“Senior Han Shan, I won’t be able to keep my promise…
“Demoness Zhixiang, don’t worry about that favor you owe me.”
Then there was Ke Jiusi and Ke Yunhai. Meng Hao thought about many things, and eventually started thinking about his First Severing.
“I didn’t even practice cultivation for three hundred years, and yet completed my First Severing. A great Dao descended, and the Resurrection Lily became my Spirit Severing Treasure. For me, Meng Hao, to live a life like this, well… it’s enough for me!
“In all the lands of South Heaven, few people could even come close to comparing to me!” He suddenly felt very proud of himself. The laughter, the bitterness, the fury, and the memories of his entire life became images that flashed through his mind.
More time passed. Another half month went by, during which time Meng Hao continued to look off into the distance, thinking about the past. Finally one day, the illusory, armored old man suddenly caught his attention.
For months, the old man hadn’t moved at all, and seemed completely empty. Now, his right hand raised up, and a sealing mark appeared. He performed an incantation, and gradually, two colors appeared in his hand, black and white.
However, when Meng Hao went over to try to touch the old man, he was as illusory as ever.
As more time passed, Meng Hao began to pay attention to the way in which the old man meditated. He observed his emptiness, and his incantation gestures, along with the blackness and whiteness that they summoned.
Gradually, he focused more and more on the black and white. It seemed to contain something important, although he wasn’t sure what.
The white seemed to contain all of the colors in Heaven and Earth. It seemed to assimilate everything around and transform it into a similar whiteness. As for the black, it was incredibly potent and domineering, as of no colors were qualified to stand in its presence.
Gradually, Meng Hao immersed himself in observing the old man. Without even realizing it, he began to mediate in the same way, including the breathing exercises and the hand gestures.
Eventually, he even decided that he might as well sit in the exact same position as the old man, superimposing with his illusory form. That way, all of his motions would be exactly the same as the old man’s.
He closed his eyes and immersed himself in the process. Time passed. In the blink of an eye, three years had gone by.
During the three years, Meng Hao grew weaker, and his life force gradually withered away. He didn’t care about that, though. The only thing he was interested in was copying the movements of the old man, and finding a way to keep on living.
One day, he suddenly experienced an emptiness in which he found that neither life nor death were important. As he performed an incantation with his right hand, whiteness became visible.
Suddenly, an ancient voice filled his mind: “When you reach the end of your path, then you will have lost yourself.”
Next, blackness appeared in Meng Hao’s palm.
The ancient voice once again echoed in his mind. “When you reach the end of your path, then all you will have left is yourself.” Meng Hao had the faint sensation that he was in the process of grasping enlightenment.
It was an enlightenment of an unimaginably vast and mysterious great Dao.
“White and black are like the daytime and nighttime…. 1” he muttered. He looked at his right hand and then slowly lifted it up toward the sky. He could sense that if he had a cultivation base, then considering his enlightenment of this Dao, he could turn the sky as dark as night or as bright as day. The interlocking of black and white could unleash a supreme power.
“Too bad I don’t have a cultivation base,” he thought, shaking his head. “Even if I completely understood this Dao, I still couldn’t use it.” He was just about to stand up when suddenly, the ship… stopped moving.
Meng Hao looked up, his eyes wide.
—–