186: Chapter 186 A Thousand Years Later, Things Have Changed

"I'm fine, Mother."

Su Yu responded softly in a childish voice, obediently taking a bite of the spiritual fruit.

Although he was only three years old.

Yet, relying on the [Primordial Dao Fruit] obtained through over-limit point allocation, his extraordinary Divine Soul and Comprehension Ability, which defied all reason, had already crammed all the information accessible to the Su Family over the past three years into his mind.

This was a truth that made his heart freeze to the bone whenever he thought of it.

This truly was the Qianlong Su Family.

It was the Qianlong Su Family that he had single-handedly raised and helped ascend to The Great World during his fifth life.

But after his fifth life ended.

A full thousand years had already passed.

A thousand years of time.

Extremely tragic upheavals had occurred in The Great World.

The renowned Nascent Soul Sect, the Cangxuan Sect, had perished in an unknown cataclysm.

And their Su Family.

That grand cultivation clan, which once possessed more than ten Golden Cores and was at the height of its power on Luoyun Mountain, was shattered by the joint forces of several surrounding enemy factions during the chaotic reshuffling a thousand years ago.

The tens of thousands of original clansmen were utterly slaughtered.

Only this tiny branch, relying on the cover of polar tunnels and surviving narrow escapes from death, finally managed to flee to this extremely remote and barren Beicang Plain with half a volume of a fragmented Legacy.

Concealing their names and surviving on their last breaths.

"The Langhuan Blood Calamity from a thousand years ago…"

Su Yu chewed on the somewhat shriveled fruit flesh in his mouth, a cold light in his abyss-like black eyes almost condensing into substance.

He had browsed through those incomplete clan histories in his father's study.

The records about that cataclysm a thousand years ago only contained a few brief words, as if they were intentionally hiding something or guarding against something.

But he was very clear.

The decline of the Su Family was definitely not a conflict caused by uneven distribution of loot or simple territorial friction.

How could those Old Monsters of The Great World ever allow his Bloodline to survive?

Even though he had burned out his Primordial Spirit and slain Nascent Souls in the Land of Fallen Immortals during his fifth life.

Yet those thirteen Mahayana giants.

That Tribulation Stage Supreme sitting loftily atop the solitary Peak in the Nine Heavens sea of clouds.

They had not obtained the desired fortune heaven-surpassing treasure.

They had not snatched away Su Yu's ten thousand points of Heaven-Defying Luck that they stubbornly held onto.

Such greed and hatred.

How could they possibly let go of Su Yu's descendants? Let go of his wives and daughters?!

"Qingxue… Ziyue…"

These names flashed through the bottom of his heart, and Su Yu's left hand unconsciously clutched tightly at the corner of his clothes.

He needed evidence.

He needed to know the truth of a thousand years ago, needed to know whether they…

Lived or died.

And that truth could not be found in the Su Family's Scripture Pavilion with his current Mortal bone identity and meager status.

Those top secrets truly related to the Origins and blood and tears of the Su Family.

Could only be hidden in the exact same place.

The deepest depths of the Su Family Ancestral Hall!

Nightfall.

The cold wind howled, and the wind and snow grew more urgent.

The pitch-black night curtain was like a heavy screen, tightly enveloping the entire Su Family estate in silence.

"Hoo—"

At the corner of the corridor, the cold wind caused the Spirit Stone lamps to flicker.

A tiny cyan shadow, making not the slightest sound, flashed past like a wisp of a ghost from the inner wall of the eldest branch's small courtyard.

It was precisely the three-year-old Su Yu.

His feet stepped on the bluestone slabs covered in snow without leaving a trace of footprints; even the wind and snow in the air, the moment they touched his body, were extremely gently repelled outward by his [Chaos Flawless Dao Body].

There were no magic power fluctuations, no Physical Body weight.

Under the concealment of this Supreme Dao fetus, the Qi Refining Stage Formation nodes arranged on both sides of the corridor by the Qianlong Su Family to guard against low-tier Cultivators were as good as nonexistent in his eyes.

Like returning to his own home, he extremely smoothly passed through the front courtyard and middle courtyard, heading straight for the most sacred Forbidden Ground of the Su Family.

