Chapter 180 - The Blood That Could Not Drown
Su Bai dragged the carrier deep into the red mist.
Outpost No. 3 vanished behind him.
Here, there was only mist, and the thing in his grip.
The human figure struggled violently, but Nether Threads bound its wrist, elbow, shoulder, throat, waist, and legs. Su Bai pulled it across broken stone and miasma-soaked earth, dragging it farther and farther from the damaged boundary.
The pulsing flesh fragment wrapped in torn cloth beat against the figure’s chest like a second heart.
Every pulse released more Ashen-Blood Miasma. The mist around them thickened until it moved almost like water.
Su Bai stopped only after he judged the distance enough.
His eyes cooled, then he raised one hand.
A qi needle appeared between his fingers.
But then, the carrier’s head snapped up.
Its body changed.
The shape remained human, but something inside it seemed to loosen all at once. Its bones shifted without breaking. Its skin rippled as if the flesh beneath had forgotten the proper arrangement of a person.
The Nether Threads binding its joints tightened, then slid strangely across the surface of its body.
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.
The next instant, the carrier tore free.
The Nether Threads sliced through robe, skin, and flesh, yet the figure slipped out of them as if its body had briefly become wet cloth filled with smoke.
It reappeared several steps away, one arm hanging at an unnatural angle. The flesh fragment was still pressed against its chest.
Su Bai’s gaze changed.
He felt it clearly now.
The flesh fragment was not merely being carried. It was commanding the body.
The human figure lifted its head. Its mouth opened.
"Human."
It sounded as if something deep beneath old blood had learned how to move a tongue.
Su Bai did not know whether the carrier had spoken, or whether the flesh fragment had used the carrier’s throat.
The voice continued.
"Your bones remember fear. Your flesh remembers rot. Your blood knows how to kneel."
The flesh fragment pulsed. The mist around them shivered.
"All humans open in the end," the voice said. "Our blood enters, and what remains learns to answer."
A coldness passed through Su Bai’s eyes.
It spoke of humans that way. As things that would eventually split open.
Whatever this thing belonged to, it was not human.
The flesh fragment pulsed again.
This time, the pulse became impact.
The air struck Su Bai like an invisible hammer. Broken stones flew outward. The red mist around him compressed, then surged forward in a thick wave of fluid Ashen-Blood Miasma.
It was like blood-colored water carrying ash, resentment, and hunger.
Su Bai’s eyes widened slightly.
For a normal cultivator, this was fatal. But he looked at the incoming wave, then he smiled.
"That looks useful."
A dark object appeared in his hand.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet.
The moment it appeared, the surrounding twenty feet changed.
The fluid Ashen-Blood Miasma that had been rushing toward him suddenly twisted. It no longer spread outward. Every strand, every droplet-like current, every ash-red thread of calamity force turned toward Su Bai.
He became the center.
Within twenty feet, the red mist was violently emptied.
The miasma surged into his body.
His robe suffered first. It always did.
The fabric hissed, blackened, and began surrendering its life with familiar helplessness. Su Bai glanced down once, then ignored it. Compared to the pressure entering his body, the robe was a small sacrifice.
The Ashen-Blood Miasma poured into him.
Corrosion appeared along his skin for a breath, then the Macro-Taiji circulation moved. Flesh, blood, and meridians absorbed pressure, reversed harm, and sealed damage almost as soon as it appeared.
Su Bai did not digest it yet. He stored it first.
His Dantian and Qi reservoirs accepted the pressure like dark wells swallowing rain.
The cleared space around him widened into a strange circle.
Outside the twenty-foot range, red mist churned like a sea.
Inside it, Su Bai stood calmly in ruined robes, holding the Petrified Calamity-Magnet.
The carrier’s face changed.
Surprise appeared first, then something close to horror.
The flesh fragment pulsed again, but weaker this time.
The voice came out rougher.
"You..."
The carrier’s eyes fixed on him.
"You are not human."
Su Bai paused.
He looked down at himself.
After a moment, he said, "My robe was human. It died from your blood."
The carrier stared at him.
For some reason, it did not seem to appreciate the answer.
Its body surged forward.
The movement was fast.
The flesh fragment beat against its chest, and the carrier crossed the cleared space in a blur. Its fist tore through the air, wrapped in condensed Ashen-Blood force, aiming straight for Su Bai’s head.
Su Bai did not retreat.
He met the punch with his own fist.
Clang!
The sound was wrong. It was not the sound of flesh striking flesh. It was like two pieces of forged metal colliding under a mountain.
Su Bai’s arm trembled.
A faint pain spread from his knuckles to his elbow.
His eyes changed.
It was far stronger than he expected. The raw force behind that strike had already touched the level of a Nascent Soul cultivator for an instant.
The flesh fragment could actually raise a fake body’s strength by that much?
Su Bai’s expression turned colder.
That thing was only a fragment, a part of something larger.
Whatever was hidden deeper in the Fallen-Star Sanctuary was far more frightening than the outer outposts had shown.
The carrier attacked again.
Su Bai moved. A needle flashed.
The carrier tilted its head before the needle fully left Su Bai’s fingers.
It had read the movement.
Another needle appeared.
The carrier’s shoulder twisted, avoiding the line.
Its body was not merely fast. It was observing him through the flesh fragment, reacting before ordinary instinct should have allowed it.
Every time Su Bai’s finger shifted, every time his wrist angled, every time his shoulder prepared to release force, the carrier adjusted.
