Chapter 223 - The Ancient Spear and the Flaw-Piercing Point
Whoosh!
The ancient spear tore across the ruined battlefield and narrowly avoided smashing through another collapsed wall.
"Brat! Bring this one down at once!"
Its furious voice echoed through the surrounding ruins.
Su Bai did not respond.
His attention remained fixed on the spear as it curved through the air under the guidance of his spiritual sense and Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent.
Getting this far had already taken considerably more effort than he expected.
When he first tried touching the spear, the artifact spirit had repelled him immediately. Even now, it had certainly not accepted him.
Fortunately, Su Bai had never intended to refine it.
After several attempts, he discovered that the weapon’s rejection was directed primarily toward his spiritual control and physical contact. His Flaw-Piercing meaning interacted with it differently.
Perhaps the artifact spirit had weakened after remaining inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary for countless years, or perhaps its momentary curiosity toward his Needle Intent had created an opening.
Whatever the reason, Su Bai had managed to spread his Intent around the spearhead before the artifact spirit realized what he was doing.
By the time it reacted, Su Bai had already established enough influence to guide the spear through the air.
He could not control it completely. The artifact spirit could still resist.
It had been proving that very enthusiastically ever since.
"Release this one! If my master were still alive, he would have split you apart from head to toe for this humiliation!"
The spear suddenly jerked sideways.
Su Bai corrected its trajectory.
It jerked again.
Su Bai adjusted again.
The ancient spear began trembling violently.
"Stop treating this one like some flying needle!"
Su Bai’s expression remained serious.
That was exactly what he was trying to do.
Unfortunately, it was also why the experiment was going badly.
He raised two fingers. The spear accelerated.
A broken stone pillar stood several hundred meters ahead. Su Bai’s spiritual sense swept across it and quickly identified a long fracture running through its center.
His Intent locked onto that weakness.
The spear shot forward.
For a moment, everything seemed right.
The point was aligned. The trajectory was correct. The flaw had already been identified.
Yet the moment the spear approached the target, its rear end shifted slightly.
The small deviation traveled along the entire shaft.
Bang!
The spearhead still struck the fracture, but instead of piercing cleanly through it, the weapon slammed sideways into the stone.
Half the pillar exploded.
The spear spun through the debris before Su Bai pulled it back into the air.
"You see?!"
The artifact spirit sounded vindicated despite having just been thrown into a wall.
"This one is a spear! A spear! Do you finally understand the difference?"
Su Bai frowned.
"I understand that you’re difficult to throw."
The spear trembled.
"That is not what this one meant!"
Su Bai ignored the complaint and examined what had happened.
The problem was not simply weight.
A Qi needle was small enough that adjusting its trajectory required little effort. As long as the point remained aligned with the flaw, Su Bai could curve its flight repeatedly without losing much efficiency.
The spear was different.
The point might be the part that pierced, but the rest of the weapon could not be ignored.
Its shaft carried weight. Its balance determined whether the spearhead remained aligned. Its momentum traveled through the entire weapon before concentrating at the tip.
Trying to guide only the point while treating the rest like unnecessary material made the entire attack unstable.
Su Bai’s eyes brightened slightly.
He brought the spear back.
The artifact spirit immediately became suspicious.
"What are you planning now?"
"Again."
"No."
The spear flew forward anyway.
"You shameless brat!"
This time, Su Bai did not merely guide the spearhead.
His spiritual sense spread across the entire weapon.
The spear resisted immediately, but Su Bai had no interest in controlling its artifact spirit. He only adjusted the force surrounding the weapon, keeping its center balanced while directing its momentum toward another damaged structure.
The result improved considerably.
Boom!
The spear pierced into the stone rather than striking sideways. A large section shattered around it.
The artifact spirit fell silent for half a breath.
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.
He tried gain.
The spear ripped itself free and shot toward another target.
"Did this one agree?!"
Su Bai adjusted the angle.
The spearhead entered a crack. The shaft remained aligned. Momentum followed.
The entire weapon drove through the damaged stone and emerged from the other side.
