Chapter 424: Severing Meng Hao’s Karma
The archaic voice boomed out from the sky to echo about within the volcano.
“Flee to the remotest corners of the Earth and you will still be incapable of evading me!”
Meng Hao was only about ten meters ahead of the silver line, his face pale.
It really seemed as if what the voice said was true. Meng Hao… was incapable of evasion!
There was lava inside this volcano, as well as one location deep within that appeared to be a cistern. The rock surrounding the cistern had been chiseled into stone steps, which in turn formed a pool of water.
Meng Hao neared, he passed through multiple restrictive spells. These restrictive spells were set up to prevent anyone not of the Crow Divinity Tribe from nearing. Any outsider who attempted to approach without the help of a Crow Divinity Tribe member would be killed.
However… Meng Hao was being followed by the fishing line. As it neared, it caused everything to cease moving, even all of the bizarre and fantastic things inside of the volcano.
The restrictive spells were also static now, and any hindering power was rendered useless. Meng Hao shot forward with all of the speed he could muster. From ancient times until now, he was the first outsider to ever come to this place alone!
This event was unprecedented. As Meng Hao neared the Pool of Destiny, waves and ripples could be seen on its surface. However, Meng Hao had nothing to be happy about. His eyes radiated despair. Earlier, he had hoped that there would be something here he could use to fight back against the silver line, which was why he had headed in this direction.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the pond was the only thing here.
“Nowhere to go….” His gaze flickered about, and he sent his Spiritual Sense billowing out. After confirming that there really was nothing else in the area besides the Pool of Destiny, he gave a wan smile.
“The Pool of Destiny…. It seems I have nowhere to go and no other options. Well, if I’m really going to perish, then I’ll go out fighting. And I’ll do it in this Pool of Destiny!” His eyes shining with vicious determination, his body flickered and he stepped foot into the Pool of Destiny.
The very moment that he did, the silver line finally reached him. It wrapped him up immediately, binding him tightly!
As soon as the line touched him, Meng Hao’s mind filled with a roaring sound, and he felt as if his soul was about to fly out of his body. It was as if his mind and his body were completely split apart. A sensation of icy coldness appeared within his soul. He suddenly had the sense that a deadly crisis was imminent.
“As I said, you’re not strong enough to hide from me. Do you really think you can measure up to the people in the past who tried to evade my grasp? When I’ve hooked your Karma, everything is over!
“Eee? Hold on… you already have traces of Karma from the Ji Clan? It’s faint, and it looks like you’re almost on the verge of completely erasing it. Since it’s still here, though, I think I’ll just take a look and see who you are. Let’s see…. Meng Hao…. Killed one of the sons of Ji…. Wanted by the Ji Clan. Oh, so it’s you…. I guess it’s just your destiny to run into me here. I might as well settle the Karma you have with the Ji Clan.
“I am Ji Nineteen. I shall bequeath thee with… the Ji Clan’s Karmic Severing!” Meng Hao’s body was trembling. He felt as if his consciousness and his body were being ripped apart. His soul felt as if it were in fetters as if some massive force were preparing to wrench it out of his body. 1
He was filled with confusion, and his Cultivation base vanished. Even his Demon Sealing powers disappeared. It was as if he was nothing more than a mortal, so weak that he could do absolutely nothing to fight back.
The only thing he was aware of were the words spoken by the archaic voice, which echoed about in his head.
“Karmic Severing….”
He could vaguely see a vast assortment of faint, flickering threads connected to his body. These threads were his fate and Karma, massed together and stretching out into the air, connected to who knew what.
Suddenly, Meng Hao could see that deep within him, a power was spreading out to these threads, and to his very life force….
“SEVER!” said the archaic voice. The instant the word came out of his mouth, the world shook as if it were being struck with lightning.
Meng Hao’s body trembled violently as he watched the threads connected to his body beginning to collapse, as if some intangible blade were beginning to chop through them. They shattered, causing a chain reaction which destroyed even more of the threads. It was impossible to say whose memories these threads connected to, but in this instant, they were falling into pieces.
It didn’t matter how much distance was involved, the threads were destroyed. The effect began to spread about throughout all the lands of South Heaven.
In the Western Desert, outside the golden light, everything was completely still. All the members of the five great Crow Divinity Tribes suddenly shivered. Their faces went pale and filled with blankness. Within their memories, any trace of Meng Hao was erased, almost as if it were completely severed away.
Wu Ling, Wu Chen, Wu Hai, all of the Tribe members from the five great Tribes suddenly had not even a scrap of a memory of Meng Hao within their minds.
Mo Li and old devil Wang, even Yan Song and Eccentric Li Tao all trembled as the Karma threads connecting them to Meng Hao were destroyed.
It was like a gigantic invisible blade was slashing down. As it headed toward the man-form Outlander Beast, it met up against a powerful force that struggled back against it. The man’s body shook, but in the end… the blade descended nonetheless.
The voice of the parrot suddenly came out of the man’s mouth in a faint roar: “Ji Clan Immortal, this time Lord Fifth will not forget!!”
