Chapter 225 - Artifact Spirits and Ancient Remnants
Another seven days passed inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
During that time, Su Bai barely stayed in one place.
He followed the markings Lin Weiyang and the others had left throughout Layer Two, moving from ruin to ruin and checking every ancient weapon that had once shown an unusual spiritual signature.
The ancient spear accompanied him the entire way.
To Su Bai’s surprise, it proved extremely useful.
The artifact spirit could recognize its own kind.
Sometimes it sensed another artifact spirit before Su Bai even reached the weapon. Other times, it recognized the weapon itself from a distance, especially those that had once belonged to cultivators who fought near its former master.
Unfortunately, recognition did not always come with fond memories.
Su Bai stood before a massive saber buried halfway into a ruined stone platform.
The saber had not moved yet, but a faint spiritual pressure lingered around its corroded blade.
The ancient spear immediately trembled.
"That old saber is still here?"
Su Bai glanced toward it.
"You know it?"
"Know it?" The spear’s voice immediately became unpleasant. "Its spirit was insufferable even thousands of years ago. Every time its master cut through three enemies, it would boast as though the entire battlefield had been won by its blade."
The saber suddenly shook.
A deep voice erupted from within.
"Who is calling this great one insufferable?"
The ancient spear rose from the ground.
"You still call yourself ’this great one’? After all these years, you truly learned nothing."
The saber ripped itself free from the platform with a violent metallic screech.
"And you still sound like a dog that swallowed a spear shaft!"
Su Bai silently stepped several paces backward.
He had originally come here to investigate an artifact.
Instead, two ancient weapons that had survived countless years inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary were already arguing before he had even touched either of them.
Apparently, longevity did not improve temperament.
The saber’s spirit eventually noticed Su Bai.
Its spiritual pressure swept over him.
"A junior?"
The saber paused.
Its pressure swept over Su Bai again.
"...A naked junior?"
Su Bai’s expression remained calm.
The ancient spear immediately spoke.
"Ignore that. He has reasons."
Su Bai slowly turned toward it. For some reason, hearing the spear defend him only made the situation worse.
The saber trembled slightly.
"What sort of reasons require abandoning clothes?"
"Complicated ones," Su Bai replied.
The saber fell silent.
After several breaths, it apparently decided that some matters were better left unexplored.
Su Bai approached.
He had not come here because he needed another weapon. What interested him was the saber itself.
The ancient spear had already shown him how much could be learned from understanding the principles behind another weapon. If the saber possessed its own path, its own way of concentrating force and exploiting weakness, Su Bai wanted to study it as well.
Unfortunately, he did not have time to remain here and experiment for days. For now, he only wanted the saber to come with him.
But then, the answer was immediate.
"No."
The saber sank halfway back into the platform.
"This great one already had a master. That will not change simply because some junior wandered here."
Su Bai was not particularly surprised.
Most artifact spirits had formed deep bonds with their owners. Even after thousands of years, those connections had not disappeared merely because their masters were gone.
He had no intention of asking the saber to forget its former master. But he had also come all this way for a reason.
Before Su Bai could continue persuading it, the ancient spear spoke.
"Hmph. Stay here, then."
The saber trembled.
"What did you say?"
"I said stay here."
The spear’s tone remained disdainful, but something within its voice had changed.
"Weapons remember their masters. There is nothing shameful about that. If anything, a weapon that forgets the hand that carried it the moment that hand disappears is not worthy of possessing a spirit."
The saber stopped moving.
The spear continued.
"But loyalty and burial are not the same thing."
Su Bai looked toward it. Even he became quiet.
"We were forged to be wielded. We existed in battle because our masters trusted us to cut, pierce, guard, and kill where their own hands could not. Do you truly believe they gave us spirits so that when they died, we could spend ten thousand years rusting beside their bones?"
The saber’s pressure slowly settled.
The ancient spear lowered slightly.
"Another wielder will never become the one we lost. They should not. The past does not need replacing."
Its voice became quieter.
"But carrying another hand does not erase the first."
"We can remember who forged us. We can remember who wielded us. We can remember every battlefield we crossed beside them. None of that changes merely because we choose to move forward."
The surrounding ruins became strangely still.
"If you truly believe your master’s final wish was for you to remain buried here until your spirit fades and your blade becomes dust, then remain."
The spear turned away.
"But do not call decay loyalty."
For once, the saber had no immediate reply.
Su Bai stared at the ancient spear.
He had spent more than two weeks listening to it curse him, his needles, his ancestors, his cultivation, and occasionally his lack of clothing.
He had not expected something like that from it.
The saber remained silent for a long time. Finally, it pulled itself completely free from the stone.
