Pursuit of the Truth

The thin Inner Sect disciple had quite extraordinary power, but that description of being extraordinary could only be applied when he was being compared to his fellow sect members. To Su Ming, this sort of person with only that kind power had provoked him twice, so there was no way he would continue indulging him.

He was calm, and that calmness was an expression of his aloofness.

The thin Inner Sect disciple’s heart was trembling at that moment. He suddenly felt a wave of terror he had never sensed before from Su Ming, and especially from those aloof eyes. When he met their gaze, he felt as if two sharp swords pierced right through him, rushing into his eyes and sweeping into his mind before stabbing his heart. They then turned into tens of thousands of lightning bolts in his body, and they were all letting out explosive sounds within him.

Those rumbling lightning bolts shattered his heart and ripped through his soul, causing his breathing to quicken and his eyes to widen when he was less than five feet away from Su Ming.

He abruptly coughed up a mouthful of blood, and it dyed his shirt red, causing the thin Inner Sect disciple to tremble, and at that moment, numerous bloody cracks immediately appeared on his skin. They continued spreading outwards, and in the blink of an eye, they filled his entire body. He could feel an invisible pressure that fell on him like mountains, ready to crush and flatten him. It was as if his entire world had crumbled completely at that moment.

His heart raced madly, thumping loudly against his chest. It was gaining speed rapidly, and the thin Inner Sect disciple’s face turned stark pale. A bang rang out in his chest, and his heart exploded, unable to bear with the pressure.

Once that happened, his organs were also crushed in that instant. His body turned into a bloody mess with a loud bang, as he stood five feet away from Su Ming. The torn pieces then collapsed to the ground.

The blood and flesh spilled all over the place, but none of it fell on Su Ming’s body. It was as if the thin Inner Sect disciple did not dare to get close to Su Ming even in death.

Su Ming had not cast any sort of divine ability, had not even lifted his hand to cause the thin man’s death. He had only used the might formed by his own power to press down on him. This sort of power had practically gained physical form as Su Ming’s level of cultivation increased!

The two fellow sect members of the deceased thin man stood dumbfounded and confused by what they saw. The person to react first was the one who was not holding onto the young man from Hidden Dragon Sect. With a pale face, he immediately retreated without any hesitation, turning into a long arc and leaving this place in haste.

Terror filled his entire body, and the rhythmic beat of his heart was replaced by tremors. Shock and fear became the only things in his heart, and as he retreated, only one thought remained in his mind - he had to get as far away as possible from this place, without care for anything else.

A flash of crimson appeared, and it swept past him as he continued escaping. Confusion surfaced in his eyes and just as he was about to lower his head to look, his head was separated from his body in the middle of his act of dipping it downwards. His head fell into the canyon, and his body, too, plummeted down with a shudder.

A storage bag flew out from the corpse, and it was swept up by the crimson light before it charged towards Su Ming. It floated before him and revealed itself. It was the small snake!

Its injuries were mostly recovered after these few years. It might still look a little feeble, but its body was at least complete.

”How long are you going to hide?” Su Ming stroked the small snake’s head, and the snake looked as if it enjoyed his touch. It wrapped its body around his arm.

Su Ming’s question was clearly not directed towards the small snake. Besides him, there were two people in this place. One of them was the stunned Evil Spirit Sect disciple. The other was the young man he held under his arm.

Almost at the instant Su Ming asked that question, the Evil Spirit Sect disciple’s heart trembled, and he whipped his head downwards to look at the Hidden Dragon Sect member he was holding. During that instant, he saw a chilling glare shining within the young man’s eyes.

This was the final ray of light he saw in his life. The next moment, that young man lifted his right hand and waved it swiftly like a ray of lightning, and blood gushed out of the Evil Spirit Sect disciple’s neck. A muffled bang sounded in the air, and the Evil Spirit Sect disciple’s body was torn into pieces, falling into the depths of the canyon.

The young man from Hidden Dragon Sect floated in midair. Then with an incredibly solemn expression mixed with wariness and nervousness, he wrapped his fist in his palm in a greeting towards Su Ming.

”I am Sun Shan, from Hidden Dragon Sect. Greetings, senior… If you know how to open this cave abode and also possess the jade slip to it… then I won’t bother you…”

Sun Shan’s heart was racing at that moment. As he spoke in the mid of his nervousness, he started slowly backing away. He could not tell Su Ming’s level of cultivation, but if he could use his might alone to cause that thin man’s entire body to collapse without even once relying on a single attack, then even at the lowest, his level of cultivation would be at the Soul Transformation Stage. There was even a high possibility that he was already in the Ascendant Stage.

Yet right when he took eight steps backwards, Su Ming cast him a flat look, and with it, Sun Shan’s feet immediately froze. He forced out a smile, and just as he was about to speak, Su Ming lifted his right hand and waved it in his direction.

Immediately, a gust of wind that appeared out of nowhere charged towards Sun Shan with a loud roar. Sun Shan’s pupils shrank. He wanted to dodge, but after a moment of hesitation, he stood still and did not move, simply allowing the gust of wind to close in on him before turning into a whirlwind around him.

