Chapter 228 - Needles and Ancient Arms
The first Returnee stepped through the ruined opening.
Su Bai moved immediately.
His arm snapped forward, and the ancient spear left his hand.
Whoosh!
The ancient weapon tore through the chamber with enough force to distort the Ashen-Blood Miasma around it.
Its artifact spirit willingly aligned itself with Su Bai’s Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent, allowing the entire weapon to become part of the attack rather than fighting against his control.
The flaw within the Returnee’s regenerated shoulder had already been chosen.
Everything else followed.
The Returnee reacted before the spear reached it. Its head shifted slightly. The body moved almost simultaneously.
The spearhead passed beside its shoulder.
It had dodged.
Su Bai’s expression did not change.
The ancient spear suddenly blurred. For an instant, its long shaft seemed to lose solidity.
Its position flickered.
One moment it was beside the Returnee. The next, it appeared directly along the path of retreat.
The Returnee’s expression changed for the first time.
It twisted backward.
That decision only worsened its position.
The spear appeared before its regenerated shoulder as though the intervening distance had briefly ceased to matter.
Pu!
The tip entered precisely where old and newly restored flesh joined. Black-red fluid burst outward.
The Returnee staggered.
A violent tremor spread through the entire regenerated arm.
Its miasma circulation, already imperfect around that junction, immediately became chaotic.
Even the ancient spear seemed startled.
"That actually—"
It stopped itself.
Su Bai’s eyes brightened.
The spear had supplied the strange spatial shift.
His Intent had done the rest.
Neither had independently forced the attack to land.
The spear’s hidden movement had created the opening, while Flaw-Piercing had guided every part of the attack toward the exact weakness already chosen.
The two had converged naturally.
Su Bai raised his hand.
The spear ripped free and flew back toward him.
The wounded Returnee immediately pressed one hand against its shoulder.
Black-red miasma surged through the wound.
The damaged flesh began knitting together.
Su Bai had barely watched the regeneration begin when the remaining Returnees entered the chamber.
They did not charge blindly. The first attack had already told them enough.
Their formation spread almost instantly.
Two moved toward the sides rather than toward Su Bai.
Another raised its hand, and dense miasma compressed into a dark blade.
The last remained farther back, observing the ancient weapons positioned throughout the chamber.
They had understood the situation.
Su Bai was not alone.
The saber moved first. A curved arc of power erupted from its edge.
The attack crossed the chamber before the nearest Returnee could completely reposition.
The Returnee raised its miasma weapon and blocked.
Boom!
The collision tore apart the wall beside it.
The ancient saber trembled with satisfaction.
Its edge had not physically touched the enemy, yet the slash retained enough sharpness to carve a deep mark across the Returnee’s weapon.
On the opposite side, the war hammer descended. It struck the ground.
The entire chamber shook.
A concentrated impact traveled beneath the stone before erupting beneath another Returnee.
Broken flooring exploded upward.
The Returnee was thrown several meters into the air.
The bow had already been waiting. Its string drew itself back.
Qi gathered between string and bow. A translucent projectile formed and vanished the moment the string released.
The airborne Returnee twisted.
The arrow changed direction. It followed.
The Returnee raised an arm.
The projectile pierced through its palm and continued toward its chest.
Only a sudden burst of miasma diverted the arrow enough for it to miss the center.
Su Bai watched everything.
The ancient weapons were far more capable than he had expected.
Even after countless years, each artifact spirit still retained the combat understanding accumulated beside powerful masters.
Their movements were not merely attacks. They knew how to create openings for one another.
The hammer disturbed footing. The saber pressured movement. The bow punished retreat. The spear pierced wherever a line opened.
The additional ancient weapons joined moments later.
An axe tore through a miasma barrier. A narrow sword sent overlapping streaks of light through the gap. A hooked weapon dragged one Returnee’s arm aside before immediately retreating to avoid retaliation.
For several breaths, the chamber became a storm of ancient weapons.
The Returnees adapted just as quickly.
