Pursuit of the Truth

“Four years…”

Fog covered an area so great it seemed boundless. The humidity there and the occasional sounds of water dripping that came from far in the distance and just nearby had accompanied Su Ming for four years.

The fog was divided into different colors. They would occasionally change and occasionally intersect with each other…

There was a figure in the purple layer of fog. He was stumbling forward, and his footsteps were slow. It was as if with every single step he took, his body would suffer great pain. After a moment, the figure revealed itself out of the purple layer of fog.

It had a head full of white hair and a face full of wrinkles. The person seemed to have just crawled out of his grave. No signs of any ripples of cultivation bases could be detected from his frail body. He was just like a mortal.

If it was not for the resolve in his eyes and because Su Ming could be barely recognized from his features, no one would be able to imagine that this old man who looked like he would fall from a single gust of wind… would be Su Ming, who was sent to this place four years ago.

He panted harshly while walking out of the fog at a slow pace. The moment he stepped out, a long arc charged over from within the purple fog. It rushed towards Su Ming and shot through his body before leaving with a trail of nearly black blood. That blood splattered on the floor and let out sizzling sounds. The thing that had shot through Su Ming was a flying fish.

Right after hitting him, it melted due to the black blood in his body. Su Ming staggered, then fell to the ground, still and unmoving.

Time trickled by. When the time it takes for half an incense stick to burn passed, signs of the purple fog about to undergo a change in color appeared. When red shade slowly appeared, a figure flew out of the fog. It was a wild dog with flames spreading out from its body.

The wild dog had six eyes, and they were all shining at that moment. The creature was so quick that it instantly reached Su Ming, but it did not immediately approach him. Instead, it circled him a few times, occasionally lifting its head to look at the fog changing color. When it saw that the fog was about to turn red, hesitation appeared in all six of its eyes. Then, it lowered its head and went to bite Su Ming’s neck.

The moment it opened its mouth wide, Su Ming’s still body suddenly moved. He raised his right hand, and he was so fast that he sent his fist straight towards the wild dog’s wide open mouth before it could react. He grabbed its tongue, then yanked it out in one swift, clean motion as if he had done this countless times.

At that same time, he stood up and rammed himself against the wild dog. When it let out a broken groan, Su Ming grabbed the wild dog’s neck with his left hand, forced it to run with him. When the fog behind them turned from purple to red, Su Ming had already vanished without a trace with the wild dog.

About ten thousand lis away from where Su Ming was originally was a black mountain. It was barren, and not a single plant could be found on it. On the mountainside was a hewed out cave abode.

The moment a body appeared inside it, the fog in the distance turned completely red, and an indescribably hot wave of air erupted from that place. Wherever it went, the ground would immediately melt. Every single existence disintegrated, and several wild dogs could be seen fleeing swiftly, but they were engulfed by the hot wave of air in the blink of an eye and reduced to ashes.

Su Ming stepped into his cave abode without any hesitation. At the moment he did so, the hot wave of air crashed against the mountain with a bang. A huge force rushed into the cave abode. When it was about to touch Su Ming, he charged forward and avoided it by a hair’s breadth. Like this, he entered the depths of the cave abode.

A sullen look appeared in his eyes. Su Ming turned his head back and cast a glance behind him. In silence, he lifted the dead dog and bit down on its neck, devouring its blood in large mouthfuls. That blood trickled down the corner of his lips, faint golden in color!

As he swallowed up the blood, the wrinkles on Su Ming’s face slowly disappeared. His hair, too, gradually changed. By the time he drank all of the wild dog’s blood, his appearance had changed drastically. He looked similar to how he was four years ago, but a faint, undefinable, imposing aura had appeared about him. That imposing air did not come from his expression, but from his blood and his aura.

He flung the wild dog’s corpse to the side. It landed in a large pile of skeletons in the cave. There were thousands of them, and they were packed densely together, which gave them an incredibly ghastly air.

‘Four years… this damned All Spirits Hall has trapped me here for a full four years!’

Su Ming wiped off the blood at the corners of his mouth and sat down cross-legged by the side while staring at the sky beyond the entrance of the cave. The sky was red, and below it was a hot wave of air that could burn even him to a crisp.

Its heat surpassed the destructive power of the fifth kiln. In truth, it surpassed all forms of destruction Su Ming had ever witnessed.

‘All Spirits Hall… This damned All Spirits Hall, one of the three great mysteries in Divine Essence Star Ocean, is actually connected to the Sun Sinking Talisman. They form one whole entity!

‘This is the birthplace of all spirits spoken of in the legends among the tribes in Divine Essence Star Ocean. It is the source of all Ancestral Spirits…’

Su Ming’s expression was dark as he stared at the crimson red sky beyond the cave. It reminded him of all that he had went through during the last four years.

