This was the first time Su Ming reawakened his memories without eating any undying souls!
As his memories woke up, he learned of his name. He closed his eyes, and the undying souls around him slowly floated into the distance. They were still in an absentminded state, and they would not think of resisting that call.
As for the undying soul that Su Ming had scattered away, some white fog spread out from its body and surrounded Su Ming, as if it yearned to enter his body.
However, after a long while, when Su Ming opened his eyes, he saw the white fog and walked out of it quietly. He did not absorb a single bit of it. His other memories besides his name still remained muddled, but the desire to devour undying souls and kill them had diminished slightly.
Some shred of intelligence had appeared in his gray eyes. He floated forward slowly along the ground. Half a year pa.s.sed by in the blink of an eye.
Su Ming went through numerous battles, but he no longer absorbed that white fog. Usually, as long as the undying souls did not travel in a big group, when he saw a swarm of them, he would rush over silently.
If he did not absorb the white fog, then he would not become stronger. That was why his job would be easier if he ran into the absent-minded ones who did not know how to fight back. If he ran into the undying souls that had become stronger after devouring their companions, it would be a lot more difficult for him to kill them.
However, as Su Ming continued with the ma.s.sacre, while he did not get stronger, he did reawaken more memories, and he remembered some of his divine abilities…
He remembered the Wind Separation Slash, remembered the Lightning Berserker Art, remembered some of the legacy Hong Luo had left for him. With these methods, he decided in his silence to not fight against the undying souls that did not know how to resist any longer, but instead chose to search for the stronger souls and fight against them!
With each battle, Su Ming gradually learned of many of his shortcomings. He was not decisive enough when he attacked and wasted too much energy. He could not kill with just one strike. In fact, when he ran into danger, he would make mistakes in his choices.
The price for all of this was that his body had broken down several times, and he even died twice…
Perhaps it was because he did not eat any undying souls, but even after dying twice, he was still greatly different when he reawakened. His memories were no longer muddled and remained in the same state as before his death. Each time he died, he would think about the reason behind his failure, and then he would continue fighting against others.
He could clearly sense himself becoming stronger. This strength did not come from devouring undying souls, but was his personal grasp towards battle, his understanding towards his Arts, and his judgments based on his will.
He had already given up on a lot of useless fancy movements when he attacked. He became decisive and determined. Once he attacked, he would go straight for his target, and no laxness in his guard or easing up could be found in his movements.
Gradually, as he increased the number of kills under his belt, as he continued dying and reviving, as he concluded the reasons behind his failures and improved, he became faster when he killed his opponents. He started focusing his attention on the strong souls in big swarms of undying souls instead of the small groups.
By doing so, the number of strong souls he would have to face would increase exponentially. To him, the level of danger would also increase, but not only did these sorts of fights transform Su Ming’s battle skills, they also helped him continuously reawaken his memories.
Not only did he remember his divine abilities, he also remembered his own name. In fact, he had even remembered that this… was the Candle Dragon’s Undying and Imperishable World!
But that was not all, after dying several dozens of times and killing an unknown amount of undying souls, because he had given up on devouring the white fog, everything that had happened in his last incarnation returned to his memory!
He saw everything that had happened when he devoured undying souls in his last incarnation, right up to the moment when he went to the place the sound of the horn was coming from and died there.
His memories stopped there and he could no longer remember more. Even the memory of when he went to the dragon snake’s body during the previous incarnation was fuzzy. He did not know why he did all those things and why he carved down those marks on the scales.
However, he had a feeling that if he continued this way, then someday, he would definitely remember everything. The killings continued. Su Ming wore a black robe and his hair moved without wind. He had changed the Wind Berserker’s Art with his own method, and he did the same thing for the Lightning Berserker Art. This sort of change caused the lethality of the Arts to become even more precise.
Time pa.s.sed by this way slowly. Ten years, fifty years, a hundred years…
Su Ming moved through a swarm of undying souls numbering to thousands. He did not stop for even a single moment. Wherever he went to, with a single tap from his right index finger, strong wind would start blowing out of nowhere. With a punch from his left hand, lightning would crackle, causing a large area to explode and disintegrate.
There were dozens of strong souls in a swarm near Su Ming. When he walked past them, their bodies fell apart and they turned into white fog, but Su Ming did not absorb them.
This sort of killings could no longer satisfy him and could not give him any more experience. This sort of fight could no longer let him experience danger.
Over the one hundred years of fighting, he had died nearly a hundred times as well. However, with each revival, Su Ming would think about the reason behind his death and rectify the cause, which allowed him to surpa.s.s himself.
His will had gone through an unimaginable ordeal over the one hundred years. As he continued fighting and as his memories were restored, he recalled more incarnations, along with everything that happened in those previous incarnations.
His expression gradually turned apathetic. However, while this apathy seemed the same as in his previous incarnations, in truth, it was completely different. This apathy was due to habit, due to indifference. The apathy that had appeared in his previous incarnations was based on ignorance.
One of them was due to habit, and the other lack of intelligence. These two types of apathy were like heaven and earth.
Fatigue had also come to Su Ming’s body. This fatigue brought by the repeated murders, along with the feeling that he had to continue fighting to restore his memories made him feel haggard both in mind and soul.
