Chapter 213 - The Empty Flesh and the Endless Essence
Before touching the sealed source, Su Bai sent a trace of spiritual sense backward through the Nether Threads he had left along his route.
The network remained quiet.
He withdrew his spiritual sense and looked at the enormous mass beneath the ancient sword.
The sealed source had never answered his question.
Su Bai considered that understandable.
If someone approached him with a knife and asked which part tasted best, he probably would not offer useful advice either.
Unfortunately for the sealed source, its lack of cooperation merely meant Su Bai would have to experiment.
He moved closer.
The immense black-red mass beneath the sword shifted immediately.
Several slits along its surface tightened while thick veins disappeared deeper beneath the flesh.
"DO NOT APPROACH, LITTLE WRONG BLOOM."
The voice entered through Su Bai’s bones rather than his ears.
"YOU HAVE STOLEN ENOUGH."
Su Bai continued forward until he stood within a comfortable distance of the platform.
The flesh beneath the sword shuddered.
His eyebrows rose slightly.
"What a stubborn meal."
The reaction was immediate.
Several sealed sources across the altar stirred beneath their respective weapons, and the ancient formations groaned as overlapping voices pressed into Su Bai from every direction.
"BLASPHEMOUS THING."
"YOU NAME THAT WHICH ENDURED YOUR IMMORTALS AS MEAT?"
"WE REMEMBER WHEN YOUR KIND CRAWLED BENEATH HEAVEN WITH STONE IN THEIR HANDS."
Su Bai listened quietly.
They certainly had opinions.
Unfortunately, none of those opinions changed the fact that the nearest one was pinned beneath an ancient sword and could not physically stop him from approaching.
That realization had changed the situation considerably.
Su Bai opened his system inventory. His flying sword appeared beside him.
His Qi flowed into the sword.
The blade rose into the air and hovered several meters from the sealed source.
Su Bai deliberately remained farther back.
Discovering that the creature was unable to leave its seal did not mean he intended to place his face directly beside an ancient abomination just to prove a point.
His spiritual sense spread across the nearest portion of exposed flesh.
The surface was thick and uneven, crossed by black-red veins that moved slowly beneath layers of tissue. Su Bai chose an area well away from the ancient sword and the central mass where the strange pressure felt strongest.
The flying sword tilted. A cold gleam passed across the blade.
Su Bai moved two fingers.
The sword swept sideways.
A thick chunk of flesh separated cleanly from the sealed source and landed heavily on the stone.
Su Bai stared at it.
The sealed source became quiet.
For several breaths, neither side reacted.
Su Bai had expected resistance.
He had expected hardened flesh, defensive miasma, strange regeneration, perhaps even the flying sword breaking against the surface.
Instead, the blade had passed through almost effortlessly.
The piece on the ground was large enough to feed several ordinary people.
Su Bai’s first thought was that this had gone considerably better than expected.
His second thought arrived when his spiritual sense entered the severed flesh.
His expression flattened.
There was nothing useful inside. The severed flesh contained no active Ashen-Blood essence, no strange vitality, and none of the dense origin traces Su Bai had found in the fragments he had previously consumed.
The chunk was flesh in appearance alone.
It felt so thoroughly dead that even the earlier inert fragments stored in his jade boxes seemed lively by comparison.
Su Bai looked from the severed piece to the wound.
The sealed source finally spoke. Its voice carried satisfaction now.
"CUT UNTIL YOUR LITTLE BLADE BREAKS."
Another voice emerged from deeper beneath the ancient sword.
"YOU WILL TAKE ONLY WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY ABANDONED."
A third joined it from elsewhere across the altar.
"FLESH THIEF, YOU WILL CARVE NOTHING FROM US THAT STILL REMEMBERS ITS ROOT."
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed slightly.
’So that was how they intended to resist.’
He looked at the dead chunk again.
It was completely worthless for what he wanted.
His stomach growled faintly.
Su Bai felt personally betrayed.
