258 - 264
Chapter 258: The Land of Shamans
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
There was a wall built on a mountain range shaped like a dragon's spine. It resembled a ring and split the Land of South Morning into two parts - the outer and inner parts.
That mountain range was known as Sky Mist Barrier.
Sky Mist City acted as the center of Sky Mist Barrier. The wall was divided into several equal sections and each section had a guard that would be stationed there all year long. No matter the four seasons, no matter how cold or hot the weather was, and no matter how harshly the rain fell, they would not step out of the area which they protected.
All the Shamans who wished to pass through the section of Sky Mist Barrier they protected to break into Sky Mist would have to walk over the corpses of these guards.
Uncle master Bai was one of the guards. He would always sit on the section of the wall he protected and look in the direction of where the Shaman Tribes were located. Sometimes, he would seem melancholic, and at other times, there would be a complicated look on his face.
The sky was starting to brighten up, but the land was still shrouded in darkness and fog. He could not see too far into the distance. Uncle master Bai lowered his head and closed his eyes, hiding away the emotions in his eyes.
Yet at the moment his eyelids fully closed down, he opened his eyes once again swiftly and a brilliant glint appeared briefly within them.
At the same time, the sky behind him twisted and two purple clad people walked out from within the distortion. These two people were naturally Tian Xie Zi and Su Ming.
Uncle master Bai frowned, but he did not turn his head back. Instead, he closed his eyes once again and let the purple robed Tian Xie Zi approach him, then walk past him and out of Sky Mist Barrier.
Su Ming followed behind Tian Xie Zi and met his uncle master Bai once again on the wall. He did not know why, but he felt relieved when he saw the man. He still remembered that he had spoken to this uncle master Bai at this place, and this man, who gained his respect and gave him a sense of closeness, had later fought against a woman of the Shaman Tribe.
The two people had stirred up a vast and mighty presence as they fought, causing the Su Ming at that time to be unable to remain close. He had always been somewhat worried about the man. Now that he saw him again, when Su Ming walked past his uncle master Bai, he turned his head around and smiled at him.
When he did so, the man opened his eyes and cast a glance at him.
"You must be able to protect yourself if you follow that crazy old man."
As he spoke, he seized the air with his right hand. A white scale the size of a fingernail instantly appeared out of thin air and he pushed it towards Su Ming.
"Take this. It contains the power of an attack of mine. Use it to defend yourself."
Once uncle master Bai finished speaking, he closed his eyes.
When Su Ming held the white scale in his hands, it started gushing with life force and lifted his spirits. He wrapped his fist in his palm towards uncle master Bai. He might have only met the person before him twice, but that sense of cordiality he felt towards the man did not fade due to them not meeting up often. It became even stronger instead.
The moment Su Ming walked out of Sky Mist Barrier, he took a deep breath. The bloodiness and desolate feeling he had had when he first stood on Sky Mist Barrier and looked out appeared once again in his heart.
This land was an unfamiliar place to him. It contained the hatred between two different races that could not be wiped away. This hate had lingered in this place for a long time, and had eventually turned into a depressing and heavy feeling that pressed against all the hearts of the Berserkers who just walked into the land.
That depressing feeling would make their breathing quicken to the point they would feel as if they could not breathe and would suffocate at any moment. As Su Ming and Tian Xie Zi charged forward in an insolent manner, that feeling became stronger.
The further they got, the stronger the feeling became, until eventually Su Ming could even hear his heart racing and pounding against his chest.
The wind that was blowing against him from the distance seemed to contain a force that rejected all those unfamiliar to the land. It was as if it also contained the same hate from the land towards the two unwelcomed guests. It was a force that spoke of killing and slaughter until one side eventually died once the Berserkers met with the Shamans.
Compared to the depressing and oppressive feeling Su Ming had, the brutality on Tian Xie Zi's face became stronger. His ruthless smile, the blood-red glint in his eyes, and the hint of merciless aloofness that was deeply seated in his eyes turned Tian Xie Zi into a man that was incredibly unfamiliar to Su Ming.
As Su Ming continued watching him, Tian Xie Zi suddenly came to a halt and froze floating in midair. The sky was bleak and was starting to darken as if dark clouds were starting to gather together.
"Fourth!" Tian Xie Zi had his back turned towards Su Ming and was looking into the distance when he spoke in a ghastly tone. "Watch by the side and draw for me!"
Su Ming nodded quietly and took a few steps back. He looked at his surroundings and observed this strange and unfamiliar piece of land. His understanding of the hate between the Shamans and Berserkers was limited, and it was difficult for him to put himself in the shoes of the Berserkers in this land. It was also difficult for him to comprehend the frenzied slaughter between the Berserkers of the Land of South Morning and the Shamans.
He did not understand.
Tian Xie Zi had his hands behind his back and his purple robes fluttered in the wind. His long purple hair also danced along. From the distance, he looked like a purple ball of flames that was burning brilliantly in the land of the Shamans.
A piercing howl abruptly came from Tian Xie Zi's mouth, and at the moment he lifted his head and roared, Su Ming became visibly moved!
At that moment, Tian Xie Zi overflowed with an unbridled arrogance and a domineering air that seemed to ignore the might of the heavens. He stood in the sky and howled in a manner to make himself known. His voice traveled in all directions and rumbled as it spread even further into the distance.
A twisted ripple appeared in the air as if the sky itself was trembling. The fear within the trembles seeped into the ripples and spread outwards.
Su Ming took a deep breath. He knew that while this place might not be located deep within the land of Shamans and was in fact located just at the border near Sky Mist Barrier, this was still the territory of the Shamans. Almost all the tribes that existed within this place were Shaman!
If a person was alone, that person would have snuck into the Shaman Tribes and would have taken the 1,000 drops of blood from the heart in secret. That person would definitely not roar so arrogantly like his Master and tell the Shamans that he, Tian Xie Zi, was here.
Yet Tian Xie Zi did it!
With his body that looked like a ball of purple flames from the distance and with an incredibly arrogant manner, he announced his arrival to all the Shamans within the area!
Su Ming suddenly understood what uncle master Bai had meant when he called his Master a crazy old man. He also understood why he gave him the white scale…
It was clear that this was not the first time Tian Xie Zi did such a thing, neither was it his second time. There was a high possibility that this thing happened regularly once in a while!
'If a race or even a tribe has been attacked like this multiple times over the years in a manner that while their mortal enemy considers it arrogant, but to them is a form of humiliation…
'Then it would definitely attract a certain amount of attention. Once their attention is drawn, they would make thorough preparations towards their mortal enemy's actions…
���Master has come to this place multiple times, which could only mean that he must have experienced the Shamans' prepared attack, but he still chose to do it… and he even told the Shamans that… he's here…'
As Su Ming was thinking, something caught his attention. He immediately lifted his head and looked into the distance, and at the moment he saw it, his pupils shrank.
In the distance, he saw clouds rolling forth in the sky, and black spots were charging towards them rapidly. In the blink of an eye, those black spots became clear, and they were all ferocious beasts that mostly looked dissimilar to each other.
These creatures were not entirely big. They were only about a dozen feet in size, and all of them had a pair of wings which they used to charge towards them. Su Ming also saw people standing on those beasts, and their faces were covered not in Berserker Marks, but totems that were carved onto their skins.
"Pay full attention to your drawing!"
The ruthlessness in the smile at the corner of Tian Xie Zi's lips reached its peak and a murderous aura that shook the skies erupted from his body. Right at the moment he finished speaking, Tian Xie Zi took a step forward.
Behind him, the sea of blood that originally looked like a mere illusion now seemed as if it was real. Light appeared within the eyes of the stone statue in the sea of blood, and it shone with an excited lust for slaughter.
With that lust for slaughter in Tian Xie Zi's eyes, Su Ming saw him storm straight towards the incoming mass of black spots. Waves rose in the sea of blood behind him and charged towards the black spots.
Roaring sounds reverberated in the air and Su Ming saw the same brutality and madness on the Shamans' faces who were standing on the ferocious beasts. They did not fear death and all of them bit their tongues to cough out blood. That blood turned into an innumerable amount of blood-red bugs that charged straight towards Tian Xie Zi.
Some brought out skulls. As they stroked them, black mist shot out and turned into hideous malicious ghosts. Some sat down, and as the beasts underneath them let out shrill cries of pain, their blood and flesh were ripped apart from their bones. That large mass of torn flesh grouped together to form large blood-red giants, and they howled as they charged towards Tian Xie Zi.
The creatures that lost their flesh and blood only had eerily white skeletal frames left. However, there was a ghostly fire within their eye sockets that burned with an indescribable ghastliness and coldness.