However, this had to continue!
Another hundred years pa.s.sed, and he remembered his previous ten thousand incarnations. The memories he regained allowed him to know all the areas in the vast land in the Undying and Imperishable World like the back of his palm.
He started focusing his attention on the Undying warrior souls that were like the red-haired man he met in the past. Only these sort of warrior souls could let him experience the danger of death when he fought against them.
‘If the sky exists, then the ground will definitely exist as well…’
Su Ming attacked as he fought against a person shrouded in black fog in the sky. That person shrouded in black fog let out a low roar that shook the sky, and his attacks alternated between cold and heat. They were attacks born when ice and fire were stacked against each other.
‘If fire exists, then ice will definitely exist as well…’
On a hillside on the great white land, Su Ming fought against an old man. That old man’s head was covered in white and his eyes were filled with apathy, but when he pressed down and seized the air, Su Ming disintegrated multiple times and died...
However, each time he woke up, he would continue fighting!
‘If pressure can cause something to fall apart, then a suction force that devours will definitely exist…’
Su Ming was fighting with everything he had against a man who stood thirty feet tall in midair. That man’s fist contained the sensation of lightness and heaviness simultaneously, and it was difficult for people to endure his attacks. He roared furiously, and most of the time, two words could be heard in his roars!
"Imperishable soul!"
"The words Undying and Imperishable in the Candle Dragon’s Undying and Imperishable World have the same concept…" Su Ming sat down cross-legged on one of the mountains on the white land as he mumbled while looking at the gray sky.
His memories had recovered to the time before the several hundreds of thousands of incarnations. Four hundred years had pa.s.sed by. During those four hundred years, he did not absorb a single wisp of white fog. He just relied on himself, fighting, dying, and resurrecting again and again!
There were many people here that he still could not win against, just like the thirty feet tall man, as well as the old man who performed the act of pressing down and seizing the air. Su Ming had died multiple times because of them.
‘Everything here has a binary opposite. Just like the act of pressing down and seizing air. When the old man presses down, he delivers power to destroy multiple things, and when he seizes the air, he absorbs that fog to nourish his own soul…
‘Those fast and slow attacks, those light and heavy blows, and many more… all of them are different types of binary opposites.’ Su Ming closed his eyes, and a pensive expression appeared on his apathetic face.
‘The undying soul was me when I went through all those reincarnations. I continued absorbing the fog here to nourish my soul and become stronger, and the imperishable soul… would be the path I am taking right now. They are like two polar opposites!
‘The word Undying means that the soul will never truly die and will be revived, but once the soul is revived, its memories will disappear and not a single one of them will remain… Imperishable would mean that my memories won’t perish. I can retain my original memories even after waking up after all the multiple times I died!
‘Perhaps the Candle Dragon’s Undying and Imperishable World was prepared for the imperishable souls right from the start… But to become Imperishable would require great will. If you don’t have that sort of will, it is incredibly difficult to persevere to the end…’
Su Ming lifted his right hand and pointed offhandedly at a spot behind him. A short person immediately crawled out from the air behind him. That person had an apathetic expression on his face, and he widened his mouth, ready to devour Su Ming, but Su Ming’s finger had already arrived at the center of the person’s brows.
The short person’s body exploded with a bang and turned into white fog. With a sweep of an arm, the fog spread into the distance. This sort of thing was already like breathing to Su Ming, and he did not even hesitate in his movements.
‘I have to search for a binary opposite that belongs solely to me. It’s not the sky and earth, not ice and fire, not pressing down and seizing air, not lightness and heaviness, and neither is it swiftness and slowness…’ Su Ming opened his eyes and looked at the gray sky. In his silence, he let his mind wander.
Time trickled by. A hundred years, two hundred, three hundred. Su Ming continued sitting there. There was a large amount of white fog around him, and that white fog came from all the undying souls he had killed in this place. The existence of that white fog was an incredibly enticing thing for many undying souls.
Usually, some would appear to absorb that white fog so that they would become stronger, but the instant they pounced on Su Ming, he would tap at the center of their brows, and they would explode and die with a bang.
After the past seven hundred years of fighting and thinking, that one tap came to be, and it was a killing move born of the culmination of all the divine abilities Su Ming had obtained through the Wind Berserker Arts, the Lightning Berserker Arts, the divine abilities he could use as a Nascent Soul Cultivator, and all the memories of all the things he went through over the numerous incarnations in this place!
This killing move was very simple. Only a tap was required. However, that one tap contained the speed of lightning, the power of wind, the mysteriousness within the movement of pressing down and seizing air, the source behind lightness and heaviness, the laws behind swiftness and slowness, and Su Ming’s life and soul!
One day, in the endless cycles of incarnations, the memory of the very first time Su Ming had appeared in this world returned… He remembered why he came here, remembered the small snake, remembered the old man in black robes, and remembered the words that made his heart tremble when he was fighting against the Candle Dragon.
‘The fusion between the sky and earth, the fusion between ice and fire… Fusion…’
For the first time in the hundreds of years Su Ming sat there, he opened his eyes, and a brilliant light could be seen within them.
"I understand now…"