Su Bai stared at the hole.
The artifact spirit sounded much more pleased with itself.
"Now do you understand? A spear does not flutter around like one of your little needles. The whole weapon must move as one!"
Su Bai slowly nodded.
That was true.
The spear was not simply a large pointed object.
Its power came from unity.
The tip pierced, but the shaft delivered the force.
Its weight supported the strike.
Its balance kept that force aligned.
Its momentum ensured that once the point entered, everything behind it followed.
The spearhead was only the final destination of everything the rest of the weapon had prepared.
Su Bai sent it flying again.
The artifact spirit complained throughout the entire journey, but its protests gradually became background noise.
He tested different speeds, different angles, and different amounts of Qi.
He deliberately forced the spear to curve and watched how much momentum was lost.
He launched it straight and observed how much easier the entire weapon transferred its strength when nothing interfered with its line.
The distinction became clearer with every attempt.
A spear could pierce because everything behind its point supported that point.
A needle possessed almost none of those natural advantages.
Its body was light. Its momentum was limited. Its mass could never compare with a spear.
Trying to make a needle powerful by copying a spear would always be inefficient.
Su Bai’s brows slowly drew together.
The artifact spirit had just smashed through another ruined structure when it started shouting again.
"If you launch this one into another pile of rubble, this one swears that once my strength recovers, I will personally—"
Su Bai recalled it abruptly.
The spear stopped in front of him.
He stared at its point.
The artifact spirit paused.
"What?"
Su Bai did not answer. Something was bothering him.
His Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent had always begun with the same principle.
Everything possessed a flaw. Once that flaw was found, the needle only needed to reach it.
That understanding had allowed his Qi needles to follow moving weaknesses, adjust their trajectories, and strike places ordinary attacks might overlook.
But he had still been thinking too much about the flaw itself.
Find the weakness. Reach the weakness. Pierce the weakness.
He had treated everything before contact as preparation.
The spear showed him something different.
Its entire existence during an attack was organized around its point.
The shaft did not compete with the spearhead. Its weight did not act separately. Its momentum did not exist for its own sake.
Every part of the weapon served the same destination.
The point.
Su Bai’s gaze sharpened.
A needle could not imitate the spear’s mass. It did not need to.
The difference in size did not matter. The principle did.
The spear gathered everything it possessed behind one point. Why had Su Bai’s needles not been doing the same?
His Qi guided the weapon. His spiritual sense searched for the flaw. His Intent locked onto it. His trajectory corrected itself. His force struck afterward.
They worked together, but they were still separate parts of the attack.
Su Bai suddenly became motionless.
The ancient spear hovered several meters away.
The artifact spirit noticed immediately.
"Brat?"
Su Bai did not hear it.
He activated the Dao-Shattering Jade. Qi disappeared from his reserves. A faint purple mark appeared between his brows.
His perception changed.
The spear before him seemed to separate into countless simpler principles.
At the same time, the countless experiments he had performed with needles returned to his mind.
Different methods, different forms. Yet all of them eventually arrived at the same question.
What mattered when the needle reached the flaw?
Su Bai’s breathing slowed.
The spear spirit talked.
"You bra—"
Its voice stopped. The furious pressure surrounding the weapon gradually settled.
It had lived long enough to recognize what was happening.
Su Bai had entered an epiphany.
For all its temper, the artifact spirit did not interrupt. It remained suspended quietly in the air.
Inside Su Bai, the Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent Seed began trembling.
The tiny illusory needle had carried the faintest trace of damage for days.
That final line now began to disappear. The remaining crack closed as the understanding supporting the Intent Seed became more complete.
But the change did not end there.
The illusory needle grew clearer. Its formerly hazy outline sharpened. The meaning surrounding it, which had once spread outward like an indistinct pressure, began contracting toward the needle itself.
Su Bai’s thoughts became increasingly clear.
A spear did not pierce because its point alone was powerful. Its entire structure existed to deliver everything into that point.
The needle could go further.