There were even dozens of Shamans who stomped on the ferocious beasts underneath them and bounded into the air. Their bodies instantly swelled up and a shocking power erupted from their bodies, turning their physical bodies into their strongest enchanted Vessels. They too charged towards Tian Xie Zi.
Su Ming looked at the sight. All these divine abilities were skills he had never seen before, especially the spell that created the giants formed from flesh and blood while still allowing the creatures to continue living even though they lost their bodies, only their skeletons remaining. It made Su Ming suck in a deep breath.
"You actually used the Spirit Medium of the Shaman Tribe. Looks like you've made even better preparations for my arrival today… You must have waited for many years. Today, I have finally come, and you… don't have to wait anymore!"
Tian Xie Zi's ghastly laughter rang in the skies.
Roaring sounds shook the sky. Multiple sights appeared at once within Su Ming's vision, and in them, Tian Xie Zi was slaughtering those Shamans arrogantly and without restraint!
The blood bugs that were formed from the coughed out blood stuck themselves on Tian Xie Zi's body, but they instantly turned purple and exploded.
Right at the moment the hideous malicious ghosts that came from the skulls closed in on Tian Xie Zi, the stone statue within the sea of blood opened its mouth wide, sucked in a deep breath, and the malicious ghosts tumbled into its mouth. Once the stone statue swallowed them all, the brutality and excitement in its eyes grew thicker.
Chapter 259: That Spoken Sentence… Golden Roc!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As the giants formed from the flesh and blood of the ferocious beasts charged towards Tian Xie Zi, he was also closing in on them with a savage look on his face. They crashed into each other with a bang, and those giants shattered, but Tian Xie Zi merely continued onward while laughing madly.
All the Shamans that stood in the area he passed by would find a bloody hole appearing on their chests, and there was emptiness inside the hole. Their hearts were gone.
Their hearts were dug out by Tian Xie Zi. Once he crushed them, the blood from their hearts fused into the air and appeared inside his sea of blood.
When he saw this sight, Su Ming sucked in a sharp breath. He looked towards the sea of blood behind Tian Xie Zi. That sea of blood…
"Could it have been created due to Master's slaughter..?" he mumbled.
The dozen Shamans who had swelled up, treating their physical bodies as their strongest weapon, with totems tattooed on their faces, hurled their fists forward with a force that made the air distort. Right at the moment these people attacked Tian Xie Zi together, he waved his arm and the purple long robe on his body instantly grew bigger. In the blink of an eye, the purple robe covered the entire area, including the dozen Shamans.
This scene only lasted for an instant. When Tian Xie Zi's purple robe reverted to its original size, bloody holes appeared on the chests of those men, and their hearts were all gone.
"The Spirit Medium of the Shamans, the Spirit Medium who only pities the dead but is cold towards the living… I killed one of you before, and I love fighting against people like you the most. Today, let me slaughter to my heart's content!"
When Tian Xie Zi let out an eerie bark of laughter, the sea of blood behind him turned into a giant mouth and opened it wide to swallow the Shamans.
The moment it swallowed the Shamans, many of these Shamans trembled, and as they did so, a fist appeared on their chests and started squirming there. Pain appeared on their faces and their chests exploded. Their hearts flew out of their chests and were crushed, then the blood from their hearts spilled out and was absorbed into the mouth formed from the sea of blood.
At that moment, a soft, cold snort appeared under the sky in the land belonging to the Shamans. Su Ming immediately turned his gaze over and saw an old man in a black and white long robe walking on the land. He had no idea when he had appeared.
The old man's hair was flecked in white, but his face was covered in a variety of colors and filled with tattoos. Su Ming looked at it and found himself unable to differentiate the totems on his face.
The man stood there and did not even look at Su Ming. His gaze was focused on Tian Xie Zi and he lifted his right hand to seize the sky.
The moment he did so, the entire sky turned murky, as if the sky had just turned into mud. An oppressive feeling gathered on Su Ming and made his breathing instantly quicken.
At the same time, Su Ming saw shadows appearing in the now turned murky sky. Those shadows all had pious expressions on their faces, and from their faces, Su Ming could tell that they were all the Shamans whom Tian Xie Zi had just killed by ripping out their hearts.
These hundreds of souls covered the murky sky, and as the Spirit Medium seized the air, they charged towards his right hand like rolling smoke. In an instant, as they gathered on the Spirit Medium's right hand, a transparent drop of water appeared!
That drop of water was crystal clear, yet the moment it appeared, a shocking chill spread in all directions.
Tian Xie Zi laughed coldly and turned around, stopping in his slaughter. The Shamans who were fortunate enough to not have died in this massacre quickly retreated and began surrounding the area until they sealed it up. Su Ming was also sealed within the area.
"I've waited for you here for 15 years."
The Spirit Medium spoke with a hoarse voice. He grabbed the transparent drop of water floating before him and swallowed it. Once he did so, his body started trembling viciously and pain appeared on his face.
"All you who died in sorrow… I, the Spirit Medium, have felt your resentment and sorrow. I am willing to use my body to shoulder your hate and anger. You died in this person's hands, now that you have died, come to my body…"
The moment the old man finished speaking, he started trembling even more viciously. As he started closing his eyes slowly, respect and fear appeared on the Shamans who surrounded Su Ming and Tian Xie Zi.
"Interesting, a Spirit Medium who can fuse souls actually came here…"
Tian Xie Zi licked his lips and ruthlessness appeared in his eyes.
Su Ming stood where he belonged. This slaughter had nothing to do with him, he did not need to take any action. With Tian Xie Zi over there, no one would pay attention to him.
After all, compared to Tian Xie Zi, Su Ming was so weak he would not attract any attention to himself.
At that moment, the Spirit Medium opened his eyes. His irises were grey, and at the very instant he opened his eyes, a roar that sounded like an innumerable amount of howls overlapping each other spilled out of his mouth.
"Give me back my heart!"
As he roared, countless bumps immediately rose up on the old man's body. These bumps were all faces. These faces were howling and screeching on his skin, causing the old man to become a terrifying sight to behold.
He stomped on the ground, and as it trembled, he flew up and charged towards Tian Xie Zi. At the moment he got closer to Tian Xie Zi. The old man lifted his arms, then pointed towards the sky with one arm while the other pointed towards the ground. He lifted his head to the sky and roared once again.
"Give me back my heart!"
The weather changed. At the edge of the murky sky, a gigantic hand of bone appeared out of thin air. It charged towards Tian Xie Zi with an air of decay.
At the same time, another bone hand broke out of the earth, and the ground trembled. It too charged towards Tian Xie Zi along with the bone hand from the sky.
The ruthless glare in Tian Xie Zi's eyes shone, and as the sea of blood behind him enveloped his body, the stone statue that had its arms folded around its chest within the sea of blood spread out its arms in a fashion that seemed slow but managed to clash into the two bone hands that were charging from the sky and earth with one palm facing upward and the other downward.
A deafening roar instantly shook the entire world. The bone hand from the sky crumbled and shattered into millions of pieces that disappeared into the air.
The bone hand from the ground also shuddered as if it could not withstand the palm strike from the stone statue. It shattered and fell like droplets of rain that scattered onto the ground.
With a glint in his eyes, the Spirit Medium spread out his arms at the same moment the bone hands shattered and let out a piercing howl towards the sky.
As he roared and his body trembled, the faces of the ghosts on his skin roared with him, and they charged out of the old man's body.
As those ghosts charged out, the old man shuddered and his physical body rapidly withered away. In the span of a few breaths, he turned into mere skin and bones and fell face down to the ground. The final soul within his body also charged out at that moment.
The sky was filled with the roars of these ghosts as they stormed towards Tian Xie Zi.
Tian Xie Zi let out a cold snort and was about to counter when two soft sighs came faintly from the sky in the distance.
The sighs were very gentle as if they held no rage within them and were so tender that they sounded like a lover blowing a puff of air on your cheek and into your ear.
When it sounded, Su Ming turned his gaze in its direction and saw two men walking forth from the sky in the distance.
Those were two men who were so beautiful that women would sigh because they could not compare to their beauty. They wore long white robes, and all men and women who looked at them would be attracted by their beautiful looks.
Even more shocking was that the two of them came together with breathtaking smiles on their lips while holding hands, and they were walking forward with an air of intimacy as if they were lovers.
"Split Dawn!" For the first time, besides ruthlessness and excitement, seriousness appeared in Tian Xie Zi's eyes. "Even the rarely seen Split Dawn appeared here. Interesting… Choosing a pair of Split Dawns is not an easy thing…"
The two beautiful men in white came forth with their hands still held together as if they were lovers. They looked at Tian Xie Zi with eyes that shone with a beauty that did not seem to belong to this world.
