Pursuit of the Truth 258 The Land of Shamans

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.