Chapter 198 - The Command Seal and the Miasma-Fed Body
The moment Su Bai said he would go alone, the air before the solid Ashen-Blood Miasma barrier seemed to grow heavier.
Liu Meng was the first to speak.
"Senior Brother..." Her voice was soft, but there was worry in it that she could not hide. "The exit portal will open soon. If you go too deep alone, what if you cannot return in time?"
The others looked at Su Bai too.
That was the problem none of them could ignore.
Only five days remained before the expected opening of the exit portal. No one knew how the Inner Area treated the portal. No one knew whether the deeper region would interfere with direction, time, or return routes.
The Fallen-Star Sanctuary had already proven too many times that common sense was not reliable here.
Su Bai was silent for a moment.
Finally, he said, "The mist does not affect me. If I need to return, I can cross the distance to a safe zone much faster than others."
No one refuted him. Because it was true.
If he abandoned caution and simply moved, he could travel through large parts of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary in a way none of them could copy.
That did not mean there was no danger. It only meant he was the only person who had the right to try.
They wanted to say more.
Before they could, Su Bai spoke first.
"You do not need me to guide you back, right?"
Liu Meng took a breath and steadied herself.
"We have the Three-Step Mist-Breaking Formation Senior Brother taught us. As long as we do not rush and keep the formation steady, we can return along the route safely."
Lin Weiyang nodded as well. "My mechanisms recorded the safer paths, the unstable arrays, and the areas we must avoid. They cannot replace caution, but they can help us retrace the route."
Bai Zhi’s pale lotus light flickered softly in her eyes. "Glass-Lotus Clear Sight can assist with direction. I cannot maintain it endlessly in this place, but I can use it at intervals."
Tang Sisi raised her hand weakly. "I left marks too. Some old, some new. If no one steps on them, breaks them, eats them, or mistakes them for treasure, they should still be useful."
Zhuge Jing slowly unfolded his fan. His expression remained solemn, but his voice was steady. "I can also help identify the proper direction. We may not be able to move quickly, but returning should not be impossible. The greater danger is if we hesitate too long here."
Su Bai nodded.
That was enough.
The group was not helpless. They had come this far not because Su Bai dragged dead weight behind him, but because everyone here had their own ability, judgment, and courage.
"Good," Su Bai said. "Then I will go now. If I delay any longer, I really will not have enough time to see what is inside."
Those words made the silence settle again.
Qin Baoshan struck his fist lightly against his shield. "Senior Brother Su, we will return along the route and wait for news outside."
Han Yuelin gave Su Bai a small smile. "Junior Brother Su, try not to make the next report too frightening. Some of us still want to sleep peacefully after leaving."
Ji Ruyue looked at him quietly. "Come back."
Bai Zhi pressed her palms together. "May your path remain clear."
Lin Weiyang’s small mechanisms hovered around her sleeves as she said, "If you find anything that looks like it should not be touched, do not touch it first."
Liu Meng finally stepped forward half a pace. "Senior Brother, please be careful."
Su Bai nodded.
Tang Ziyan had remained silent the entire time.
Her brows were furrowed. She did not try to stop him, but her expression showed clearly that she wanted to. In the end, she only looked at Su Bai and said two words.
"Don’t die."
Su Bai smiled behind the Glacier-Lung Bone Mask.
"I will try."
Tang Ziyan’s gaze sharpened.
Su Bai immediately corrected himself.
"I will come back."
Only then did Tang Ziyan look away.
Su Bai turned around and tightened his grip around the command seal.
The massive formation before the solid miasma barrier responded at once.
Su Bai stepped forward.
The formation did not reject him.
Behind him, everyone watched.
Su Bai did not look back immediately. He walked until he reached the edge of the solid Ashen-Blood Miasma barrier. There, the red-black wall flowed before him like condensed blood-water.
The true deeper region was beyond this wall.
Layer Three. Or whatever the ancient battlefield had called it.
Su Bai raised one hand and touched the surface.
A faint resistance met his palm.
It was not corrosion. It was not even rejection from the formation. The miasma itself was simply too dense, compressed into something close to a semi-solid membrane.
Passing through it felt like pressing through a layer of thick water wrapped around invisible skin.
Su Bai stepped forward.
The barrier swallowed him.
Red-black miasma closed around his body from all directions. For a moment, everything behind him disappeared. The group, the formation, the battlefield, the weapon intents, even the faint light of Bai Zhi’s Glass-Lotus Clear Sight. All of it vanished behind the dense flowing wall.
Su Bai stopped after several steps, then he looked back.
There was nothing. No one could see him now.
’Good.’