"I will not acknowledge that junior as my master."
Su Bai nodded.
"I wasn’t asking you to."
"I will not allow him to refine me."
"That’s fine."
The saber floated into the air.
Thus, Su Bai somehow acquired another ancient weapon following him.
...
The next weapon was a longbow hanging from the skeletal remains of an ancient watchtower.
The moment the spear saw it, its mood worsened again.
"That bow is still alive? Hmph. I thought its spirit died during the western line collapse."
A calm voice answered from the tower before they reached it.
"I almost did."
The spear paused.
The voice continued.
"Unfortunately, I survived long enough to hear you again."
Su Bai looked between the two weapons.
"You know each other too?"
"Regrettably," both artifact spirits replied at almost the same time.
Su Bai nodded.
That was enough explanation.
The bow’s spirit proved less stubborn than the saber, although it initially refused to leave the tower.
Its former master had died defending that position, and the bow had remained there ever since.
The ancient spear gave almost the same argument.
It did not tell the bow to forget. It did not claim Su Bai deserved its loyalty.
It merely asked whether remaining in one ruined tower until its spirit vanished was truly the path its former master would have wanted for it.
The bow took considerably less time to decide.
It followed.
...
The third artifact spirit belonged to a heavy war hammer.
The spear hated it immediately.
The hammer hated the spear even more.
Their first conversation lasted less than ten breaths before both weapons tried to strike each other.
Su Bai had to stand between them.
That was when the hammer finally noticed him properly.
"...Why are you naked?"
Su Bai closed his eyes.
The spear laughed.
The saber laughed louder.
Even the bow released a faint vibration that suspiciously resembled amusement.
Su Bai opened his eyes again.
He silently made a decision.
When he eventually began experimenting on these weapons, he would make sure to use every single one thoroughly.
Especially the hammer. Perhaps the spear again too.
...
By the end of the week, the situation had become increasingly absurd.
Several ancient weapons now trailed Su Bai as he moved through Layer Two.
Not all of them had agreed to be wielded by him. Some merely wanted to leave the place where they had remained for thousands of years.
One asked Su Bai to help it find a suitable future wielder.
Another refused to acknowledge anyone until it personally tested them.
A third claimed it would follow temporarily because it wanted to see whether the cultivation world outside Fallen-Star Sanctuary still possessed anyone worthy of touching its handle.
Su Bai accepted all of those conditions.
He had not refined any of them. For now, gathering them was enough.
The real problem was that artifact spirits possessed personalities.
"What do you mean your master broke more formations than mine?"
"He did."
"Your master spent half the war standing behind a wall!"
"Because unlike yours, mine understood the concept of surviving."
"Repeat that."
"I said—"
"Enough."
Su Bai’s voice cut through the argument.
The weapons became quiet.
For approximately three breaths.
The saber shifted toward the spear.
"Your point is crooked."
The spear erupted.
"MY POINT IS NOT CROOKED!"
Su Bai rubbed his forehead.
He had once imagined ancient artifact spirits as dignified remnants of a glorious era.
That impression had survived exactly one week.
’So even artifact spirits have rivalries.’
He glanced at the weapons floating behind him.
Some of it probably came from the personalities of their former masters.
The rest might simply be the inevitable result of intelligent weapons spending thousands of years remembering the same battles and disagreeing over who had performed better.
Whatever the reason, Su Bai had developed a headache.
He still had not begun experimenting with them.
That could wait.
Before the surviving Returnees discovered where he was moving, Su Bai intended to gather every advantage available to him.
The ancient weapons were only part of what he found.
Two other discoveries were considerably more dangerous.
...
The first was a broken halberd buried beneath the collapsed remains of an ancient command post.
The moment Su Bai approached, every artifact spirit following him became unusually alert.
The bow spoke first.
"That is not one of us."
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He had already encountered this situation once.
"A remnant soul?"
"Most likely."
The spear sounded much less playful now.
"Do not touch it carelessly."
Su Bai looked at the broken halberd.
A faint spiritual fluctuation emerged from within.
Su Bai smiled slightly.
The spear immediately noticed.
"Why are you smiling?"
"Nothing."
"Brat, I have learned that your ’nothing’ is never nothing."
Su Bai approached anyway.
Several weapons shifted uneasily behind him.
The halberd trembled.
A hoarse voice entered Su Bai’s mind.
"You..."
The surrounding spiritual pressure changed.
"Come closer."
The artifact spirits became even more tense.
Su Bai continued walking.
Finally, the remnant soul reached outward.
Su Bai allowed it.
The moment the foreign spiritual force established a deeper connection, the remnant soul moved.
Its intention became clear immediately.
Possession.
