Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“What did I hit? Did I hit you?” Su Yu asked innocently.
The True Man of the Purple Cloud and the others shook their heads quietly. Even if Mo Tianxuan wasn’t completely mad, she surely wasn’t entirely with it
Mo Tianxuan was speechless and couldn’t bring herself to speak. She had indeed suffered a massive humiliation, but no one would believe her. Instead they would think that she was mad. This was the very first time she felt such frustration and distress in her whole life.
As she stared at Su Yu from a distance, Mo Tianxuan remained silent for a long time. Her murderous aura was gradually diminishing, and she was returning to her usual calm self.
Mo Tianxuan scanned the people, her voice slightly low and hoarse. “I have momentarily lost control of my emotions. I’m sorry to have seemed like a joke to all of you.”
True Man and the others gave a soft sigh of relief. Many of the people in charge had been sweating in fear. Judging from the situation now, Mo Tianxuan had recovered from her maddened state.
“Everyone, I’ve calmed down now. At the moment, I have some private matters to discuss with my faction student. Could you please give us some privacy?” Mo Tianxuan asked, putting up a calm and composed front.
Everyone hesitated.
Su Yu had no intention of being alone with her. “True Man, Palace Master Mo needs rest and recuperation, for the sake of herself and us students,” he said.
True Man had the same idea. Before he was certain that Mo Tianxuan had truly recovered, it would be unwise to allow her go out of his sight.
“Palace Master Mo, the Ninth Summit of our faction is called the Summit of Serenity, and it has an unbelievably remarkable ability to calm the heart and mind. When I was troubled by inner demons, I adjusted myself at the Summit of Serenity,” he said. “If you don’t mind, we would be glad to accompany you to the Summit of Serenity so that you can recuperate. What do you think?” True Man asked.
Mo Tianxuan was inwardly infuriated. They wanted to take the opportunity to spy on her! Quietly gritting her teeth, Mo Tianxuan shot an ice-cold stare at Su Yu but was subtly blocked by the True Man.
He had a slight frown on his face. “Palace Master Mo, you really need some rest.”
The people in charge were startled as they observed the situation. It seemed like Mo Tianxuan was still in a state of madness.
Mo Tianxuan was filled to the brim with hatred. Su Yu was still making things difficult for her, and now she was being forced to recuperate in order to regain her concentration. As she clenched her fists, Mo Tianxuan was straining to suppress the urge to rush forward and tear Su Yu apart. In a low voice, she said, “Thanks for your kindness, True Man. I’m glad to accept your offer.” The gloom and murderous intention in her words were clear and palpable.
The True Man eyes turned solemn. “Please get going!”
Under the supervision of True Man and the other leaders, Mo Tianxuan headed for the Ninth Summit with great reluctance. Before leaving the Second Summit, she turned to look Su Yu in the eye. Using her All Creations Mighty Force, she delivered a string of ice-cold words tinged with immense hatred. “Su Yuxian! I’m not done with you!”
Su Yu had brought great shame and disgrace upon her, falsely accused her of going mad, and eventually, caused her to be forced to undergo a recuperation. Mo Tianxuan felt bitter indignation lodged in her lungs, which was nearly bursting out of her chest. She would have no way of venting her bitterness if she failed to take revenge.
“Travel safe, Palace Master Mo.” Su Yu wore a serious expression and breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.
With the True Man of the Purple Cloud and the various people in charge holding the fort, it was almost impossible for Mo Tianxuan to secretly return and inflict harm upon him. It seemed that his safety was guaranteed as long as Mo Tianxuan’s alleged symptoms of madness were still present. As for the future, he would take it one step at a time.
True Man escorted Mo Tianxuan himself, giving his instructions to an elder just before he left. The elder walked to Su Yu’s side with a smile. “Master Su, the divine art has been properly prepared. Please come with me.” The divine art was the reward Su Yu had received at the Fengyun Great Assembly.
“Elder, dare I ask what the divine art actually is?” Su Yu finally voiced his doubts.
The elder smiled amiably, his tone tinged with a sense of pride as he explained. “The divine art is the treasure that protects the Purple Cloud Palace. It is a relic inherited from a god that contains a remnant of the consciousness of the demised god. If you manage to comprehend something from it, it will serve unimaginable benefits to your Divine Decree,” he said.
The fact that Su Yu possessed the Pure Divine Decree was not a secret to the Purple Cloud Palace.
“Gu Taixu managed to refine such vital and pure Divine Decree because he stayed in the divine art all year round. How much you benefit from it totally depends on you,” the elder said.
A short while later, Su Yu was taken to a desolate hill. The hill was bald and barren, covered with just a little dogtail grass. Under the thick, dense spiritual energy of the Purple Cloud Palace, such a hill with no spiritual grasses growing on it was unique.
However, Su Yu noticed the hidden waves flickering on the inside of the hill, and a great sense of antiquity came surging out.
Su Yu’s pupils constricted as he stared at an ordinary stone on the hill. “Such ancient stone,” he thought to himself. At a rough estimate, the stone had existed for more than thousands of years, yet there wasn’t a trace of efflorescence on its surface.
The elder seemed to be very surprised. “You can tell the age of the stone? Impressive!” He didn’t know that Su Yu had used the Time Retrogradation several times, so his sensitivity towards time transcended that of ordinary people.
“This entire hill was moved back from the god’s ruins. It is said that this hill was the cavern the god used to train in. There was a piece of artwork remaining in the cavern, which was deliberately drawn by the god,” the elder said. “Despite this, the True Man wasn’t able to copy the artwork. But if we dug into the walls, the subtleties would be ruined, therefore the entire hill was moved back! It is because of the presence of that artwork that this hill remains impervious to the erosion of time, and still looks the way it used to.”