Four years ago, he had been Relocated to this place. While ceaselessly searching for an exit, he had ran into the changes in the fog. In the face of the terrifying red light and the hot wave of air that could burn him, he experienced and survived many perilous situations.

He also noticed that while his level of cultivation was back to its normal level, he could not replenish it. Every single time he wasted a bit of it, it was gone forever. If he could not find the exit by the time he used up all of his cultivation base, there was a high possibility that he would die in this place.

Because of this, he didn’t dare to casually use his Enchanted Treasures, especially the white ring. In this strange place where he could not recover his cultivation base once he used it, retaining his strength was his best option.

When the scenes from the past four years flashed through Su Ming’s mind, his pupils suddenly shrank. His presence immediately disappeared. An aura of death surrounded his body. He fixed his gaze on the small red layer of sky he could see beyond the cave.

Figures bathed in faint golden light charged past there. He could tell that most of them were in human form, but there were also existences like ferocious beasts among them. When they charged through the sky, they let out piercing screams that could make a person’s soul ache in pain.

“One form of life was born before heaven and earth. It allowed all the other forms of life to be born, and it nourished them…”

“Heaven and earth could exist for so long because they do not operate for their own survival. This is what allows them to stay eternal [1]. If you desire life, then you must possess life…”

“Ancestral Spirits precede Antecedental Spirits. They come from before the time of the universe, which is why those who live must destroy lives…”

Amid the piercing voices were jumbled up murmurs that echoed without end.

Su Ming fixed his stare on the figures in the crimson red sky. In his ears he heard the murmurs he could not understand. He clenched his right hand into a fist and did not move. He would never forget those figures.

On the third month since he had arrived in this place, he saw them for the first time. In the face of these bizarre entities which disregarded all divine abilities and power from his cultivation base, almost all of Su Ming’s life force had been sucked out, forcing him to activate his supreme treasure. Only by sparing no pains and using up his cultivation base could he crush one.

However, he had not expected that once he destroyed one of them, thousands or mo lire ten thousand of them rose in its place. A huge hall had suddenly appeared in the crimson sky and chased Su Ming through the bizarre world.

During the relentless pursuit, Su Ming’s body had become increasingly weaker. When his life force was almost extinguished, the crimson red sky disappeared. The fog in the place turned white, and all the strange creatures chasing Su Ming disappeared without a trace.

Everything had returned to normal.

Red appeared in Su Ming’s eyes. He stopped recalling the scenes which had happened in the past four years to stare at the figures in the sky beyond the cave abode. After a long while, he turned his head around and cast his gaze on the ferocious beasts’ skeletons.

If he had not accidentally noticed that some of the strange, ferocious beasts with flesh and blood in the area could allow him to restore his life force when he drank their blood while also allowing him to restore his cultivation base a little, it would have been very difficult for him to persevere.

‘But the ferocious beasts in this place are all incredibly cunning. It’s clear that they possess intelligence. If I want to kill them, I need to do it one strike, or else even if I manage to kill them, I won’t be able to make up for what I lose.’

In silence, Su Ming raised his right hand and touched the bloody mess on his chest. The blood there was black, and it was a poison he had formed after killing numerous ferocious beasts and drinking their blood.

This blood had already spread through Su Ming’s entire body, but if he stopped drinking the golden beast blood, he would not be able to replenish the cultivation base and life force he used up. This was… a dilemma. He had contemplated over this in the past, and in the end, he chose to drink the creatures’ blood.

His blood might have turned black, but this wasn’t the only change in his body. His chest was a good example of that. The injury he sustained when he was pierced had already healed completely without Su Ming needing to use any of his power.

As time trickled by, the crimson shade in the world outside slowly disappeared after lasting seven whole days. It was replaced by a white world. Only when the sky beyond the cave abode turned white in Su Ming’s eyes did the aura of death around him disappear. When he returned to normal, his expression became gloomy.

‘Over the past four years, I’ve walked through all the regions. This is a world that seems to have no end. Yet I didn’t see any signs of cultivators… Perhaps the exit is not on the ground, but in the palace that appeared in the sky in the past.’

Su Ming was silent. This was a theory that had appeared in his mind a long time ago, but he was always a little uncertain about it. He turned his head around and cast his gaze at the cave abode around him. The signs of hewing made it clear that the cave had not formed naturally.

Su Ming had found it coincidentally. The cave abode was already like this when he arrived.

After being silent for a while more, Su Ming directed his gaze towards another direction in the cave abode. Near one wall… there was a black skeleton that belonged to a human. It was a cultivator, most likely the previous owner of the cave abode.

Even after he had died, waves of mighty pressure still spread out from his skeleton.

Translator’s Note:

1. Up to this point, everything said there refers to Tao Te Jing, written by Laozi during the Spring and Autumn Period.