Pursuit of the Truth

This was Ecang when it was just born!

Su Ming looked at Ecang, who was born by absorbing nutrients from Sui Chen Zi’s cosmos once he died and his body shattered. He looked at the tree that possessed all ten colors, at how its light shone without end, and at the mighty pressure as well as its appearance that was so incredibly powerful that no words could describe them. At that instant, Su Ming felt as if his mind had stopped functioning.

From the start, he had expected that Ecang had an incredibly great background, but he still did not think that it could be this unbelievable.

”What I’m Possessing… is such a powerful life form…” Su Ming mumbled. If he had known that Ecang was such an inconceivable being, he did not know whether he would still have had the willpower to choose to Possess it.

Fortunately… what he was Possessing was not the complete Ecang, just one tenth of it. What was more, judging by the looks of it, it was also heavily wounded, or else, Su Ming knew that even if it was just one of the ten of the complete Ecang, he would have definitely not been able to succeed in Possessing it.

In the mid of his shock, a question immediately rose in Su Ming’s heart. ’But it’s already so inconceivably strong, just who could possibly injure it badly enough to shatter the complete Ecang into pieces..?’

At the instant this question rose, Su Ming… saw his answer.

He saw Ecang’s body growing several times larger right after the instant it let out a sound that was akin to a newborn’s cry. At first glance, he could not see where its end was. It was as if half of the entire space had been occupied.

Yet suddenly, an ancient voice Su Ming was familiar with came from within Ecang’s body.

”With one thought, I can affect the universe. With one thought, I can affect the heavens. With one thought, I can affect all manner of lives. With one thought, I can affect all things in the universe…”

This voice naturally belonged to Sui Chen Zi, whose body had already been destroyed and who only had a heart left. His voice shot out of Ecang’s tree trunk and echoed in the void, bringing with it a carefree air and a wave of resolve that lingered in space for a long time, refusing to disappear.

Ecang’s gigantic body started trembling viciously. As the ten-colored light shone brilliantly, the tree found that it could no longer grow any taller. Pained whimpers that sounded like a baby’s cries came from Ecang.

Before long, it probably would have been able to turn into an incredibly terrifying existence after it devoured Sui Chen Zi’s Divine Essence, but… it had only just been born. It might be complete, but it was like an infant and had not fully grown. Its shrill whimpers spread in all directions, and when they fell into Su Ming’s ears, his breathing quickened.

”I was unable to kill you and could only allow you to live in my soul, then destroy me… I knew that you would be born the moment I died, and while I might be unable to kill you… but at the instant you are born, you will become me, and I will be you. I will not walk on the path my eight good friends did. Instead, I will use what I have prepared for one hundred thousand years to injure you mortally!

”With one thought… I will have one million lives be born!”

Sui Chen Zi’s voice abruptly became stronger. As it echoed in the air, numerous cracks appeared on the tree, and it crumbled from within in a bang.

It turned… into one million parts! The golden heart, which was the accumulation of Sui Chen Zi’s Divine Essence throughout his entire life, turned into one million hearts at that instant.

At the same time, Ecang, which had been shredded into one million parts, found that each of its colors possessed one hundred thousand fragments, and as it shattered, its fragmented pieces were individually suppressed and sealed under the one million golden hearts. As a boom that shook the entire void echoed through the area, Ecang’s one million fragments tumbled backwards and were swept into the foreign land, which still remained as it was, while those fragments disappeared without a trace.

”I failed, that’s why I died… but I also succeeded. I left behind… a chance to break Divine Essence’s disaster for the future generation. If any of you, the descendants of the future generation, obtain my Divine Essence, remember…”

As Sui Chen Zi’s voice gradually faded away, Su Ming was shocked by the things he saw. However, the truth that he saw did not fade away. Instead, something new occurred.

Su Ming saw time pass. He had no idea how many years had went by when a faint and weak growl came from the foreign land. That growl contained an unwillingness to admit defeat, madness, and a burning hate that could scorch the heavens.

”Sui Chen Zi, you old coot! You can’t kill me, and neither can you suppress me for eternity! I’ve already been born, and my life is already in this universe! It’s already written in destiny that I will walk out of your seal!

”Even if you divided my body into ten parts and because of that, ten different wills were born within me, someday… all those ten wills will fuse together once more, and at that time… I, Ecang, will appear!

”Even if you injured me badly, your Divine Essence is still around. Since you left a law for the future generations to obtain your Divine Essence after your death, then I can borrow it and make this place into the source that will heal me!

”The more people come to this place to obtain your Divine Essence, the more they will help me heal! All their epiphanies, their cultivation bases, and their lives will belong to me!”

As that voice echoed in the air, everything before Su Ming’s eyes disappeared. He woke up from the illusion in his soul. His soul had already covered all the golden venous pathways, and at that moment, it had already fused with the golden hearts within the one hundred thousand galaxies.

His Possession had reached ninety-seven-hundredths from the previous ninety-five.

’So this… is the truth.’

Su Ming remembered Zhou Kang mentioning before that this place was a huge scam. By the looks of it, that scam was not laid out by Sui Chen Zi, but had turned into such after it was used by Ecang.