The Su Family Ancestral Hall!

A quarter of an hour later.

Su Yu stood still in a shadow outside the main hall.

In the void ahead, a layer of extremely dim cyan spiritual light screen rippled, like a giant net, tightly guarding the entire ancestral hall main hall in the middle.

Although the Su Family had declined, it after all started with a Nascent Soul foundation.

What was arranged outside this ancestral hall was the Tier 2 High Grade Formation personally reinforced by the Su Family's Old Ancestor, Su Lie—the "Azure Wood Spirit-Locking Formation".

Let alone Mortals.

Even Foundation Establishment Stage or ordinary Golden Core Stage Cultivators, if they dared to forcefully break in in the middle of the night.

The Formation would instantly trigger a violent wood-attribute spiritual power strangulation, while simultaneously sending a piercing deadly alarm to the Nascent Soul Old Ancestor in the back mountain.

Su Yu stood in the shadow, looking at that layer of spiritual power screen, his expression calm, with not a shred of anxiety arising from facing the Formation in the depths of his eyes.

Although the cultivation within his body was only at the Qi Refining Stage, the [Primordial Dao Fruit] in his brain possessed an extremely terrifying Heaven-Defying Comprehension Ability.

The changes in the Formations of The Great World were no different from being stripped naked in his eyes.

His Divine Sense was extremely light and extremely fine.

Like a strand of hair, without causing any spiritual power fluctuations, it followed the rhythm frequency of the Formation light screen, probing into it with extreme precision.

It took less than three breaths of time.

The operating trajectory of the entire "Azure Wood Spirit-Locking Formation", the distribution of core Spirit Stone nodes, and that trace of the weakest loophole.

Formed a clear and detailed Formation pattern analysis diagram in Su Yu's mind.

"Found it."

Su Yu's expression remained as usual as he stepped out of the shadow in two steps.

He did not urge true essence, only slightly shifting his footsteps.

The first step landed in the narrow gap between two alternating Spiritual Qi meridians at the northwest corner of the Formation.

The second step trod on a vacancy on the east side where backflow was delayed by half a breath due to aging.

The third step.

Su Yu's entire body thus extremely lightly and extremely smoothly penetrated that layer of Tier 2 High Grade defensive light screen.

Stepping into the main hall.

The Formation did not stir in the slightest.

There was no alarm bell, no spiritual power backlash; that secluded Nascent Soul Old Ancestor in the back mountain did not even open his eyelids by half a fraction.

Such means of breaking a Formation, if spread out, would be enough to shatter the Dao Heart of any Formation Great Grandmaster in this Hunyuan Heavenly Domain.

Su Yu pushed open the half-hidden side door and walked into a pitch-black main hall.

The hall was so silent that the dropping of a needle could be heard.

The air was permeated with the extremely heavy scent of aged incense candles.

In the center of the main hall, rows of ancestral spirit tablets carved from redwood were densely arrayed in the darkness, towering like small hills, exuding a stern and icy chill.

Su Yu did not linger outside.

These spirit tablets were all descendants who had died within this thousand years after the Su Family moved into the Beicang Plain.

Although he could see the shadow of Bloodlines in these names, this was not what he was looking for.

Within the perception of the [Primordial Dao Fruit].

Deepest inside this main hall, behind that huge shrine high-glorified in the main seat.

Space faintly rippled with a kind of extremely unnatural distortion.

That was an extremely ancient spatial Formation pattern Restriction, blocking outsiders' line of sight and Divine Sense.

Su Yu walked behind the shrine.

His palm pressed against the edge of a bluestone brick that was already worn beyond recognition, his Divine Sense finely picking inward.

"Click."

A very crisp sound of mechanisms.

That huge shrine slowly shifted to the side, revealing a small secret room measuring only a few zhang in circumference at the back wall.

There was no lamplight.

Inside the secret room, it was as cold as a true tomb.

Su Yu took a deep breath, stepped forward, and walked inside.

The secret room was very narrow.

It only placed an extremely antiquated stone table covered with thick black ash.

And upon that stone table.

Side by side.

Neatly arranged were a dozen or so old spirit tablets carved from dark red mysterious wood.

The cinnabar used to write on these spirit tablets was no longer red.

