Pursuit of the Truth

1

Besides Xu Hui remaining calm, the four cultivators’ expressions changed. They were feeling rather anxious and were unable to tell what Su Ming was thinking.

In truth, this was a manifestation of an insider being too concerned with someone else’s matter, or else they would not feel so perturbed with their intelligence.

Xuan Shang hesitated for a moment before laughing wryly. It was impossible for him to deactivate the supreme treasure at this moment without everything coming to naught. As he sighed, he calmed his heart and mulled over Su Ming’s actions. Gradually, a hint of understanding appeared on his face.

The other three also forced themselves to calm down in this state where they could do nothing. As they pondered over it, they came up with a few reasons for to Su Ming’s behavior.

He was mixing the truth with falsehood!

They were intending to pass themselves as the real son of the tribe leader, but under Su Ming’s control, this deception got infinitesimally close to the truth. In fact, it would soon no longer be a falsehood mixed in truth, but be turned into the truth from a lie by him!

This was the true epitome of passing off a deception as the truth… without causing chaos!

In the sea of fire that had turned into fog, Su Ming controlled the body as he charged forward. Mixed in with the sadness and anger on his face, there were a lot more complicated emotions. As he roared in a hoarse voice, it seemed as if he was venting his frustrations.

“Dust Burners, get out here!”

Su Ming’s words were deep and sonorous. It spread out and reverberated in the fog brought by the sea of fire before going in all directions and lingering for a long time without disappearing.

As time trickled by, Su Ming controlled the body to travel even faster through the fog. His grudge-filled roars continued echoing in space, but the Dust Burners had yet to appear.

However, the fog created by the sea of fire around him seemed to be guided forward as he charged ahead, a form of friction seemed to be created due to that. This friction caused the fog around Su Ming to become hotter. Eventually, blue flames rose with a bang from the fog.

Those flames were initially just sparks, but in an instant, they grew larger and surrounded the area around the body Su Ming controlled. Then, they turned into thick, furious flames. They were formed from the fog, but the fog also came from them, making it seem that the distortion of the dimension was the flames’ limit.

At that moment, the fog returned once again into a sea of fire, and with an incredibly high temperature as well as a presence that could burn everything, it charged towards Su Ming from all directions with a loud bang.

The sea of fire submerged his body in the blink of an eye, but the instant it did so, Su Ming let out a cold chuckle.

“You are just mortal fire and your only function is to guard the entrance to the Dust Burners’ territory. How dare you come and block my path?!”

Su Ming controlled the body so it raised its right hand to swing its arm forward. Immediately, blue light rose from the nine blue lines of fire. Two of them shone, and as they waved about in the air, the booming sounds in the area surged into heaven. The sea of fire that filled the area and charged towards Su Ming rushed into his right arm. In the blink of an eye, all of it was absorbed by the blue lines.

Almost at the instant Su Ming did so, a cold and sinister snort came from the fog and echoed through the area. Along with the voice came a figure that charged towards him from the distance.

Su Ming’s footsteps came to a halt. When he looked over coldly, he saw a young man. There was pride on his face, and there were six marks of flames at the center of his brows. He was dressed in a fire-red long robe. As he strode forward, he instantly appeared in front of Su Ming.

At the instant he looked towards him, his expression changed, and the sound of his snort died off. In fact, he even took a few steps backwards on instinct. With an expression of disbelief, he stared at Su Ming, at the face of the body he controlled, and the nine marks of flames on him.

The more he looked at them, the more familiar became the appearance of the body that Su Ming controlled, especially the nine marks of flames at the center of his brows. It instantly caused him to remember something.

The young man’s expression changed drastically, and he cried out in surprise, “Tribe… Tribe leader!”

The body Su Ming controlled was formed based on the corpse Xuan Family obtained in the past. However, some changes had been made, making it appear younger, and it only looked similar to the corpse instead of being identical to him. After all, they were forging a father-son relationship, not imitating the tribe leader himself.

However, to increase the persuasiveness of the similarity between this ‘father-son’ pair, the body had gone through a lot of modifications, which was why a person who saw it at first glance would have the feeling as if they were looking at the old tribe leader.

The young man had never seen the previous tribe leader in person before, which was why he had not immediately recognized him. However, due to the annual ceremony to worship their ancestors, the portraits of the forty something generations of tribe leaders they worshipped since he was young were etched into his memory, and one of the old tribe leaders looked just like the person he saw right then.

The nine marks of flames between the brows of the body Su Ming controlled acted as the key to guide the young man’s thoughts.

Yet soon, once he cried out in surprise, this young man noticed that something was wrong. This person only looked similar to the person in the portrait, but he was not that person. Because of it, when he connected the stories regarding the previous tribe leader to the status of the person in front of him, the answer to his identity arrived at the tip of his tongue!

“Know who I am now?”