The flesh fragment pulsed again.
Ashen-Blood Miasma surged, then immediately curved into Su Bai.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet pulled it all in.
The pulse that should have strengthened the carrier became Su Bai’s resource instead.
The carrier’s expression distorted.
Su Bai noticed, then his tactics changed.
Frictionless Phantom Step.
His figure blurred.
The carrier struck empty air.
Su Bai appeared to its left, then behind, then above a broken stone, then near the edge of the cleared circle.
Needles appeared without warning.
This time, his fingers did not flick. There was no gesture, no shoulder movement, and no clear release.
He often used hand motions when fighting beside allies. It was not necessary ever since he reached Golden Core Realm, but it warned others where his attacks were going and prevented friendly fire. On a chaotic battlefield, courtesy saved lives.
Here, there were no allies. So there was no need for courtesy.
Solid Qi Needles emerged from his QI Reservoirs and crossed into reality.
One appeared near the carrier’s knee. Another behind its throat. Three more angled toward its ribs. Dozens followed. Then hundreds.
The carrier reacted quickly, but the attacks no longer came from Su Bai’s fingers alone. They appeared from different directions, different heights, different rhythms, all within the space where Su Bai had turned the miasma into his own battlefield.
The first needle grazed the carrier’s cheek. The second pierced its shoulder. The third struck its thigh and shattered against hardened flesh.
The carrier roared.
Nether Threads flew next.
They came from angles the carrier could not read. Some skimmed the ground. Some dropped from above. Some circled behind the carrier’s back before tightening around its limbs.
It broke two, and dodged five.
Then a Weeping Needle struck its side. Inside it slept Ashen-Frost Blight Flame.
The moment it pierced flesh, the needle cracked.
Ashen-gray flame bloomed.
Cold fire spread across the carrier’s ribs, freezing and burning at the same time. The carrier twisted violently, tearing away part of its own side before the flame could sink deeper.
Su Bai’s eyes remained calm.
More needles appeared.
The carrier tried to charge, but Su Bai already vanished.
It tried to retreat. Threads cut off the path.
It tried to release miasma. The Petrified Calamity-Magnet stole the pulse.
It tried to read Su Bai’s movement. Su Bai stopped giving movements to read.
He became afterimages inside the cleared circle, while needles appeared like rain from a sky that did not exist.
The carrier’s face changed again.
The copied human expressions became less stable.
It was not used to this.
The Ashen-Blood Miasma had always been its advantage. Humans weakened in the mist. Humans defended, resisted, burned pills, and slowly lost themselves. Even strong cultivators had to divide attention between fighting and surviving the blood.
But Su Bai did not need to divide his attention.
The miasma fed him.
The more the flesh fragment pulsed, the clearer the twenty-foot circle became. The more it tried to drown him, the more pressure entered his reservoirs and waited to be refined.
The carrier had brought a sea to drown a stone.
Unfortunately, the stone had opened its mouth.
"What..." the carrier rasped.
Its throat tore slightly as overlapping tones slipped through.
"What are you?"
Su Bai’s voice came from behind it.
"Less talk."
The carrier spun, but only an afterimage stood there.
Su Bai’s real voice came from another direction.
"It is not fun fighting naked."
For one breath, the carrier froze.
Perhaps it did not understand.
Perhaps it understood and wished it had not.
Either way, Su Bai did not wait for an answer.
The barrage intensified. Needles filled the cleared area.
The carrier fought desperately.
Its strength was higher than Su Bai’s in direct collision. Its speed was terrifying. Its reactions were abnormal.
But strength needed contact. Speed needed direction. Reading movement meant nothing when the enemy’s weapons appeared without warning.
Su Bai did not give it the battle it wanted.
He did not stand still and trade blows.
He ran. He vanished. He appeared. He attacked from every angle and refused every exchange that favored the carrier.
It was simple.
Do not be hit, then let endless pressure and endless needles do the rest.
The method was not heroic, but it was extremely effective.
A Weeping Needle pierced the carrier’s shoulder and burst. Ashen-Frost Blight Flame crawled into the joint.
The carrier staggered.
Three Nether Threads wrapped around its neck and pulled its head aside.
A dozen qi needles pierced its chest, avoiding the flesh fragment for now but ruining the body around it.
The carrier tried to pulse miasma again.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet dragged the burst into Su Bai.
Su Bai appeared directly in front of the carrier.
His hand rose. This time, the needle between his fingers was visible.
The carrier tried to dodge, but its body failed to move in time.
The needle sank between its brows. Then the Weeping Needle hidden behind it entered through the same wound.
Ashen-Frost Blight Flame bloomed inside the carrier’s head.
The human figure stiffened. Its mouth opened, but no words came out.
And then... the body exploded.
The blast spread outward in a violent surge of miasma, broken flesh, and unstable soul residue. If ordinary cultivators had been nearby, they would have suffered greatly. If the outpost had been near, the bloom might have endangered the line.
But here, there was only Su Bai.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet pulled.
The Reversal Body received.
The Macro-Taiji circulation moved.
The explosion collapsed inward.
A few breaths later, silence returned to the twenty-foot clearing.
The carrier was gone.
Only the pulsing flesh fragment remained.
Su Bai stood in the center of the cleared mist. His bare skin was marked by faint corrosion that healed under the Macro-Taiji circulation.
His robe had lost the war completely.
He looked down, then sighed.
Finally, Su Bai looked at the remaining flesh fragment.
"Any last words?"