Pursuit of the Truth

1

Su Ming moved so quickly that he managed to move through the Expanse Cosmoses in a flash, and he only stopped at an Expanse Cosmos that was located rather far away from Bear Chart Tribe. The place was in ruins, and the barrier to that Expanse Cosmos had been sealed.

The person who had done so was Cang San Nu. When he destroyed the Viridian Gods in the past, he had sealed up their Expanse Cosmos and turned it into his private property. No outsider was allowed to step foot in it.

His seal was so strong that only those in Avacaniya Realm could break it, which was why no one dared to try it. Cang San Nu was also so strong that he was the leader of the Sovereigns of Dawn. Hence, even those in Avacaniya Realm would not dare to break the seal to his place.

After Cang San Nu died, the seal became like a tree without roots. It started gradually dissolving. Su Ming watched the barrier of the Expanse Cosmos before him and took a step forward. The bald crane was the first to fly out, and as it let out a loud cry, it rammed its head against the barrier. When it phased through the barrier, Su Ming also walked through it.

Everything before him was ruins. Countless corpses floated in the galaxy, but they did not rot. The wreckage of the planets filled the galaxy. The space was full of the aura of death, which made it look like hell.

Su Ming swept his gaze over the area before his eyes landed at the center of the Expanse Cosmos. There was a tall palace there. It was damaged, but it did not collapse. It exuded an ancient presence, and the opened gates showed that everything inside was dark. It looked like a dead creature with its mouth wide open.

Based on Cang San Nu’s memories, he had obtained the wing fragment from the palace. Su Ming swept his gaze over it, and with one move, he crossed an incredibly great distance to appear outside the palace. Then, he stepped inside it.

At the instant he walked in, the oil lamps all around him lit up on their own, showering him in light. With it, Su Ming saw a chair at the center of the palace. Sitting cross-legged on it was a corpse. It belonged to an old man who had lost his life force.

He was sitting quietly with his back straight. His right palm faced upwards, as if there was originally something placed there.

Su Ming stared at the old man’s corpse. In Cang San Nu’s memories, when he stepped into the palace, the old man was already dead, and he had been holding the wing fragment in his right hand.

Su Ming swept his gaze past the old man and looked around himself. There were a few murals around him, but they were very faint. Due to the passing of time and the destruction of the Viridian Gods, everything that remained was only a relic of the past.

But this did not affect Su Ming in the slightest. He walked to the old man and lifted his right hand to push it against the old man’s own. At the moment they touched, Su Ming executed the Art of Time.

He continued standing in the hall, but the things he saw before his eyes were countless scenes that looked as if they were turning backwards. They passed by his eyes swiftly, as if time was moving in reverse. The murals became clearer, and the dust gradually vanished. When everything was as good as new, Su Ming saw Cang San Nu’s figure appear in the hall.

With a murderous blood lust, the high-spirited Cang San Nu rained down bloody murder. Once he appeared in the hall and saw the old man’s corpse, his expression turned incredibly complicated. After a long while… he took the fragment away from the old man’s hand.

“Elder… when you chased me out of the tribe, did you ever think… that I, Cang Nu, would one day return like this?!”

A ferocious expression appeared on Cang San Nu’s face, but after remaining silent for some time, he chose to only sigh and take the fragment with him. Then, he turned around and left.

Time continued reversing, and Su Ming saw that before Cang San Nu arrived in the hall, it was frequently cleaned and tidied up. There were also people worshiping it. The Viridian Gods lived in an age of prosperity, but while the murals were no longer blurry, the carvings depicting only normal ceremonies of people coming for worship. There was nothing about them that could benefit Su Ming.

That was until he saw many people carving those murals. They went from being clear to being indistinct again. When the walls became blank, new murals appeared, and these events repeated themselves. The murals were continuously carved out by someone, then repeatedly changed, but none of them were useful to Su Ming. But he was not in a hurry, so he continued to execute his Art of Time and watch in silence.

He lost track of how many times the murals around him had been changed. It lasted until the corpse before Su Ming slowly regained life force. When it came off of the corpse in thick waves, the old man returned to the time when he had yet to die. He stood in the hall with a pained expression while berating a teenager. That teenager knelt on the ground with his head lowered, but Su Ming could see the unwillingness to admit his wrongs and his resentment. The teenager was Cang San Nu.

Then, Su Ming saw the hall in an even more complete state. Time continued reversing…

The old man was silently looking at the wing fragment. He then lifted his right hand and wiped off all the murals around him.

At that moment, Su Ming’s pupils contracted. He saw that the murals that had been wiped off were completely different from the ones he had seen previously. When Su Ming directed his attention on them, he saw that the murals that were wiped off were personally carved by the person who would end up dying in the chair!

The entire mural was divided into four parts.

