su Ming’s Ecang clone suddenly twisted violently and disappeared. When it reappeared, it was right in front of his senior brothers, using its body to fend against the power of the three incense sticks.

A loud bang shot into the air. Su Ming’s Ecang clone shuddered, then swept up his senior brothers to flee thousands of feet away. When the purple-robed man moved towards them with a cold sneer and the senior brothers had their auras erupt from their bodies, the Ecang clone suddenly spoke.

“I’m back.”

These simple words immediately caused Su Ming’s eldest senior brother to shiver. His second senior brother swiftly turned to look at the Ecang clone, while Hu Zi was stunned. Soon though, excitement appeared on his face.

The Ecang clone looked at the three of them, and when he saw that they seemed to need an affirmation, he repeated his words. “I’m back.”

When he spoke, he did not even bother casting a glance at the purple-robed man charging towards him. He simply lifted his right hand and seized the space above him. With it, the heavens shuddered. A ripple immediately spread out and charged towards the incoming purple-robed man.

The man smiled coldly. He did not stop but chose to crash into the ripple. It instantly dissipated as if it could not injure him in the slightest.

“Mere child’s play. Today, the Ninth Sect will be destroyed, and all of you will return to ashes. Once I destroy South Union, True Morning Dao World will only have New Dao Sect within it.”

The purple-robed man rushed forward, but when he was about to close in on the Ecang clone, a calm voice reverberated through space.

“What my clone cast was not mere child’s play, but a way for me to get a detailed description of where he is.”

The moment the words echoed in the galaxy, the purple-robed man jolted and came to a swift halt. When he lifted his head, he saw two figures walking out of the space above him, at the spot from which the ripple had spread out previously.

One of the figures was a young man and the other an old one. The old man had an apathetic and aloof look on his face. As for the young man, he had a cold and fierce glare in his eyes. While speaking, he walked to his Ecang clone.

When Su Ming looked at his senior brothers, he saw Hu Zi’s excitement, second senior brother’s smile, and eldest senior brother’s relief. Remorse filled his heart then.

“I’m late…” Su Ming said softly.

He lifted his right hand and swung it at his eldest senior brother. Immediately, a gentle power surged into his body. As cracking sounds reverberated through space, eldest senior brother jolted. All his injuries were instantly healed, and an even purer power swiftly erupted from him.

Hu Zi, too, had that same gentle power fuse into his body. When he threw his head and roared, the injuries he had sustained when the Runes broke down were completely healed. On top of that, his soul was also slightly stronger than before.

As for the Ecang clone, when Su Ming cast his gaze on him, the Ecang clone immediately moved towards him. His body overlapped with Su Ming’s, and they fused together.

This scene immediately caused the purple-robed man’s expression to change. He instinctively took a few steps back, and a grave look that had never showed up on his face before appeared in his eyes. Even the eight yellow-robed cultivators returned to his side in an instant. The bloodthirst in their eyes turned into wariness when they looked at Su Ming.

Compared to them, the remaining cultivators in the Ninth Sect reacted differently. They hearts trembled when they saw the stranger and heard his words. Su Ming had an incredibly unfamiliar face to them, but they saw the malicious fiend fuse with him and heard him mention that he was just a clone!

“Sir, who are you?!” the purple-robed man asked with a dark tone, but the instant he opened his mouth to speak, Su Ming turned his head around and cast him a flat glance.

That one glance alone was enough for a loud rumble to echo in the man’s mind. Su Ming’s gaze was like a pair of sharp blades that instantly pierced through the man’s eyes and stabbed his mind. The man shuddered from it. He coughed up a large mouthful of blood and immediately retreated.

His heart was filled with shock and disbelief. He was a cultivator in Death Realm, but even with his level of cultivation, his heart and mind had been damaged with just one glance. To explain that, there could only be one possible explanation— the newcomer’s power surpassed Death Realm!

When he moved back, the purple-robed man remembered Su Ming mentioning that the malicious fiend was just a clone, and his heart sank. In the beginning, he did not believe in it, but at that moment, there was no way he could not believe it. When he thought about how the person who had fought against him during the past few years and whom he treated as his equal was just a clone, he could no longer quell the fear and shock in his heart. Those emotions took over his mind.

Su Ming watched the purple-robed man, whose expression had changed drastically to stark pale, retreat. He did not chase after him, but instead said, “If the heavens desire your death, then you must die.”

At the instant he said that, the galaxy began to tremble in a manner as if it had been separated from True Morning Dao World. It no longer belonged to it, but had turned into a world of Su Ming’s will.

