Chapter 1504: Song Daozi!
As the Soulsearching began, Meng Hao’s mind filled with rumbling sounds. Shockingly, there were no memories to be seen! There was only a voice!
“Henceforth, you are the Emissary of Allheaven….” There was only that eternal voice echoing out within his mind. It was impossible to say when those words had been spoken, but they left Meng Hao’s consciousness reeling as strongly as if he had been struck by a huge blow.
Even more astonishing was that the voice seemed to contain piercing power that reached out into Meng Hao. In the blink of an eye, the voice was echoing out in his own mind.
It was like a sealing mark, burning deep into his body, resulting in… Meng Hao being made the new Emissary of Allheaven.
His body trembled, and beneath his mask, his eyes shone with radiant crimson light. Demonic qi erupted out within him, surging to suppress the voice which echoed in his mind.
The scene out in the starry sky was of Meng Hao grasping the Emissary of Allheaven by the throat. It didn’t appear as if anything strange at all was happening. However, the truth was that Meng Hao was facing incredible danger that threatened even his soul.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t been aware that performing a Soulsearch might be dangerous; as far as he was concerned, he had had no choice. This person claimed to be the Emissary of Allheaven, and even had some of the will of the starry sky upon him. Because of all of that, and because of the things Meng Hao had learned in the necropolis of the Vast Expanse School, he was able to form some speculations.
The starry sky of Allheaven, the starry sky of the Vast Expanse, had a will, and that will was none other than Allheaven’s!
As the saying went, Allheaven fears the Immortal. Furthermore, Allheaven wanted the Demon to appear. All of that caused Meng Hao to be filled with a sensation of imminent crisis, and also caused him to reach certain conclusions about why the Mountain and Sea Realm had been struck with such calamity.
Although he had no definite answers, he had a lot of clues. And therefore, this Emissary of Allheaven could be considered one of his greatest acquisitions. If he could squeeze some answers out of this man’s mind, it would help him to understand the truth much more clearly. That would also give him a much greater chance at achieving victory in the future.
“You want me to become the Emissary of Allheaven? You… don’t qualify!” Meng Hao let out a powerful roar, and his armor began to vibrate. The power of the copper mirror exploded out, combining with Meng Hao’s Demonic qi to form a tempest which blasted out in all directions. It drove the sealing mark away, completely destroying it, wiping it out of existence.
It didn’t matter how powerful that sealing mark had been in the past. After coming out from within the body of the Emissary, it was significantly weakened. Add in the fact that Meng Hao was at his peak state, and once he fought back, he was able to destroy the sealing mark and dispel the voice.
As the voice faded away, the Emissary of Allheaven trembled, and his eyes began to shine. All of the hair on his head turned white, and his skin began to wither up. In the briefest of instants, he aged into an ancient form.
At the same time, his mind was cleared of the sealing mark, and countless memories flooded back in. Because he was still in the midst of a Soulsearch, Meng Hao could see all of those memories.
He saw a world that was not the Mountain and Sea Realm, not the Immortal God Realm, and not the Devil Realm. It was not the world he had seen in the necropolis. It was a strange land, and yet it was obviously located within the starry sky of Allheaven.
It was a flourishing world, and although it hadn’t reached a level of ultimate power, there were still many powerful experts. Most importantly, the world had legends of the Immortal. Apparently, it was a place like the Mountain and Sea Realm or Planet Vast Expanse, a place where the cultivators had Immortal Threads which, if they had the right destiny, could form an Immortal Root.
In other words, it was a world in which the Immortal could appear!
In this case, the word Immortal didn’t refer to the Immortal Realm, but rather, what Allheaven feared… THE Immortal!
Meng Hao saw the Emissary of Allheaven in that world, except he was a young man. Meng Hao watched him practice cultivation and grow into a man. He started out as a rogue cultivator, who eventually exceeded all of his contemporaries. He unified the world in which he lived, reaching the absolute peak, 9-Essences.
At that time, this Emissary of Allheaven was not like he was now. He was focused on his goals, and was the center of all attention. Then, one day, Outsiders appeared from beyond. A huge war ensued, and the world was destroyed. All living beings died.
The man who would become the Emissary of Allheaven threw his head back and let out a bitter howl. Even as he was being surrounded by his enemies, he suddenly erupted with… Demonic qi!
He was forced to transform from the Immortal into the Demon, after which he used Demonic qi to slaughter his enemies. He fled up into the Heavens, and came to be focused on one thing and one thing only: revenge!
Revenge. Revenge! Revenge!!
That one thought was so intense that even in the midst of a Soulsearch, it left Meng Hao panting, shaken. All of a sudden, he was struck by… how the life of this Emissary of Allheaven was so similar to his own!
As he continued the Soulsearch, the Emissary trembled. His eyes no longer appeared to be filled with confusion. It was as if he were awakening after countless years of sleep.
He looked at Meng Hao, his eyes bright and clear. Not only did he do nothing to resist the Soulsearch, he took the initiative to cooperate with it. He opened up his memories, allowing Meng Hao to see everything.