"That is disappointing."
The sealed mass shifted beneath the sword.
"LEAVE."
Su Bai looked back at it.
Once could be coincidence. Ten times would be research.
The flying sword rose again.
The second cut came from a different angle.
Another piece fell.
Su Bai checked it immediately.
Dead.
The third cut came from higher along the exposed mass.
The result was the same.
Su Bai adjusted the sword and tried a thinner slice, wondering whether the sealed source needed time to react before withdrawing whatever made the flesh valuable.
The fourth piece was empty before it touched the ground.
He increased the speed.
The fifth cut came almost immediately after the fourth.
Still nothing.
Su Bai’s expression became more serious.
The sealed source had not simply been lucky. It was doing something deliberately.
By the eighth cut, several voices were openly mocking him.
"CUT DEEPER, LITTLE THIEF."
"SEARCH FOR WHAT WILL NOT BE GIVEN."
"YOUR HUNGER WILL LEAVE WITH EMPTY HANDS."
Su Bai ignored them.
The ninth cut removed another thick piece.
He examined it, found nothing, and shifted his attention back toward the main body instead of the severed flesh.
Something had changed.
The wound from his cuts were still there.
Su Bai stopped moving the sword.
The sealed source became noticeably quieter.
His spiritual sense passed carefully across the damaged areas.
The flesh surrounding the ancient sword still moved.
Veins continued pulsing deeper within the mass, but something about the wounds caught Su Bai’s attention.
The places he had cut remained raw and unchanged. The surrounding flesh showed no sign of closing over the missing sections, even after several breaths.
Su Bai’s gaze sharpened.
That was strange.
Everything he had seen of these creatures suggested an absurd vitality. Even severed fragments could remain active while separated from the main body, yet the wounds he had created showed no response at all.
The tenth cut fell.
This time, Su Bai did not immediately examine the severed piece.
His spiritual sense stayed on the sealed source.
Just before the flying sword reached the flesh, something retreated.
It happened extremely quickly.
The dense presence inside that section contracted inward, drawing away from the coming blade before the metal touched it.
By the time the cut completed, the severed piece had already become empty.
Su Bai’s eyes brightened.
He understood now.
The sealed source was withdrawing its essence from every area he targeted.
It was abandoning the flesh.
The moment Su Bai committed to a cut, the creature pulled whatever truly belonged to it deeper into the remaining body, leaving behind tissue that was already spiritually dead before separation.
That explained why every harvested piece was useless.
It also explained why the wounds were not closing.
The sealed source had not merely moved essence away temporarily. It had completely abandoned those sections.
Su Bai looked over the growing collection of wounds.
The sealed mass was visibly smaller than when he had approached.
A slow smile appeared on his face.
Several slits across the creature closed at once.
Su Bai understood another part of the strategy.
The sealed source was buying time.
It did not need to defeat him.
It only needed to deny him anything valuable until the Deep-Step creations returned.
Once those things arrived, Su Bai would have far greater problems than obtaining dinner.
"Truly worthy of being an ancient menace."
His voice carried genuine admiration.
The sealed source remained silent.
Su Bai’s smile widened.
"So you’re sacrificing the flesh before I can take the essence and waiting for your servants to return."
A slit opened reluctantly.
"You understand nothing."
"Perhaps."
Su Bai raised the flying sword again.
"But I understand enough."
The blade accelerated.
The eleventh cut removed another piece.
It was empty, but Su Bai did not care.
By the fifteenth cut, the exposed mass had visibly shrunk.
The voices across the altar stopped mocking him.
Su Bai continued.
The sixteenth cut landed.
"CEASE."
He ignored it.
The seventeenth removed another lump.
"FLESH THIEF."
The eighteenth followed immediately.
"YOU GAIN NOTHING."
Su Bai examined the increasingly diminished body beneath the sword.
"That’s fine."
The nineteenth cut left another raw, dead wound.
