Pursuit of the Truth

Su Ming was on the mountain where Lie Shan Xiu once stared into the distance in Black Ink Planet. One thousand something years had passed since Su Ming had come there for the first time. When he stood there once more and stared into the distance, he felt as if he saw himself.

After a long while, he took a step forward with a calm expression and walked into the air, disappearing from Black Ink Planet. He stepped into the galaxy and entered Divine Essence Star Ocean.

It still looked the same as always. Everything in the galaxy operated as it usually did. Perhaps they were not something that would never change for all eternity, but the span of one thousand something years, which was somewhat long to Su Ming, was just a short period of time in its life.

Su Ming moved past Flame Fiends’ Progenitor’s nest and various habitats belonging to ferocious beasts until he arrived at the continent that once belonged to Tian Xie Zi’s disciple-in-name.

While the continent remained, there was no longer anyone in it. When Su Ming looked over, he found that the continent had become a wasteland, and he could not tell how long it had been abandoned.

Dijiu Mo Sha was no longer around. Perhaps his people were also no longer around. The signs that they had been there had long since been wiped away by time. After all, it was Divine Essence Star Ocean. The brutality and the slaughter that happened in it were something brought forth by the races living there and were a regular occurrence.

Su Ming was silent for a long period of time before turning around and leaving towards Husband Gazing Mountain one step at a time.

He walked past the place belonging to the Sand Earthlings and passed the huge head of the statue floating in the galaxy.

Su Ming arrived at the summit of Husband Gazing Mountain and saw a mountain rock in the shape of a woman standing tall at the summit. The stone seemed to have formed naturally, and from far away, it looked exactly like a woman staring into the distance while waiting for her husband’s return.

When Su Ming saw it, he remembered Zhu You Cai, who came from the Husband Gazing Mountain. He also remembered the bald crane’s complicated expression while it was in this place. When he scrutinized the mountain rock, Su Ming suddenly had a feeling that the woman’s figure formed by the rock… seemed to share features with the woman beside the lake that the bald crane had watched for one hundred years.

But it was just a feeling. Su Ming fell silent, and as he stared at the mountain rock resembling a woman’s figure, he seemed to hear a soft murmur that came from the passage of time.

“The moonlight is dim, and during that time, who will remember it?

“You stare at the end of the world, yearning for your husband and longing for your home.”

After looking at the mountain rock, Su Ming left. The mountain had its own story, which had happened a long time ago. The stone woman’s gaze as she stared into the distance would only last for another one hundred years.

Su Ming walked to the region of the Sand Earthlings and grabbed a handful of sand from the desert. He once promised the Antecedental Spirit of the Sand Earthlings that he would grant him eternal life, just like how all the lives written into Old Man Extermination’s ballad would obtain eternal life in that aeon.

With the sand on his palm as a lead, Su Ming closed his eyes. The sand in his hand trembled before it rose above his hand. It swirled there, then turned into the figure of a Sand Earthling. When Su Ming opened his eyes, the figure wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed deeply towards him while above his palm.

Then, he flew up. Su Ming swung his right hand at the sky, and a vortex appeared out of nowhere. The figure turned into a long arc and charged inside it, where he disappeared without a trace.

Su Ming watched the figure leaving into the distance up to the moment the vortex disappeared. He had completed another one of the promises he had made in the past.

He walked through the trail he once took and saw swarms of creatures that he found dangerous in the past. He continued walking. Since he was there, he wanted to head to the fifth ocean to see whether there was truly a path that led to the broken fifth True World.

The wish he had in the past was not gone. The only thing he had yet to accomplish was locating his junior brother—Tian Xie Zi’s disciple-in-name. This was a regret in his heart, but Su Ming did not force himself to search for him. In truth, when he saw the wastelands, he could already sense that… his youngest junior brother had already returned to the embrace of earth.

When an old friend leaves the world, it is difficult for the two people to meet again. This was destiny, and Su Ming could do nothing about it, but perhaps… he was destined to be able to find a way to settle this regret, because when he was walking forward in Divine Essence Star Ocean, Su Ming suddenly came to a halt.

Once he stopped, he slowly turned his head around, and when he looked into the distance, a dark look appeared on his face. It was full of killing intent.

Since Su Ming had he returned from the fourth wing’s Expanse Cosmos, killing intent had never showed up in his gaze. At that moment, it was the first time.

Su Ming saw a floating continent not too far away. The lives there were in utter misery at that moment. Their blood flowed in streams, and they were all slaughtered by an expressionless thin old man. He seemed to be killing everyone to absorb their fear and the life force. Slowly, the thin old man’s aura became stronger.

There was a corpse on the old man’s back. Its flesh was squirming at that moment, and the more people were killed, the more the more the corpse recovered. Flesh grew on its bones, covering certain parts of the bone.

