novelEndless Cold Knows No Years
| ← Ch.0519 | Ch.0521 → |
40 years flashed by. There were still people who remembered Meng Hao, but most people only recalled a scene in which someone brought 800, 000 neo-demons through Blackgate Fort.
As far as what Meng Hao looked like, most people barely remembered.
As time passed, Meng Hao was slowly being forgotten.
In truth, it was the same even with him. Not even his shadow was seen upon the Western Desert Violet Sea. He had been submerged at the bottom of the sea for years now.
He sat cross-legged on what had once been the land of the Western Desert. This time, it lasted for a very long time.
He didn't move, nor did he breathe. There seemed to be no signs of life coming from him whatsoever. He sat in the darkness of the bottom of the sea, secluded in meditation.
The surrounding will of extermination was increasingly reduced. Even if you looked for it closely, it was difficult to detect its existence. At the same time, the scant life force remaining in Meng Hao's body slowly lessened. There was only one tiny strand that kept his life from being snuffed out.
It was in exactly this fashion that twenty more years passed.
From the time Meng Hao had begun his attempt to understand the Violet Sea, a full sixty year cycle had passed. More and more people in the outside world were forgetting about him. Even in the Golden Crow Black Dragon Clan, many people who joined the Clan or were born during that time took the stories of Meng Hao to be nothing but exaggerated legends. The exception were the people who had actually associated with Meng Hao years ago.
Slowly, friction began to develop between the members of the Black Dragon Tribe and the Golden Crow Tribe. However, Xu Bai was able to forcefully suppress this trend, and smooth out the conflicts.
It was understandable considering that the two Tribes did not have a common origin. They had been forced together because of the pressures of the outside world. The Golden Crow Tribe occupied a position of leadership above the Black Dragon Tribe. Although things seemed as peaceful as the waters of a windless sea, in reality, the wild hearts of the Black Dragon Tribe were awakening.
More years passed. One day, Meng Hao sat there cross-legged and motionless in the depths of the seas. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
As soon as they did, they began to shine with a brilliant light. After a long time, his expression began to weaken.
"So many years...." he murmured softly to himself, looking around at the world of the pitch black seafloor.
"Unfortunately I... still haven't thoroughly grasped the meaning of the Violet Sea's death will. The will of extermination is weak, but still there. Until it completely vanishes, I will be separated from the Violet Sea, incapable of fusing together with it.
"Although there is only a tiny bit of life force left in me, it is still there. As such, the extermination power will not disappear.
"Don't tell me, that I really... have to die?!" He shook his head as he looked out thoughtfully at the blackness around him. Occasionally, specters would appear. During the more than sixty years that had passed, more and more specters had begun to awaken and roam about in the seawater.
They would float past Meng Hao without making even the slightest hint of an attack against him. It was as if they couldn't see him, or perhaps, in their judgement, Meng Hao was like them, completely lacking any life force whatsoever.
As Meng Hao looked at the black sea water, an image coalesced in his mind. It was the vague image of his father and mother from when he was a child. He saw himself as a boy, reading books in front of the window. He felt the disappointment of failing over and over again in the preliminary rounds of the imperial examinations. And then there was the point on Mount Daqing where his entire life changed.
The Reliance Sect. The Blood Immortal Legacy. The Violet Fate Sect. The Black Lands... all the way down to the great lands of the Western Desert. All of these things flashed through Meng Hao's mind. It was endless. Endless unforgettable memories. It was now almost one hundred years since he had encountered Xu Qing on Mount Daqing.
A hundred years of time had flowed by. It had passed by so quickly that Meng Hao barely had time to recall all the memories. Just like that, the entire life of a mortal passed gone by.
Gradually, Meng Hao's life seemed to coalesce in front of him. He saw many figures. It didn't matter whether they were enemies or friends, the Karma threads which invisibly connected him to all these people started to become visible.
After a while, Meng Hao smiled. Within that smile, determination suddenly shined out.
He had picked this path, and would unflinchingly continue on down it to the end. When risks are taken, the results can be death, or incredible rewards!
Meng Hao closed his eyes. In that instant, he unhesitatingly crushed that last tiny strand of life force.
There can be no growth without destruction! Without death, how can there be new life?!
When the strand of life force vanished, Meng Hao's body seemed to fill with a soundless roar. His life force disappeared, completely gone. The flame of life inside of him had been snuffed out. As of now, he was completely... dead!
This was true death, a state of existence without any life force, without any consciousness, without any aura or ability to perceive anything. It was as if he were buried deep in the bottom of the Violet Sea.
The instant in which death occurred, the will of extermination which had been blocking him from fusing with the Violet Sea, suddenly vanished. It completely disappeared without a trace.
The removal of this blockage seemed to indicate that he had received approval. He... was just like the Violet Sea, a will of death.