That whirlwind swept up his body and came rushing back towards Su Ming before moving past him and charging into the cave abode. Eventually, it reached the depths of the cave abode and pushed Sun Shan onto the mountain wall, as if sealing him there!

Su Ming’s expression was calm. He cast a glance at Sun Shan, who had been thrown into the cave abode. If he had resisted that wind just now, then he would have died, but since he did not, Su Ming would not kill him. He was not a person who would kill on sight, anyway.

Once he sealed him up, he no longer bothered with him and stepped into the opened cave abode. When he moved inside, he waved his arm, and the jade slip that was inserted into the stone door fell off to turn into a ray of crystalline light that fell into Su Ming’s hands. As he entered the cave, the stone door closed up with rumbling sounds. If anyone looked from the world outside, they would find that everything had returned to as it was in the beginning, and not a single thing off about this place could be found.

Su Ming walked in the cave abode calmly. This place was not incredibly large. Besides the hall in the middle, there were eight other chambers. Each of the chambers was sealed off by a stone door, and each of the doors had a runic symbol shining on it.

All of the runic symbols were different, and all shining with dark light. When Su Ming looked over, he found that each of the symbols seemed to contain a different meaning.

It was quiet in the hall where Su Ming stood. Besides the eight chambers sealed off by the stone doors, the cave abode was empty. That is, besides Sun Shan, who was kept in place by the wind around him on the stone wall before Su Ming. The young man was looking at him nervously at that moment.

His heart was racing, and cold sweat seeped out of his forehead. He was thanking all his lucky stars in his heart that he had not chosen to dodge or fight back just now. His level of cultivation was nothing to this person, and if he wanted to kill Sun Shan, he could do so with no more effort than it required to crush an ant between one’s fingers. I he chose to act obediently before this sort of powerful warrior instead, he might have a chance to survive.

At that moment, he knew that he had made the right move. This person had not chosen to kill him but had merely sealed him up. Clearly, he did not want Sun Shan to go out and cause unnecessary trouble for him.

With a wry chuckle, Sun Shan thought to himself that even if he went out, he would still not dare to provoke this person. Yet similarly, he also grew deeply respectful towards Su Ming, who was unfathomable in his eyes.

This respect was aimed towards Su Ming’s caution and his thinking process.

’This old monster has great power, and he’s a careful person as well. He won’t allow anything to go out of his control. That’s why even if I’m nothing to him, he still chose to seal me here…

’And even though the seal is powerful, it won’t do any harm to me. This is also to make sure that I won’t feel a great sense of danger from this subconsciously, and he can prevent me from struggling against it in desperation.’

Sun Shan’s eyes flashed with a light. He believed that he was considered one of the more calculative types in Hidden Dragon Sect, and it was precisely because of his power and his cautious attitude that he had been able to survive through this disaster.

’Wait! He might not be killing me because he’s thinking of some other thing!’

Sun Shan’s pupils shrank in fear once again, and his heart let out a loud thump in his chest. He quickly lowered his head and checked his entire body. Then, panic instantly appeared on his face.

Su Ming completely ignored Sun Shan, who he was busy overthinking things on the wall. When Su Ming’s gaze fell on the first runic symbol that acted as a sea for the first stone chamber to his left, his eyes flashed with a brilliant light. He stared at that runic symbol, and a feeling of a stirring wind rose in his heart. In fact, he could even see a whirlwind appearing out of nowhere around him.

Su Ming had the highest amount of understanding when it came to wind. He was, after all, the Wind Berserker’s Scion. As he sensed that gust of wind around him and within him, the light in his eyes grew brighter.

’This wind from the void appeared with just one runic symbol…’

While immersed in his thoughts, he looked towards the seal on the second stone door. At the instant he focused his attention on it and everything else became indistinct, he felt a wave of humidity in the air.

He could smell rain, and it was the smell of rain that was pouring down endlessly from the sky… Rain also started pouring around him. It appeared suddenly and fell on Su Ming’s body, causing the pensive look in his eyes to become deeper.

After a long time, he moved his gaze to the third chamber. There he sensed the rumble of a thunderclap. On the fourth chamber’s seal, he felt lightning swimming before it erupted into a shocking ray of light and power.

’Wind, rain, thunder, lightning…’

Su Ming turned his head around and started looking at the chambers to his right. Once he swept his gaze past them, he felt the abundance of life from spring, the heat from summer, the blend between them and death in autumn, and also the death of all lives as snow floated down onto the land during winter.

”Spring, summer, autumn, and winter…” Su Ming mumbled. The light in his eyes became even brighter.

’Forget the items in these chambers, these runic symbols alone can already be considered as treasures! If I can fuse all eight of them into my mind, then it would mean that I’ve mastered the power of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, as well as wind, rain, lightning, and thunder!’

Su Ming lowered his head and lifted his hands. A glint appeared in his eyes.

’Is this a coincidence…? There are five fingers on my left hand, but only four mean wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, and four of the five fingers in my right hand mean spring, summer, autumn, and winter…’

A faint smile appeared on Su Ming’s lips. With a single move, he appeared before the first stone chamber to his left and sat down cross-legged before it. With bright eyes, he stared at the runic symbol on the stone door and started copying it!