One of them spoke up softly, "I suppose there is a person without a heart around you, one that is formed by the spirits of those who were wronged."
As his words traveled forth, the many ghosts charging towards Tian Xie Zi suddenly spread out when they were about to close in. Then with Tian Xie Zi serving as its chest, they turned into a gigantic figure.
That figure was created entirely from the ghosts. They howled continuously, their voices echoing through the sky.
"I suppose you can no longer move, no longer can cast any Arts. You have become this person's heart, and then… you will shatter…" The other beautiful man smiled and spoke softly.
Su Ming widened his eyes and his pupils shrank once again. It could be said that this was the first time he encountered Shamans. Here, he encountered the Spirit Medium who pitied the dead, but was cold towards the living.
Right now, he saw the Split Dawn, who seemed to be in control of an unimaginable power! He even saw his Master, Tian Xie Zi, coming to a complete halt at that instant, just like what the Split Dawn said. The sea of blood around him started disappearing.
A murderous look flashed through Su Ming's eyes and bell chimes reverberated within his body. The white scale appeared in his hands, and the green mark of the sword glowed at the center of his brows. His Berserker Mark appeared faintly on his body.
Because not only did he see his Master's body freeze, he also saw the figure formed by the ghosts that had surrounded Tian Xie Zi gain the form of a person, and his Master stood at the location where its heart should be. By the looks of it, it seemed like it wanted to bury Tian Xie Zi within it.
However, Su Ming also had his doubts. From what he understood about his Master, if Tian Xie Zi dared to make such a blatant show of his arrival, then he would definitely not act recklessly, but Su Ming just could not figure out what else his Master could do.
Su Ming was just about to take action during this crisis when a sound rang out. That sound made the expressions of the two beautiful Split Dawns drastically change, it made the old Spirit Medium who was lying on the ground in only skin and bones let out a cry of surprise, and made the Shamans who had surrounded Su Ming and Tian Xie Zi sink into disbelief. That sound came from Tian Xie Zi.
"My Shaman Beast… I summon you with my voice…"
As Tian Xie Zi's voice echoed in the air, a low growl that shook the sky came from the land in the distance. A huge gust of wind swept through the land, and in the land far away… a gigantic golden roc appeared… By the looks of it, its size was about 10,000 feet!
"This… This is our sacred beast, the Golden Roc! You… Who are you?! Why do you know the sacred Skill of the Shamans?!" The old Spirit Medium lying on the ground let slip a cry of surprise with an expression filled with horrified surprise.
Chapter 260: Three Days!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The old Spirit Medium let out a cry of surprise, and in the blink of an eye, that horrified surprise on his face changed to one of shock.
He never expected that the person the big Shaman tribes told him to kill with an army to… possess a sacred beast of the Shamans!
The shock that came from witnessing a Berserker summoning their sacred beast, the sacred beasts that rarely appeared even when the Shamans themselves summoned them, was like that of lightning crashing onto him. The shock made his head roar, and besides surprise, his mind was completely blank.
Besides the old Spirit Medium, the beautiful Split Dawns were also shocked. Their expressions instantly changed and disbelief colored their faces. This expression was incredibly rare on these two men.
The two of them were sent to this place 15 years ago along with the old Spirit Medium, and their goal was to wait for the person who would appear in this area once every few years and bring about genocide.
Everything was going smoothly when they ran into Tian Xie Zi this day, but at the critical moment that one sentence from Tian Xie Zi changed everything in a manner as if the world had been turned upside down.
"The sacred beast, Golden Roc… No wonder we never managed to gain its acknowledgement and could never summon it even though we've sent our tribe members to its resting place multiple times in the past. So the Golden Roc… already has an owner!
"But how… How is this possible?! He's from the Berserker Tribe and doesn't practice the Ways of the Shamans. How did he get the approval of the Golden Roc?!"
In the time the Split Dawns sucked in a sharp breath, the Golden Roc arrived from where it was in the distance. Along with its arrival came a huge gust of wind that made people feel as if an innumerable amount of invisible mountains were crashing into them.
The remaining Shamans, who had surrounded Su Ming and Tian Xie Zi, lost all will to fight when the Golden Roc appeared. Terror appeared in the midst of their confusion, and they did not dare attack.
"The Golden Roc!"
"Oh heavens… It's the Golden Roc!"
Uproars broke out at the sacred beast's appearance. The Shamans held a level of respect akin to meeting the might of heaven itself in the face of their sacred beasts. This creature was like the totems within the Shaman Tribe. There was in no way they could fight against it.
At that moment, as the Golden Roc swept past the land and brought with it a huge gust of wind, these people were likefloating leaves in the sky and were thrown back. As booming sounds reverberated in the air, the wall of people crumbled down instantly.
Su Ming sucked in a breath when he saw the Golden Roc closing in. Its gigantic body that exceeded 10,000 feet formed an intimidating pressure that made morning sky turn dark in an instant. It was covered by the Golden Roc's body as if it had just covered the sun.
Compared to it, the people around him who were swept away by the huge gust of wind and Su Ming himself were so tiny that they could practically be disregarded. The Golden Roc forced its way into all their sights in an incredibly arrogant fashion.
The moment it closed in, the extraordinarily mighty Golden Roc shone with a golden light that made it look like a golden eagle. It made the people be unable to look at it, especially into its eyes. There was an aloof look within its eyes, and as it swept its gaze across the land, cracking sounds would appear in the air as if the air itself could not withstand that pressure.
The intelligence it had made Su Ming believe without a doubt that it had far surpassed the intellect of all the ferocious beasts he had ever seen. Even the rod snake could not compare with it in this.
However, the rod snake was still an infant, so it was only natural that it would have a hard time competing against the Golden Roc, which was a sacred beast that was famous within the Shaman Tribes.
When the Golden Roc's eyes fell on Su Ming as its gaze swept through the land, it paused for a moment to look at him, and at the moment it did so, the golden light within its eyes instantly became stronger. It made Su Ming shudder, as if everything about him had just been seen through.
Any other ordinary Berserker would have lost all ability to think, but Su Ming did not just practice in the Ways of the Berserkers. He also trained in the Skills of Aura Refinement and turned it into his divine senses. The strength of his divine senses might perhaps be nothing to those in the other realms, but among his peers in the Berserker Tribe, he was second to none.
At that moment, while the divine sense in his mind still could not withstand the Golden Roc's gaze, Su Ming could at least still tell the reason behind the Golden Roc's interest in him.
Su Ming had a feeling that the Golden Roc was not looking at him, but at the Han Mountain Bell residing within his body!
More accurately speaking, there was something within Han Mountain Bell that the Golden Roc sensed, and it wanted to take a closer look!
Almost at the same instant the Golden Roc trained its gaze on Su Ming, the rod shaped insect snake hybrid that was recovering slowly in the Han Mountain Bell within Su Ming suddenly curled up from its sleeping, relaxed position within the Bell. It lifted its head instantly and its dull eyes immediately regained their cruel glare.
The glare seemed like the last rays of sunlight before the sky turned dark. It seemed strong, but was in reality rather scattered, and hidden within the depths of the glare was the rod snake's pride.
It was as if that pride existed within the blood and soul of the rod snake itself. That pride was passed down through generations and existed even now; it had never disappeared.
That pride that was hidden within its cruelty made it seem that if they took away the difference between their power, then the rod snake and Golden Roc did not even belong in the same category of creatures, because within the rod snake's pride was an air of dominance and supremacy!
Su Ming noticed that aura. He was shaken by this, and the light in the Golden Roc's eyes wavered for a brief moment, and Su Ming felt as if he saw hesitation within him, and he even saw the hint of fear lying underneath that hesitation.
At that moment, Su Ming had a sudden feeling that the rod snake was like a tiger cub. Although it was small and injured, even if the tiger cub ran into lone wolves, it would still lift up its head and show off its unique aura.
That feeling only appeared for an instant. As the Golden Roc turned its gaze away, that feeling also disappeared without a trace. No one around him noticed it, not even Tian Xie Zi.
After all, the Golden Roc's gaze only stayed on Su Ming for a moment. In Su Ming's eyes, it had happened slowly, but in reality, it only lasted for a moment.
When the Golden Roc's gaze swept through the entire land, a huge gust of wind swept through the land. The Golden Roc lifted its head and with its mouth wide-open, it let out a shriek towards the sky.
While the shriek might not have been deafening, it still reached its peak in an instant and turned into an indescribable sound wave that traveled in all directions.
