Pursuit of the Truth

While his sigh was still echoing in the air, Su Ming lifted his right hand. Just like when he dissipated the fog seal, he flicked his wrist, and without a single sound, the silver threads around him instantly stopped moving. Then, they became blurry, and in the blink of an eye, they disappeared one by one.

It was as if they had never existed to begin with. When they returned to nothingness, even the sun plunging down from the sky gradually became transparent. It slowly took on the color of the sky, and then disappeared from above Su Ming.

This sight immediately caused Lin Dong Dong’s pupils to shrink further. He took a few steps back without any hesitation, but disbelief on his face. As h fixed his stare at Su Ming, his breathing quickened slightly.

“You…”

Lin Dong Dong opened his mouth, but he did not know what to say. The shock he felt at that moment was indescribable. He had never thought that there would be someone who could so easily disperse his killing move right before him. It was as if his divine ability truly did not exist.

This scene overturned his beliefs, causing the Great Dao Paragon Lin Dong Dong to be unable to accept what he saw.

“It’s been seven hundred years since we last met, and your cultivation base has far surpassed my expectations… but my desire to kill you will never diminish!”

Lin Dong Dong sucked in a deep breath. His eyes sparkled, and raging killing intent appeared in them. He took a swift step forward and brought his right hand up. A black shortsword immediately appeared in his hand. There were many runic symbols covering it, and with a swing, that shortsword multiplied to ten.

With another flick, the ten shortswords turned to one hundred, then to one thousand. When they covered the sky and earth, their numbers were too great to count. The world seemed to belong to the swords at that moment, and countless sword glints charged at Su Ming.

“It’s useless. Time itself stands between us. You… still don’t understand?”

Su Ming shook his head. There was clarity in his eyes, and as he sighed, the sword glints pierced through him… but as if Su Ming’s body was just an illusion, those sword glints only phased through him and did not deal an ounce of damage to him.

“This world is fake. Ancient Zang is just the battleground between me and Xuan Zang for my Possession. This is an illusion. I am not lost in it, and you… are just a speck of dust in it.”

Su Ming shook his head. With each step forward he took, Lin Dong Dong took a step back with an incredibly dark face.

After five steps, he made to speak, but Su Ming did so first. His voice traveled into the air, and it made his expression change again, because Su Ming’s words had just given voice to the doubts Lin Dong Dong was just about to say.

“You cannot see through my level of cultivation, but it isn’t because my level of cultivation is unfathomable. It’s because we are separated by time, and it is a wall you cannot see through clearly.”

When Su Ming said those words in a flat voice, he moved to stand in front of Li Dong Dong.

“I refuse to believe it!”

Lin Dong Dong’s expression instantly became ferocious. He lifted his right hand and struck his chest. With it, his face instantly became purplish red, and a large amount of black smoke gushed out of his seven orifices. That black smoke instantly gathered into a huge fierce face in midair. When it roared at Su Ming, the weather changed as if the laws in the world had changed at that instant.

When the huge face opened its mouth wide and sucked in a sharp breath in Su Ming’s direction, the power of the world in the area charged over with loud booms. Only Su Ming… remained with his long hair unmoving. His robes did not even flutter. He just stood there calmly and watched Lin Dong Dong.

The moment Lin Dong Dong saw that, the huge face into which he had turned filled with shock. His divine ability could absorb all the aura in the world, but it had been unable to affect Su Ming in the slightest.

However, he still did not believe in Su Ming’s words. Although, it was perhaps more accurate to say that he did not dare nor want to believe them. At that moment, his reason to kill Su Ming changed into wanting to prove that he was wrong and all that he said was just nonsense.

The huge face closed its eyes, and Lin Dong Dong instantly returned to his body beneath him. His power had increased by a large margin.

Killing intent shone in his eyes, and he disappeared. When he reappeared, he was already behind Su Ming. His fist went hurling towards him, but no sound could be heard. The only thing that happened was his fist phasing through Su Ming’s body.

“Impossible!”

Lin Dong Dong’s eyes went bloodshot. He appeared around Su Ming continuously and threw punches at him nonstop. It lasted for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn. Only then did Lin Dong Dong take a few steps back with a pale face. He stared at Su Ming with a stunned expression, and despair appeared in his eyes.

He had not despaired when he was trapped in the formerly glorious world, but instead persisted in his desire to kill Su Ming and rob him of his kismet, because he had his pride. He was a Great Dao Paragon.

