952 A Fork and a Rattle Drum

Su Ming swung his left hand, and Dao Avenue Mountain immediately enlarged endlessly. In the blink of an eye, it turned into a mountain of ten thousand feet, and when Su Ming lifted it, he threw it before himself.

The mountain immediately created a loud bang as it broke space and charged towards the middle-aged man.

It was so quick that in the blink of an eye, it was already near that person.

"You still don't understand the rise and fall of Masters of Fate, Lives, and Death." The middle-aged man shook his head and raised his right hand to swing it against the incoming Dao Avenue Mountain.

"The rise and fall of fate happens with just a single thought of mine. Fate exists in every single thing in the world, just like this mountain rock… It is connected to you through fate, which is why it was obtained by you, but if I say this fate will be cut off from you… then it will be cut off," the middle-aged man said flatly before he swung his arm. Dao Avenue Mountain then came to an abrupt halt in front of him.

Su Ming's pupils shrank. He immediately saw endless thin threads around Dao Avenue Mountain. These threads were connected to him, but when the middle-aged man swung his sleeve, they were all snapped.

As the threads were cut, Su Ming's body swayed, and a feeling of emptiness instantly rose in his heart. His connection with Dao Avenue Mountain had been cut!

This was not a simple act of taking away Su Ming's Enchanted Treasure. It was just as the man had said, he had cut off Dao Avenue Mountain's fate with Su Ming, causing them to no longer be connected through fate, and Su Ming would never be able to possess it again, unless he did something about it.

"This is the rise and fall of fate. Search for your next master."

The middle-aged man's voice echoed in space. Dao Avenue Mountain shuddered, but right at the instant it was about to disappear, Su Ming raised his right leg and stepped on the galaxy. The galaxy shuddered, and the disappearing Dao Avenue Mountain was bounced back, returning from its dissipating state.

"You should have fought against a Master of Fate before, I wonder how that person gave you the confidence… to fight against a Master of Fate with brute force?" The middle-aged man smiled. There was a hint of derision in it.

"You will not be able to enter the area one hundred thousand feet around me, because that is where the connection of our fate ends."

Once the middle-aged man said that, Su Ming's expression changed. He sensed an indescribable power erupting from space, and with it, he was forced back, pushed from his previous position of only several tens of thousands of feet away from the middle-aged man to a hundred thousand feet. After that, he had a strong feeling that he… could not step into that area.

It was as if there was a law in there that could not be expelled.

This was completely different from Su Ming's first fight against a Master of Fate. In fact, even though he sensed that this person was slightly weaker than the Master of Fate he had met in the past, he had a feeling that he absolutely could not strike back right now.

'Fate…' Su Ming's heart trembled. He suddenly understood something.

He realized why Masters of Fate, Lives, and Death were known as Masters of Fate by others!

They controlled other people's fates, and only when they had control over the fates of the whole world and universe could they be known as… Masters of Fate!

Su Ming's eyes shone. When he clenched his right hand, the mountain rock in it shone with a piercing white light. As it did so, Su Ming's power of Divine Essence fused into him, causing the mountain rock to become tens of thousands of feet big. Once it did, an enraged howl echoed in space, and the mountain rock turned into a loud bang.

It was a pity that the threads of fate connecting him to Dao Avenue Mountain were cut, but at least Malicious Spirit Weighing the Elephant, was still with him. However, as the elephant roared and rushed into the area of one hundred thousand feet… it shuddered and started shrinking rapidly before Su Ming's eyes, until it turned back into the mountain rock. The endless threads connected faintly to Su Ming then were also swiftly cut.

"You dare fight against me with just these?" As the middle-aged man asked this flatly, he raised his right hand and pointed at Su Ming.

"I see that you have three bodies, and thus have three fates. I will now cut your fate to your cultivation base!"

Once he said these words, Su Ming shuddered, for an intense pain rose in his soul. It was a feeling of being torn apart, as if his body was being forcefully ripped apart by an indescribable power which wanted to tear away his cultivation base clone that had fused with him. Once it was torn away from him, then Su Ming's cultivation base clone would be like his Enchanted Treasures and become an independent existence. He would no longer have any control over it.

Purple light shone brilliantly in Su Ming's eyes, and as his body shuddered, overlapping shadows appeared around his cultivation base clone, as if it was about to be ripped apart.

The middle-aged man smiled, and he pointed at Su Ming again. "I will cut your fate to your physical body."

A loud bang shot up in Su Ming's mind. Overlapping shadows also appeared around his clone that practiced the Art of Swallowing Hollow Shadows Whole. The connection he had with it started showing signs of being torn apart as the middle-aged man declared to cut his fate with it.

A brilliant light shone in the middle-aged man's eyes. He raised his right hand and cut down swiftly in Su Ming's direction through space. "And I will also cut your fate… with your Ecang clone!"

Bang!

The clones fell in three different directions. When Su Ming saw that they were about to be torn from him, expressions of intense pain appeared on all three of the clones' faces.