That scene reminded Su Ming of one of Su Xuan Yi’s clones. It had been trapped in a certain region in Divine Essence Star Ocean and was reduced to a host to a skeleton on its back.

The corpse was that skeleton, but the host was no longer Su Xuan Yi’s clone. Instead, the host had become… Tian Xie Zi’s disciple-in-name, Su Ming’s junior brother, the person Su Ming had not been able to find.

When he noticed it, Su Ming fell silent. He could not overlook this. The presence spreading out from the corpse made it clear that he was a powerful warrior from one of the past aeons. Su Ming would ignore him no matter how much he killed or absorbed, since this was a part of the laws before the disaster and Su Ming did not want to interfere with them.

However, that person… should not have used Tian Xie Zi’s disciple-in-name as his host.

The people of the past said that those who did not know of the laws could not be considered to have committed a crime if they broke a law, but this saying did not stand for Su Ming. Regardless of whether he knew or did not know, once a person did certain things, they had to pay the equivalent price, such as the powerful warrior from one of the previous aeons…

Su Ming lifted his right hand and pointed at the distant galaxy. With it, the galaxy immediately distorted. Without a single sound, an illusion appeared in front of Su Ming. It was the illusion of his finger. It instantly looked as if it had become real, and when it grew to be one thousand feet long, it charged into the distance.

As it moved forward, it grew, and it turned into a finger that was about ten thousand feet long. It sliced through space, and in an instant, it appeared in the sky to press down on the corpse that was absorbing all the life force from the recently killed.

The continent trembled violently at that moment, as if it could not withstand the indescribable destructive will contained in Su Ming’s finger when it descended. The corpse’s had been closed before, but at that moment, they flew open to reveal yellow pupils. They shrank swiftly in astonishment.

“Who is attacking me? Fellow Daoist, if you value this continent, then I immediately apologize and am willing to deliver all the life force I absorbed to you. I am even willing to give you a supreme treasure as an apology!” the corpse said quickly, but Su Ming’s finger in the sky did not stop for even an instant. It replaced the sky and descended.

The ground shuddered. In fact, the edges of the continent started cracking and crumbling, unable to withstand the mighty pressure. This caused the corpse’s expression to change again. Without any hesitation, it opened its mouth and sucked in a sharp breath. With it, the old man carrying him was reduced to skin and bones, turning into a mummy. It looked like all of his flesh and blood had been instantly sucked out by the corpse.

When the mummy who had long since died and was turned into a puppet fell to the ground, flesh and blood swiftly grew on his body. It turned into a middle-aged man with a sinister face. He threw his head back and roared. Then, he formed a seal with his hands before pushing at the finger coming at him from the sky.

The moment he attacked, a huge shadow appeared on the middle-aged man’s body. It was a huge black beast that was decaying. It had nine heads, and when it grew larger, it reached to be thousands of feet tall. It let out an indignant howl, leapt up, and charged towards Su Ming’s finger.

“Damn it, no matter who you are, you can’t kill me. This is a part of the laws in the universe. Since you can’t kill me, why must you interfere with my actions?!”

When the middle-aged man roared, Su Ming’s finger crashed against his body. Loud booms spread out, shaking the sky and earth. Hidden amid them was the middle-aged man’s shrill scream of pain.

From a distance, it looked like Su Ming’s finger replaced the sky and the universe. Only the tip of the finger might have descended, but it covered nearly two-tenths of the continent. When it touched the huge beast the old man had manifest, it did not stop moving. It pushed the middle-aged man’s figure and pressed him against the continent that was void of life.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The ground shuddered, and cracks instantly filled the continent. In the span of a few breaths, the land shattered, but it did not crumble straight away. Instead, when it crumbled layer by layer, it exploded and turned into ash…

The middle-aged man’s body and soul were destroyed by the finger formed by Su Ming’s will even before that!

“I cannot bring you to the other side of river… Since you have already passed away, the only thing I can do for you is to have this person die with you, and with this lifeless continent, I will build a grave for you.”

Su Ming sighed softly. He brought his right hand up and swung his arm. Immediately, the continent that had been reduced to dust gathered together in space to form a tomb that floated in the galaxy.

A string of words gradually appeared on the tombstone above it.

Ninth Summit, Grave of Mo Sha.

Dijiu Mo Sha. This disciple-in-name of Tian Xie Zi would now sleep for eternity in his grave. Su Ming might not have had a lot of interactions with him, but he would never forgot that junior brother of his. However, in terms of feelings, he could not help but find that this person was not as close to him as his senior brothers. In fact, perhaps even Tian Xie Zi had already forgotten that there was once a teenager who was determined to become his disciple…

But no matter what… he was Su Ming’s junior brother.

Even if his tomb would only last for one hundred years, the regret that rose in Su Ming’s heart was given voice when he carved Ninth Summit into Dijiu Mo Sha’s tombstone…