Pursuit of the Truth

Another month passed in the unknown space. Dressed in white, Su Ming calmly walked forth towards the spot where the sound of the horn came from and stood on a scale on the dragon snake’s back. The instant he lowered his head, his body having returned to his spot on the dragon snake’s body, that apathetic look on his face turned into one of disbelief…

For a countless number of times, Su Ming had dragged his exhausted body along with an apathetic look on his face to stand on the dragon snake’s scale, and the instant he sat down, he would see the words on the scales. An expression of shocked horror would appear on his face, and he would lift his shivering right hand to carve down another string of words before his body disappeared...

Again, and again, and again…

The cycle repeated endlessly. Each time he woke up, he would walk right to his death, either dying in the hands of other undying souls or dying on the statue…

His only gain was that there were more and more words left on the dragon snake’s scales. Each line of words signified one death, and this continued until all the scales were filled, until all the scales were covered with more than five lines…

Each time he died and woke up, his mind would be muddled. Not a single bit of his memories would be left behind, as if they had been completely wiped away to continue this endless cycle.

If he did not have those words, perhaps Su Ming would have truly lost himself… in this Undying and Imperishable World. He would not be able to wake up for all eternity, and would sink into this endless cycle of struggling, then roaring, and then eventually turning apathetic.

This was a cage. The bird would feel as if it had flown out, but the instant it died, it would realize abruptly that… it was still in that cage.

Only the instant he almost disappeared from the dragon snake’s body would Su Ming remember everything. It was like a dream. When a person woke up from his dream, he would be confused, but the instant his confusion arrived, the dream would no longer be there…

With those words on the scales, Su Ming forced himself to never forget, even through his deaths, to not let his will scatter even if he died, to make himself… persevere. Even if the direction and the goal of his perseverance was indistinct, and even if he might not get a conclusion for everything that he did.

This continued for an unknown amount of times, until one time, when Su Ming stood on the dragon snake, he landed on a scale with five lines of words.

When he looked at the words left behind on the scale by his incarnations an unknown amount of years ago, he saw the words telling him not to devour the undying souls, and they made his heart tremble. The instant his body was about to disappear, he lifted his head and let out a roar filled with the unwillingness to admit defeat.

With that roar, before his right hand disappeared, he pressed down on the scale. This time, he did not leave behind any words but drew a runic symbol on the scale.

This was the framework for a Rune he had discovered, after he recovered his memories, among all the divine abilities Hong Luo had left for him. The use of that Rune was to produce vibrations and to increase the volume of a voice endlessly, turning that voice into an echo that would reverberate through the world.

By what he remembered from Hong Luo’s legacy, if he activated this Rune in a vacant place, then he could let that echo last for a month. During that month, no matter how far someone was, they would still be able to hear it faintly.

However, this Rune was rather huge, and the line Su Ming carved was less than a hundredth of its completed form. It was far from enough for him to finish drawing the framework for the Rune.

However, Su Ming might have only managed to carve a hundredth of that Rune, but he had the next time, and as time passed by and as he came to this place repeatedly, he would wake up right before his death and remember everything, and then he would work to complete the framework for the Rune.

He did make certain errors because the spot where he sat did not fulfill the requirements for him to draw the Rune, but in the Undying and Imperishable Realm, in those endless cycles of life and death, eventually, Su Ming managed to draw the final line of the Rune on the dragon snake’s body right before he woke up after his death!

The instant he finished drawing the Rune, Su Ming activated it, and with his strongest voice, he shouted his words.

”Don’t devour any of the undying souls, do not devour even a single one of them…”

When he sent those words out and his body disappeared, the Rune he had finally managed to draw after an endless amount of tries on the dragon snake’s body began operating, increasing the volume of his voice endlessly and sending it in all directions with a loud rumble. His words were like waves as they echoed in the boundless world.

Ten days after Su Ming’s death, fog seeped out of a certain spot on the white ground in that vast and boundless world before it gathered together once again to turn into Su Ming’s body.

His body gradually gained corporeal form, and with gray eyes, he looked at his surroundings with a vacant stare, and his mind was an empty slate, void of memories.

He looked at the gray sky and there was not a single thought in his head. It was just as if this was the first time he saw this sky, and he simply stared at it blankly. Fog rose around him slowly and gathered together to form some undying souls. Su Ming, who stood among the many undying souls, looked incredibly normal. There was nothing different about him.

Once the bodies of the new undying souls formed, they lifted their heads slowly and looked at the gray sky, as if they were waiting for something.

