Su Ming's rationality reached its peak. His calmness had already become mercilessness. When he attacked, others would die. In fact, endless aura of death was spreading out of his entire body. It was as if he had taken over the right from hell of administering death to others.
This was the gray Su Ming.
When Life Inequity Spear was thrown forward, the vortex that was formed in the void looked as if it was the road heading to hell. When it was activated, it caused the ghosts that were fleeing in a state of being half-alive to scream shrilly. Their bodies were sucked into the vortex, and they were about... to enter the cycle of reincarnation because of the gigantic gray moon behind Su Ming!
As for the ghosts running away, the two small humans from the gourd charged forward and reduced all of them to ashes as booming sounds rose into the air. They disappeared into the void and vanished without a trace.
Everything had just begun when it already ended.
Su Ming, with his long gray hair, flung the Life Inequity Spear in his hand. Once it turned into a ring, he lifted the gourd, and the two small humans immediately tumbled backwards and went back after they turned into long arcs. They disappeared into the gourd.
There were no longer any ghosts roaring in the area. Everything had returned to silence.
Xu Hui stared at Su Ming blankly. A cold chill crept up from the bottom of her heart. The callous air about Su Ming was incredibly clear. It was an air that said that he cared nothing for all that lived. There was only pure rationality in him, heartlessness when all emotions were cast aside.
The destructive power from the gray moon had spread in a scattered fashion. If Xu Hui had… not noticed it beforehand and charged backwards, then there was a high possibility that she would have been affected by the destructive power.
This was still nothing, though. When Xu Hui looked towards Su Ming, she saw the gray pupils in his eyes, and she could not help but tremble.
She bit down on the bottom of her lip and said softly, "Su Ming…"
However, her voice did not elicit an answer from him. Su Ming only cast Xu Hui a faint look, the merciless look in his eyes as cold as ice. Without another glance, he turned his head around and took a step towards the void in front of him.
Xu Hui's face was slightly pale. In silence, she controlled the body of the supreme treasure to go after Su Ming. The bald crane had already registered what was going on at that moment, and as it mumbled under its breath about the gourd it created in the past, it swept its gaze towards Xu Hui.
"Hey, Big Sister Xu, don't mind him. It's fine. Everything's fine." The bald crane flew to Xu Hui's side and let out a few fake coughs before starting to comfort her, but the title he used to address Xu Hui did not sound quite right.
"I know that Little Boy Su. I'm telling you, based on my analysis, based on what my partner told me, I think, you know, that he kind of went a little off his rocker…" While the bald crane followed Xu Hui, it gestured with its claws as it spoke.
"In the words of my homeland, his emotions are now split into several parts, and he can't control them on his own either. First of all, he's someone that gets angry easily. Once he's mad, gray will immediately appear.
"Next, he's afraid of stimulation. Once he's stimulated, red will instantly appear. I'm just not entirely sure what sort of situation will cause that gold color to appear." The bald crane scratched its head and had a pensive look on its face as it scrutinized Su Ming, who was ahead of them.
Su Ming's expression was cold. While he walked in the void, he allowed the power of time to surround him. He walked past the dimensions that allowed him to step inside, but he did not go into them. Instead, he charged towards the core of the fifth kiln.
Time trickled by. Su Ming had no idea how much time had passed, but as he charged forward, he drew closer to the core of the fifth kiln.
At that moment, a voice from the distance echoed airily through the entire fifth kiln.
"Su…" That voice was powerful in a manner that it had never been before, and it was so strong that once Su Ming heard it, his body shuddered violently. He could tell… that this was a woman's voice!
When the bald crane heard that voice, its body also shuddered. Based on the look in its eyes, it seemed to be struggling. By its side, Xu Hui's expression changed. She knew the bald crane's peculiarities when it heard the voice previously, so she raised her right hand and flung it at the bald crane without any hesitation.
It turned into a long arc that charged towards Xu Hui and fused into the body of the supreme treasure. Only then did the struggle on its face become much fainter.
"Su…" The woman's voice spoke again. This time, there was an urgent tone to it. In fact, Su Ming did not know whether this was a figment of his imagination, but he heard a quiver in the voice.
A loud bang rang out in his head. He was unfamiliar with that voice, but there was something weirdly familiar about it. It was as if… there had been a point of time when his past self had heard that voice countless times.
Su Ming's long hair changed swiftly from gray to its original color. The aloof air about his body disappeared, and the original Su Ming returned once more.
His body trembled while he stared at the void from which the voice came.
"She is..." Xu Hui saw Su Ming return to his past self and approached him quietly. She stopped by his side.
Su Ming shook his head.
"I frightened you just now. That wasn't my intention. Once I fused the moons in my Lunar Kalpa Realm, some problems arose in my personality," Su Ming mumbled. He took a step forward and charged towards the place from which the voice came.
At that moment, Su Ming no longer had any sort of composure or rationality to him. There was only a resolve in his heart and an urge brought by a guess that caused his heart to pound in anxiety.