One stopped trying to block the saber directly and began using layers of miasma to redirect its cutting force.
Another allowed the hammer’s shockwave to lift it before using the momentum to change direction.
The Returnee targeted by the bow stopped dodging individual arrows entirely.
Its hands moved. Miasma spread into a broad curtain.
The next arrow vanished inside it.
A heartbeat later, the same curtain burst apart as the arrow detonated from within, but the Returnee had already moved.
Su Bai’s expression sharpened.
The Returnee he had injured earlier suddenly lunged.
Its shoulder was still unstable, but it had deliberately shifted its circulation away from the damaged junction.
The flaw remained. Accessing it had become harder.
Su Bai caught the returning spear. The impact pushed his arm backward.
The ancient weapon had accumulated enormous momentum. He stepped forward instead of resisting it.
One of the inherited memories surfaced naturally.
A spear-wielding Void-Shattering cultivator had existed among the remnants absorbed by the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele.
Su Bai had not mastered that man’s spear path.
He had no intention of doing so, but some movements remained useful.
His front foot planted. His waist turned. The spear followed his entire body rather than only his arm.
A simple thrust shot forward.
The Returnee tilted its body.
The spearhead missed its chest.
Just then, a dark needle emerged from the tip.
The Returnee’s eyes contracted. It twisted again. The Qi needle passed where its throat had been.
That second movement forced its injured shoulder open.
Su Bai changed his grip.
The spear swept sideways.
Bang!
The shaft struck the Returnee directly across the damaged junction.
Its body flew into a broken wall.
The ancient spear vibrated.
"You used me to hit someone with the shaft."
Su Bai had already moved.
"It worked."
The spear did not answer.
Apparently, effectiveness had temporarily defeated dignity.
The Returnee burst from the rubble and swept one hand forward, sending several streams of condensed miasma tearing through the chamber.
Su Bai moved with Frictionless Phantom Step. His figure slipped through the first wave before another grazed his side and tore open his flesh.
He twisted lower to avoid the next strike, but the final stream crashed directly against the spear in his hands.
The impact drove him backward several meters.
His arms went numb, and pain spread across his ribs as his feet carved through the broken stone beneath him.
Su Bai steadied himself almost immediately while the Macro-Taiji Circulation began repairing the damage.
The Returnee attacked again, but Su Bai met it with a thrust of the ancient spear. Before the spearhead could reach its target, another Qi needle shot from its tip.
The Returnee had already learned from the previous exchange. It shifted its head aside before the needle arrived, only for the projectile to curve after it.
Forced to adjust its position a second time, the Returnee moved exactly where Su Bai wanted.
A bowstring rang from above.
The ancient bow’s arrow tore through the space the Returnee had just entered, forcing it to defend before it could regain its balance.
Boom!
The blast forced the Returnee sideways, straight into the path of Su Bai’s spear.
He drove the weapon beneath its ribs, but the tip had barely entered before the Returnee caught the shaft in one hand and stopped it completely.
Su Bai pulled, yet the spear did not move.
The difference in raw strength was immediate and brutal.
The Returnee’s free hand swept toward his head, but a heavy shadow crashed down from the side before it could reach him.
The war hammer smashed into its forearm with a thunderous impact, bending the limb at an unnatural angle and loosening its grip.
Su Bai ripped the spear free and retreated at once.
"Useful," he said.
The hammer gave a pleased vibration before rushing toward another enemy.
...
The battle continued.
As the exchanges grew faster, Su Bai gradually stopped treating the artifact spirits as separate weapons.
The Nether Threads spread across the chamber carried every shift in movement back to him, while the ancient weapons naturally filled the openings created by one another.
The bow pressured the Returnees from afar, the saber forced them away from favorable positions, and the hammer repeatedly disrupted their balance whenever they tried to settle their footing.
Su Bai remained at the center with the spear in his hands.
His Qi was already flowing around him in its familiar needle-like form.
