Chapter 1207: Grievous News!
Meng Hao’s eyes flickered as he looked at the black-robed man, within whose eyes had suddenly appeared… gentleness.
That gentleness was not directed toward Wang Mu, but rather, to the old man sitting in front of him. 1
That old man was a stranger to Meng Hao; he had never seen him before. However, the moment he laid eyes on him, Meng Hao got the feeling that there was something terrifyingly powerful about him.
Time passed; the black-robed man and Meng Hao both hovered there, looking down.
After a while… the black-robed man suddenly took a step forward. Meng Hao imitated him subconsciously, and when his foot landed, the world seemed to momentarily become magnified and his vision blurred momentarily. When it became clear, both the black-robed man and Meng Hao were now standing in the bamboo forest next to the old man and Wang Mu.
Meng Hao took a deep breath, but apparently Wang Mu hadn’t the slightest idea any of this was happening.
“Alright,” the old man said coolly, “this session of cultivation is done. Come back tomorrow.” He waved his right hand, and Wang Mu staggered backward. He looked up with an unyielding gleam in his eyes.
“I want to defeat Wang Tengfei!!”
“Then you need to work harder at cultivation,” the old man replied, his voice echoing out. Wang Mu once again staggered backwards uncontrollably, then vanished.
After Wang Mu disappeared, complete silence fell over the bamboo forest. For some reason, the ambiance of the area felt somewhat eerie to Meng Hao. Furthermore, within the silence, a slight droning sound began to rise.
Soon, Meng Hao realized that flying towards them from within the bamboo forest was… a cloud of mosquitos!
They didn’t seem any larger than ordinary mosquitos, but for some reason, when Meng Hao looked at them, his heart trembled, and a sense of grave crisis exploded up within him.
These were definitely not ordinary mosquitos, of that Meng Hao was certain. The kind of aura that was emanating from them was something he had never sensed on any beast before.
It was an aura filled with murderous intent, and a towering brutality. Most importantly, there was a sensation of profound ancientness. Based on the level of Meng Hao’s current cultivation base, he gradually reached a conclusion that caused his heart to tremble!
“These mosquitos are… more ancient than the Mountain and Sea Realm itself!” He began to pant as he stared at the mosquitos, especially one in particular that was completely gold and flying in the lead. Boundless ripples spread out from it as it flew directly toward Meng Hao and the black-robed man.
It then began to circulate around the black-robed man, buzzing with what seemed to be both joy and grief. From the way it flew around him, it seemed to want to get closer to him, and yet was separated from him, as if by some invisible barrier that it could not cross. 2
Meng Hao suddenly realized that the black-robed man seemed to have the same expression of both joy and grief.
It was at this point that a sigh could be heard coming from the skinny old man. Although he normally looked vulgar, right now, he seemed filled with complicated, melancholy emotions. He suddenly turned and looked directly at Meng Hao.
Meng Hao’s mind trembled. It was as if that gaze were a sharp sword that was currently stabbing into his mind, attempting to shred his divine sense into nothing. Azure light suddenly sprang up, and the power of an Allheaven Dao Immortal exploded out. Not only did it shield his mind, it also transformed a portion of his cultivation base into a swordlike gaze which stabbed back into the eyes of the old man.
“Eee?” the old man said, eyes flickering. Moments later, everything returned to normal. The old man looked thoughtfully at Meng Hao for a moment before turning his complicated gaze toward the black-robed man.
Obviously, he was completely aware that both Meng Hao and the black-robed man were standing there!
“You….” the old man said softly. Apparently, that was all he could say before he was at a loss for words, as the complex feelings within him grew stronger.
After a moment of silence, the black-robed man suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse, cold, and ancient. “Where is he?”
Although the three words he spoke were completely ordinary in nature, when spoken by him, they were filled with a shocking murderous aura, as if this man were fundamentally… formed from a murderous aura.
Meng Hao took a deep breath. Although he had no idea who this black-robed man was, if he didn’t understand what was going on between him and the old man, then he had no right to have practiced cultivation to his current level.
“They know each other!!
“We’re in the Wang Clan, and this old man is one of Wang Mu’s teachers. He also knows Wang Tengfei. That means that it’s very likely that he is also a member of the Wang Clan!!
“This black-robed Paragon is very mysterious, and clearly cannot be a cultivator from the modern era. He’s existed for ages, and certainly comes from before the time when the Mountain and Sea Realm existed. That much is obvious because of what happened with those ancient mosquitos.
“In that case, since they know each other, this old man….” Having reached this point in his train of thought, Meng Hao’s pupils constricted. In his past dealings with the Wang Clan, he had always felt their magical techniques to be bizarre. Furthermore, there was something very mysterious and extraordinary about their bloodline.
Even as Meng Hao’s mind spun, the skinny old man thought for a moment and then spoke in a hoarse voice that seemed to be filled with reminiscence.
“Back then, he left, and never came back….”
The black-robed man closed his eyes for a moment. Finally, he opened them, and asked, “What about her?”
“They left together. She never came back either.” The old man sighed. Within the complicated gaze he leveled at the black-robed man was hidden astonishment and disbelief. Unable to hold back, he finally asked the question that burned in his mind. “You… back then, didn’t you dissipate?”
The black-robed man shook his head. Declining to say anything else, he turned to leave….
“Wang….” The old man only spoke one word before stopping, as if he wasn’t sure exactly how to address the man.