The artifact spirits reacted at once.
The spear shot forward. The saber’s edge erupted with pressure. The bowstring tightened without an arrow.
Yet before any of them could interfere, Su Bai’s sea of consciousness swallowed the invading presence.
The remnant soul disappeared.
Silence followed.
The spear froze in midair. The saber stopped. The bowstring slowly loosened.
The hammer spoke first.
"...Where did it go?"
Su Bai stood quietly.
Deep within him, the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele shone. Golden radiance emerged from the Blank Stele.
The remnant soul struggled, but it did not struggle for long.
Golden radiance spread from the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele as the ancient consciousness was drawn deeper within.
Moments later, the final trace of its presence disappeared.
Outside, the surrounding artifact spirits immediately noticed the change.
The spiritual presence that had entered Su Bai was simply gone.
None of them knew what had happened.
Inside Su Bai, new characters gradually appeared across the surface of the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele.
Stroke after stroke formed until the final inscription was completed.
Only then did the inheritance descend. A vivid memory unfolded within Su Bai’s mind. Technique, comprehension, and experience followed the memory together.
Su Bai remained motionless as the inheritance settled into his mind.
Only after several breaths did he slowly open his eyes.
The ancient weapons around him were unusually quiet.
The spear finally spoke.
"Brat... where did that old fellow go?"
Su Bai looked toward it.
"Gone."
The spear trembled slightly.
"I noticed that. I am asking how."
Su Bai thought about it for a moment.
"It’s complicated."
The hammer quietly shifted a little farther away from him.
Su Bai noticed.
He chose not to comment.
...
The second remnant soul was discovered two days later.
By then, the artifact spirits reacted very differently.
A cracked ancient blade lay beneath the remains of a collapsed pavilion.
The saber sensed the consciousness within first.
"Another remnant."
The spear immediately turned toward Su Bai.
Su Bai approached the blade.
The artifact spirits exchanged spiritual fluctuations behind him.
Nobody tried to stop him this time. They merely watched.
Just then, the remnant awakened.
The process was different, but the result was ultimately the same.
The old soul tested Su Bai. It spoke cautiously. It concealed its intentions. It attempted to gain access to his sea of consciousness gradually.
Su Bai allowed enough of the connection to form.
The moment the remnant finally revealed hostile intent, everything changed.
It failed.
The Dao-Devouring Blank Stele awakened.
By the time the surrounding artifact spirits understood what had happened, the second ancient soul was already gone.
More memories entered Su Bai’s mind.
Another cultivation method was completed and recorded upon the Blank Stele.
Su Bai stood motionless for several breaths while sorting through the flood of information.
The artifact spirits remained unusually quiet. Even the ancient spear had nothing to say. That was far more disturbing than hearing it curse.
Su Bai eventually opened his eyes.
Several weapons immediately shifted backward.
He frowned.
"What?"
The saber spoke carefully.
"You truly survived both possession attempts."
Su Bai nodded.
"Obviously."
The bow’s voice remained calm, but the way its spiritual pressure rested upon him had changed.
"Those souls were not weak when they lived."
"I know."
The war hammer finally asked the question everyone seemed to be thinking.
"What exactly are you?"
Su Bai considered it.
"As far as I know, human."
The ancient spear groaned.
"You gave the last old soul the same answer."
"It remains accurate."
Nobody argued.
Their attitude toward Su Bai had changed.
Surviving Ashen-Blood Miasma was already strange.
Walking around Fallen-Star Sanctuary completely naked while treating its hostile environment as cultivation resources was stranger.
But allowing ancient cultivators to attempt possession and somehow emerging unharmed while the remnant souls disappeared completely was something else.
The artifact spirits had followed powerful masters before. They knew the difference between current strength and potential.
Su Bai was nowhere near their former masters.
That much was obvious.
Yet none of them could ignore what they had witnessed.
His current cultivation was insignificant compared to the Void-Shattering commanders they remembered.
His future was much harder to judge.
The spear slowly rotated toward the others.
"Hmph."
Its familiar arrogance returned.
"Now you understand why this one chose to accompany him."
Su Bai looked at it.
"I thought you were accompanying me so you could watch me die."
The spear froze.
The saber immediately laughed. The bow followed. Even the hammer shook.
The ancient spear’s spiritual pressure erupted.
"THAT IS STILL THE REASON!"
Su Bai smiled.
For the first time, the other artifact spirits did not merely look at him as an unfamiliar junior carrying them through an ancient prison.
There was curiosity now, expectation, and perhaps even a little excitement.
If this strange young cultivator truly survived Fallen-Star Sanctuary and returned to the outside world, none of them knew how far he might eventually go.