Pursuit of the Truth

Su Ming remained silent for a time, then looked at the man in front of him and lifted his right hand to take the three-leaved grass that was shining with a thick green hue. He did not even have the urge to check the treasure, and with an apathetic expression put it away.

“Release Long Hai’s soul,” Su Ming said faintly.

Without any hesitation, the man that was the one thousand feet tall tree closed his eyes and then reopened them. Immediately, a crack appeared at the center of his brows. Everything within it was dark, before a ball of dark light flew out. That was a Nascent Divinity. Once it left the crack between the centre of the man’s brows, it immediately turned into an old man.

The old man’s face was filled with excitement. His Nascent Divinity shuddered, and his thoughts surged up in his head like waves. For a moment, all the things it went through for the past ten thousand years flashed through his mind.

He once thought that he would live the rest of his life as a puppet. In fact, while he lived without any freedom, he was not even be able to control his own death. He could only wait for a long, long period of time. This pain was enough to make a person break down, and his experience was not like those shared by the people who were in Ecang’s foreign land. After all, they had their memories accompanying them and had hope placed before them.

However, the old man had nothing. If he was not an Almighty who was a Master of Fate, Lives, and Death and had a willpower that normal people would not possess, then during those ten thousand years, he would have lost himself a long time ago.

“Fulfill the promise you have not completed fully.” Su Ming’s voice interrupted the thoughts in the old man’s heart. His Nascent Divinity floated in front of Su Ming, and when he heard it, he looked over, then after remaining silent for about the span of two breaths, he wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed deeply to Su Ming.

“I, Long Hai, am willing to protect you for ten thousand years to repay you for saving my life. My words are my oath, and now that I have said it, I will definitely fulfill my words!” As he bowed, the indistinct connection instantly became clear and fused into his heart.

This connection might not allow Su Ming to control Progenitor Long Hai, but it was an oath. If Progenitor Long Hai did not fulfill it, he would be suppressed by the entire universe. After all, this oath was sworn with his cultivation base.

In truth, the main point behind why Su Ming chose to save Progenitor Long Hai was because… he came from True Morning Dao World. After all, Su Ming had Possessed Dao Kong and also indirectly received the kismet from True Morning Dao World gathered on Dao Kong. Since he had also ruined the kismet gathered on Ye Wang, he became the one and only person to have this kismet on him.

Because of it, while changes might occur in the oaths from the cultivators who hailed from other True Worlds, but if those from True Morning Dao World swore to the person who was loved by the entire True World, then the oath would naturally not be so easily changed.

Su Ming cast Long Hai a glance, then swung his arm. Immediately, Progenitor Long Hai’s Nascent Divinity charged over. Long Hai did not resist, but instead let himself be brought forward. At the instant he touched Su Ming’s body, he fused into him, stepped into the supreme treasure, and turned into the seventh soul within it.

“Xuan Family’s supreme treasure…” As Progenitor Long Hai’s eyes began to shine, he immediately noticed the others’ souls around him.

“You know this item?” Su Ming sent his thought to him.

“I went to the Xuan Family in the past and am on rather familiar terms with their Progenitor, which is why I know about this treasure.” As Progenitor Long Hai spoke, Su Ming controlled the body to cast his eyes at the man that was the one hundred thousand feet tall tree in front of him.

The man remained kneeling in the air respectfully. The zealousness on his expression was as great as ever.

Su Ming remained silent for some time before asking calmly, .”Can you leave this dimension?”

“I can’t leave. Unless you step into the core of the fifth kiln and truly become the fifth kiln’s master… and also repair the fifth kiln. Only then will we be able to venture out,” the man immediately replied.

Su Ming fell silent again for a moment before he nodded towards the man. Under his respectful gaze, Su Ming turned around and walked into the distance. With one step, he arrived near the exit of the dimension, but then, his footsteps came to a halt.

However, he did not turn his head around. After a slight pause, he took a step into the exit and walked into the crack in the dimension before he disappeared from the place.

This time, Su Ming did not pay any attention to the loss of one thousand years. Once he stepped into the crack, he closed his eyes.

When he did so, the voice from Dust Burners’ Progenitor echoed in his head again.

“The baby in his wife’s stomach was cursed…

“Su Xuan Yi used all his divine abilities, but he could only make it so that the curse would not worsen. He could not dispel it…

“Until one day, he took his wife and left the place. We don’t know where he went…

“The fifth kiln has two masters. Su Xuan Yi is the second one, but in truth, there is a third master. That is his son, but that person… has still not arrived.”