However, that single word caused Meng Hao’s mind to tremble. He looked at the old man, then at the black-robed man. The character ‘Wang 王,’ had two meanings of course. One carried the meaning of a king. The other… caused Meng Hao to gasp.
“He’s… a member of the Wang Clan! The Wang Clan Patriarch?” Meng Hao felt his thoughts going wild.
“If he’s a Wang Clan Patriarch, then that means… the Wang Clan definitely did not originate in the Mountain and Sea Realm. They… existed in the time of the Immortal World!” His eyes went wide, and he moved to follow the black-robed man as he left.
He took a step, and his vision blurred. When it cleared, he was with the black-robed man back up in the starry sky. The black-robed man hovered there thoughtfully, before finally looking out into the void.
It was as if his gaze could pierce the 33 Heavens and see the expanse beyond, including the butterflies dragging the land mass, and the suns pushing the statue, as they rumbled in the direction of the Mountain and Sea Realm.
“They’re almost here….” the black-robed man murmured, his voice so icy that the void around him grew colder. That was not done intentionally, it was merely a result of his murderous aura.
He looked off into the distance and then began to walk. Each step he took seemed without end, and Meng Hao hurried to keep up. However, in the space of a few breaths, the man was so far away… that he knew it would be impossible to catch up to him!
Meng Hao knew that he couldn’t catch up because the man didn’t want him to. Urgently, he called out, “Senior, who are you, sir?”
“A person… who probably shouldn’t be here,” was the icy response. The black-robed man was now further off in the distance.
Meng Hao was the type of person to seize every opportunity. As the saying went, he would pluck feathers from a passing goose. Although he was awestruck by the black-robed man, he gritted his teeth and said, “Senior, look, we are bound by ties of destiny. Could you please teach me some of your Daoist magic, Senior? I mean, the reason you’re here has something to do with me, right…?”
The black-robed man paused in midstep. It seemed he rarely encountered cultivators the likes of Meng Hao.
“Spatial Bending. If you master that, and we meet again… then I guess I can pass on to you the secret to… Summon the Wind.” The black-robed man’s voice drifted out behind him as he vanished into the starry sky. 3
There was no way for Meng Hao to catch up. However, several different emotions could be seen on his face as he looked at the man leaving, and in fact, his eyes began to shine.
“So he really is a Patriarch of the Wang Clan…” The magic of Summon the Wind was something Meng Hao had seen Wang Mu unleash. He had always felt it to be extraordinary, but had never been able to acquire it. 4
“Ah well, it is what it is. Wang Mu, you owe me money, but now I’m in no hurry to get it back. Having Karma connecting me to you is the same as having Karma with the Wang Clan!” Heart filled with decisiveness, he turned, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and took a step. Much the same as before, he slipped into a strange state as he began to experiment with walking in that strange, prescribed fashion.
“This magic is called Spatial Bending, huh…? It seems that this is just the first step, a way to bend space-time….” Meng Hao was very excited. He could already think of many ways that this Daoist magic could be used in magical combat.
In fact, if he got familiar enough with it, perhaps he could even use it to travel through time!
At this thought, a strange look appeared in Meng Hao’s eyes as he walked off into the distance.
Time passed as he walked in that special fashion for several days. During that time, he didn’t worry about collecting any debts, nor did he stop by any asteroid teleportation portals. He was separated from the world, alone as he traversed the starry sky, getting familiar with the walking technique.
In the middle of his enlightenment, the transmission jade slip within his bag of holding vibrated many times. However, he didn’t notice that, as he was fully immersed in the strange state.
He had no idea, but during those several days, someone he knew was traveling all around looking for him, engulfed in grief.
That person went to Planet South Heaven, and then to Planet East Victory. He scoured the entirety of the Fang Clan, and then went to the Song Clan, to Mount Sun, and any other place where Meng Hao might have been found.
Unfortunately… that person did not find Meng Hao.
“Is this the working of fate…? Is he fated… to not be able to see her one last time?” The person searching for Meng Hao was Pill Demon!!
His expression was one of grief, and he sighed constantly. Eventually, he gave up the search and returned to the Mount Kunlun….
Another three days passed, and eventually Meng Hao awoke from that strange state. His eyes shone with the glow of augury, and then gradually began to flicker with joy. During the past few days, he had grown much more familiar with that strange walking technique.
It was only after awakening that Meng Hao noticed that on the transmission jade slip in his bag of holding, there were several hundred messages that had unexpectedly accumulated during the past few days….
After scanning the messages with divine sense, his mind began to rumble as if with thunder, and his body shook as if it were being struck by lightning. In fact, he almost couldn’t believe what was happening!
1. We’ve seen this old man in the Wang Clan on two different occasions. The first time was when Wang Mu was introduced in chapter 806. He also had a cameo in chapter 964, when Wang Tengfei awakened his bloodline
2. In Renegade Immortal, Wang Lin had a pet mosquito. Maybe you could even say that it was the mastiff of that story
3. Spatial Bending is the name of a magic that Wang Lin used in Renegade Immortal. It didn’t do exactly the same thing as this Daoist magic, but was very similar
4. Summon the Wind is something that has come up several times. Wang Mu used it, as did the 10th Wang Clan Patriarch back on Planet South Heaven. It’s another of the techniques Wang Lin used in Renegade Immortal