Xu Hui followed Su Ming quietly, moving beside him.
Time passed breath by breath, and Su Ming became increasingly faster. The woman's voice echoed in his ears time and again. After an unknown amount of time passed, he saw a gigantic altar floating in the void before himself. When his eyes landed on it, endless booms rang out in his head.
He saw a coffin lying on the altar!
It was a transparent coffin, and there was woman within it…
At the instant Su Ming saw the woman, he felt as if there were millions of thunderbolts rumbling in his head at the same time. His body trembled. Confusion as well as a myriad of other emotions appeared in his eyes.
This was the core of the fifth kiln, and the altar was the center of the core. The coffin on the altar lay there all year long in the void, using the space in the fifth kiln to absorb the life force from all those who came. All that life force… was then delivered to the woman's body lying inside.
This was a Rune with the fifth kiln serving as its main point. The goal of the Rune was to continuously deliver life force to the woman so that her own could be preserved and not vanish!
As Su Ming stared at the woman in the coffin, tears fell from his eyes without his notice. There was no way that he would not know this woman. She was the mother who appeared in his memories when he was in Western Ring Nebula's foreign lands, holding onto the baby in her arms and using her body to protect him even after she had died.
She was Su Ming's… mother!
He trembled. With tears trickling down his cheeks, he walked one step after another towards the coffin.
"Su…" The woman's voice appeared again. This time, it was so clear that it seemed as if it was right beside Su Ming's ears, causing more tears to flow down his face, and the booming sounds in his mind became even stronger.
"Su… My dear Ming Er…" The gentleness in the voice brought with it a warmth with which Su Ming was unfamiliar. It was a warmth born from a mother's longing for her own flesh and blood, as well as a care and devotion for her son.
"Don't be afraid. With your mother around, you'll be fine…
"I promise you that I will always protect you until your father and I grow old and until the both of us no longer have the strength to stay with you and watch you complete the journey of your life…
"Yun Er, you must be strong… Your ancestor was the one who gave you your name. He is filled with hopes for you…
"No matter what, you must remember that you are an Abyss Builder. You are a proud Abyss Builder… Your father is a highly praised powerful warrior that might be able to surpass your ancestor, and I… came from Dark Dawn…"
The last few sentences did not echo in the void, but instead echoed in Su Ming's soul. The words weren't spoken right then, but came from the past. They were from a scene that Su Ming had long forgotten!
He felt his head being torn. A loud bang rang out, and he remembered all that had happened. He remembered that at the time, he had been swathed in darkness. He was very cold, and his fragile life could not stand against that cold. However, there was a voice that continued motivating him by speaking to him every single time he wanted to give up on life.
At that moment, he understood what had happened. At that time, he was still an infant in his mother's womb, a baby that nearly died due to the curse placed on him after the Abyss Builders were massacred.
Su Ming saw a fuzzy scene in his head. In it, a woman was lying in the coffin. She stroked the bump on her belly with a kind smile on her face. Tears that he could not see flowed down her cheeks as she mumbled softly to the baby in her womb.
By her side was a silent middle-aged man. He watched the scene quietly and clenched his fists tightly. His heart was filled with madness and grief, but there was also a fire burning in him that no one could see.
The scene changed. When the next one appeared, the galaxy had already become the galaxy that belonged to True Morning Dao World. The middle-aged man held his wife in his arms and roared forlornly at the heavens. Within his roar was a disappointment towards life. It was a supreme state of suffering that came from the soul… and there were blood-red tears flowing down his cheeks.
"Four Great True Worlds, you slaughtered my entire race. You even refused to spare a baby and cursed him! Now, you took away my wife's life as well! If that's the case… then what is the point in me continuing to stay alive?!
"I lost my home, my wife, my son… but I'm still alive, and there's only one purpose in me—I will overturn the entire Arid Triad Expanse Cosmos!
"Not only will I make the entire True Morning Dao World to be made for Abyss, I will make the entire Arid Triad Expanse Cosmos… be made for Abyss!
"If my son survives, then from now on, he will no longer be known as Su Yun. He will be known as Su Ming. This name Ming means to engrave, and I will have him carve the language of the Abyss in Arid Triad Expanse Cosmos, a language that will cause all the people in the universe to tremble!"
Su Ming lifted his head swiftly. His mind was torn in the mid of the loud bangs. As memories of the past rose to the surface in his head, he remembered everything!
With tears falling down his eyes, Su Ming arrived at the altar, right beside the coffin. He quietly stood there and stared at his mother's face. Su Ming then shuddered and knelt down…
The face was unfamiliar to him, but also familiar. He could not tell just what sort of emotions were in his mind at that moment. He only wanted to watch her in this place quietly, just like how she wanted to motivate him gently even while she wept, like how she wanted to protect him in the past even when she closed her eyes.
This was his mother.
"Ma…" Su Ming murmured.