Yet then, when Su Ming had finally arrived, Lin Dong Dong’s persistence turned into despair. It would have been fine if he could not kill Su Ming, but it was simply impossible for him to even touch Su Ming’s body. The man’s words also echoed in Lin Dong Dong’s ears, making him stumble back, and then, his despair turned into grief and misery.

“Impossible…”

He could only murmur that word to tell himself that none of it was real… but the test that lasted for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn told him that what Su Ming said was the answer, and there was no other explanation to it.

Lin Dong Dong lifted swiftly his head and stared at Su Ming. When his voice echoed in the air, it was like thunder.

“This must be a divine ability you learned in this accursed world! Right now, the one I see before me is not your real self, but a shadow of yours!”

Su Ming turned around and looked at Lin Dong Dong.

“This is the answer, and also the reason why I can’t kill you. It’s not because time stands between us, and it’s because I’m fake… but because the version of you in front of me is just a shadow!

“I understand now, you are a cultivator from Seven Moons Sect, and Seven Moons Sect practices the Seven Lives Art. That Art of yours… must have reached a certain level, which is why you could create an indestructible shadow, but while this shadow of yours cannot be killed, it has trouble killing even a mortal!”

The more Lin Dong Dong spoke, the more convinced he became. Once he finished speaking, there was no longer despair in his eyes. Instead, a cold and fierce killing intent appeared in his eyes again.

“Third prince, you bastard. Your words just now have indeed confused me for a moment, but once I find your real body, I will kill you!”

Lin Dong Dong stared at Su Ming, then moved back slowly and turned on his heel He swung his arm, intending to leave.

Su Ming looked at Lin Dong Dong, then lifted his right hand with a calm expression before he pointed at the sky. It immediately trembled with a bang, and stars appeared in it. The number of the stars could not be counted clearly. All those observing them could only see that they were arranged together into a huge whip!

“I have finally understood why the Space Whip always shows just an illusory power that is similar to a projection instead of its real form when it is shown before me.”

When Su Ming said those words softly, he swung his right arm, and the stars in the sky shone with a brilliant starlight. It instantly replaced the sky as well as all the light in the world, making it blindingly bright. The blinding light was the same as darkness. When it reached an extreme degree of brightness, it would appear as black when a person looked at it.

When the light disappeared, Su Ming had already vanished with Hao Hao. The only person remaining in the place was the stunned Lin Dong Dong. At that moment, his body slowly shattered, and only his Nascent Divinity was left floating in the place while staring around it in a daze.

Su Ming did not kill Lin Dong Dong, because at that moment, living for that man would be much more painful than dying.

After a long while, Lin Dong Dong’s Nascent Divinity suddenly laughed. His voice echoed in the air, and there was great confidence in it.

“Third prince, you bastard. What an Art, but don’t think that you can use it to deceive my eyes. Even if that shadow of yours has some power… As long as I can find your real body, I will definitely kill you!

“Third prince, you’d best hide properly, because on the day I find you, I will destroy both your body and soul. I will definitely find your real body!”

Lin Dong Dong’s face was brimming with confidence. He even felt as if he had gained an epiphany, which had not happened since he had become a Great Dao Paragon.

He let out a cold snort, and with his confidence as well as his epiphany, his Nascent Divinity left into the distance. With the remainder of his life, he would use all his power to search for Su Ming’s ‘real body’, and it would last for an unknown number of years…

But he was bound to be unable to find Su Ming’s ‘real body’. He was just like a fish determined to find its own tears in the sea… but he was sure of himself and would persist in his actions with madness because he believed in them!

Perhaps due to this belief, he would one day come to find the Su Ming his heart believed to be Su Ming, but that Su Ming may not be the real Su Ming.

“Di Tian seeks his beliefs, Lei Chen seeks for peace, and Lin Dong Dong… seeks madness. What do I seek?”

While murmuring that question to himself, Su Ming walked into the distance with the boy in his arms.

Every single one of them pursued what they possessed in the world they believed to be real. They still had dreams, and even if they had already been fulfilled, they were still on their way to fulfill them.

This sort of pursuit was a form of strength, since even if it was impossible to fulfill the dream, it would give them strength to deceive and even numb themselves…

And since pursuing something in itself was a path for someone to take, the road was bound to be filled with hardships, trials, and miseries.

Some people would stop on that path, wanting to rest, but once they rested… they might find that they had already reached the end of their road, just like the butterfly named Harmonious Morus Alba.

Some would give up on moving forward and draw a mark that signified the end of their path. They would live in that mark, and only they themselves would know whether they were happy or not.

Yet some people would continue walking down that path, and even if they were faced with trials and hardships, burdened by desolation and misery, they would soldier on.