The blade swept past, slicing across Gu La, erasing Meng Hao’s existence. It spread out toward the Black Lands. As for the stillness, it did not touch the Black Lands; it was limited to the area in the Western Desert surrounding the Crow Divinity Tribes. At the moment, Black Lands Palace Dao Child Luo Chong was sitting cross-legged in meditation. His body suddenly shook, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood. He looked up, an expression of confusion on his face.
In the Church of the Golden Light, the members of the congregation all began to tremble and cough up blood. Perplexed looks appeared on their faces, as if they had forgotten something, but weren’t sure what.
The invisible blade swept across the Black Lands, erasing any vestige that Meng Hao had ever been there. It continued on toward the Southern Domain.
Currently, Fatty was contentedly filing away at his teeth and holding a pretty girl in his arm. He was murmuring something to her when suddenly his body trembled and his face flickered. He then coughed up seven or eight mouthfuls of blood. His face was ashen as he looked around in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” asked the girl, looking alarmed as she rubbed him gently.
“Nothing…. It seems like… like I just forgot someone…. Weird.”
During this moment, it wasn’t just Fatty who was affected. Chen Fan and all the other people within whose memories existed the image of Meng Hao, suddenly coughed up blood and then looked around in confusion.
As of this moment, all traces of Meng Hao that existed within their memories were blotted out. All Karma threads of theirs which were entangled with Meng Hao were crushed.
As of now, their lives did not contain anyone who went by the name of Meng Hao, or of Grandmaster Pill Cauldron.
“Dammit, just how famous is this guy in the Southern Domain!?” said the archaic voice, sounding shocked. “There are so many people connected to him by Karma!” He sounded flustered and disbelieving. The art of Karmic Severing is a magic which consumes energy in correlation to the amount of connections that are severed. It was definitely an astonishing technique, but one needed to be careful when using it.
Xu Qing sat meditating in her Immortal’s cave in the Black Sieve Sect. It was evening outside. Suddenly she opened her eyes and let out a soft sigh. Her hand reached into her robe, where a small pill bottle was stored, within which was a Cosmetic Cultivation Pill.
It was at this moment that a tremor ran through her and she coughed up not one, but a total of nine mouthfuls of blood. Her face was pale, and she was shaking violently.
She could feel the existence of Meng Hao within her memories beginning to shake and collapse, forcibly being erased.
“NO!!” she cried. Her hair was instantly thrown into disarray, and she began to flash an incantation gesture to fight back. The only result was more coughing up of blood.
“Meng Hao…. Meng Hao….” Her Cultivation base began to rotate rapidly, as she prepared to use all the strength she could summon to resist.
However, even as her Cultivation base began to move, she said, “Meng Hao…. Who’s that?”
She sat there mutely, a blank expression on her face. She tried to remember who Meng Hao was, and why she was rotating her Cultivation base. She could tell that her heart was in the process of breaking, and unconsciously reached up to her face. She felt tears.
“Why do I hurt so much?” she thought. “Why am I crying?”
Throughout the Southern Domain an invisible Karmic storm raged. The raging tempest was strongest in the Violet Fate Sect. Everyone in the entire Sect trembled and coughed up blood.
Chu Yuyan’s face was pale, and her fists were clenched tightly. She laughed bitterly as she felt her memories changing; Meng Hao was being completely wiped away. She quickly lifted her hand up and then bit her tongue. Spitting the blood onto her finger, she began to write two characters onto the wall next to her: Meng Hao.
However, after she wrote the character Meng… her hand stopped moving and a look of bewilderment appeared on her face.
“What was I writing?”
Pill Demon sat in his short mountain, looking off into the sky. It wasn’t clear what he was thinking, but as the invisible blade neared him, he sat there and sighed.
“So, this day has finally come, has it…?” He shook his head bitterly, but a brilliant light shone in his eyes. He lifted his right hand, within which appeared a medicinal pill. The pill emanated an archaic Qi, and was clearly incredibly old.
“If you sever my apprentice’s Karma,” he thought, “then I will absolutely never give in and become an Immortal of the Ji Clan!” With that, he closed his eyes and watched in anguish as everything within his memories that existed regarding Meng Hao was turned into nothing but ash.
The pill in his hand emanated shocking aura, which caused these drifting pieces of memory ash to suddenly be reformed a new, unaffected.
“Dammit, he has something like that as his Master!!” echoed the archaic voice. It sounded furious. “It’s a pity my Cultivation base isn’t sufficient. If it were, then everything would be wiped out!”
The blade continued to sweep across the Southern Domain. However, when it reached the Rebirth Cave, the cold voice of a woman could be heard.
“A false Immortal from the Ji Clan. Do you truly dare to try to wipe out my memories? Screw off!”
The sound echoed out into the air. The archaic voice, filled with disbelief and alarm, weakly responded. “He’s even connected to that figure in the Rebirth Cave! Dammit! Dammit! Who else does this guy know? How come his Karma is so hard to sever!?”
1. A similar name was mentioned in chapter 310. In the original release, I translated it a bit different, but adjusted it later