Pursuit of the Truth

1

At the instant the black piece disappeared from Su Ming’s palm, the two old Fire Spirits sitting on the left and right of the chessboard exchanged glances before lowering their heads. Their eyelids fell shut.

At the same time, the other Fire Spirits around the area also crouched down and looked like they were falling into sleep again. There was not a hint of aversion in them towards Su Ming standing there, and neither did they pay any attention to him.

Su Ming swept his gaze across the area, until eventually his eyes landed on the half of the skeleton lying against the wall not too far away. He also stared at the long spear it held in its hands, and his eyes flashed with light.

“This person came ages ago. He killed seven powerful warriors in succession, and even the two of us were not his opponent… In the end, we had to have our people offer up their lives to activate three-tenths of the fire in the fifth kiln to refine him alive…

“But this person was so strong that this was only enough to melt half of his body and seal his soul in this place. And this happened just because he already harbored the desire to die in his heart, or else… if he had wanted to leave, we would not have been able to make him stay.

“The long spear in his hands is dyed with a large amount of Fire Spirits’ life force. If you’re not worried that this person will one day be resurrected and rush out of this place, you can take away the spear.”

The old Fire Spirit’s voice echoed in the cave. Su Ming stared at the remaining half of the skeleton, and after a period of pensive silence, he walked over.

When he came beside the skeleton, he cast a few scrutinizing glances at it, and eventually became certain that this person… was not Lie Shan Xiu!

In truth, when he saw this skeleton, an assumption had formed in his heart. After all, Lie Shan Xiu had a spear named Undertaker of Evil’s Spear. Su Ming had received an imitation ot it in the past, but he then remembered that the real Undertaker of Evil’s Spear was under the imperial city in the land of Berserkers. It was used to suppress evil, so Lie Shan Xiu should not have taken it away.

At the Su Ming observed the skeleton carefully, his assumption disappeared from his mind. His gaze landed on the long spear that alternated between black and purple, he lifted his right hand to grab it.

The instant Su Ming touched it, a thick murderous aura spread out from the spear with a bang. It traveled up Su Ming’s right hand and charged into his body. Within an instant, it filled him up. The murderous aura was so strong that as it traveled through him, it turned into a wave of impact that went surging to his brain.

Under this impact, an absent-minded look appeared in Su Ming’s eyes. Blurry pictures flashed through his mind. Those pictures seemed to be the spear’s memories, and they were all revealed before Su Ming’s eyes.

Within one picture was a middle-aged man dressed in black with a long spear in his hand. The place where he stood was the underground cave. There was no expression on the man’s face, but there was no longer any attachment towards life in his eyes, either. There were countless Fire Spirits surrounding him, and there were nine huge Fire Spirits exuding the presence of Masters of Fate, Lives, and Death fighting against him.

There was no expression on his face, but with each spear thrust, the earth would move, and the mountains would tremble. As the Fire Spirits died one by one, they began to chat. Before the man’s eyes, the spirits began aging, and as the ground rumbled under his feet, an endless sea of fire gushed out of the land. That sea of fire… instantly submerged the middle-aged man.

The picture changed. The middle-aged man appeared in a world where the sky was blue, but once he pierced through it, it turned black. The hundreds of living creatures on the ground collapsed and died. It could be seen that the world where he was located was still a dimension in the fifth kiln.

A third picture appeared, and it portrayed a galaxy. Su Ming could see that before the middle-aged man was an endless sea of fire gushing out of the fifth kiln. Clearly, this time, the memory he saw was the one before the middle-aged man had stepped into the fifth kiln.

These pictures were flashbacks that were sketching out the man’s memories. They were a recollection kept by the spear.

A fourth picture appeared in Su Ming’s mind. It was set… within the Barren Lands of Divine Essence. It was the galaxy in which the four Great True Worlds used to keep watch over the barren lands. Even though Su Ming did not know to which true world the man belonged, he saw five-colored light on the middle-aged man’s hands turn into a rope that bound his hands. There were nearly one hundred runic symbols surrounding him as if they were sealing him. Behind him were seven old men. They looked at the bound man with complicated expressions on their faces, their heads lowered to bow to him.

The man turned around. There was a hint of a defeat and grief on his face. He lowered his head to look at his bound hands. When he relaxed them slightly, Su Ming saw that there was a faint red medicinal core between then. The middle-aged man clenched his fists tightly, then walked into the distance.

The fifth picture allowed Su Ming to see a galaxy with which he was incredibly familiar. The color of that galaxy was not black, but red!

The middle-aged man held the long spear in this galaxy. Soon, he let out a string of shrill and forlorn sounding laughter before he rushed towards a bald teenager ahead of him.

This teenager was dressed in a blood-red long robe. He did not seem old, but there was an indescribable ancient air about him. He stared at the middle-aged man coldly. After just a lift of his right hand, the middle-aged man coughed up blood as he tumbled back.

“Are you done fooling around?” The teenager’s voice was calm, and there was a dignified air within it that signified someone who regarded himself as a supreme entity.

“I’d rather not learn the Extermination Dao and enter Death Realm!” the middle-aged man roared and charged forward in a mad dash again.

