Pursuit of the Truth

A bolt of red lightning crackled in the sky with a roar. Jing Nan Zi opened his eyes, though just a crack. A sharp, freezing glare shone through that crack, along with a faint hint of surprise.

’One of the spies I left in the world outside is summoning me.’

Jing Nan Zi slowly lifted his right hand and formed several seals before himself, as if he was calculating something. As he continued calculating with his fingers, the thunder in the sky that was raining blood instantly grew louder.

The numerous booms practically fused into one as lightning crackled in the sky, causing the shades of red on the ground to shift violently between light and dark, as if the apocalypse had arrived.

The speed at which Jing Nan Zi formed the seals with his right hand increased. Wisps of green smoke appeared faintly on the tip of his right hand’s fingers. Barely discernible illusions could be seen in that smoke, and if anyone took a closer look, they would be able to see that Tian Lin, Long Li, Sun Kun, and Su Ming’s forms had appeared in the green smoke.

Once that happened, the green wisps of smoke showed the sealed region in Crimson Flame Planet. At that moment, when the thunderous booms in the sky reached their most intense volume, Jing Nan Zi’s expression changed drastically.

Disbelief first appeared on his face, then he swiftly stood up. As he gradually extracted and read through all of the memories contained in Ye Shen Tong’s clone before it had died, Jing Nan Zi stood on the mountain, and a variety of emotions constantly flickered on his face.

He seemed to be hesitating about something. After a long while, a resolute expression appeared on his face. A hint of ferociousness and ecstasy even flashed past his eyes.

’If I manage to do this great meritorious deed on my own, then I will be able to end my period of keeping a lookout over this place early. I will even be able obtain a hundred, a thousand, or maybe even a ten thousand fold increase in resources that would have originally been given to me. This is definitely an anomaly in the planet. If I can suppress it on my own, then I’ll be able to obtain the greatest reward among the Union of the Four Great True Realms. I will obtain the right to enter Heavenly Sun Planet and train!’ There was excitement that Jing Nan Zi could not suppress shining in his eyes.

’Heavenly Sun Planet is only opened once every hundred thousand years, and less than thirty people can enter the place every single time it is opened. It is the sacred cultivation land who can be entered by those whose names appeared on the list the leaders of the four Great True Realms decide upon. The time when the planet will be opened again is no longer far away. If I can obtain the right to enter this time, then I’m seven-tenths confident that once I come out, I’ll be half a step away from Solar Kalpa!’

Jing Nan Zi no longer had any hesitation. With his right hand, he seized the air in the direction of the red armor, which was lying on the ground, drenched by the bloody rain.

The armor instantly flew up and separated into several parts that covered Jing Nan Zi’s entire body, pieces connecting with each other to once again turn into a red battle armor. Jing Nan Zi looked filled with murderous aura when he equipped that battle armor. As his long crimson hair danced in the bloody rain, he picked up the helmet. Once he put it on, he turned around and took a step off the blood-red mountain.

Boom!

The mountain shattered into pieces, and a ray of red light flew out from the collapsed ruins. That light contained a rectangular object that looked like a coffin and was crimson in color. There were streams of light shining on it, as well as countless bumps formed by runic symbols. Anyone who saw this items would feel their hearts and souls trembling.

Jing Nan Zi took a step towards the crimson coffin. When he touched it, he fused into it. Immediately, a large amount of the runic symbols began sparkling, and the coffin turned into a ray of piercing light that charged into the sky with a bang, at a speed that was difficult to describe with words.

With the bloody rain falling on it, the coffin flew out of the cultivation planet in the blink of an eye. Then, in the form of a long arc, it charged towards the direction where Crimson Flame Planet lay in the vast galaxy.

Days passed. The people in the seal within Crimson Flame Planet remained still and unmoving, immersed in the condition that fell upon them due to the power of the World Stone. There was a dazed expression on Su Ming’s face. No one knew what he had seen in the ripple from the World Stone.

The bald crane was drooling as it mumbled in its spot, muttering words that perhaps even the crane itself would not be able to hear clearly.

At that moment, Crimson Flame Planet was dark. Most of the people would not venture out and do anything. After all, the ferocious beasts in Crimson Flame Planet had walked out of their sealed regions, and everything had become different from how it was in the past. For the cultivators in the place, the caution they had exercised during the past few years became the barrier that would ensure their safety.

The night was not quiet, though. The ferocious beasts would roar out occasionally, their voices slicing through the night sky and traveling in all directions.

The old woman in the house at the top of the mountain in the eastern region of Crimson Flame Planet was sitting inside with her legs crossed. She had seldom ventured out during the past few years, because her heart had been slightly uneasy all this while, but in the end, she could only turn her unease into sighs.

On this night, as the old woman was sitting in her house and meditating, her eyes suddenly flew open, and a hint of shock appeared within them.

The entire night sky of Crimson Flame Planet turned red at that instant. All the cultivators on the ground woke up and lifted their heads at the same time to look at the sky in shock.

In fact, even the roaring ferocious beasts abruptly stopped letting out any sort of sound.

The thing that had caused the sky of Crimson Flame Planet to turn red was a piercing ray of red light. Its manifestation in the sky was a telling sign that something was approaching this place at an extreme speed. At that moment, it was moving through the layer of air at the highest point in the sky.