Instead, it was a dark and dull shade that had oxidized into black due to too much time passing.

Even having experienced a full thousand years of wind and dust.

Yet on the surface of each and every spirit tablet.

Faintly, there still adhered a layer of undying grievance and sorrow that made the air slightly distort.

Su Yu stopped before the table.

Borrowing that trace of faint moonlight, his gaze slowly fell upon the first main stele.

"Tablet of Deceased Father Su Yu, Fifth-Generation Old Ancestor of the Su Family."

That was his own spirit tablet.

His line of sight, following the main stele, inch by inch, moved tenaciously toward the row of bloody names beside it.

"Tablet of Deceased Mother Mu Qingxue, Saintess of Taiyin."

"Tablet of Deceased Mother Shen Ruyue, Celestial Sword Goddess."

"Tablet of Deceased Mother Yun Zhilan, Maiden of the Baicao Sect."

"Tablet of Deceased Mother Ji Wushuang, Demonic Maiden of Jiuyou."

Su Yu's heart, at this instant, felt as if it had been fiercely stabbed by a red-hot, blunt blade.

His eight-hundred-point state of mind, which was round and flawless and steadfast as a rock.

For the first time, silently shattered open with an extremely tiny yet bone-piercingly painful crack.

Beauties all perished.

Their spirit tablets were all right here.

Not just them.

His gaze continued to the right.

"Tablet of Deceased Sister Su Ziyue, Eldest Daughter of the Su Family."

"Tablet of Deceased Sister Qinghan, Second Daughter of the Su Family."

"Tablet of Deceased Sister Muxue, Third Daughter of the Su Family."

"Tablet of Deceased Brother Su Chen, Eldest Son of the Su Family."

"Tablet of Deceased Brother Su Kuang, Second Son of the Su Family."

Su Yu's fingers had their knuckles pinched as pale as paper.

His sons.

His daughters.

The children he had personally named back then, whom he had held and held hands with in the back courtyard.

All…

Died in that cataclysm a thousand years ago.

"Snap."

His nails sank into his palm, and a drop of essence blood carrying golden light, due to the extremely fierce force exerted by his knuckles, was forcibly oozed out from beneath the skin and flesh, dripping onto the stone table.

His gaze moved to the lower end of the table.

There placed a purple bamboo wooden box stained with black blood and already half-rotted.

Su Yu reached out, brushed away the dust on the surface of the wooden box, and gently pushed open the lid.

Inside there were no Magic Treasures, no Medicinal Pills.

Only a roll of fragmented blood-written letter engraved on animal skin by his eldest daughter, Su Ziyue, with broken nails at the very last moment of her life.

"Blood Calamity Testament of Zizhu Peak".

Su Yu, with trembling hands, unfolded that almost weathered animal skin scroll.

Under the ultimate perception of the [Primordial Dao Fruit].

Those words engraved stroke by stroke onto the animal skin with blood and tears by a woman before death a thousand years ago, forcibly carved with nails, extremely clearly turned into a miserable and despairing monstrous scroll, exploding violently within Su Yu's Sea of Consciousness.

The blood calamity of that year was tragic to the extreme.

Su Yu, on the Land of Fallen Immortals, risked everything to burn his Primordial Spirit, slaying the Void Refining Peak demon "Lord of the Abyss" who crossed realms.

With his death, he left a corner of clean sky for The Great World.

But he also completely infuriated those chess players who wielded wind and clouds in The Great World.

Although the great demon Xue Du was killed.

Yet the thirteen Mahayana ones.

Patriarch Tailing of the Taixu Immortal Palace.

Xuanbing Toad Ancestor.

That Tribulation Stage Supreme hidden in the deepest part of the Nine Heavens sea of clouds, coldly overlooking the Mortal world.

They did not snatch away Su Yu's Luck.

So they poured all their greed, shame, and humiliation entirely onto the Su Family's Bloodline, who had broken their blood pact and had nowhere to escape!

"Sealing the mountain… hunting."

The bloody words on the animal skin trembled with every stroke.

"The elites of seven Nascent Soul immortal Sects including the Taixu Immortal Palace, Myriad Demon Valley, Underworld Hall, and Jiuzhuan Mountain, totaling eighteen thousand people, jointly attacked Zizhu Peak."

