Chapter 576 576: Treading On The Path.
Chapter 576 576: Treading On The Path.
The people all heard Hao Ren's plan and they agreed to it, well, they didn't have much of an option at their hands to be more efficient about this matter. Hao Ren also didn't like to waste time and so this was the what they were going to do. The strongest among them was Jana and he had solid experience of life in this barren battlefield.
So Hao Ren asked him to guide the rest of the people and also to protect them in their movements. With settled, Hao Ren left the place.
...
While the young man was scouring the Eternal Battlefield to find the clues that would let him comprehend the path of slaughter or destruction. Yin was sitting next to Han Lingshi and telling her everything that Hao Ren was doing. At first Han Lingshi was shocked and then she was amused. At the end, she could not help but chuckle a bit.
Yin was surprised and then she asked calmly, "Ma, why are you so happy? Baba is kicking up trouble again."
Han Lingshi smiled and patted the head of the now a beautiful teenager girl, Yin and said, "He has been doing that long before you came into existence love. Believe me, that is the only way for him to grow, that is what his path has been like. He is far more credible than he seems."
Yin pouted as she looked at the side and teased Yanling and Xuanshen who giggled and moved their limbs and played with her. Yin said, "I am just worried, do you remember the story of Saint Hal? He tried to condense the path of slaughter as a second halo and when he caught a hint of it, he descended into madness. Uncler Peng had quite some trouble handling him. Baba is the strongest man in the lands, and even in the Eternal Battlefield their is hardly anyone who can match him, what if something happens?"
Han Lingshi patted the head of her eldest child and said, "Don't worry, he would be fine, he knows his limit and also, I am sure that he has already planted some anchors in his mind."
Yin sighed and gave up on the pursuit, she said, "I am going out to travel and spar with the people of the same age. I will take Jiro and Hiro along with me, they need to see the world of the prodigies."
Han Lingshi nodded and took out a few stones from her space ring and said, "Keep these, if anyone tries anything activate them and I will come over."
Yin nodded, she tossed the stones inside her space ring, there was a pile of these protection jade stones in there, Han Lingshi gave them to her all the time she and Yang went out of the palace.
...
Hao Ren moved through the void quickly and travelled for half a day before he reached a ruined city. Yes, it was a ruined city, and it seemed that the traces of the battle were fresh. He frowned, because the wind was laced with a strong smell of blood. As he landed before the ruin and walked over slowly, his brows furrowed and he was disturbed. The place was filled with corpses, and defined what carnage actually meant.
As he walked through the ruins he realized that these corpses didn't belong to just humans, but also to demon soldiers. Their condition was even worse than the human corpses. Some demons were splattered on the walls as a spread of minced black flesh. Hao Ren frowned and had it not been for the fact that he had seen a lot of such things in his life, he might have retched his liver out.
Suddenly, he sensed something and walked towards the center of the ruined city. There in the central square, he spotted a person who was standing beside a sword that was covered in blood. Hao Ren could not sense any vitality from the person but he could sense a strange aura radiating from the body and the bloody sword.
He picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it towards the sword and just as the stone was within five meters range of the sword it shattered into white powder and dispelled in the void. Hao Ren hummed and walked closer, looking at the man beside the sword he could tell that this person had died not long ago, and the body was still intact. It meant either he managed to fend of his enemies and died from spiritual overdraft or the enemy left his body like this.
Hao Ren sat down in the void with his gaze locked on the bloody scene before him and the things that he saw on the way here, all of them began to play out like a loopcast. Hao Ren was pulled into the carnage that unfolded in this city recently. He was not surprised but he was not calm as well. It was not that he was having an enlightening moment. It was simply the desire in his heart to understand the situation and the lingering sense of destruction in the surroundings which caused him to perceive or create a scenario in his mind.
He saw the fight erupt and he saw the struggle of the people and then he saw a shadow that lay waste to all the people in this city, it didn't spare anyone, men, women, children, even pets. None were left alive, and finally when the city was about to fall completely, a figure rose from the central area of the city with a sword in his hand. The entire City had already been slaughtered, what difference would it make if he took up the arms or not?
However, the man didn't stop, nor did he hesitate. He faced all the demons alone, and he even faced the humans who later tried to stop him. His sword only knew one thing, that was killing and until he had killed everything in the world, he didn't seem to have any wish to stop.
Hao Ren could see that it was not that the man had gone crazy, it was just that his anger was too much, towards everything that caused for this situation to unfold. He seemed to be angry on himself as well, for waking up late. However, till his last moment, the man didn't stop fighting for what he believed and even got consumed by this drive of his.
Hao Ren began to ponder, "What is destruction?"
Indeed, this was the first question that came to his mind, then what he thought about was another question, "What is slaughter?"
In his mind a few things cropped up instantly, "Indeed, this was the point. Slaughter was never about harming the weak or the innocent. It was a mean to vent your anger. Many people had slaughtered several others in the past. Some did it for the greater good, and some did it because they just wanted to. What do you want?"
Hao Ren kept on thinking about this situation, and it was the truth, why did he want to destroy things? Why did he want to slaughter people. Killing people and slaughtering them was different. As all these questions rolled out in his mind, the young man got lost in the world of cultivation. He didn't care if he had any protection around him at this moment, he was just a lonely man sitting amidst the ruins of a fallen city and comprehending the path that he wanted.
His body was absorbing all the spiritual energy in the surrounding and turning it into the true essence. This true essence carried a chill with it as it was boosted in the Yin element. Hao Ren didn't mind the cold that originated from the core of his body, the spiritual flame was enough to keep this cold away from him. The only thing that the cold helped him with was the immersion that he needed to sense the aura of slaughter in this city.
His spiritual energy had gained a distinctive color as it was tainted with more and more negative energy from the surroundings, the color was bloody red and as it revolved around Hao Ren it looked like he was a demon himself. Hao Ren had no idea how much time had gone by, he only stopped when he managed to create the third halo on his back. The ring was just a skeleton and the runes were the soul of the saint halos.
To create the skeletal ring only, Hao Ren had spend several weeks, and the progress was not only slow but also taxing on his mind. The young man realized the moment he opened his eyes, he was too immersed in this cold sensation that he was kind of cold in his thoughts as well. Thankfully the emotional anchor points he had established for himself earlier all were stable and after some moments he returned back to his normal mood.
The path ahead was going to be troublesome, but he had no other choice but to tread on it with confidence.
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