As an Antecedental Spirit, Su Ming was the will of heaven in this place. His words were spoken slowly, but when they landed in the people’s ears, they turned into a thunderous roar in their hearts. His will was so awe-inspiring that no one could fight against it.

His will was the embodiment of the galaxy and the universe’s center of attention, and Su Ming’s gaze was how all of these had happened. His words were the will of heaven that could replace the thoughts of the universe!

The purple-robed man let out a shrill scream of pain. With a shudder, he noticed that his body was disappearing and his soul was rapidly disintegrating. At that moment, no matter what level of cultivation he possessed or how he circulated his cultivation base, he could not save his body nor soul. Fear the likes of which he had never felt before rose in his heart endlessly, but there was nothing he could do to fight back.

“Just what level of cultivation do you possess?!”

A shrill roar tumbled out of the purple-robed man’s mouth in a wretched manner. His body was already semi-transparent, and there was not much left of his soul. When he shouted out those words, everything marking his existence looked like it had been wiped off, and he ceased to exist under the will of heaven in this galaxy.

Yet the purple-robed man’s voice still echoed in space. Besides it, there was nothing else. The two hundred thousand cultivators from the Ninth Summit were shuddering, but their gazes when they looked at Su Ming were filled with zealousness and reverence. Together, all of them immediately kneeled down in worship.

Su Ming’s eldest senior brother was stunned. In his memories, Su Ming was strong, but he was definitely not strong enough to kill a person in Death Realm with just one sentence, one gaze, and one thought. This… was something not even a Sublime Paragon could do, but everything that he sensed felt so incredibly real that it left him in a state of not daring to believe what he saw.

Su Ming’s second senior brother was breathing rapidly. He looked at everything before him with a dumbfounded expression, then cast his gaze at the spot where the purple-robed man had disappeared before beginning mumble under his breath,

“Just now, the galaxy here was made to change. I had the impression that youngest senior brother’s presence existed everywhere in this galaxy…”

Hu Zi scratched his head in the honest and simple-minded fashion of his. He did not think too much into it. At that moment, he only stared at Su Ming in excitement. The stronger Su Ming was, the happier Hu Zi would be.

Compared to the crowd of the Ninth Summit, the hundreds of thousands of cultivators who had come charging in after they broke the Rune withdrew in their shock. The scene just then had been too bizarre, so they could not believe what they had seen. Their Sect Master, an old monster in Death Realm… had been wiped out from existence without much trouble.

While the hundreds of thousands of cultivators from New Dao Sect were in shock and fear, great wariness appeared in the eight yellow-robed people’s faces. They slowly retreated while staring at Su Ming with disbelief in their eyes.

“An Antecedental Spirit’s will! This is an Antecedental Spirit’s will!” the eight of them exclaimed almost at the same time.

Both their tones and expressions were all exactly the same. At the instant their voices matched, all eight of them turned around without hesitation, intending to flee in desperation.

Su Ming’s will of an Antecedental Spirit had completely shocked and intimidated them. At the same time, it also caused them to sense great fear. It was precisely because they knew of the presence of the Antecedental Spirits that their fear was also laced with despair.

“Damn it, damn it… Didn’t they say that there were only a few Antecedental Spirits in Arid Triad Expanse Cosmos, so why did I run into one?! That’s an Antecedental Spirit, for heaven’s sake!!”

All eight yellow-robed cultivators fled as if they had gone mad. Upon noticing it, Su Ming cast his gaze on them and let out a cold harrumph.

When it rang in the air, it caused the hearsts of the eight cultivators to tremble. They instantly started bleeding from their ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, and their bodies came to a swift halt. With a loud bang, they collapsed.

When their bodies were reduced to a bloody mess, a loud buzz shot into space. A large number of locusts flew out from each of the cultivator’s collapsed body.

Those locusts gathered together in the middle of the loud buzzing to turn into a huge figure formed by locusts. The mighty pressure spreading out from it was great, but even so, the man did not dare to turn his head around. He only fled in a panic.

“So it’s you.”

When Su Ming said that in a faint voice, he lifted his right hand and unfurled his fist. A ball appeared on his palm. It shuddered before shattering to turn into a swarm of locusts. With a loud buzzing noise, they flew out.

In the distance, the figure formed by the locusts paused for a moment before returning to its fleeing. However, Su Ming’s will in the universe swept towards him, and the figure formed by the locusts let out a shrill scream.

“Senior, please spare me! I’m willing to surrender, please spare me!”