Without the extermination cutting him off, Meng Hao's body was enveloped by the dense death aura of the Western Desert Violet Sea. It poured into him, swirling around within him, boring through him. It began to circulate, moving about in cyclical fashion.
Meng Hao possessed no consciousness. It was as if he had been cleanly severed away from the world, as if he had nothing to do with the world any more. He had forgotten it; it had forgotten him.
The only thing that remembered Meng Hao was the dense death will of the Violet Sea. It continued to congeal around him, to pour into his body. Finally one day, his pale flesh became completely gray and filled with an aura of death. He was now... one with the Violet Sea.
His internal organs, his body parts, all of it was fused with the Violet Sea.
He had become the Violet Sea.
However, the Violet Sea had not become him yet.
Time passed.
One year. Five years. Ten years.... Eventually thirty years passed. As of now, around ninety years had passed since Meng Hao began to seek enlightenment of the violet rain.
Recently in the skies above the Western Desert, the violet rain which had fallen unceasingly for nearly a hundred years now seemed to be on the verge of ceasing. The signs grew more and more apparent. A year passed and the Violet Rain... finally stopped.
The sky was still overcast, but the rainwater ceased to fall. It was not a complete end; occasionally some rain would fall here and there. Generally speaking, though, the violet rainfall had passed.
When the violet rain stopped falling, there was something different about the Violet Sea of the Western Desert. In that moment, all of the specters which had been floating about above and below the sea suddenly stopped. Everything became silent. Their faces became even more blank than before, as if they were listening respectfully to something.
That period of listening lasted for three months.
After the three months, everything returned to normal. However, there was something... different about this Violet Sea, something that no one could sense.
It was as if within the sea, each swell of the waves contained a will.
That will belonged to Meng Hao!
Meng Hao, however, was not aware of it. He was not sure of when exactly he had awoken. He didn't remember who he was, nor did he possess any of his memories. All he remembered was that he had awoken, and become the Violet Sea.
He was the Violet Sea.
The Violet Sea... was also him.
Confused, he looked around. He didn't remember any time having passed. He saw the rain stop falling, until not even a drop could be seen. He also saw a young, black-robed man sitting cross-legged in the depths of the sea.
The instant he saw the young man, the young man also sensed Meng Hao, and a look of disbelief and astonishment filled his face. His body began to tremble as if from cold. Although Meng Hao didn't understand why, the young man suddenly transformed into a black colored bat and then began to flee in terror.
Every time Meng Hao shifted his attention to him, he would tremble with indescribable terror and flee at top speed.
Meng Hao truly did not understand. He looked away and began to examine the world around him again, somewhat in a daze. Soon, Cultivators began to appear above the sea, arrived to hunt the specters.
Meng Hao saw all of this very clearly. He also saw some of the Cultivators fall into the sea, whereupon they lost their lives.
Meng Hao watched everything with confusion. More and more Cultivators arrived. They were careful not to touch the seawater. By using their divine abilities and magical techniques, they were able to find some of the mountain-islands that had not been completely submerged. They began to construct cities around the peaks, above the seawater.
They called them cities, but they were really more like outposts.
Soon, a total of ten such outposts were constructed above the Western Desert Violet Sea.
Meng Hao observed them. At one point, a strand of will rose up, and huge waves rolled across the surface of the sea to suddenly submerge one of the outposts that was being constructed.
The rise of the outposts caused even more Cultivators to come to the great Western Desert Sea to carefully hunt specters....
After observation, Meng Hao gradually came to feel bored. He grew silent, and time once again began to pass... although he didn't know how much.
With no one disturbing him, and no unforeseen occurrences, Meng Hao could exist like this for ten thousand years. Then the Violet Sea would vanish, and his consciousness would return to his body. Finally he would be reborn.
Meng Hao didn't know that what he was experiencing, although it seemed as if it were enlightenment, was actually something that in ancient times was called... Demonic Transmigration!
The fleshly body was abandoned, as well as the Cultivation base. Consciousness was shattered and then reawakened in a new form of life. Everything was forgotten as one became a Greater Demon of Heaven and Earth.
Everything about the past was completely cleaved away.
Within the sea, time is forgotten. Endless coldness, knows no years.
Meng Hao saw many people. One of them was an old man wearing a long white robe. His body emanated a medicinal aroma, and he had the bearing of a transcendent being. On one day of one particular year, he appeared above the Violet Sea.
He stared down blankly at the waters, and Meng Hao stared blankly up at him. There was something familiar about this man....
He floated there silently in mid-air, looking down at the sea. Three months passed. Finally, the man let out a soft sigh.
"Apprentice, you... are in the midst of Demonic Transmigration...." He shook his head, then turned and left, clearly filled with complex emotions.
Meng Hao's corpse sat on the sea floor, cross-legged. In that moment, he trembled a bit. He now felt even more confused.
| ← Ch. 0519 | Ch. 0521 → |