It did not need greater mass. It did not need overwhelming momentum. It did not need the force of a spear.
What it needed was for nothing within the attack to be wasted.
Spiritual sense should not merely find the flaw. It should guide everything toward it.
Qi should not simply power the needle. It should converge upon the point that would enter the flaw.
Intent should not loosely surround the attack. It should exist for that single penetration.
Trajectory, timing, force, Qi, and meaning had no reason to remain separate once the flaw was chosen.
Everything could become part of the same act.
He had been treating the flaw as the destination, when it should have shaped the attack from the very beginning.
His Intent Seed trembled again. The illusory needle became visibly denser.
It still remained an Intent Seed. It had not yet crossed that final boundary and become complete Needle Intent.
But Su Bai could feel how close it had become.
His previous understanding had been simple.
Find the flaw and pierce it.
Now it had changed.
Once the flaw was chosen, the entire attack should exist only to pierce that flaw.
Everything else became unnecessary.
Su Bai opened his eyes. The purple mark from the Dao-Shattering Jade gradually faded.
The spear remained floating nearby. For once, the artifact spirit said nothing.
Su Bai lowered his gaze toward his hand.
A Qi needle appeared naturally above his palm.
It looked identical to the countless Qi needles he had used before. Yet the moment Su Bai allowed Flaw-Piercing meaning to enter it, the difference became obvious.
The Intent no longer spread loosely through the entire needle.
It contracted. Qi followed. Every trace of force within the weapon began aligning toward the tip.
Su Bai looked toward a half-collapsed stone structure in the distance.
His spiritual sense found a fracture hidden beneath several overlapping layers of ancient stone.
The flaw was not particularly large.
Before, his needle would have curved toward it and attempted to penetrate through the weakest point.
This time, Su Bai felt something else happen.
The instant he locked onto the flaw, the entire attack reorganized itself.
The Qi condensed, the trajectory settled, and the intent narrowed.
Nothing remained that did not contribute to the chosen point.
Su Bai flicked his finger. The needle disappeared.
The artifact spirit trembled.
It had fought beside a Void-Shattering commander. It had seen countless weapons cross battlefields.
Yet for a moment, even it struggled to follow the tiny needle.
The needle struck.
There was no tremendous explosion at first. A tiny hole appeared in the damaged structure.
A heartbeat later, the flaw collapsed. Cracks erupted outward from the point of impact, racing through the surrounding stone.
Boom!
The entire upper section of the structure broke apart and fell into the ruins.
Su Bai stared.
His needle had not suddenly gained the raw force of the ancient spear. The attack had simply wasted far less of what it already possessed.
Instead of distributing force across the surrounding stone, everything had entered through the weakness he selected.
Once that point failed, the damaged structure destroyed itself.
Su Bai’s smile slowly widened.
This was different from merely improving accuracy. His Flaw-Piercing Needle had taken another step.
The artifact spirit remained silent behind him.
Su Bai turned.
The spear immediately straightened.
For some reason, the proud ancient weapon suddenly looked extremely alert.
Su Bai glanced from the spearhead to the ruined structure.
His smile widened further.
The artifact spirit felt something it had not experienced for a very long time.
Regret.
"Brat."
Its voice had lost some of its earlier arrogance.
"What are you looking at?"
Su Bai approached.
The spear shifted backward.
"You already learned what you wanted. There is no need to continue this ridiculous exercise."
Su Bai stopped in front of it.
"Senior Spear."
The artifact spirit became suspicious immediately.
"What?"
Su Bai looked along its nearly two-person-long shaft before returning his gaze to the spearhead.
His expression became thoughtful again.
"You taught me how a spear makes everything serve its point."
The artifact spirit hesitated. Its pride briefly overcame its suspicion.
"Naturally. Perhaps now you finally understand why a spear cannot be compared to your tiny—"
Su Bai raised his hand. Flaw-Piercing meaning gathered around his fingers again.
"Now I want to see what happens when the whole spear serves a needle."
The ancient weapon immediately shot backward.
"STAY AWAY FROM THIS ONE!"