When the Shamans who were swept away by the wind heard the shriek, they let out shrill cries of pain and blood gushed out of their eyes, mouth, nose, nose; they exploded and their flesh and blood scattered into the air.
The ferocious beasts under their feet had long since frozen, ever since the Golden Roc arrived. They were shivering in midair and did not dare move.
The sound wave contained a power that made booming sounds echo in Su Ming's head, and his mind instantly turned blank. When he regained his senses, he saw the old Spirit Medium's head exploding as he cried out in pain. His entire body was dyed in black blood as he fell to the side.
Besides the devastating deaths of the Shamans around him, Su Ming also saw the two beautiful Split Dawns bleeding from their eyes, noses, ears, and mouths. They looked pathetic as they ran away with their faces tainted with endless terror.
Yet as they ran, one of them could not endure the Golden Roc's voice and coughed out blood, trembling. As he ran, his body started shattering inch by inch, and before he could make it to 100 feet, he crumbled into a mass of blood and flesh, then disappeared. Only his right arm, which still held onto his lover's hand, remained.
The remaining man looked at the arm in his hand and let out a cry of despair, but he did not turn back. He charged forward in a mad dash instead, and a large amount of blood mist seeped out of his body and surrounded him. As the blood mist spread out, his beautiful face started decaying, and in an instant, his beauty turned into horrifying ugliness. However, he still managed to escape and disappear from Su Ming's sight.
At the same time, the body of the person that was formed from the ghosts which had Tian Xie Zi buried within crumbled and exploded under the Golden Roc's voice. It turned into the faces that were full of hate once again before they disappeared into thin air.
Tian Xie Zi opened his eyes.
He took in a breath of the bloody stench around him and asked calmly. "My fourth disciple, have you killed before?"
This was the first time Su Ming saw such a large scale massacre, the first time he saw Tian Xie Zi act, and the first time he saw the might of the Golden Roc.
Su Ming remained silent for a moment before he nodded his head. "I have…"
"Chase him down. I'll wait for you here."
Tian Xie Zi cast him a glance and walked onto the Golden Roc's back calmly. The Golden Roc closed its eyes and allowed Tian Xie Zi to climb onto its back to sit down cross-legged.
"The power of those two Split Dawns is equivalent to the Berserkers in the Berserker Soul Realm. One of them has died now, and there's only one left. He's also injured, so his power is now only around the Bone Sacrifice Realm.
"Split Dawns are rare among the Shamans. Finding a pair like this isn't easy, but he should be very quick, you also stayed around for too long. If you want to chase him down, then you will have to enter into the deep parts of the Shaman Tribe.
"Do you dare do it, my fourth disciple?" Tian Xie Zi asked languidly.
Su Ming lowered his head and a light flashed in his eyes. He did not speak, simply turned around and charged towards the direction of the only person who escaped in a long arc.
"I will wait for you for three days. If you don't come back three days later, then you won't be able to come back."
Tian Xie Zi's voice floated through the air and spread out, falling into Su Ming's ears. However, he did not falter for even a moment. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared into the distance.
Tian Xie Zi closed his eyes slowly and sat down on the Golden Roc to wait.
A bleak air covered the entire land of the Shamans. The moaning from the wind sounded like mournful human cries. As the sound traveled through the land and the wind blew past the sky, it brought about an unfamiliarity and a depressing feeling that pressed heavily against one's chest.
Su Ming charged through the sky belonging to the Shaman Tribe, yet after he flew for an hour, he frowned and lowered his head to look at the land beneath him. The land was covered in an endless sea of forest.
A glint appeared in his eyes and Su Ming flew towards the ground. After a moment, he stepped on the muddy floor in the forest and closed his eyes to spread out his divine senses. After a moment, he opened his eyes and disappeared from the spot. His body floated like smoke, and after a moment, he appeared by an old tree. Su Ming crouched down and touched the wet ground. There was a drop of blood there.
"He is afraid of being chased down, that's why he didn't fly in the air. Instead, he chose to use the forest as his cover and hide in familiar lands so that he can buy time to recover…" Su Ming mumbled and a smile appeared on his lips.
Forests were his home!
Chapter 261: Shaman Hunt!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
'Master could have killed him himself… but he wanted me to do it…' Su Ming stood up and once he looked around, a light flashed through his eyes and he sped forward like a ghost.
'It's because he saw that I wanted to join Sky Mist Shaman Hunt. That's why instead of having me experience the terrors of the Shamans only at that time and fight against them without prior knowledge, he would rather give me this chance!
'He's allowing me to begin my very first… Shaman hunt!'
The light in Su Ming's eyes flickered. As he traveled through the forest, he would occasionally stop and observe the place before he continued onward. Sometimes, he would change his direction and continue the chase down another path.
As time passed by, Su Ming started speeding up. The number of times he stopped also became fewer. He had already determined the location where his target was running, and even when he closed his eyes while he continued running, he could somewhat feel the now hideous man escaping in the direction before him with a dark expression, his white robes stained with blood.
When a day passed by, Su Ming could feel that the distance between him and the other was rapidly closing up. Su Ming knew that this was the land of the Shamans. There might be other Shaman Tribes within the forest, that was why he had to catch up to this man as soon as possible, and he had to kill him quickly as well. Dragging the fight out was something to be avoided at all costs.
Else, not only would he be in danger, he might also face the risk of not being able to go back like his Master had said if he went back too late and three days had gone by.
Tian Xie Zi mentioned that he had three days, and hence Su Ming believed that he had three days and only three days. Perhaps the three days did not mean that Tian Xie Zi was not willing to wait, but instead meant that if three days went by, then someone who Tian Xie Zi might not be able to fight would appear!
That was why he told Su Ming that he would only wait three days! Even right up till the end, Tian Xie Zi never said anything about wanting Su Ming to retrieve the man's head. He only told Su Ming to chase him down.
Su Ming understood all of these. The meaning behind his Master's words was clear as day. He only wanted Su Ming to experience the process of hunting a Shaman. He did not ask him to be successful in it.
His only demand for Su Ming was that final sentence – three days!
Within three days, he must go back!
When half of the second day went past, Su Ming had already entered the deep parts of the forest. It might have been noon by then, but it was difficult for sunlight to break through the layers of leaves in the forest. The ground was filled with mud and it was letting out a rotten stench.
Su Ming continued moving before he came to a sudden halt. In the forest before him, he saw a small hill. That hill was not tall and was filled with plants, and Su Ming saw a person at the top of the hill.
That person was crouching down on the mountain, his hideous face filled dreariness. He was staring at Su Ming.
Their gazes met and clashed with each other. Su Ming felt his mind go blank, but his divine senses were instantly activated and he regained his senses. As for the man on the small hill, a grave expression appeared in his tired eyes and his body swayed. With the momentum provided by that sway, he rushed down the back of the hill.
A glint appeared in Su Ming's eyes and he charged towards the small hill. When he stood at the top of the mountain, the first thing that entered his vision was the man lifting his hands and pressing them against his chest at the hillside. He coughed out a large mouthful of black blood, and that black blood churned as it floated in midair before turning into black arrows that sliced through the air towards him.
Su Ming could tell that this person had already spent all of his strength, and he had also noticed him as Su Ming was chasing him down, that was why he could not heal his injuries. Now that he chose to attack, he was revealing the extent of his injuries.
With a cold snort, Su Ming took a step forward and did not even bother to dodge the arrows coming his way. With his speed, he could simply ignore them.
As he moved forward, green light flashed at the center of his brows. The sword mark flickered and the sword was about to fly out, but at that moment Su Ming's expression suddenly changed.
His legs were moving down the hil,l but the moment he started moving down, he immediately noticed…
There was something off about the slope!
The man lifted his head swiftly and a tinge cruelness appeared on his lips. He charged towards Su Ming with a single leap, and he moved so quickly that Su Ming could barely keep track of him with his naked eye. If the man had been preparing for this burst of shocking speed since a long time ago, then Su Ming would have definitely not been able to catch up!
Just as the man's speed suddenly increased, Su Ming also felt that his tempo as he went down the mountain suddenly decreased in a manner that completely went against all that he understood.
It was as if he had just exchanged places with this man and that he was going up the hill while the other person was going down. That was why this difference in speed appeared, even though this was clearly not the case.
All of this only lasted for an instant. The man's arrows closed in on Su Ming. Although he avoided them, the moment he did so, the man closed in on him with that shocking speed of his.
A sense of life-threatening danger immediately rose within Su Ming's body like a tidal wave. The hairs on his body rose. His body felt as if it was stuck on the mountain. Even if he wanted to fly, his greatly reduced speed and the man's shocking speed would not let him avoid the man's clearly prepared killing move.