When the moaning sound of the horn traveled through the sky, it fell into Su Ming’s ears. It caused his body to tremble, and he lowered his head like the other undying souls beside him before floating in the direction of where the sound of the horn came from.

Su Ming did not know that he had repeated this action an endless amount of times…

However, this time, before a day had even gone by, a furious roar reverberated violently between the sky and earth, alongside the moaning sound of the horn, in the boundless world.

”Don’t devour any of the undying souls, do not devour even a single one of them…”

As that voice reverberated in the air, it fell into Su Ming’s ears as well as the undying souls’ ears. Su Ming froze for a moment in his movement to go forward. He lifted his head lightly and cast a glance at the sky, and after a moment of hesitation, he pretended that he did not hear it. The other undying souls also acted as if they did not hear the sound and continued floating forward.

Time passed by, and another round of some undying souls letting out low roars and pouncing on their companions next to them to eat them happened again.

This time, madness appeared Su Ming’s gray eyes as well. He turned around swiftly and pounced on the absentminded undying soul beside him. Right at the instant he was about to devour his companion and make himself stronger, that furious roar that screamed with an unwillingness to give in and sounded as if it was let out before someone died resounded once again through the endless sky.

”Don’t devour any of the undying souls, do not devour even a single one of them…”

That voice had reached them many times over the past few days, and had been gradually growing weaker. As it echoed in the air, it fell in Su Ming’s mind, causing him to freeze in his actions just as he was about to eat his companion.

Struggle appeared in his gray eyes. There was originally not supposed to be anything in his blank mind, but those words were now echoing in his head. His grip around the undying soul slowly loosened.

He did not know why, but the voice coming through the sky was incredibly familiar…

As Su Ming let go of the undying soul, the strong souls around him had finished eating their companions, and after they became slightly stronger, they lifted their heads and roared towards the sky.

That roaring sound fell into Su Ming’s ears and made him struggle once again. This time, his struggles lasted for a long time, and when he eventually stopped struggling, he looked around him, and found that there was no longer any undying souls by his side.

The undying souls that had been born with him had left in a group. Only Su Ming was left behind while struggling with himself. The other undying souls would not bother about his whereabouts, they would only listen to the calls from the horn and move nonstop towards their destination.

Su Ming stood alone in the vast land with a vacant look on his face. After a long while, he lowered his head and floated forward slowly.

The term probability is really just a coincidence and a change that happens in silence. Its appearance can usually not be controlled by man. It was just like possibilities. As an endless amount of ripples appears in the same manner and frequency, there is a possibility that a different type of ripple would appear…

It was the same in the Undying and Imperishable World. Su Ming had no idea how many times he had been reincarnated. In fact, the question did not even exist in his head.

Even if this was the umpteenth time he had woken up, to him, this was still the first time he woke up.

This time, his awakening was different. He could not notice it, but only the people who had been observing him over the hundreds of thousands of times he died and woke up again would see that he was different this time.

This time, due to the presence of that voice, Su Ming did not devour any other undying souls. He moved forward absentmindedly, and continued moving forward even when the voice was no longer around after half a month had gone by. He continued floating forward, and on the way, he did not run into other undying souls!

This was a first over the endless amount of years and endless amounts of awakenings he went through!

As he floated for half a month in his absentminded daze, the gray hue in Su Ming’s eyes grew stronger. A feeling of hunger and weakness also blossomed from the depths of his heart. Occasionally, he would look around and search for the fountain that would stop his hunger and weakness.

He had encountered souls before, but every single time he saw them, that voice that had already disappeared in his head would echo weakly, making his struggles become stronger.

He longed to devour something, but that familiar voice stopped him from eating. In fact, as time passed by, he even grew to have a vague feeling that he… could not devour any undying souls.

When his struggles reached their peak, he saw a dozen something undying souls floating forward absentmindedly on the white land. Su Ming could no longer suppress the desire to eat, and he charged forward.

The dozen something undying souls were clearly newborn souls that had no shred of intelligence whatsoever in them. Su Ming closed in on one of them, and just as the soul was about to be eaten, an intense wave of struggle appeared on Su Ming’s face. He roared, and his eyes were no longer gray.

A purplish red tint appeared, and in his struggles, he gave up on eating that soul. Instead, he lifted his right hand and rammed it against the undying soul’s head, causing its body to break up.

The instant the undying soul died, a bang resounded suddenly in Su Ming’s head, and a pain as if his mind was being ripped apart rushed through him. In the midst of that, clarity surfaced in Su Ming’s pupils.

”I am Su Ming!”