"Senior Xuanming… it did not leave."

"It stubbornly guarded the ten-thousand-year demon oath it made to Father back then."

"Dragging its demon armor shattered by mighty beings, it fought desperately for three days and three nights outside Zizhu Peak with three Nascent Soul Old Monsters, and finally was nailed to death at the snake's head by two Golden Core Late Stage rogue Cultivators using ancient soul-locking nails, its turtle shell stripped, its blood drained dry, dying with everlasting regret."

"Great Master Patriarch Tianshu… to protect me and my younger sister, he reversed his Golden Core and Nascent Soul in front of the mountain gate, self-detonating his Origin."

"Yet his self-detonation only killed one opposite Nascent Soul, failing to even heavily injure the Incarnation of that Old Monster from the Taixu Immortal Palace."

"Eldest Sister Ziyue exhausted the Annihilation Sword Intent passed down to her by Father. Her Taiyin Origin was forcibly extracted and refined into the cultivation blood medicine of the Taixu Immortal Palace's divine son; her sword snapped into thirteen pieces, and when she died, her hand was still tightly grasping the warm jade Father gave her…"

"Brother Chen died… Brother Kuang was burned into a charred corpse in the demonic fire…"

"Mother… Madam Liu, in order not to be taken back to the Immortal Cave as a cauldron by that group of demonic Cultivators, ended her own Nascent Soul in front of everyone…"

"The Su Family's mountain gate was razed to the ground. The clansmen all died."

"Only I… and a few lower-branch Mortal younger siblings who hadn't tested positive for Spiritual Roots, escaped through an underground secret room lashed open by Senior Xuanming's demon tail before death."

"We fled through the darkness of The Great World for a thousand years."

"Father, if you can still return… You must see how these gods all over the heavens have devoured the flesh and blood of our Su Family…"

When the last word of the blood-written letter fell, the animal skin, under the dual action of time and corrosion, finally completely turned into flying ash.

Su Yu quietly stood before the stone table.

The secret room was very dark.

Half of his body was hidden in the darkness.

He did not wail loudly.

Nor did he crazily go about smashing this dungeon.

His eight hundred and eighty-eight points state of mind, honed to Perfection and flawlessness on the Wenxin River, did not collapse at this moment.

Even in his abyss-like black eyes, there was not a trace of redundant ripple or tears.

He merely looked calmly at that row of bloody spirit tablets.

But his palm, that right hand with grazed skin and flowing blood.

Its knuckles emitted an extremely harsh, successive series of unbearable cracking sounds.

"A thousand years…"

Su Yu hoarsely spat out these three words.

His voice was very soft, so soft as if he feared awakening these dearest family members who died in the cold night.

"Patriarch Tailing."

"Xuanbing Toad Ancestor."

"Taixu Immortal Palace, Myriad Demon Valley, Underworld Hall, Jiuzhuan Mountain."

Extremely slowly, extremely rigidly, he engraved these enemy Sects that had sucked the marrow and stripped the bones of his Su Family a thousand years ago.

Word by word, into his brain, carving it deeper than iron.

"I have returned."

Within that pair of pitch-black pupils of his.

The very last trace of warmth solely belonging to a Mortal of this world.

At this moment, by these icy spirit tablets, by this testament where every word dripped with blood, was thoroughly and completely, cut clean slash by slash.

The blood inside his body began to flow backward, but under the absolute suppression of the [Chaos Flawless Dao Body], his Qi Sea and entire body did not overflow with a single bit of abnormality.

"In this life, I do not seek the forgiveness of these gods all over the heavens."

Su Yu raised his right hand, his fingers caressing the icy mysterious wood tablet inscribed with "Tablet of Deceased Sister Su Ziyue, Eldest Daughter of the Su Family".

His laughter spread very faintly in the empty darkness.

Freezing one's heart to the core.

"I only seek."

"To slaughter every single one of you."

This game of chess had been played by the Su Family for a very long time, so long that everyone had died out completely.

And now, the true chess player.

Su Yu.

In the silent dead of the dark night.

Holding that blood-stained broken sword, walked back to the center of the chessboard once more.