The picture changed, the sixth picture appearing in Su Ming’s mind. In it was a cultivation planet. The sky was still red, but the middle-aged man was now on the ground. In his arms was a woman’s corpse. Tears trickled down his cheeks as he roared at the sky.

The woman’s corpse slowly disintegrated, until she turned into a faint red medicinal core!

At the same time, the teenager in red walked calmly into the picture. He picked up the medicinal core and handed it to the middle-aged man.

“Eat it. When you do, you can practice Sacred Yin’s Extermination Dao. Once I take that one step forward, it does not matter whether I’ll succeed or not, you will still become the next Kalpa Lord of Sacred Yin World.”

When Su Ming heard this, his entire body shuddered, but he did not let go of the spear in his hand. Instead, he gripped it tighter before slowly lifting it up, slowly extracting it from the skeleton’s palm.

Immediately after, the picture in his mind changed again, and the seventh picture appeared. This time, the teenager in red stood in a world with birds chirping and flowers blooming. Before him was a child of about eight or nine years old. That boy knelt under the teenager’s feet, and with his young voice, he said…

“Master.”

Su Ming opened his eyes swiftly and looked at the half of the skeleton before slowly bringing the spear in his hand before him. The hand which the skeleton used to hold the spear was lifted up high as well when Su Ming raised the spear. If anyone saw this, it would seem as if the skeleton himself had lifted his hand to give Su Ming the spear in his hand.

When the skeleton let go of his grip and Su Ming held the purplish black long spear completely by himself, it shone and disappeared into his hand. However, a purple and black ring appeared on Su Ming’s right index finger. With a swing of his arm, that ring immediately disappeared, hidden away.

After a period of silence, Su Ming took a few steps back, wrapped his fist in his palm, then bowed deeply towards the skeleton.

He knew the reason behind why this person longed for death, which was mentioned by the Fire Spirits just then. He was the Sovereign of True Sacred Yin World and was the disciple of Sacred Yin’s Kalpa Lord. If everything had went smoothly, this person would have become the next Sacred Yin’s Kalpa Lord.

But during this process, an accident happened. His wife passed away, and it was due to the Master he idolized since he was young. His body was exiled to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence, but his soul had already died a long time ago when the woman in his arms closed her eyes.

Su Ming looked at the skeleton in front of him. He did not even know his name, but he knew that a person who could enter Death Realm through the Extermination Dao… was definitely an Almighty in Life Realm. This sort of powerful warrior… was surely a shocking person whose name rang through the galaxy.

There was practically no force in the universe that could make a person who reached Life Realm die. Even if there was, it was definitely rare and hard to find. That was why he was still alive, even if there was only half of his skeleton remaining.

However, Su Ming did not sense this person’s soul from the skeleton or the long spear in his hand. The memories he saw just then were only some residual ones left behind in the spear. When it disappeared into Su Ming’s hand, the residual memories also vanished.

After bowing once, Su Ming lifted his head, then turned around to walk towards the exit. The Fire Spirits continued crouching in the area, their eyes closing slowly, as if they wanted to fall asleep again. Su Ming took a few steps forward, and after a pause, he looked at Flame Fiends’ Progenitor who was looking at him anxiously.

“That Nascent Divinity is mine,” Su Ming said calmly.

When he said these words, the Fire Spirit holding onto the Nascent Divinity of Flame Fiends’ Progenitor let go of it. Flame Fiends’ Progenitor immediately flew to Su Ming’s side, who lifted his feet and turned into a long arc that charged towards the exit. Flame Fiends’ Progenitor followed after him closely. At that moment, there was no longer any hint of hostility in him towards Su Ming.

The two of them moved through the tunnels underground extremely quickly. After some time, Su Ming rushed out of the crack in the ground.

Flame Fiends’ Progenitor followed behind him. Once he rushed out, he looked at the crack in the ground with lingering fear in his eyes, then looked at Su Ming. HE wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed to him.

“Thank you, fellow Daoist.”

Su Ming turned around and cast Flame Fiends’ Progenitor a look. He did not speak, but instead lifted his head to look at the sky. He scanned the area with his Atman and found that he could not find the body of the supreme treasure in this world. Clearly, they had already escaped from Fire Spirits’ pursuit and went into another dimension.

However, with the bald crane, Xu Hui, and Progenitor Long Hai around, Su Ming would be able to immediately notice them the moment they both entered the same dimension.

Flame Fiends’ Progenitor hesitated for a moment, but did not dare to mention the matter about them agreeing that he would have the white-robed teenager’s physical body. He was incredibly weakened at the moment, and he was worried that if he brought this up, he would displease Su Ming.

“Let’s go.”

Su Ming had already found the exit with his Atman, and with one move, he charged towards it. Flame Fiends’ Progenitor quickly followed behind him, and after some time, they arrived at the distorted region which was the exit. They stepped in and disappeared from the world.

What the two of them did not know was that at the instant Su Ming took the purple-black spear from the skeleton’s hands, the big and ferocious looking Zhu You Cai shuddered in another dimension. He slowly lifted his head and looked into the distance, his face filled with complicated emotions.

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