Su Ming even had the feeling that his will was about to be torn into three. If that really happened, then he would become three independent entities, and by then, he would have lost his true self.

In fact, even his memories were being ripped apart, which brought them up to the front of his mind. These memories were shattering, but Su Ming did not panic. He had a way to resolve this danger, and the easiest way to do so was the summoning of the Sand Spirit. This was part of the plan, but he did not do so, because when his memories were being torn, he remembered a particular Art he had learned when he was in Dark Mountain.

When Su Ming remembered this Art, he suddenly gained an epiphany.

…..

While Su Ming was in danger, far away from Divine Essence Star Ocean and the Barren Lands of Divine Essence… war engulfed True Morning Dao World.

Within True Morning Dao Sect was a lofty altar. It was located at the center and had nothing on it, but for single crack on its surface.

This was an incredibly ordinary place in Morning Dao Sect, since there were plenty of such altars in Morning Dao Sect. No one knew what purpose they served, but the ancestors had left instructions that no one was allowed to step into Morning Dao Sect's altars.

There were around ninety-seven thousand such altars, and there was an equivalent number of cracks. Only the ancient existences within Morning Dao Sect knew that these cracks were existences akin to coordinates.

When they were connected together, they would turn into a set that would point… to the isolation grounds of Kalpa Lord Dao Chen, the Progenitor of the entire True Morning Dao World.

That isolation grounds was a fragmented void connected to the entire space of Morning Dao World. It was a fault dimension [1]. Besides those in True Morning Dao World, no one knew just how it looked like.

Kalpa Lord Dao Chen had been in isolated training for a long, long time…

If Su Ming could stand on one of the altars and execute the full power of his Malicious Eye… No, he would need a power that surpassed his current level of cultivation. Only when he became a Master of Fate and used his Malicious Eye would he be able to see… that there were endless cracks in space within the altar's crack. If his gaze could pierce through all of them and connect them together, he would be able to see a door.

Behind that door was a dimension that existed in space, and it was the dimension where Dao Chen isolated himself.

At that moment, there was a large amount of white fog in that dimension. Within its depths was a person. He was sitting cross-legged in there with his head lowered. His entire body was surrounded by fog, making it impossible to see his face clearly. There was no life force on him, only stillness.

Placed before him were two items. One of them was a fork, and the other a child's toy - a rattle drum.

At that moment, the rattle drum was shivering. In fact, some cracks could be seen on it. Those cracks continued spreading, as if preparing to shatter that rattle drum.

It could not be seen whether the person sitting in the fog opened their eyes, but it could be seen that as the cracks on the rattle drum appeared, the body, which seemed to not have moved for a long time, shuddered, and the person raised their right hand slowly.

Once the person did this, an endless amount of booms immediately rang in the dimension. In fact, those booms even affected the world outside, causing a galactic windstorm throughout the entire True Morning Dao World.

The windstorm swept through whole land, shocking all the people fighting against each other, stunning both Morning Dao Sect and the entire Immortals' Union. This galactic windstorm caused the entire True Morning Dao World to seem like a bottle that was swaying about violently.

This was not the first time a windstorm like this had appeared. It was… the second time!

The first time was one thousand something years ago. No one knew why that windstorm had appeared, and several breaths after it did, it disappeared on its own, becoming a mystery that countless people tried to figure out, but could not.

Now, one thousand something years later, the windstorm appeared once more.

No one knew that its cause was the figure in the fragmented dimension, who had brought about this phenomenon with the wind he stirred up when he raised his hand. The figure was slowly lifting their hand, looking as if they intended to touch the shattering rattle drum.

But before the hand could touch it, the cracks on it no longer continued spreading, but instead moved in reverse and closed up on their own, causing the figure's hand to pause in midair.

The figure could be seen smiling then. That expression was incredibly amiable, but there was a hint… of guilt in it.

…..

As the three clones were being forcefully torn from Su Ming's soul in Divine Essence Star Ocean, he raised his head, and at the instant the light of understanding shone in his eyes, the process of him being torn stopped for a moment.

"I have indeed been careless about a Master of Fate's strength and overestimated myself… but this battle also let me understand what it means to control fate!

"It means to control the fate of all the living in the universe… but while other people's fate might be easy to control, controlling your own fate is the hardest. You… can control the fate of the entire universe, but you cannot control your own fate.

"This is why you did not seem as strong as that person I met in the past." As Su Ming raised his head, he lifted his right hand. "This battle also allowed me to understand an Art I learned when I was a child and why it left a deep impression on me. Every single time I thought about it, I found it difficult to figure out, because the Art I learned in the past was not any normal Art. It was… an Art of Masters of Fate."

While enduring the intense pain, Su Ming raised his right hand. He then slashed down at the middle-aged man one hundred thousand feet away from him.

"Execution… of the Three Evils!"

Translator's Note:

1. Fault dimension: Fault here is a geology term, and the idea to translate 断层空间 (duan4 ceng2 kong1 jian1) as fault dimension came from fault rock, since 断层 is a fault.