’It doesn’t matter what is the truth. It’s not important whether this place is a scam or not. The important thing is… I’ve already Possessed ninety-seven-hundredths of this place. My Ecang clone is about to be complete.’

Su Ming’s soul continuously spread out and fused with the golden heart. With the one hundred thousand shadows formed by Sui Chen Zi’s law still blocking Ecang’s will, Su Ming progressed incredibly smoothly.

At the instant his Possession reached ninety-eight-hundredths from the previous ninety-seven, Ecang descended into complete madness. Its will roared hysterically, with despair and lunacy contained within it.

”You are the one who forced me! All of this is because you forced me! I absolutely won’t let you succeed! Even if I will lose the chance to devour the other nine, even if I will lose all my consciousness because of this and will only have a portion of my soul left that will be devoured by the other nine as they please, I will still… absolutely not allow you to Possess me, this noble Ecang’s body!” Ecang laughed madly. There was a resolve within its laughter and a will that said it would die with Su Ming.

”Great Ecang Art!”

At the instant it said these words, a shrill scream of pain immediately came from the near one hundred thousand people within the world with one hundred thousand stone monuments.

As the screams of pain echoed in the air, the people around the area looked at the spot from which the screams came from, and to their shock, they saw a middle-aged man rapidly rotting away. Bits of purplish light were coming from his body while it was rapidly being absorbed by the stone monument. In the blink of an eye, the middle-aged cultivator’s body disappeared, without a single trace of it left.

Soon after, screams of pain rang in the air once again. As they rose and fell, nearly ten thousand people cried out at the same time. Their bodies were all rapidly disappearing, being absorbed by their stone monuments.

During that instant, when the near ten thousand stone monuments absorbed the corresponding number of people’s flesh, blood, lives, and everything else about them, numerous cracks rang down the monuments. The air filled with the sound of cracking, and near ten thousand stone monuments shattered into pieces with a bang. As they fell apart, purplish smoke spread out from within, and as the shattered debris shot through the air, it disappeared from the land. Due to this, from then on, this place would only have ninety thousand stone monuments!

Ecang’s will swelled up exponentially at that instant, and wisps of purplish smoke appeared out of thin air. There were nearly ten thousand wisps of that purplish smoke, their number naturally identical to the number of the cultivators who had died.

As those wisps rapidly gathered together, they turned into a gigantic purple tree. That tree… was naturally Ecang’s soul.

”E… cang…”

At the instant its soul appeared, the gigantic purple tree let out a low roar. When it uttered the first syllable, the one hundred thousand shadows that were formed by Sui Chen Zi’s law shuddered and were instantly frozen, unable to move.

When the second syllable was spoken, without the one hundred thousand shadows’ protection, Su Ming’s soul immediately felt a strong impact crashing into him as he was Possessing the golden hearts within those one hundred thousand venous pathways.

”I paid an incredible price in exchange for the law to freeze. This means that from now on, there will no longer be any chance for me to recover. I can only watch as the other nine continuously recover and wait for the one who will awaken among them to devour me…

”I’ve sacrificed so much, so I won’t accept not being able to kill you!”

Ecang’s will rushed over in a mad dash. At the instant it crashed into Su Ming’s soul, the final part of the Possession which he had planned and prepared for hundreds of years was executed without any hesitation.

”Black fragment!” Su Ming’s soul let out a low shout.

The black fragment. The unknown treasure that had accompanied Su Ming while he was in Yin Death Region and had fused with his soul to follow him to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence was formed within his soul at the moment Su Ming called out to it.

This item was a mysterious entity. Even if Su Ming had completely burned his soul previously, it still existed within him. At that moment, when it manifested, it returned to its original form and turned into a negligible black stone fragment!

”Deceive it!”

The instant the black stone fragment appeared was also the moment Ecang’s will crashed into Su Ming. As booming sounds echoed in the air, the golden hearts that originally numbered one hundred thousand within the equally numbered golden venous pathways in those trees in the galaxies suddenly increased drastically by several thousand folds. They appeared within each set of the golden venous pathways, and when added together, they reached one hundred million hearts with the aura of death within those one hundred thousand galaxies.

Among those one hundred million hearts. Only one hundred thousand were real. The others were all fake, but the presence each of them gave off were the exact same. There was not the slightest difference among them. This was the mysterious ability that the black fragmented excelled in - the ability to deceive all manner of life.

Su Mig did not know how long this treasure could deceive Ecang, which was why he had not dared to use it previously. Instead, only when he was closest to success, when the value of a breath was even more precious than before, did he bring it out.

”This… This is… the Seed of Life Extermination! Did it… did it also fail? This is impossible! How could it fail..? How could there only be a fragment left?” There was disbelief in Ecang’s voice, along with deep despair. It needed ten breaths before it could find the real Su Ming among the one hundred million hearts.

If it had needed these ten breaths to search for Su Ming beforehand, it would have been nothing to it, but now, time was critical. Ten breaths would determine the winner and the loser.

”I lost! The nine wills that have been separated from me, I have been Possessed! Destroy him, and help me take revenge!”

As Ecang’s voice of despair echoed in the air, Su Ming’s Possession of the true one hundred thousand golden hearts reached ninety-nine-hundredths, and then… one hundred!

The golden venous pathways and the golden hearts were all black!