novelThe Old Man on the Altar
| ← Ch.0512 | Ch.0514 → |
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Great Yu Sky Palace."
There was an ancient feel to the words, making all those who saw them feel as if the air of an age's decline was crashing right into their faces!
Su Ming crouched there, stunned for a long time.
'Great Yu. '
These two words were incredibly important to any Berserker, because the Great Yu Dynasty was the Berserkers' holy land and the core of their race. The country was created by the first God of Berserkers, and it was the symbol for all Berserkers!
It was especially so after the continents were separated. The Dead Sea cut off the connections between other continents, causing the Great Yu Dynasty to slowly turn into a mere legend in the minds of the Berserkers as generations passed.
Su Ming's knowledge towards the Great Yu Dynasty had slowly increased after he became the Divine General of Awakening, and once he became a Divine General of Bone Sacrifice. The country left an increasingly deeper impression in his mind as his experiences increased.
There might be a lot of rumors saying that Great Yu was no longer around, but those were just rumors. The existence of the three great deity statues caused the people to not believe in those rumors. To many Berserkers, the Great Yu Dynasty still existed deep within their hearts. It was located at the center of the land of the Berserkers, among the other four continents. It had always protected the Berserkers, and it was waiting for the arrival of the fourth God of Berserkers.
Su Ming stared at the broken palace tablet blankly as a storm raged in his mind, and it would not die down even after a long time had passed. When the time it takes for an incense stick to burn was over, he lifted his head with much difficulty and looked at the pleased turtle.
"Where... did you get this?" Su Ming asked with an array of mixed feelings in his heart.
The turtle tossed its huge head to one side and became even more pleased with itself.
"Bring me there..." Su Ming requested calmly.
The turtle hesitated for a moment before it lowered its body slowly. Su Ming went to the turtle's back without hesitation, and when he stood on its back, the turtle lifted its head and let out a low roar before it swiftly charged into the distance.
It was dark all around. Su Ming could not see too far ahead. Seawater surrounded him from all directions, building a pressure that he would not have been able to bear in the past, but now could.
He had been in this frozen world for many years. Besides taking that spiked club in the past, he had not ventured out to explore the place. He had not even been able to cast his divine sense too far into the distance. And it was not that he did not want to. There was simply something in this place that rejected divine senses, making it difficult for him to spread his divine sense far and wide. Besides, Su Ming had spent most of his time training, and the turtle also lingered outside. That was why he had not gone out to find out just where he was.
He had a hunch in his heart that he should be in the Dead Sea, but he simply did not know where the sea above him was located.
At that moment, as the turtle moved forward, Su Ming left the cave abode that had acted as his lodgings for four years and swam towards the distance.
He started to slowly spread his divine sense outwards. Although he still could not cast it far away, but as he persevered, he managed to cover a small area around himself. As the turtle charged forward, he saw his cave abode behind him, and it was... located in a mountain!
His cave abode was located right at the top of that mountain!
Further down ahead, Su Ming saw a huge palace. That palace was completely encased in ice, and only a corner was exposed in water... As the turtle continued moving forward, Su Ming felt his heart trembling in anticipation.
Gradually, he saw palaces upon palaces located before him... as well as people in strange clothing frozen in ice... He also saw huge ferocious beasts, savage looking giant snakes, as well as an uncountable number of people attacking and killing each other...
All of these people had become part of the ice, and they all looked as if they were still alive... In fact, as the turtle continued charging forward, Su Ming saw an old man with a head full of white hair above him. He was dressed in a purple robe and looked incredibly mighty and heroic. His right hand was lifted, and there was a round plate floating above his palm. Under his feet was an enormous Dark Turtle. However, both of them had turned into ice statues and were connected to the ice pillars on the ground.
Right before was a middle-aged man in an Emperor's robe. There was a picture on the man's face that looked like a Berserker Mark, and his expression was one of sorrow. In his right hand he held a flag, and he looked as if he was about to swing it, but he had also become an ice statue, part of the frozen land.
Between them were frozen snowflakes... It was as if it had been snowing and a gust of desolate wind had been blowing in the air when this land and everything in it was encased in ice.
Su Ming could just imagine desolate wind moaning as it passed through the land at some point during the passage of time, making the snow dance in the air, causing the heavens to be separated from the earth before the snow fell on the ground.
Su Ming saw this with his divine sense, and it shook his heart to the core. As the turtle swam forward, he gradually saw more of the place. The great halls and towers that filled the land were so numerous that no end could be seen. There were also an infinite amount of houses surrounding them, as well as halls, and each one of them looked incredibly ancient...
In fact, Su Ming could still see people in attacking positions outside the houses, frozen as they fought madly against the people in strange clothing!
Su Ming was not unfamiliar with that style of dressing. He had seen the Celestial Maiden dressed in that clothing before. He had seen the Immortals in the land of the Shamans in those clothes before. He had seen Di Tian in them before!
This was a city!
Perhaps more accurately speaking...
"Great Yu Imperial City..." Su Ming mumbled.
He saw a towering palace as he stood on the turtle's back. That palace was the biggest one among all that was here. However, it was already broken and tattered. In fact, the spot where tablets were supposed to hang had also collapsed.
