Pursuit of the Truth

“You… You…” The disbelief in the eyes of the young man in green grew even stronger. Never in his dreams would he have thought that within just a few breaths, he would not have even a hint of power to fight back, that Dao Kong would be able to decide whether he would live or die.

In fact, the mighty pressure exuding from Su Ming’s body right then might not have been spreading through the area, but it was enough to make the young man in green feel a great, suffocating pressure.

And while Su Ming’s words were spoken in a calm manner, the murderous intent in his voice was cold and brought with it a hint of bloodthirst. All of these caused a loud bang to rang out in the young man’s mind. He instantly turned pale and realized how ludicrous he had been just then. He was like a little lamb challenging a huge dragon, and he even really thought that he was stronger than the dragon.

After all… he had not paid any attention to Dao Fei Feng at the start. He had only caught up to his own death after he swallowed the secret pill and stimulated his speed.

“I…” The young man in green shuddered. When he was about to continue speaking…

“It’s a pity, but time’s up.” Su Ming shook his head. He released his grip on the young man’s neck. The instant the young man in green breathed in a mouthful of air, Su Ming’s two fingers slice across his neck at lightning speed as he spun on his feet.

The green flying sword Su Ming held between his fingers sliced across the young man’s throat in an instant. Fresh blood gushed upwards, sending a head flying into the air. When it spun in the air, disbelief could be seen still lingering in the young man’s eyes.

Su Ming’s expression remained the same. He squeezed the two fingers of his right hand together, and with a crack, the green flying sword shattered to pieces. When they fell to the ground, Su Ming turned his head to cast a glance at the sky to his right before averting his gaze and taking a step forward to return to his battleship.

It was as if nothing had happened, as if the corpse that plunged to the ground and the pieces of a flying sword were just an illusion. Su Ming stood on the ship indifferently as it left into the distance.

What remained were the near ten thousand cultivators in the land who stared after him with shocked gazes, surrounded by seemingly dead silence.

When the hundreds of battleships belonging to Su Ming disappeared into the distance, an uproar immediately rose in the land. The buzz of discussion rose and fell, and the right side of the sky in which Su Ming had sneaked a glance before he left distorted. Three people walked out from it.

One of them was middle-aged man. He was dressed in a blue robe, and he wore a coronet on his head. There was an awe-inspiring expression on his face, and he looked imposing, which gave him an invisible presence as he stood in the air.

The two people beside him were old men. At that moment, they were staring in the direction Su Ming had left with sullen and dark expressions on their faces.

“Very powerful. Those rumors were no exaggerations. Forget just one Dao Fei Feng. Even if there were ten or a hundred of them, they wouldn’t be his opponent.”

“The Sect Elder Chamber is also keeping quiet about this. It’s a telling sign about Dao Kong’s level of cultivation and his influence.”

“Your Highness, you shouldn’t have sent someone to test him just now… Before he left, it’s clear that he discovered us.”

The two old men behind the middle-aged man spoke in low voices.

The middle-aged man stared in the direction in the sky in which Su Ming had left. After remaining silent for a moment, he asked in languid manner, “How confident are you in killing this person?”

“Without that Almighty by his side, without Xu Hui in the way, without the nine old Frail Darknesses forming the Rune, we would need to borrow a Sealing Treasure and have three other people in Solar Kalpa Realm before we could kill him. We can only kill him with five people,” one of the two old men said after being quiet for a moment.

“How great are the chances of success?” The middle-aged man frowned.

“Nine-tenths,” the other old man replied calmly. There was a hint of pride on his face.

“Nine-tenth is still too little. If I try to kill him, no accidents can occur. If he doesn’t die and tries to take revenge, it’ll be very troublesome. Is there a way for us to be absolutely in being able to kill him?” the middle-aged man asked while shaking his head.

“There is. We have to ask for help from an Almighty. Even if it’s an Almighty who has just become a Master of Fate, Lives, and Death, we can easily and certainly kill this person, but the condition is that his Almighty follower is not beside him,” the old man on the left answered in a ghastly fashion.

“Let’s observe how threatening this person is later. If there is a need, then while asking for an Almighty who has become a Master of Fate, Lives, and Death for many years will be slightly bothersome, I know one senior among us who has who would fit the description.”

The middle-aged man smiled faintly. It sounded as if he could decide Su Ming’s fate, but first wanted to determine whether Su Ming’s actions would pose a threat to him. Once he proved to be in the way, he would end Su Ming’ life.

He felt that he had that within his grasp.

‘So what if you have an Almighty as your follower? Dao Kong, your foundation isn’t solid enough. Your ancestor is no longer the Sect-Master-in-charge. He has already gone back to isolation. No one knows how long it will be until the next time he wakes up again. Without a foundation and a pillar of support, what right do you have to be a Dynast who can stand on equal grounds with us?!’

The middle-aged man laughed coldly. He turned around and moved to disappear into the air. He had his own reasons as to why he had sent someone to provoke Su Ming, even though the two old men had said that he should not do so.

‘I intentionally used someone as stupid as Dao Fei Feng. If he could humiliate Dao Kong with his power and status, it would have been a successful test. If he couldn’t and got heavily injured, it’d let the other Dynasts know about Dao Kong’s level of cultivation.