Resentment appeared in the eyes of the body Su Ming controlled. He took a step forward, raised his right hand, and seized the air in the direction of the young man.

Shock had already filled the young man’s heart. At that moment, he could not bring himself to give raise to any will to fight. As he retreated, he lifted his right hand, placed it by his mouth, and quickly blew a whistle.

The whistle echoed with piercing tone in space. At the instant it spread out, the fog around the area started tumbling. A ball of flame manifested and charged towards the center of the young man’s brows. It spun once there and turned into a firebird before rushing out towards the depths of the fog at an incredibly fast speed.

Once he finished doing all this, the young man retreated once more.

Su Ming cast a glance at the firebird. With his power, he could make it stop, but that firebird was clearly used to pass a message. A glint appeared in his eyes. He felt that there was something off about this. After a moment of contemplative silence, he went to chase after the young man.

When the young man retreated, his expression was one of incredible nervousness. Once he saw that Su Ming was chasing after him, he muttered a curse, and fog instantly rose around him. It turned into an image of flames in front of him and charged behind him.

Su Ming did not say a single word. He did not even spare a single glance at the incoming image of fire and just rushed forward, crashing straight through it. As a loud bang reverberated, a deafening sound of something shattering spread through space. The fire image shuddered, and Su Ming went straight through it. He raised his right hand and quickly seized the air in the direction of the young man.

With it, the fog around him looked as if it was ordered around and turned into a gigantic fire hand to grab its prey.

The young man’s expression changed. When he saw that the hand was about to catch up to him, he gritted his teeth with vicious intensity, wrapped his arms around his chest, bent his body, and curled himself into a ball. Once he did so, he stretched his limbs outwards, and the six marks of flames at the center of his brows started flashing intensely, looking as if they were melting each other. Moments after, they formed a single, huge mark of flames.

At the same time, a thick wave of fierce, crimson flames spread out from that mark. In the blink of an eye, it filled the young man’s body. As it burned, it changed, and from a human, the young man turned into a flame giant of several dozens of feet.

His clothes could not be seen, and neither could his appearance. The only thing Su Ming saw was a giant formed by flames. There was an incredibly large mark of flames at the center of his brows. He threw his head back and roared, then ran towards the palm from Su Ming rushing over to him.

Booming sounds instantly echoed in space. At that instant, Su Ming’s eyes focused. He could tell that this Transformation Art was an inborn ability among Dust Burners. It was the same as Heaven Traversers possessing wings. Dust Burners had been able to become one of the four venerated races and exist at the edge of Divine Essence Star Ocean’s core because they had this inborn ability to transform.

The young man had originally been only in the middle stage of World Plane Realm, but when he transformed, his level of cultivation instantly increased exponentially and reached the later stage of World Plane Realm.

Yet even so, before Su Ming, he was still… so weak that he could not withstand even a single blow!

If it was not because he wanted to observe the Dust Burners, he could have killed him instantly.

Su Ming’s eyes flashed, and he changed the direction of his right hand. Instead of seizing the young man, it turned to slap him. The two crashed into each other. Booming sounds echoed in the air, and the young man let out a shrill scream of pain. As he coughed up fresh blood, his body was sent flying backwards by the slap from the giant flame hand Su Ming had formed in space.

When the transformation due to his innate ability fell apart, the flames scattered, and the young man returned to his original appearance. His face was pale, and he coughed up blood again. Without even having time to wipe away the blood at the corners of his mouth, he used the force of the strike to help him retreat.

Su Ming chased after him. Yet at that moment, the expression of the young man fleeing in the distance relaxed. Dozens of whistles came from within the fog, and it was a sign that a dozen something long arcs were closing in on the area.

Su Ming stopped moving and looked coldly at the source of that sound. Immediately, he saw a dozen something Dust Burners within the long arcs. Most of them were middle-aged men, with only the person in the lead being an ancient old man.

Their expressions were incredibly solemn, and there was disbelief and deep doubt contained within them. When they arrived, the old man took hold of the injured young man. Once he saw his wounds, he frowned. When he raised his head, he looked towards the body Su Ming controlled.

When he saw him, his expression changed drastically. Shock appeared on the faces of those behind him.

“You are…” The old man stared at the face of the body Su Ming controlled. That face was incredibly familiar to him, and what especially gained his attention were the nine marks of flames at the center of the body’s brows.

All of these caused the old man’s expression to become complicated.

“Well, who do you think I am?!”

In the face of the old man’s query, Su Ming threw his head back and laughed. There was enmity in that laughter, along with forlornness, as well as an ancient and anguished air that seemed as if it had been accumulated throughout thousands of years.

The old man fell silent, but in the blink an eye, a hint of resolution appeared in his eyes.

“Seize him!” Once he said these words, the dozen something people behind him stopped moving for a while, as if they were hesitant.

“Seize him!” the old man shouted out again. The dozen something people behind him then gritted their teeth and flew out together to charge towards Su Ming.

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