It had been a long time since Su Ming last felt as if his life was being threatened. Now that it happened once again, it allowed the emotions in his eyes to quiet down in an instant and a calm that was akin to still water in an ancient spread through him.
His first act was to let his entire body be surrounded by black fog. A black armor that seethed with a murderous aura appeared on his descending body. It was his Divine General Armor!
The instant the armor appeared, Su Ming's second act was not to bring out Han Mountain Bell to defend himself. Instead, he activated the power of his divine sense. His body might have slowed down, but with his divine sense, he could still see the trajectory of his incoming opponent's line of attack.
He saw the man lifting his right hand as he was quickly closing in on him and his fingernails turning into sharp claws that were surrounded by black mist. They went straight for his chest and would arrive in an instant.
When he saw all of this clearly, Su Ming moved to the side slightly.
A loud bang rang through the air and he jolted. Unable to withstand the attack, his Divine General Armor started shattering. Yet even though it was shattering, it recovered within an instant, and this continued multiple times until the armor completely cancelled out the man's attack. However, sharp pain that came from the jolts shot through Su Ming's entire body because his Divine General Armor was just an illusion and did not have physical form.
Su Ming had not yet gone to the Great Yu Dynasty to retrieve his true armor.
That was why while the armor could resist the power of the five fingered claw, it could not withstand the shell knife that was formed after the five fingernails gathered together once the man brought all five of his fingers together!
That was a black shell that was about the size of a knife. If anyone took a closer look, they would see that it was tortoise shell, but if that shell was taken apart, it could be stored within the man's fingers. They looked like fingernails, but if they were gathered together, then its real form would appear!
That shell knife pierced through Su Ming's Divine General Armor and stabbed right into his chest!
The knife's target was originally Su Ming's heart, but due to Su Ming moving his body slightly once he activated his divine sense, the knife missed his heart. It might hurt immensely, but at least he was not heavily wounded.
All this happened in an instant. Once the shell knife in the man's hand pierced through Su Ming's right side of the chest, a stunned expression appeared on his face. Clearly, he did not expect that Su Ming could still avoid the attack when his speed had decreased while the man's speed increased! He was also shocked by the fact that Su Ming was one of the Divine Generals in the Berserker Tribe, and his desire to kill him grew stronger.
His shock quickly turned into a cold sneer. Just as the man was about to pull out his shell knife, he saw Su Ming lift his head and a monstrous killing aura appear within his eyes. That was not all. He also saw a brilliant red hue in Su Ming's right eye that made it clearly different from his left eye!
That enchanting brilliant red made his eye seem like a moon that was dyed in blood. When the man saw it at such close proximity, for some unknown reason, he was horrified!
"This knife is pretty good. I'll be taking it!" Su Ming spoke in a hoarse voice and grabbed the shell knife that had stabbed into his chest with his left hand with such a tight grip that the man could not pull it out.
At the same time, a bell chime spread out from within Su Ming's body. That bell chime boomed and reverberated in the air, causing layers of ripples to form around Su Ming and the man.
The bell chimes were filled with a sense of graveness, but when they fell into the man's ears, they sounded like the heavens themselves were howling in anger, and those howls turned into thunderous roars. It caused his body to shudder, and even if he had used the mysterious power residing within the hill to increase his own speed, he could not help but flinch.
The moment he flinched, with the shocking murderous aura spilling out from the red in his right eye, Su Ming crashed his head against the man's head before him.
A bang rang in the air, and it was followed by the man's shrill and pained screams. He wanted to move away, but Su Ming's right hand had already flown up to grab the man's shoulder. He lifted his head, took a step forward, and pushed the man's body before he crashed his head against the man's again.
He was forced back a dozen steps and his head suffered a similar amount of pain. The man's face was covered in blood and horror appeared in his eyes. He was already running on empty, and the amount of power he could use was only about the level of a Berserker in the middle stage of the Awakening Realm. If he had calmed and used the unique divine abilities of the Shaman Tribe, then he might have had a chance to escape.
However, he was first intimidated by Tian Xie Zi, then witnessed his lover killed before his eyes. As Split Dawns, once their other half died, then it would be very difficult for them to be of any threat to their enemies. The Split Dawns may be powerful, but their weaknesses were similarly great!
He originally wanted to kill Su Ming to take revenge while mid-escape, but he did not expect him to be so vicious. That blood-red light in his right eye especially made terror flood the man's heart.
In the midst of his terror, he saw green light flash at the center of Su Ming's brows, and since they were so close to each other, the small virescent sword swept through the man's neck with just one slight move.
Blood gushed out and his head fell to the ground.
Due to the strangeness of the hill, the gushing blood and blood on the ground did not flow down the hill, but flowed up…
As Su Ming let go of the man's hand, his corpse fell to the ground and Su Ming caught the man's head by its hair. Su Ming's face was pale and his breathing rapid. The shell knife remained buried deep in the right side of his chest.
Su Ming took a deep breath and was just about to leave the hill when he suddenly turned his head to look at the forest not too far away from him.
He saw a boy there. He was dressed in beast skins and his face was deathly pale as he stared at Su Ming with a stunned expression. There was a crude looking bow in his hands.
Su Ming saw… the Tattoos that belonged to the Shamans on his face!
This was a child of the Shaman Tribe!
Su Ming cast a glance at the boy in silence, then pressed a hand against his chest, turned around, and quickly walked down the hill...
Chapter 262: Boy
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The sky in the land of the Shamans was vast. At a place not too far from Sky Mist Barrier that could be considered to be at the borders of the land of the Shamans was a bloody stench that filled the entire land. Even if wind swept past the land, it still could not get rid of the bloody stench from the land.
A golden bird that was about 10,000 feet in size floated in the sky. There were hundreds of ferocious beasts prostrating themselves before it, unmoving, as if they were waiting for the Golden Roc's orders.
The Golden Roc had its eyes closed. There was an old man who also had his eyes closed sitting on its back. His purple robes looked like dried up blood as they swayed in the wind.
Tian Xie Zi had already sat in the spot for one and a half days. He would wait for another one and a half days for his fourth disciple, for Su Ming to return.
This was a test. It was also his first ever test to Su Ming.
"No matter whether you succeed in going through your first change in heart, you will still be my disciple. As long as you are alive, then you will still have chances to go through other changes in heart.
"But… Sky Mist Shaman Hunt usually ends with a person going in alive and coming out dead…" Tian Xie Zi mumbled and opened his eyes.
"I won't worry about your change in heart. I might not know what sort of past you have, but I am confident that you will succeed in going through your first change in heart… you should have found peace in your heart once you saw him creating xun.
"What I'm worried is that… while you are vicious, you don't have any sense of belonging to the Land of South Morning and don't have enough understanding of our hate towards the Shamans, and because of that, you will… have a moment of weakness."
There was no longer any brutality within Tian Xie Zi's eyes, only calm.
He looked at the distance silently.
If anyone followed Tian Xie Zi's gaze that seemed to be looking forward endlessly, they would find a small hill in a forest that seemed to span endlessly in a place that could only be reached if they traveled for a day and a half.
Su Ming stood on the small hill and did not turn his head back to look at the boy standing not too far from the foot of the mountain. The kid looked like someone who could fit right into his tribe, and if he was there, his power would be around the second or third level of the Blood Solidification Realm. He might be from the Shaman Tribe, but Su Ming could not bring himself to kill him.
Sharp pain spread out from Su Ming's chest as he continued remaining in silence. Blood flowed out from his wound. The shell knife had still brought harm to him.
If he had not avoided the attack, that knife would have stabbed his heart.
He pulled out the shell knife, and at the same time Su Ming left the small hill, he lifted his left hand and pointed towards the pale boy who had just snapped out of his terror and had turned around to run back quickly.
A gust of wind sliced through the air and closed in on the running boy in an instant. The moment it fell on him, the gust of wind suddenly split into two parts. One crashed into the big tree by the boy's side, and a green, poisonous snake that had charged out without the boy's knowledge fell to the ground once its head exploded.
The other gust of wind crashed into the boy. He shuddered and fell to the ground unconscious.
Only those who had mastered Awakening fine control could make the wind formed from the fingers split into two, and Su Ming's fine control had already arrived at an incredibly precise state.
"I won't kill you, but only if you don't go back and reveal my whereabouts."
Su Ming left the small hill and went back by the same path he'd taken forward.
He had already used more than a day's time for this chase. Now that it had ended, he did not stop to rest, but instead used the quickest speed to run so that he could get back within the three days, in the time limit his Master had given him.