‘Now that one of them died, it’s even better. The competitors who are on equal footing with me will pay attention to Dao Kong. With that being the case… everyone’s attention will move away from me, and I’ll be able to relax a little.’

As the middle-aged man left and the near ten thousand cultivators in the land dispersed, the event of Su Ming killing Dao Fei Feng immediately spread out, courtesy to the cultivators who sent word to the others via letters.

Su Ming stood on his battleship. He remained composed all along the way as he observed the mountains and rivers in the land as well as the sky and earth, but he did not pay any attention to the thin Ma Fei who was observing him with a strange gaze at that moment.

The mountains, rivers, and the land he saw slowly fused together with the memories of Dao Kong in Su Ming’s mind, causing him to subconsciously become much more familiar with the land. Several hours later, Su Ming and the hundreds of battleships arrived at another Relocation Rune under the ground at the center of the continent.

This Relocation Rune was not connected to the world outside. Instead, it was used to connect the continents on the same plane within Morning Dao Sect. Several moments later, the Relocation Rune on the sixty-third continent among the ninety-nine continents shone, and Su Ming and his entourage walked out from it.

The sky in the place they entered was an azure blue. The land was vast, and there was a huge ocean in the distance. This scene was incredibly clear in Dao Kong’s memories, for it was his homeland. It was also the place where he and his followers had grown up.

When Su Ming and his entourage appeared, a wave of sound formed by the fusion of multiple voices immediately rang out in all directions.

“Greetings, Your Highness! Welcome back!”

The voices were loud and belonged to hundreds of thousands of people speaking at the same time. There were nearly five hundred thousand cultivators beyond the Rune, and they were packed so closely to each other that it seemed as if there was no end to them. All of them were kneeling on the ground with excitement on their faces as they greeted their lord.

Dao Kong was the master of the continent. He was the master in the past, and now, after he became a Dynast, he was fully deserving of the title.

Among the crowd were hundreds of direct descendants of Morning Dao Sect. All of them belonged to Dao Kong’s branch of the family. They stared at Dao Kong in excitement, believing that if he could seize the title of Dynast tightly in his hand, then their branch of the family would be able to rise to power in Morning Dao Sect.

Su Ming cast his gaze on the people closest to him, and he found that he could remember all the names of those who belonged to his family in Morning Dao Sect within this land. When he stared into the distance, Su Ming saw the lineup of five hundred thousand cultivators, and he was shocked once more by Morning Dao Sect’s size.

It was just one of the ninety-nine continents. If anyone made some calculations, they would know that the continents would amount to the vast power of fifty million cultivators, and that was not accounting the people of the 999 continents beneath them. Living there were direct descendants who were slightly weaker than them along with the branch families as well as a great number of people from other races.

If Su Ming had to count them, he’d find it difficult to estimate just how great was Morning Dao Sect’s power.

‘Morning Dao Sect did not deploy all of their forces in this war. Why not? Could it be that they’re waiting for something, or perhaps… are they using this war… to train their disciples?’ A barely noticeable glint shone in Su Ming’s eyes.

As the hundreds of thousands of people welcomed him, the battleships landed on the ground. When they descended, the ground trembled, and the cultivators in the ships flew out. This was their homeland. They had left with Dao Kong to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence, and they had not come back for around a thousand years. When they returned at that moment, slight excitement appeared on their faces.

“Let’s go to the Sect Elder Chamber.”

Su Ming swept his gaze across the area before rising into the air to charge into the sky. Xu Hui and the others were not direct descendant so they did not have any plates which would give them the right to go to the Sect Elder Chamber. However, the thin Ma Fei had such a plate. She sized up Su Ming, but did not ask him anything on the way. As they flew up, they reached the highest level of the continent, and an invisible barrier appeared to stop them.

A gentle mighty pressure spread out from the barrier, but even though it was gentle, Su Ming’s pupils still constricted at the instant he sensed it. The mighty pressure was equivalent to the power of an Almighty in Fate Realm, and an ordinary person would definitely not be able to get through it easily.

Judging by its looks, it covered the entire boundless sky over the ninety-nine continents.

Su Ming remained composed. When the Constellation Robe on his body touched the gentle power, the light from the constellations on the robe immediately neutralized it, making the barrier to disappear. The thin girl by his side brought out a blue plate. It shone, and the blue light spreading out from it covered her, allowing her to move through the barrier as well.

Su Ming continued rising. At the instant he passed the invisible barrier, he saw a white sky. All of it was in that single color. When he cast his gaze across it, he found nine continents. All of them were incredibly large, and they formed a gigantic ring in the sky.

At the center of each continent was a circulating five-colored light. Each of them formed a gigantic pillar that charged into the white sky above it, and quite a large number of dragon-shaped creatures could be seen swimming about them and the continents.

“Nine continents, nine pillars of light. These are the Nine Striking Lands of Morning Dao Sect. There are nine different trials of different levels among them, and each disciple who can clear the trials will be able to obtain an incredibly great reward,” Ma Fei said softly.