"If you don’t mind losing it, I don’t mind cutting it."
The twentieth blade stroke had barely finished when the sealed source convulsed beneath the ancient sword.
Ancient light erupted along the weapon and forced the movement back down.
"STOP, FLESH THIEF."
The words drove through Su Bai’s skeleton hard enough that his bones felt cold.
"YOU PROFANE A BODY THAT YOUR ANCIENTS COULD ONLY BIND."
Su Bai glanced toward the twenty dead pieces scattered across the platform.
"You’re the one killing them."
The altar fell strangely quiet.
Su Bai tilted his head.
"I only cut afterward."
Several sealed sources erupted into overlapping curses.
The ancient sword above the nearest mass brightened as the creature beneath it struggled hard enough to trigger the seal again.
Su Bai’s flying sword did not stop.
The twenty-first piece fell.
The twenty-second followed.
By now, he was no longer experimenting with elaborate angles.
He had learned what mattered.
He simply cut.
Whenever the sealed source withdrew its essence, Su Bai removed the abandoned tissue.
Whenever it tried to shift the valuable portion away from the blade, he adjusted the next cut toward whatever remained.
The creature could deny him essence.
Su Bai could make that decision expensive.
The platform gradually filled with useless dead flesh.
The sealed mass had become noticeably smaller.
Its previously thick folds of flesh had thinned around the ancient sword, while several areas that once pulsed with veins were now flat, empty wounds.
Su Bai briefly checked his Nether Threads again.
"Still safe."
Those two words seemed to disturb the creature more than another curse would have.
The twenty-sixth cut landed.
"YOU WILL REGRET EVERY SLICE."
The twenty-seventh followed.
"WHEN THE SEAL BREAKS, WE WILL RETURN EACH WOUND TO YOUR BODY."
Su Bai guided the sword around another thick fold.
"Please remember the count accurately."
The twenty-eighth piece fell.
The voice inside his bones twisted with fury.
"INSOLENT THING."
Su Bai raised the blade for the twenty-ninth cut.
A subtle hesitation passed through the flesh.
He noticed.
The sword descended.
Another useless piece separated.
Twenty-nine.
Su Bai looked at what remained.
The creature beneath the ancient sword was still enormous compared with a human body, but the difference from when he began was impossible to ignore.
For the first time, the sealed source seemed to understand that Su Bai was not going to become frustrated and leave.
He would continue.
If every cut produced dead flesh, he would simply keep reducing the body until there was considerably less ancient abomination left to curse him.
The flying sword rose for the thirtieth time.
The entire mass contracted.
"ENOUGH."
Su Bai paused.
The word carried something different. Urgency had finally broken through the ancient arrogance.
"YOU BLASPHEMOUS VERMIN."
"TAKE WHAT YOU CAME FOR."
"TAKE IT AND CRAWL AWAY BEFORE THE DEEP-STEP ONES RETURN."
The nearest mass writhed once beneath the sword.
"BUT KNOW WHAT YOUR LITTLE MIND CANNOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT YOU CUT CANNOT END US."
Another voice folded into it.
"OUR ESSENCE RETURNS TO THE ROOT."
A third followed, older and deeper than the others.
"YOUR IMMORTALS BURNED US. CUT US. BROKE OUR VESSELS UNTIL MOUNTAINS WERE HEAPED WITH FLESH."
The ancient sword hummed.
"STILL WE RETURNED."
The voices pressed through Su Bai’s bones together.
"THAT IS WHY THEY BURIED STEEL IN OUR BODIES AND CALLED THEIR FAILURE A SEAL."
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.
That was an interesting claim.
He did not believe it simply because an ancient abomination said it.
But there was something he could test immediately.
The flying sword descended.
The thirtieth cut passed through the flesh.
A thick piece separated.
The moment it struck the stone, Su Bai felt the difference.
His spiritual sense entered it.
Dense Ashen-Blood essence answered him.
Strange vitality remained woven through the flesh, far richer than anything contained in the loose fragments he had collected earlier.