The first part was a young man leaving the tribe after he worshiped his ancestors. His people sent him off to begin his personal journey to become an adult.

The second part of the mural was an old mausoleum into which the young man walked in. Around him were countless living creatures with different appearances. When a Rune appeared in the depths of the mausoleum, the young man stepped into it, and his figure became indistinct before he was Relocated.

The third part was clearly what had happened after he was Relocated. The young man appeared in a strange world. It looked like it was the Vast Expanse. Within that universe was a huge gap, and no one knew where it led to. When the young man approached the gap, an old man suddenly appeared in the gap.

The old man was covered in blood, and he stood on an ancient ship, as if he had been wandering about outside the gap for a long, long time before he managed to find it. This would allow him to step into the place for the first time.

The fourth part was the young man giving some medicinal pills to the old man as well as a jade slip containing a map. The old man wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed to the young man. When he raised his arm, he tore a fragment from the gap and gave it to him.

The murals ended.

When Su Ming saw this, his heart trembled. As he continued watching it, the murals on the wall came to a point of time when they had yet to be carved onto the walls.

The four pictures eternally disappeared from the passage of time. It was difficult for anyone to be able to see it. What they saw was only another set of murals that appeared after the original was wiped off.

Su Ming opened his eyes, though in truth, he had never closed his physical eyes. At that moment, the eyes he opened were those of his will. He lifted his right hand from the corpse’s hand. Everything around him returned to its previous state. It was still broken, it was still old, and the murals were still indistinct.

Su Ming was silent. The four murals clearly spoke of the experiences the corpse went through before he died, or rather, it spoke of the process he obtained the wing fragment. Clearly, he had never spoke of this with other people. Even the murals had been personally wiped off after he carved it. He did not want anyone to know about it.

Su Ming knew what had happened, but while he seemed calm, a raging storm had stirred up in his heart. It was impossible for him to be calm, and once he closed his eyes, the scenes on the murals continuously appeared in his mind.

‘If those murals are true, then I can be certain that this fragment… isn’t from another butterfly. It’s a part of Harmonious Morus Alba’s wings!

‘Similarly, I can be certain that one of the four wings… has a gap… It’s a gap that will lead us out into the Vast Expanse beyond!

‘Since this gap isn’t in Harmonious Morus Alba Expanse Cosmos, in Arid Triad Expanse Cosmos nor in Dark Dawn and Saint Defier. It should be… in the fourth wing’s Expanse Cosmos!

‘If all of this is true, then… he went to the fourth Expanse Cosmos in the past. The old man he saw when he was there… is from…’ When Su Ming thought of this, he opened his eyes. His pupils shrank, and a thought which he could not control appeared in his mind. It caused his mind and heart to tremble.

‘The old man… came from the Vast Expanse beyond!’ Su Ming’s breathing quickened. The scenes on the murals continuously appeared in his mind before he eventually fixed on the scene in which the old man stepped into the gap.

‘His entire body is covered in blood. He should have been injured badly, and he used the ship as an Enchanted Vessel to move through space to arrive here. Who could possibly injure someone as strong as him, and just where did he come… Hmm?’

Su Ming jolted, and he instinctively took a few steps back. He remembered the scene of the black-robed young man destroying the butterfly.

Su Ming’s expression changed swiftly.

‘Is there a possibility… that he came from another butterfly’s world? And before that butterfly was destroyed, he fled to this place! A ship… ship… I can remember a person who is always on an ancient ship. He is… the Old Man Extermination [1]!’

Su Ming took a few steps back, and his expression continued changing. After a long while, he lifted his head swiftly to look at the corpse on the chair.

‘Old Man Extermination brought with him a ship and searched through Arid Triad for the things he needed. All those whose offering he accepted had the right for their names to be entered into his ballad. That ballad would not die, and so all those whose names were inside it would not die too.

‘He appeared in Arid Triad during the third era. This corresponds with the contents on the murals. Then, perhaps at that time… it was the first time he entered the world of Harmonious Morus Alba!

‘He is the Old Man Extermination, and he came from Dark Dawn… Dark Dawn… This is also indeed Dark Dawn!’ Su Ming’s pupils shrank again. A cold chill rose from the bottom of his heart and filled his body.

‘Then… what were his goals when he fled from his world once the black-robed young man destroyed it?!

‘And where is he right now? Rumors say that the Old Man Extermination died during the end of the third era and turned into the Seed of Life Extermination. I have nourished half of it before. Now, the Seed of Life Extermination is completed… and it’s with Su Xuan Yi and Lei Chen!

‘Su Xuan Yi… what else does he know?!’

Su Ming closed his eyes. Only at that moment did he realize that even if he was the strongest power in his aeon, the fog of mystery before his eyes had only become thicker!

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