Su Ming was extremely careful as he traveled through this unfamiliar land that belonged to the Shamans and was filled with all sorts of dangers. He knew that he should have killed the boy, but he… just chose to make him unconscious.
After the time it takes to burn half an incense stick after Su Ming left, the boy's body suddenly jolted. A mysterious energy had appeared out of nowhere and made the boy wake up beforehand!
The boy opened his eyes and first examined his body. Once he learned that he was uninjured, he saw the poisonous snake that had lost its head by his side, and he was momentarily stunned.
Yet it only lasted for a brief moment before it disappeared quickly. There was no longer any hint of shock on the boy's young face when he looked at the small hill. All traces of it were replaced by ruthlessness and hatred.
He got up and ran back to where his tribe was at full speed. He did not stop as he ran, and as he did so, he bit his tongue and coughed out a mouthful of blood, then closed his eyes. When he reopened them soon after, that blood of his had turned into a small blood-red bird.
The bird flapped its wings and charged into the distance at shocking speed before disappearing without a trace.
In a place that was not too far away, a village could be found on a spot where the forest was cleared. The mud on the ground was filled with sand so that it was firm. There was also a large plot of land in the distance that was planted with vegetables.
Laughter could be heard from the village. Men belonging to the Shaman Tribe with Tattoo filled faces could be seen occasionally roaming the village with wary expressions on their faces. Yet when an hour later they saw the red bird that suddenly flew out of the forest, their expressions immediately changed.
That small red bird flew into the village and straight away went into one of the houses in the village.
There was an old man sitting within the house. The old man was half naked and only had a beast skin wrapped around his waist. There was a small cauldron before him and it was burning with some herbs. Wisps of smoke seeped out of the cauldron and were sucked into the old man's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as he breathed in, before coming out of his pores, enveloping him in a hazy, distorted aura.
There were two beautiful girls from the Shaman Tribe behind him. They knelt by his side and fanned him gently with fans made of big leaves.
The breeze was very light and could not blow away the wisps of smoke. The entire house was silent.
Yet the moment the small red bird broke in, the old man suddenly opened his eyes, and within one of his eyes, four pupils could be seen!
The small red bird closed in and landed before him the moment the old man opened his eyes. With a bang, it turned into a layer of blood fog, and as the old man inhaled, the fog was taken into the old man's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Once he did so, the light within his eyes immediately flickered as if pictures had just appeared out of nowhere before his eyes, allowing him to see everything clearly.
"A Berserker…"
A cruel and bloodthirsty smile appeared on the old man's face and he licked his lips. If any Berserker saw his tongue, they would definitely be taken aback, because the length the old man's tongue had clearly exceeded the normal length of a human's tongue. It looked like that of a snake, and it seemed as if the old man wanted to, he could lick his own hair.
With that bloodthirsty and cruel smile on his lips, the old man stood up, and once he walked out of his house, he spread out his arms and let out a low growl.
Once he growled, the entire tribe instantly fell silent. All the people turned their gazes towards the old man.
"Can you smell it?!" The old man's voice was hoarse, ghastly "This is the smell belonging to a Berserker. This smell is the sweet smell of a Berserker's blood… A Berserker has entered the forest where our Lizard God lives. He has walked on our land and killed a warrior of the Shaman Tribe!
"He has disturbed the Lizard God within the forest!
"Kill him. Take his head and hang it outside our tribe. Dig out his heart and squeeze the blood out. His blood will be drunk by the powerful Shamans of our tribe!
"Kill him, and pull out his teeth so that we can hang them off our necks as trophies!"
A short period of silence fell among the people before the entire tribe erupted in a maddening roar.
That roar came from all the Shamans within the tribe, and ruthless looks could even be seen on some of the children, women, and the elderly.
The old man took a step forward and turned into a long arc as he charged out of his tribe. Around twenty other people followed behind him,charging swiftly into the forest beyond the village.
Once they left the village, they split into two teams. The old man led a few men and flew into the sky. As for the rest, they started searching for clues within the forest with the skills passed down by their ancestors.
Su Ming was running through the forest at an extremely quick speed, not bothering to stop and take breaks. His chest was no longer bleeding, but the pain only became stronger as he continued with his mad dash.
He did consider flying, but that thought was immediately scrapped off. If he flew for a day and a half, then he might run into Shamans. To him, who was currently in the unfamiliar land, this act was one of foolishness.
Compared to the sky, the forest was more suitable for Su Ming to traverse.
Time trickled by as he continued running. When the second night arrived, he sat down cross-legged on a big tree and regulated his breathing.
'Judging from the distance, I'll reach my Master's side by tomorrow night…'
Su Ming touched his chest and a blood red hue appeared in his right eye. It had been a long while since he had suffered such a grievous injury. His trip to the Shaman Tribe this time allowed him to see the mysteriousness surrounding the Shaman Tribe.
This would prove extremely useful to him during the Sky Mist Shaman Hunt a few months later, because the experience he obtained from hunting the Shaman alone in their land was not an experience everyone could have.
As he breathed in the air of the forest that belonged to the Shamans, Su Ming felt as if the oppressive feeling pressing against his heart started to fade away.
'I didn't expect… Master to have the Shamans' sacred beast! I may not know what a sacred beast is, but with just one roar, he made the Spirit Medium crumble and killed one of the Split Dawns, while heavily injuring the other, and all the other Shamans around the area died.
'This power…'
Su Ming sucked in a deep breath. He just remembered that he had seen a sacred beast like this before!
In his memories, he saw clouds tumble about in the sky like black fog, and it spread out to cover an area that was about thousands of lis. Within that fog was a gigantic mackerel pike.
There was a girl standing on the mackerel pike.
'Uncle master Bai… could actually fight against a sacred beast?!'
Su Ming was stunned. As he saw and experienced more things, he gained a new understanding towards uncle master Bai's strength.
Just as Su Ming was pondering over his Master and uncle master Bai and was shocked by the might of the Shaman Tribe's sacred beasts, his eyes suddenly gained a serious look and the blood-red light in his right eye shone. His entire body tensed up like a strung bow and he leapt out of the big tree he sat on in an instant.
He could clearly sense a dozen Shamans within an area of 3,000 feet around him with his divine senses. Those Shamans were charging towards him with vicious cruelty and with an eager thirst for blood in a manner as if they were trying to surround him.
The first sight that entered his mind at that moment he sensed those Shamans was the boy he had knocked unconscious with the wind he'd summoned from his fingers!
Chapter 263: His Strongest Attack!
Translator:EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor:EndlessFantasy Translation
Su Ming fell silent. With one leap, he quietly went towards the male Shaman that was the closest to him in the area he could sense with his divine sense.
A serious expression settled on his face and blood-red light shone in his right eye, filled with a murderous aura. The moment he closed in on the cruel looking man, that murderous aura erupted all at once from within him. That man immediately stopped and slammed his lifted hands onto his face.
That strange sight made Su Ming's pupils shrink.
The very moment the man's hands struck his face and he coughed out a large mouthful of blood, a dozen teeth broke off in his mouth and spilled out with the blood.
They turned into a dozen sharp thorns that charged towards Su Ming at shocking speed.
Su Ming had never seen such a skill before, and he was just about to dodge it when those thorns changed direction and followed him closely as if they possessed a high amount of intelligence.
'What an incredible Shamanic divine ability!'
Su Ming knew that it was impossible for him to kill the man before him quietly now. Green light shone on the center of his brows and the small virescent sword charged out swiftly before clashing against the dozen thorns with a loud bang.
As the bang echoed in the air, those thorns shattered, and the small virescent sword charged towards the retreating male Shaman, penetrating through his forehead.
His pained cries before his death fused together with the bang and broke the silence in the forest at night. It was like a stone had been thrown suddenly into a well with only still water and it caused a large amount of ripples to appear on the water's surface.
Right when the scream rang out, Su Ming noticed the remaining Shamans in the area of his divine sense immediately changing direction and charging towards where he was. There was now only around 2,000 feet between them.
Su Ming knew that he could not escape from being surrounded and decided to charge towards one of the Shamans. He dashed forward at an extremely fast pace, and as green light shone beside him, a bang resounded in the sky. A corpse without his head fell down before Su Ming.
Right then, there was only 1,500 feet between the remaining people and Su Ming. He lifted his head and lightning swam through his entire body. Right at the instant crackling sounds reverberated in the air, a ball of lightning surrounded him. It spread outwards, and the sky and earth rumbled. If anyone was to look from above, they would see that the land had turned into a pool of lightning, and Su Ming stood in its center.
