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