The elder then pointed at the foot of the mountain where there was a cave the height of a man. “Get inside, you only have a day. How much you can absorb totally depends on you.”
Su Yu nodded, his eyes shining bright. God’s relic? Gu Taixu’s Pure Divine Decree transcended the past and attained a whole new level, all because of the divine art?
“Dare I ask, elder, how many days did Gu Taixu spend comprehending in the cave?” Su Yu queried.
The elder smiled knowingly. “Do you want to compare yourself to Gu Taixu? Hehe.” He shook his head.
“Oh? Is it classified information?” Su Yu asked.
The elder chuckled. “No, I just think that you don’t have to compare yourself to Gu Taixu. He’s a talent of the Blessed and Heavenly Lands, the most outstanding talent of the present generation. No matter how hard you work, it will be hard to catch up with his mastery of the Divine Decree. If you insist on it, it might cause you distress.”
Su Yu smiled and looked at the elder silently.
The elder was a little nonplussed as he suddenly realized that Su Yu’s eyes were unusually profound. They possessed a kind of depth that originated from the absolute confidence deep down in his soul.
After a short silence, the elder spoke. “The Fengyun Great Assembly is held once every three months, so four times a year altogether. Gu Taixu has been training for twenty years in the Purple Cloud Palace and has always been the champion of the Fengyun Great Assembly. You can work out how many days he has spent training in it,” he said.
The elder didn’t give any more information. He stared intently at Su Yu and said, “I’ll wait for you at the foot of the mountain.”
Su Yu calculated it silently. Eighty Great Assemblies had been held in twenty years. “Has Gu Taixu comprehended for a full 80 days?” Su Yu looked at the cave, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a mysterious smile.
He stepped into the cave. The inner walls of the cave were very ordinary. Nothing on them stood out. As he journeyed into the depths of the cave, he only discovered one artwork carved on the walls. It was the image of a grey-colored little bird, flying up into the wide heavens.
Su Yu stared at the image but could not discern anything unique about it. Neither did he sense any so-called subtleties from it. If it wasn’t for the elder’s words about it being a divine art, Su Yu certainly wouldn’t have paid much attention to it.
However, Su Yu was a man of great patience. Despite the absence of anomalies, he had his eyes pinned on the art, and his gaze never drifted away.
A moment had passed, but everything was still the way it was. Another moment slipped past, and it was all the same. Half an hour passed by, and then an hour.
Su Yu’s eyes were starting to feel slightly sore, and he could not help but begin to doubt whether he had missed any steps. Just as he was about to lose heart, all of a sudden he caught a glimpse of something flickering in the image out of the corner of his eye.
It was a fine, subtle flash of light, but it had not escaped Su Yu’s eyes. With a glance, he focused on the spot of the light immediately. He only discovered an extremely fine, delicate black dot that resembled a speck of dust amidst the white clouds in the image when he pinned his gaze on it. If it hadn’t flickered, it would be indiscernible. The viewer’s attention would most probably be captivated by the grey-colored bird.
Upon closer inspection, the small black dot was undergoing subtle changes, but the motion was so subtle that it was invisible to the naked eye.
With a movement of his heart, Su Yu used the power of his eyes immediately, and the small black dot began to continuously expand. When it had grown to a certain extent, much to his astonishment, Su Yu discovered that the small black dot was, in fact, the shadow of a human. The shadow was screaming wildly inside the image, and Su Yu could even detect the shadow’s fury with the artwork as the barrier. The shadow was facing toward the grey bird, as if the bird had taken something from him, provoking him.
Su Yu sat in front of the wall of art with crossed legs and operated the Power of Time. He slowed down the surrounding time and space by 500 folds. He synchronized his heart and mind, focusing all of his attention on observing the shadow.
His observation lasted for several hours. The shadow growled for a while and raised a hand suddenly, waving in the direction of the grey bird. He seemed to have stirred up the enigmatic rules of the heavens and the earth. Numerous intangible chains could be seen being born from the Void of the world. They entangled the grey bird.
The grey bird shrieked, and traces of aging began appearing on its body. The luster of its feathers turned dull, its vitality deteriorated, and its flight slowed down. With an ear-piercing shriek from the bird, the chains broke apart. The bird recovered its original state, spread its wings, and took flight into the faraway skies. The broken chains went in all directions, and one crashed toward Su Yu.
It was happening as a part of the artwork, yet the chain seemed like it had leaped out from the artwork and collided with Su Yu’s body.
Boom!
In an instant, Su Yu’s soul experienced an enormous, intense collision. Excruciating pain shot from the depths of his soul as if the collision had torn it into halves.
Ahh!
Su Yu cried out of agony, his miserable scream reverberating through the space.
Buzz…buzz…
Just then, the Divine Nine-Dragon Cauldron, which he hadn’t seen for a long time, appeared. It was trickling with drops of sparkling red liquid, which mingled into Su Yu’s limbs and all of his bones. The pain and agony in the depths of his soul subsided gradually.
Su Yu opened his eyes, and a large mass of blood mist spluttered from his mouth. His body crashed into the wall as if electrified. Su Yu wasn’t just spitting blood from his mouth: fresh blood was gushing out from both of his eyes, his nose, and his ears.
He had collided with the fragments and broken pieces of the chains inside the artwork from a place 10,000 years away, and now his soul had been shattered by the impact, and his facial organs were spitting blood. Enormous, shocking waves crashed in his heart. What was going on? Even the fine debris could severely injure Su Yu, despite transcending time and space of an eternity!