He took off the Glacier-Lung Bone Mask first and placed it into the system inventory. After that came the dark corrosion-resistant robe, the accessories, and every external item that did not need to remain on his body.
They all came from the system or from valuable materials, but Su Bai did not want to gamble with them inside miasma this dense.
More importantly, this was one of the reasons he had insisted on going alone.
Some cultivation methods needed a quiet room. Some needed a spiritual spring. Some needed pills, formations, or elders guarding the door.
Su Bai’s current situation was different.
His cultivation wanted danger, and this place was practically a paradise.
A very poisonous, horrifying, soul-corroding paradise.
After removing everything that might interfere, Su Bai stood alone inside the solid Ashen-Blood Miasma barrier. The red-black fluid pressed against every inch of him. Without the robe, without the mask, without any barrier between his body and the miasma, the effect became immediate.
His flesh screamed. It was a strange scream.
Pain came first. The solid miasma corroded his skin, seeped into his pores, pressed toward his blood, and tried to rot everything it touched. For an ordinary cultivator, this alone would have been enough to destroy the body, stain the meridians, and damage the soul.
But almost at the same moment, the Reversal Body answered.
The Macro-Taiji circulation began to move.
Damage turned. Corrosion reversed. Rot became nourishment. The force that should have weakened his flesh instead became pressure that tempered it. The power that tried to collapse his body was dragged into circulation, crushed, refined, and folded back into him.
Pain became repair. Repair became strengthening. Strengthening brought a strange rush that made Su Bai’s shoulders tremble slightly.
"Oof."
The sound escaped before he could stop it.
Su Bai stood still for a moment, then he looked down at himself and became silent.
This feeling was a little dangerous. Dangerous to his dignity.
The miasma tore and repaired him again and again. His flesh, blood, meridians, bones, and organs were all being pressured from every direction. Because he had removed his clothes, there was no uneven obstruction. The tempering was thorough, direct, and extremely fair.
Every part suffered equally.
Every part improved equally.
That was good.
Su Bai exhaled slowly.
"So this is what masochists feel."
He paused.
"Still, I am not one of them."
A breath later, another wave of dense miasma pressed into him.
"Oof."
Su Bai fell silent again.
After a moment, he decided that this was not a contradiction.
A person could appreciate the efficiency of pain without having strange preferences.
That was reasonable.
Probably.
The truth was, part of what he had told the others was not a complete lie. He did want to see what lay beyond the solid miasma barrier. He did want to understand the records about immortals, the Layer 3, and the reason this battlefield had become the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
But right now, standing inside a sea of miasma that constantly tore his body apart and strengthened it through reversal, Su Bai had to admit something.
Mysteries were interesting.
Getting stronger was better.
Records about immortals could wait for a few breaths.
Cultivation could not.
Su Bai took out one of the Blood-Rot Pills. He swallowed it without hesitation.
The Blood-Rot Pill dissolved.
A violent medicinal poison erupted inside him. It rushed toward his blood, flesh, and meridians, trying to rot, weaken, corrode, and collapse everything it touched.
At the same time, the solid Ashen-Blood Miasma pressed from outside.
One force destroyed from within. One force corroded from without.
Su Bai immediately circulated the Binary Void-Sun Supreme Method.
The infinite void Dantian stirred. His Golden Core rotated silently. The golden Yang inside the core burned like a hidden sun, while the black ice outside remained cold and deep. The nine Qi reservoirs opened one after another, sharing the pressure and drawing the reversed force through his body in layered waves.
The effect was stronger than he expected.
The Blood-Rot Pill’s poison complemented the miasma outside.
The external corrosion and internal poison met inside his body, clashed for a moment, and were swallowed into the Macro-Taiji circulation together. What should have been collapse became compression. What should have been decay became refinement. What should have been rot became nourishment.
His flesh tightened. His blood became heavier. His meridians endured repeated corrosion and repair until they shone faintly beneath his skin. His bones gave off a low vibration, like metal being struck inside a furnace.
Su Bai closed his eyes.
The miasma here was so dense that he did not even need the Petrified Calamity-Magnet. It clung to him from all directions on its own, flowing around him like a living sea.
There was no need to pull danger closer. Danger had already surrounded him politely and enthusiastically.
For once, Su Bai did not need to chase the opportunity.
The opportunity was drowning him.
A muffled sound came from Su Bai’s body.
He felt a deep internal resonance, like a sealed door opening inside his flesh.
His body cultivation advanced.
...
When Su Bai opened his eyes, a slow smile appeared on his face.
This was only the beginning.
Ahead of him, the solid miasma continued to flow deeper into darkness.
Behind him, the others could no longer see him.
There’s not enough time to uncover every secret of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
But perhaps enough time to let this cursed battlefield help him refine his body properly.