Su Ming moved about in the dimension’s crack. His expression remained the same as ever, but his shut eyes hid the complicated emotions in his heart which were born from his thoughts. They also hid the words the man that was the one thousand feet tall tree had said just then.

“When our old master came to the kiln the final time, fatigued, he delivered his will to all the existences in the kiln and told us… to continue waiting. His child will come to the fifth kiln many years later!”

With a complicated expression on his face, Su Ming opened his eyes and looked at the time flowing away. He did not bother about the loss of years. Understanding appeared in his eyes, but the complicated emotions that accompanied this understanding were filled with grief that no one could understand.

He seemed to be able to vaguely envision Su Xuan Yi taking his wife and borrowing the fifth kiln’s power in dismay, then leaving the Fifth True World when it was destroyed by the four Great True Worlds working together.

In Divine Essence Star Ocean, he saw the baby in his wife’s body continuously tortured by the curse and watched his wife gradually becoming thinner and weaker, and his heart was filled with grief, but he could do nothing about it. He had used every method that he could and every divine ability he possessed, but he still could not neutralize the curse from which his child suffered.

Many years later, he took his wife and left. He should have found a method that could make the curse on the baby disappear, and with excitement as well as hope, he walked out of Divine Essence Star Ocean.

However, complications happened during the process. When they were passing by True Morning Dao World, a great change occurred. Dao Chen’s greed and the chase by the entire Morning Dao Sect caused him, who had continuously given up his cultivation base and other sort of things over the years for his wife and his son, to be incredibly tired, and to protect his wife and son, he could not bring out his true power.

During that battle… his wife died. In extreme grief, he went mad and let out a long string of shrill laughter towards the heavens. In that laughter were tears, along with a madness that longed to destroy the world and shatter the universe.

Once he declared that Morning Dao World would be made for Abyss, he… disappeared.

Perhaps… at that time, he had also given up on the method that he originally wanted to use to get rid of the curse in the baby’s body. Instead, he chose another path.

He should have succeeded in his path, or else why would he have returned to the fifth kiln with fatigue in his bones then said such words to the living beings there.

His sentence clearly showed that he had been separated from his son, but he was certain that he would some day come back to the fifth kiln and find traces of his whereabouts in this place.

The grief on Su Ming’s face was mixed with complicated emotions as well as confusion. He was unfamiliar with the term ‘father’. When he was young, he saw that all his companions had fathers when he was in the tribe, but he did not. He had been sad before and once asked his elder about it, but he never obtained his answer.

He had always thought that he was a child that was picked up somewhere. This might have been a thought within him when he was a child, but it had accompanied him for thousands of years. When he thought back to it, he could still sense the envy and anguish in his heart at that time.

He was envious that other people had mothers and fathers, but he did not.

‘When… he fought against Dao Chen in the past, his wife died… and he went mad… but he insisted on returning to the fifth kiln… Did he just come back to say these words? Or did he choose… to come here to heal?’ Su Ming looked at the crack around him, then at the years of his life disappearing from him, and he fell silent.

‘If he is healing here, then could it be… that he is currently in the fifth kiln?!’ A strange light rose in Su Ming’s eyes. This thought caused him to be unable to control his own emotions.

‘Or perhaps…’ Su Ming shuddered. He had another guess. This guess was based on the vitality and life force that was absorbed by the cracks in the dimensions.

‘When he returned in the past, he was not alone. Instead, he held onto a corpse, a woman’s corpse, which was his wife…

‘He returned to the fifth kiln and placed his wife at the core, then changed the structure inside the fifth kiln. He had Dust Burners execute a plan that would last for ages, causing the fifth kiln to be activated often, and he used the supreme treasures in this land to attract numerous powerful warriors.

‘He made them fight over the supreme treasures and move through the dimensions while they offered up a large amount of their life, and he used it… to revive his wife!’ Su Ming trembled. This thought continuously spun in his head until it became everything in his mind.

‘Which of these guesses is real?’ Su Ming closed his eyes.

After a long time, when he walked out of the crack and stepped into another dimension, he opened his eyes. The complicated emotions remained on his face, but the lost look in his eyes was now mixed… with a nervousness that came from his heart!

This nervousness was not due to excitement or fear, but because he had remembered the woman who held him in her arms when he was still an infant. She had appeared in the illusion dug out from the depths of his memories when he was in Western Ring Nebula’s foreign land. That unfamiliar but warm feeling as well as the insistence of protecting the child even in death was branded into Su Ming’s life and became a mark that would not fade away.

That unfamiliarity and warmth turned into a faint murmur by Su Ming’s ears at that moment.

“Su…” Su Ming shuddered and lifted his head. He did not look at the world in the dimension, but at the universe.

“Is it you…” he mumbled.