As he did, his eyes flickered with reminiscence. Within the depths of his memories was an unyielding heart. There was regret. And there was a towering desire for revenge. But even more than all of that… there was bitter laughter.
It was a noiseless laughter that accompanied his white hairs as they fell out of his head and floated down. His body was withering up and turning into ash. It was as if his body had been fixed at a certain point in time, and then time forgot him. But now, all of the power of those years was being inflicted relentlessly upon him.
Meng Hao was shaken as he watched the memories of the Emissary of Allheaven. After escaping into the Heavens with only his desire for revenge, the future Emissary experienced many dangers, and also acquired much good fortune. His cultivation base became powerful, far more powerful than before. In fact, he even… stepped halfway into Transcendence.
It was a terrifying level of power that even far surpassed Meng Hao’s current level as the most powerful person under Transcendence. What was referred to as being half a step into Transcendence came from the fact that there were three separate areas which could Transcend. Those areas were the soul, the Essence, and the body. Anyone who Transcended in even one of those areas would be referred to as being half a step into Transcendence.
The future Emissary of Allheaven had Transcended in body, reaching the same level as Nine Seals from the Mountain and Sea Realm.
After reaching that level, he came to understand that the reason his home had been obliterated was because of the Allheaven starry sky, and the will named Allheaven!
The reason his home had been obliterated was because Allheaven didn’t wish for the Immortal to appear. Instead, he wanted the Demon to come.
The man who would become the Emissary paid a huge price to discover a weakness in the starry sky of Allheaven. Astonishingly, he managed to fight his way outside, to reach outside the Vast Expanse.
That was where the memories suddenly screeched to a halt. Whatever it was that he had encountered outside the Vast Expanse, it was impossible to determine. The memories were gone. The only thing that was clear was that a certain number of years later, he reappeared, except not as himself. By then, he had become… the Emissary of Allheaven.
Meng Hao was shaking as he loosened his grip. His face flickered, and he backed up, breathing heavily. Mixed emotions could be seen on his face as he looked at the Emissary of Allheaven.
The man’s body was almost completely dissipated. He no longer seemed evil, but instead, weak and bitter. He had lived his life for revenge, but in the end, not only did he fail, he also ended up becoming the Emissary for the person he wished to exact vengeance upon.
Meng Hao stood there silently.
The Emissary looked down at his vanishing body, and then back up at Meng Hao.
“I can sense that you… are just like me,” he said, his voice hoarse and ancient.
“Back then, I was defeated… but I hope that you can succeed!” He sighed and looked out into the starry sky, into the Vast Expanse. Then, a vicious gleam appeared.
“I wasn’t always the Emissary of Allheaven. I am Song Daozi from the Seven Soils Realm!
“Allheaven, you are doomed to demise!!” Song Daozi threw his head back and laughed uproariously. It was a laughter that seemed to contain weeping. His body was slowly transforming into ash. As it did, his eyes flickered with memories, as if in this moment, he was about to finally reunite with his clan members, his family, and his friends.
However, before he vanished completely, his eyes suddenly gleamed with bright light, as if his soul had suddenly seized. He looked over at Meng Hao, an expression of disbelief on his face. He even looked anxious, as if there were something important he needed to tell Meng Hao, but didn’t have the time. Even as he faded away completely into dust, he managed to speak a few sentences to Meng Hao.
“I remember now! The weak spot in the Vast Expanse that I found all those years ago… is right here!!
“I remember now! I didn’t find this place by accident, someone pointed it out to me….
“Wait, why can’t I remember what that person looked like? I remember she was a woman….
“Her. She was the one who told me about this place….
“Fellow Daoist, the will of Allheaven is everywhere in this starry sky. Why did you pick this place??”
With that, the man was no more.
Meng Hao stared in shock at the space where the man had vanished. After seeing the look in his eyes, and hearing his final words, Meng Hao’s heart filled with intense coldness.
The reason he had chosen this place to summon the copper mirror was not because someone had told him about it. During the process of searching for the copper mirror shards, he had stumbled across it himself, and could tell that the energy of the Vast Expanse was weak here. There was almost a sensation of expulsion and division.
After hearing what the man had just said, Meng Hao’s heart began to thump. He immediately backed up, rotating his cultivation base and performing an incantation gesture with his left hand. Then he waved his finger at the location where the land mass had once stood.
After his finger fell, images rose up from the past, images that no one but Meng Hao would be able to see.
He saw the battle between himself and the Emissary, he saw himself surrounded by the bizarre creatures. But then all of that faded away. And Meng Hao was there preparing the defenses on the land mass.
More time flowed backward. Twenty years. A hundred. Several hundred….
The land mass was floating along in the starry sky, completely unchanging. Meng Hao frowned as he saw himself passing by the location and noticing it for the first time.
More months passed. Then, something extraordinary happened, a full ten years before Meng Hao had discovered the location!