They went past it... The turtle was clearly already used to everything in this place. As it swam forth, it brought Su Ming away from where he'd been buried under the Dead Sea. When they eventually swam towards the center of the frozen city, Su Ming saw a mountain!
More accurately speaking, it was an altar!
It was heptagonal in shape and entirely black. It stood erect and still in the frozen city, and under the altar, Su Ming saw more than one hundred thousand people standing as if they were worshiping it... He saw an old man sitting cross-legged right on top of the altar.
The old man wore a purple robe and was frozen along with the altar.
Su Ming stared at this scene blankly. The turtle beneath him let out a delighted roar as it charged forward, then brought him towards the altar. It swam above it, and right at the instant Su Ming lowered his head, he saw the old man in purple robes on the altar beneath him.
The old man's face was full of wrinkles and brown spots. He had his eyes opened, but there was not a hint of light in them. There was a complete spine before him. In his right hand he held a stone piece, and it stayed above the thirtieth vertebrae.
The old man had lifted his head as if staring at the sky, but when Su Ming looked towards him, a bang went off in his head, and the feeling that the old man on the altar was looking at him appeared in his heart...
That gaze seemed to have come through the passage of time, and no one could have a clue of how long it had existed. It was as if the old man had indeed seen something before he died. Perhaps he had seen what was happening right at that moment.
This was an indefinable feeling. As Su Ming's mind shuddered, he began to feel as if there was an indescribable air of strangeness in this frozen world.
Right at that moment, a low roar traveled forth from the frozen city. That roar was muffled, and it seemed to have come from under the endless layers of ice. It shook the ice and reverberated in the water, as if it had come from a very far off place.
When it rang out, it made the turtle under Su Ming's body let out a shrill, pained cry. It quickly left, and while Su Ming was shocked by that roar, his vision blurred, and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. His cultivation base within his body almost broke down.
It was just a roar, and it had even passed through endless layers of ice before it reached him through the water, but it still possessed such shocking power. Su Ming's pupils shrank. The turtle beneath him fled at a rapid speed in the midst of its fear. In the blink of an eye, it was already far away from the place.
As the turtle escaped, the altar gradually faded from sight, and the roar slowly vanished. Su Ming wiped away the blood at the corners of his lips. With fear lingering in his heart, he saw frozen Immortals further down the frozen land... Their numbers could not even be counted, and the ones in Su Ming's senses alone numbered to several hundreds of thousands...
There was still an endless amount of Immortals right behind those he'd sensed... It was difficult for him to count just how many of them there were.
Su Ming was silent and simply allowed the turtle to bring him around the place in all directions. Eventually, they left the frozen city, and when they reached a flat piece of land at the bottom of the sea, the turtle let out a few roars beneath itself.
Su Ming lowered his head to look, and he saw palace rubble littering all the land. There were even some pieces of debris floating upwards.
Similarly, as the turtle brought him around in a big circle, he saw debris sinking down from above. Clearly, a great tremor or accident had caused the walls in the palace to shake, and in the process, made the walls loose, making debris fall.
Some of it floated to the surface before sinking down once again...
Su Ming could already guess that this change was due to the clash between the Eastern Wastelands and South Morning, which had caused the entire Dead Sea to shake.
With a wave of melancholy and a dejectedness he could not describe, he had the turtle bring him back to his cave abode. Due the fear towards the roar, the turtle swam in a big circle to avoid the city. As Su Ming stood on the turtle's back, he saw the altar as well as the old man in purple robes sitting on top once again from the distance.
'In the face of the Immortals' mass invasion, just what did he see over there when he lifted his head...?' Su Ming looked at the old man on the altar for a long, long time, until he eventually saw only darkness because he had been brought away.
The turtle brought Su Ming back to the mountain where his cave abode was.
He walked off the turtle's back and stood beside the ice mountain leading to his cave. Even after a long time had passed, it was still difficult for him to calm the turmoil in his heart. He looked at the place with mixed feelings, and after some time, he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, calmness had returned to his eyes.
"Do you want to leave with me?" Su Ming asked softly, stroking the turtle's huge head.
The turtle hesitated for a moment before it eventually shook its head. When Su Ming saw the turtle's answer, he did not try to persuade it. He turned around instead, and with firm resolution, he walked towards the ice mountain. He knew that with his current self, he could still not further explore this place. He could not find the reason that caused this place to be buried in the depths of the Dead Sea, and could not find what caused this place to be frozen.
Su Ming believed that eventually, he would come to fully understand everything here. However, while his power might be strong as of then, it was still not enough.
The mysteries in this place, the oddities in this land, and the spots that Su Ming had noticed the turtle intentionally avoiding by a wide berth as they traveled through the land told him clearly that this place... was definitely not as deathly still as it seemed!
The roar that had caused Su Ming to be shocked to the core had also added another layer of mystery to the place.
With these thoughts, Su Ming walked into the ice mountain, straight towards the relocation gate. He turned his head back and looked at the frozen world once more, as well as the words on the tablet lying outside the ice mountain.
"Great Yu Sky Palace..." he mumbled. And when the relocation gate shone, his body disappeared within.
When the turtle saw that Su Ming had disappeared, it let out a few sad cries, born out of unwillingness to part. It then laid down on the spot and begun to wait for him to come back once more.
| ← Ch. 0512 | Ch. 0514 → |