The connection to the sealed source had been severed, but the essence itself had not been withdrawn before the cut.
Su Bai’s eyes brightened.
’Finally.’
At the same time, movement appeared along the wound left behind. Black-red tissue began creeping across the exposed surface.
Thin veins extended into the missing section.
The flesh was regenerating.
Su Bai stared.
The earlier dead wounds had remained exactly as they were.
This one was already closing.
Su Bai began thinking.
When it killed the essence inside a section before he severed it, that tissue remained dead and the wound did not immediately regenerate.
When it allowed the essence to remain and Su Bai cut the flesh normally, the missing portion began rebuilding itself.
That seemed backward at first.
But if the sealed sources’ claim contained some truth, the reason became clearer.
Their visible flesh was not the most important part.
The deeper root was.
Essence-bearing tissue remained connected to that regenerative principle until the moment of separation, allowing the surviving body to rebuild what had been lost.
But when the sealed source itself withdrew everything and deliberately killed a section before the cut, it was effectively creating dead territory within its own body.
Recovering that abandoned tissue was apparently much harder than replacing an ordinary wound.
Su Bai looked down at the first worthwhile piece.
He did not know whether their essence was truly endless.
Perhaps it regenerated slowly.
Perhaps the root drew power from somewhere else.
Perhaps there was a limit that even these creatures preferred not to reveal.
Those questions could wait.
One fact mattered right now.
Essence-bearing flesh regenerated.
Su Bai’s stomach growled.
His gaze returned to the sealed source.
The creature beneath the ancient sword suddenly stopped moving.
Su Bai lifted the essence-rich flesh with Qi and placed it carefully inside a large jade box.
He looked at the size of the jade box.
That might be enough for one proper meal.
Unfortunately, he was still hungry.
His eyes slowly returned to the regenerating flesh.
The sealed source seemed to understand his thought before he moved.
"NO."
Su Bai’s expression brightened.
The flying sword rose.
"YOU HAVE TAKEN WHAT YOU DEMANDED."
"I never said I only wanted one."
The blade flashed.
A second essence-rich piece separated.
The sealed source screamed through his bones.
This time, it did not withdraw the essence.
The wound began regenerating almost immediately.
Su Bai stored the piece.
The sword moved again.
"STOP."
A third piece fell.
"FLESH THIEF, YOU WERE GIVEN YOUR PORTION."
Su Bai guided the sword toward another thick section.
"Given?"
His eyebrows rose.
"I remember cutting thirty times."
The fourth essence-rich piece entered another jade box.
The ancient formations trembled.
Several voices cursed him at once.
"GLUTTONOUS ABOMINATION."
"YOU EAT WHAT SHOULD EAT YOU."
"YOUR HUNGER HAS NO SHAME."
Su Bai considered the accusation while the flying sword removed another carefully measured portion.
That one went into storage as well.
"Coming from you, that feels unfair."
The curses became worse.
Su Bai continued cutting.
He no longer removed enormous pieces unnecessarily. Now that he had obtained what he wanted, every cut became deliberate.
He selected sections dense with the strange essence while avoiding the ancient sword and the deepest region around what the sealed sources called the root.
Each harvested piece entered a jade box immediately.
Each wound began regenerating afterward.
The sealed source could have returned to killing its own flesh before every cut.
It tried once.
Su Bai noticed the essence disappear from the targeted section. His sword stopped halfway.
The creature became still.
Su Bai moved the blade several feet to the side.
The essence shifted away again.
His smile returned.
"Are we doing this again?"
The sealed source did not answer.
Su Bai looked meaningfully at the dozens of dead wounds that still had not recovered.
The essence flowed back into the threatened flesh.
Su Bai nodded approvingly.
"Good."
The next cut contained essence.
For an existence that had endured thousands of years beneath immortal steel, the sealed source learned surprisingly quickly when stubbornness became expensive.
The cutting resumed.