The swimming lightning spread outwards at a frenzied pace, and as lightning traveled through the land, mud would shatter, trees would whither, grass would turn into dust, and most of the people who were about 1,000 feet away from him shuddered.
However, two of these dozen people could not be held back. Their bodies faltered only for a moment before they charged towards Su Ming.
Right when these two people closed in and appeared within Su Ming's sight, bell chimes reverberated from within him. Those rumbling bell chimes turned into sound waves that crashed into the incoming duo. They forced one of them to slow down, but there was still one who did not slow down in the slightest and closed in on Su Ming!
That person was a middle-aged man with a long scar left behind by a knife on his face. That scar caused the Tattoo on his face to look as if it was split in half. There may have been ruthlessness reflecting off the light in his eyes, but under that ruthlessness was calmness.
This person's power would be equivalent to a Berserker between the later stage to the peak of the Awakening Realm, and he was only one step away from reaching the Bone Sacrifice Realm!
If Su Ming had been at full health, he could fight against this man and win. However, Su Ming was injured, and his knowledge regarding Shamanic Spells was terribly limited, that was why if he fought against him, he would not be able to end the fight quickly. Once the fight was dragged out, then the chance he created with lightning and the bell chimes would be wasted.
Once it was wasted and the people around him recovered, they would surround him. If Su Ming wanted to break through, he would have to pay a big price to succeed.
Besides, Su Ming had no doubt that there were other Shamans who had sealed off his path in the sky. If he dragged this out even further, then there would be more Shamans who would arrive on land as well.
Once a Shaman who was equivalent to a Berserker at the Bone Sacrifice Realm arrived, then Su Ming would not be able to fight back!
In the face of danger, calm surfaced in Su Ming's eyes. However, that calmness was almost akin to aloofness. The enchanting blood-red glow in his right eye flickered, and right at the moment the middle-aged Shaman closed in, Su Ming lifted his right hand, and an ice piece appeared on his palm!
Within that ice… was fire!
Right when Su Ming crushed that ice, a sea of fire spread out furiously from his hand. However, that sea of fire was not hot. It spread out with a freezing chill.
This ice was naturally the gift Su Ming's eldest senior brother had given him!
That middle-aged Shaman's face instantly changed and many scales immediately appeared on his skin. By the looks of it, this person was rapidly changing from a human to some sort of ferocious beast.
However, the speed of his change could not catch up to the fire in the ice Su Ming had summoned. The fire exploded forth like a monstrous big mouth and swallowed the incoming middle-aged man. At the same time, the chill that was just spreading out a moment ago swiftly gathered around the middle-aged man.
Cracking sounds that made Su Ming suck in a sharp breath rang through the air, and a scene of icy fire that shocked even Su Ming appeared before his eyes.
The middle-aged man, caught in between the state of being human and beast, was sealed inside a large block of ice. His horrified expression was filled with disbelief.
Su Ming saw a ball of fire within his body. That fire did not seem to be burning, but Su Ming saw that frozen man's body turn black, and within the ice, he turned into a mass of black ash…
All of this happened in an instant. The power of that ice let Su Ming gain a new understanding towards his eldest senior brother's power. However, this was not the time for him to think too deeply into it. With one leap, he charged towards the Shaman who was forced to stop due to Han Mountain Bell.
That person was not a man but a woman!
The woman was already in the middle stage of her life and had an ordinary face. The Tattoo on her face flickered, and she had an equally vicious look on her face as the man had. However, when she saw Su Ming making one of the incredibly powerful Shamans in her tribe die in such a bizarre fashion, that viciousness turned into shock.
She was about to move back, but another bell chime rang through the air instantly, causing her mind to ring and her body to stop once again. This would also be the last time her body stopped moving like this ever again!
In the span of a breath, Su Ming went past the woman like lightning, and once he did so, he brought with him a head gushing with blood.
The woman's body fell to the ground twitching.
The moment her corpse fell to the ground, Su Ming panted harshly. His face was pale and the wound on his chest worsened. In the short amount of time, he had killed multiple people. Although he had killed the most powerful person among these people with his eldest senior brother's gift, the high speed movement exhausted his injured body.
Nonetheless, he did not stop. As the murderous aura in his right eye flickered, he charged towards the remaining people who were frozen from lightning continuing to swim around him.
Moonlight from the sky gathered behind Su Ming and formed a moonlight cloak reminiscent of the time when he was in Dark Mountain. As it floated behind him, the light turned into countless threads that danced behind Su Ming as he moved.
He went past all the Shamans who were stunned by his lightning, and their heads flew into the sky. Green light shone, and the small virescent sword let out piercing sword whistles as it was dyed in blood.
When Su Ming closed in on the final person, he waved his hand, and the moonlight threads behind him swarmed forward, wrapping up the Shaman swiftly, then right away they tore through him. The final Shaman of those that had surrounded Su Ming in the forest let out a piercing scream before his body was ripped into shreds. Blood gushed into the air.
However, the battle was far from finished. Su Ming did not even have time to calm his ragged breathing. Almost at the instant after the final Shaman was slaughtered by the moonlight threads, a furious roar came from the sky.
"How dare you, Berserker?!"
The voice was like thunder, and shook Su Ming. He lifted his head and saw eight people coming from the sky!
Among these seven to eight people was an old man. He was as thin as bones, but there was a mighty presence coming from him, and that presence made an incredibly grave expression appear on Su Ming's face.
The old man was not the one who spoke. Those words came instead from a man standing among the eight people. That man's power was at about the same level as the strongest Shaman Su Ming had killed just now!
There was something else that made Su Ming's pupils shrink. Besides the old man, all the people in the sky stood on ferocious beasts that looked like ligers, and all of them were roaring at him. The old man did not move, but the remaining seven people all charged towards Su Ming.
The ruthlessness in their eyes, their thirst for blood, and the mighty presences made the exhausted Su Ming feel as if he was caught between life and death.
Su Ming hadn't expected that the results of that one merciful act could be so terrible!
He had clearly saved the boy's life before he had knocked him out. He had clearly killed that poisonous snake… Su Ming closed his eyes. He knew that he… might have made a mistake.
"Perhaps… I really made a mistake…"
As Su Ming mumbled under his breath, he sat down cross-legged and lifted his right hand. In the face of death, right at the instant the seven people from the sky came charging towards him roaring, his mind became empty. There was no terror, no regret. He even forgot about life and death itself. The only thing in his heart was the one strike that had become his own after the tens of thousands of strokes he had practised.
He lifted his hand and closed his eyes, then sliced at the sky with a gentle swipe of his fingers.
That single slice caused the weather to change. It was as if some seal was broken, but it was also different from the time he had competed against Tian Lan Meng in the seventh summit!
Even if Si Ma Xin bore witness to that single slice right then, he would also find it difficult to find any sort of similarities between this attack and the first style of the God of Berserkers Transformation!
This one slice was Su Ming's…strongest attack!
The instant he drew that line, the aloof old man in the sky suddenly changed his expression and waved his arm. Wisps of smoke immediately spread from his body and turned into a gigantic lizard formed from smoke. It stuck out its tongue at Su Ming.
Its tongue charged towards him and crashed into the line he had drawn!
Chapter 264: Three Methods
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
That one stroke was Su Ming's strongest attack from all the divine abilities he had learned!
That one stroke came to being after he copied the first style from Si Ma Xin's God of Berserkers Transformation and drew it repeatedly day and night with a clear mind, allowing this one line to contain his own Creation!
That one line was no longer Si Ma Xin's sword slash, neither was it that stroke he had used that day when he competed against Tian Lan Meng. It was instead a combination of his life up to this point, all the difficulties he had went through in the Land of South Morning, his memories in Dark Mountain, and once all these things combined together into this one line, this one stroke became Creation itself!
This line that Su Ming drew couldn't be found in the world before this. This line seemed to have been born out of nothing, and because of this, it became Su Ming's… first ever Creation!
With that one line towards the sky, the weather changed, but the wind and clouds remained still. As that line sliced through the air, the tongue from the lizard that was formed from the old Shaman through the smoke that came out of his pores clashed into it.
A piercing cry and thunderous bang suddenly reverberated through the forest and the entire land of the Shamans. It was as if the sounds had pierced through the sky itself and spread in all directions.
The tongue from the gigantic smoke lizard shattered instantly, destroyed by the one line Su Ming had created with his fingers in the world.
Things were far from their end though. The moment the lizard's tongue exploded, the expressions on the seven Shamans who had pounced onto Su Ming changed. A light flashed briefly in their eyes, but that light did not come from within them. It was instead a reflection of the light caused by the line Su Ming had drawn.
And the instant the light shone, these seven people started trembling, and the person standing right at the front exploded, turning into a layer of blood fog that scattered in the air.