The red light was too fast for anyone to see what was inside. In the blink of an eye, it was as if the sky had been put on fire. Moments later, the light crashed onto the ground, and with the collision spot as its center, a wave of impact that was like a violent gust swept through the entire area.

Wherever this wave of impact went, the ground would be instantly eroded. There were even several volcanoes that turned instantaneously into dirt. All manner of living except for those who had reached the peak of Heaven Cultivation Realm within a circular area of ten thousand lis died in an instant, without even being able to let out a single scream of pain.

However, even those who had reached the peak of Heaven Cultivation Realm coughed up a huge mouthful of blood due to the wave of impact and were all gravely wounded by it.

Once the booming sound that came from the wave of impact faded away, a gigantic red coffin could be seen on the spot where the wave of impact had originated, which was also where the red light had crashed onto the ground. Nearly a third of it had penetrated into the ground in a diagonal manner.

A human face popped up on the surface of the coffin’s lid as the countless bumps that were runic symbols shone and streams of light flowed out from the coffin. More accurately speaking, the thing that showed up was not a face but a head wearing a helmet. Gradually, Jing Nan Zi’s head and body showed up on the coffin’s lid before he eventually walked out, as if he had just phased through it.

As he looked at the ground around him, he let out a cold harrumph. The murderous aura about him surged into the sky, and he lifted his right hand to strike the coffin. The runic symbols immediately shone intensely, and the coffin turned into a long red spear, which Jing Nan Zi picked up.

At the instant he held the blood-red spear, a power that belonged to those in the peak of the middle stage of World Plane Realm was released from his body without him bothering to put even a single bit of disguise on it. At the instant it erupted from his body and swept through Crimson Flame Planet, it told all the people in the area that he had arrived.

Jing Nan Zi lifted his left hand, and a jade slip appeared on his palm. When he squeezed it, green light immediately spread out and covered the land beneath his feet. It traveled so quickly that in the span of ten breaths, that green light had already covered all the land, all the cultivators, and all the ferocious beasts in Crimson Flame Planet.

It even seeped into the depths of the ground and covered the sealed region. Once it did so, an illusory projection of several dozens of feet lit up on the jade slip. That projection showed a complete Crimson Flame Planet.

This scene was almost identical to what the ancient bronze sword had manifested in the air when the True Guard were investigating the region.

As the green light covered all the living beings in Crimson Flame Planet, it made all the cultivators in the land know clearly that… a True Guard had descended!

The old woman in the house on the mountain in the eastern region was shivering at that moment. Her face was stark pale as panic revealed itself in her features. The ripple of power she sent out also showed a submissive gesture.

Jing Nan Zi cast a look at the illusory projection before he disappeared without a trace. When he reappeared, he was already at the gigantic crack where Su Ming and the others had lingered for some time in the past. Jing Nan Zi charged in along it.

At this instant, the ripples of power and the mighty pressure of Jing Nan Zi caused the bodies of the people in the seal to experience tremors of different degrees, as they were immersed in the strange state caused by the World Stone.

A violent shudder wrecked Su Ming’s body as he remained seated. A hint of struggle appeared in his dazed and lifeless eyes. A brilliant glare shone within them, and he seemed to have snapped awake at that instant. Rarely seen shock appeared on his face.

’What is this power? It’s comparable to the Undying and Imperishable World! It actually immersed me within itself that I almost couldn’t free myself from it!’

Su Ming sucked in a deep breath. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and the stones around him loosened by a large margin. At the instant Su Ming stood up, the stones in the area turned into ashes. The barrier of ten feet between him and the area of the World Stone also disappeared before Su Ming’s eyes.

It allowed him to see the area that was ten feet away from him. He saw Long Li shuddering in the diamond-shaped screen of light, along with the nine flags and the nine-headed, green-faced kirin… as well as a stone shining with a brilliant light as it remained inside a floating screen of light.

At the instant Su Ming saw the stone, a bang rang out in his head, and the dazed state he was previously in threatened to overtake him again. If Su Ming had not immediately bit his tongue, he might have lost himself again. He sucked in a sharp breath and no longer looked at the stone. However, he knew clearly that the stone had been the reason for his unconsciousness.

Judging by how Long Li had set up a Rune to fend it off, it was clear that he had been prepared for it since the start. If Su Ming was to make a guess based on this, then there was a high chance that everything had happened by Long Li’s deliberate actions.

’What is this thing? How could it possess such shocking power?’ A glint appeared in Su Ming’s eyes. He did not look at the stone, but at an ancient scroll placed before Long Li.

At that instant, a muffled boom suddenly came from the distance. Once it rang out, a terrifying presence that caused Su Ming’s heart to tremble violently spread out to cover the whole area.

This presence was incredibly domineering, and even though Su Ming was unfamiliar with it, the feeling it gave off made him think of the time when the True Guards had come to patrol and sent their divine sense to sweep through the planet all those years ago.

Su Ming’s pupils shrank. He saw a layer of green light phasing through the stone walls around him, and it was rapidly spreading and filling the area.

He was not unfamiliar with this sight. This was something he’d seen when the True Guards had come in the past!

’A True Guard has arrived!’

Su Ming immediately remembered the conversation shared between Tian Lin and Ye Shen Tong. He then longer hesitated and moved. But just as he was about to leave so that he would not be covered by the green light, he cast a glance at the ancient scroll before Long Li, and his footsteps came to a halt.