Vicious trembles wrecked the two people behind that man, and their right arms and right legs were separated from their bodies as if they had been cut off by a sword. Screaming in pain, they fell back.
As for the person behind them, a terrifying long mark had appeared on his chest. It was as if his chest had turned into a drawing board and that one line from Su Ming fell on his chest. He coughed out a large mouthful of blood and his face turned deathly pale. Horrified surprise appeared on his face.
The fourth person behind the man who exploded was a man in his twenties. He was handsome and did not have a lot of Tattoos on his face. However, there was now a line of blood tearing apart his face, stretching from his forehead right up to the right side of his chest. Blood flowed from the corner of his lips and he staggered back a few steps before he finally managed to stop.
The beast skins on the upper body of the fifth person disappeared like ashes in the wind. There was a faint bloody line where his heart was, but even though it was faint, it had still cut through his skin and made blood flow from that wound.
The sixth person's clothes were also torn apart, but there was no wound on his chest. Nonetheless, his face had gained a deathly pale hue.
The final person was completely uninjured, but he was also the one who was shaking the hardest. He had just witnessed one of his comrades killed, two mutilated, another one heavily wounded, while the rest of them sustained various degrees of injuries.
The source of it all was the Berserker before them, who had done all this with a seemingly effortless slash from his right hand!
That one slash captured his soul and stunned his heart. As this person fell into a state of shock, a feeling that he could not fight against Su Ming rose uncontrollably in his heart.
He was not the only one who felt this way. The other people beside him were the same. When Su Ming drew that line, he had his eyes closed and executed that attack in what seemed to be an effortless manner. It was as if he had just Created a Picture in the world with a wave of his hand. They were not just wounded in their bodies, their courage had also taken a heavy blow!
Including their hearts!
They became afraid, frightened. To Su Ming, he had limited experience fighting against the Shamans, but similarly, there were also a lot of Shamans who did not have much experience fighting against Berserkers.
While Su Ming thought that the Shaman Spells were strange and unpredictable, at the same time, the Shamans also felt that Su Ming's divine abilities were not just strange, but also filled with a power that they could not understand, and it horrified them.
It was just like how no one knew why lightning would appear in the sky, like how they did not understand why rain fell from the sky instead of rising from the land. There might be some people who understood those things, but most of the people in the Shaman Tribe, they did not.
Similarly, Su Ming's line was something they did not understand!
In their eyes, this was not a divine ability or an Art. They could not understand just how power that could even shock the sky and move the earth be contained in that one stroke which he drew when he lifted his hand.
They also did not know that this one line was rarely found within the land of the Berserkers, because this was indeed not an Art. It was Creation!
This was Su Ming's World Picture Creation!
This could be said to be the first time Su Ming truly let loose and revealed the complete form of his Creation! It was just like his eldest senior brother's Sound of Creation and like his second senior brother's Hands of Creation. Right then, Su Ming was showing off his Pictures of Creation!
With the sky as the board and the people as paper, he drew one line through seven people… It was as if he had just drawn on rice paper with ink. That one line contained such powerful permeating abilities that it spread through several papers!
The first paper contained the biggest stain, and the power of that line was continuously weakened until it eventually faded away when it reached the final paper.
Su Ming opened his eyes and coughed out blood. The moment he did so, he gained an epiphany. Before this, he had only a fuzzy understanding towards the meaning of Creation. There were also things he did not understand about the Creation Arts that the other Berserkers casted.
Tian Xie Zi was a good Master, but at the same time, he was also a terrible Master. There were many things that he did not tell his disciples, leaving them to understand it on their own.
Once they gained complete comprehension towards the word, they would understand it.
At that instant, Su Ming understood what was meant by Creation.
Accurately speaking, that one line he drew just now could only be considered as One Creation. However, even though it was just One Creation, he had still truly Created something. It may seem the same as Si Ma Xin's Ten Creations or even any other Hundred Creations, but it was in reality completely different.
When Su Ming could draw ten such lines containing his strongest power, every single stroke containing the power of the world but being completely different from each other, then once he drew those ten lines, it would be known as ten Creations.
If he drew 100 of such lines, then it would known as Hundred Creations. If he drew a thousand lines, then it would be known as Eternal Creation. If Su Ming could draw something incredibly and unimaginable at his 1,000th line, then he could step up his game and draw 10,000 lines. If they still contained a different form and a different spirit in each and every single one of them, then this final line would be known as the Eternal Creation that only belonged to the God of Berserkers!
This one line of his was different from the tens of thousands of lines he drew when he competed against Tian Lan Meng. The tens of thousands of lines that eventually gathered together and developed into his final and complete one line was what was required by the Eternal Creation Art. It was a line that could only be formed by integrating at least 10,000 different lines together.
Su Ming understood now.
Yet at the moment he understood this, he also realized that an incredibly powerful change had happened in his heart!
That change was the chaos that appeared in his heart. Two different girls appeared in his mind due to that one line he drew just now. One of the two girls was the white robed Bai Ling standing in the snow, and the other was the purple robed Bai Su who was looking at him with scorn, her head lifted in determination.
These two different people had the same face and the same wild beauty.
"Change of heart…" Su Ming had heard this phrase multiple times from Tian Xie Zi. He also knew that he was going through his first change of heart, but in reality, he had no idea what this change of heart was.
Tian Xie Zi did not explain in detail either. He still continued with his usual method of teaching and left his disciples to understand it on their own.
When Su Ming drew that line, it was as if his heart and spirit had fused into that line. As the line became connected with the world, his emotions surged out as if a dam had been broken. Once they were completely let out, his heart and spirit became empty.
During that instant his mind became blank, he understood the meaning behind Creation, and it was also because of the emptiness in his mind that he understood what 'change of heart' meant when the two girls appeared in his heart.
A person's emotions and desires were one of the sources that affected a person's life. They would make a person be unable to clear his mind and cause disorder within him. When that disorder appeared and the person did not deal with it properly, then it would be difficult for him to continue with his practice. If his heart was no longer calm, then it was impossible for him to immerse his mind in anything else.
This was what was meant by change of heart.
At that moment, the person must think of a way to remain in a tranquil state. One of the methods to do so… was to fight!
That person must fight against the source of that change of heart, thereby using the battle as proof! Just like when Tian Xie Zi brought Su Ming to fight against his seventh junior brother!
The second method… was to destroy!
That person must destroy the source of the change of heart! Just like how the purple robes would not disappear without 1,000 drops of blood from the hearts of Shamans!
The third method… was to forget… Once he forgot the source of the change of heart, then it would be gone.
It was just like the sentence Tian Xie Zi had told Su Ming once he brought him to see the old xun maker.
"He is blind. Did you manage to see it..?"
It did not matter whether the old man was blind or not. The meaning of the sentence itself was a form of telling him to forget, just like how Su Ming forgot to realize that the old man was blind.
At that moment, Su Ming understood the meaning behind the change of heart, and he also understood his Master's love for him. He did not tell Su Ming what a change of heart was through his words or expressions, but through his actions, and not just that, he also told him how to deal with those changes of heart!
Even more so, he understood why his Master told him to chase down that male Split Dawn.
'Perhaps in Master's mind, there's another meaning for him to do this besides telling me about the cruelty of the Shamans…' At that moment, Su Ming could tell just what Tian Xie Zi had not said to him at that time. 'Battle, destroy, forget… Master's choice for me is… to destroy my change of heart!
Destroy the source of the change of heart… By killing Bai Su, he could remove this change of heart within him. Without Bai Su, Su Ming's memories of Bai Ling in his heart would not be pulled out, and her shadow would not be left to affect his heart, which would in turn cause him to be unable to calm his mind.
If he could not, then he must forget. He must forget everything to get through this change of heart. If he could not, then he must fight, be it against Si Ma Xin or anyone else, then use that battle to find proof for his heart!
This was the road Tian Xie Zi pointed out for Su Ming.
The moment Su Ming understood everything, more questions arose within him.
'If a person is unfeeling and merciless, has no emotions and desires, then would he not experience changes of the heart..?'
All these thoughts appeared within Su Ming's head once he gained his epiphany when he opened his eyes after he finished drawing that line. It might have seemed slow, but in truth, it only lasted for the duration of his right hand drawing the line across the sky.
As blood flowed from the corners of his lips, Su Ming's body swayed, tumbled backwards, and he ran into the deeper parts of the forest.
His strongest attack could allow him to battle against those seven people, but he knew that he could not fight against the old man in the sky looking at him darkly. He could only use the shock brought to the Shamans after he drew that one line and turn it into a chance to escape!