Until now, he had been sending some of it directly into the artifact spirits whenever their reserves weakened. The method worked, but the transfer was obvious and inefficient.
So he changed how he used it.
One stream of needle-shaped Qi suddenly curved toward the saber.
The saber almost reacted before realizing what Su Bai intended.
The Qi entered its blade, and the ancient weapon’s next slash immediately became stronger.
Another stream flew toward the bow, while a third reached the hammer moments before it struck a Returnee.
Su Bai’s eyes brightened.
He did not need a separate method to supply them.
His Qi already moved like needles.
All he had to decide was whether each one would attack an enemy or feed an artifact.
Soon, streams of needle-shaped Qi crossed the entire chamber.
The Returnees quickly noticed the problem.
A projectile flying toward them might suddenly curve away and enter an ancient weapon instead, while another that seemed intended as support could change direction at the final moment and attack.
One Returnee attempted to intercept a stream heading toward the saber.
The moment it caught the needle-shaped Qi, Su Bai detonated it.
The blast tore open its hand.
Another stream slipped beneath the damaged arm and entered the saber.
The ancient blade immediately released a stronger cutting arc, carving a deep wound across the Returnee’s chest before it could properly defend.
Su Bai’s smile widened slightly.
The bow adapted even faster.
When another stream of his Qi reached it, the artifact spirit did not absorb it. Instead, the bow drew back its string and used Su Bai’s needle-shaped Qi directly as an arrow.
Su Bai grew more creative, sending needle-shaped Qi infused with his Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent toward the bow for it to fire as arrows.
The string released.
The projectile curved through the battlefield under both Su Bai’s guidance and the bow’s understanding of trajectory, slipping around one Returnee before entering an opening beneath another’s ribs.
The bow gave a faint hum.
"Useful."
Su Bai agreed.
The next stream carried Ashen-Frost Blight Flame.
The bow released it without hesitation.
The targeted Returnee immediately raised layers of condensed miasma. The burning needle forced through several barriers before losing its momentum, but the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame still erupted upon contact.
The Returnee reacted instantly.
It tore away the contaminated flesh before the strange flame could spread.
Su Bai’s expression became more serious.
They were learning quickly.
Soon afterward, the Returnees changed tactics.
One abandoned the artifact weapon it had been fighting and rushed directly toward Su Bai, while two others forced the bow, saber, and hammer away from his position.
The approaching Returnee crossed the chamber rapidly.
Su Bai thrust the spear, and a stream of needle-shaped Qi shot from its tip ahead of the weapon.
The Returnee dodged. The needle curved after it. Another approached from behind, forcing it to change direction again.
None of them needed to land.
Su Bai only needed to disturb its movement.
Frictionless Phantom Step carried him away before the Returnee’s palm could reach him.
He appeared near the saber and immediately sent Qi into its blade.
"Left."
The saber responded with a broad cutting arc.
The Returnee avoided it, but that movement drove it toward the war hammer.
The hammer crashed down, shattering the ground beneath its feet and ruining its balance.
The bow fired from above.
The Returnee lowered itself beneath the projectile.
Su Bai threw the spear.
The ancient weapon blurred as its hidden spatial power activated.
The Returnee had already learned from the previous attack. Instead of dodging, it released miasma violently around its body, disturbing the spear’s trajectory just enough to pull the point away from the flaw.
It caught the shaft.
Its fingers tightened.
Cracks spread across several faded patterns on the ancient spear.
Su Bai’s expression changed.
Several streams of his needle-shaped Qi immediately shot across the chamber.
The Returnee prepared to defend itself, but none of them targeted its body.
Every stream entered the spear.
The ancient weapon’s pressure rose sharply as its artifact spirit absorbed the sudden influx of energy.
Its form blurred inside the Returnee’s grasp.
The shift was small, but enough.
The spearhead appeared directly against the unstable junction in the regenerated shoulder.
Flaw-Piercing meaning surged through the point.
Pu!
The same weakness was pierced again.
The Returnee’s arm spasmed as its miasma circulation became even more chaotic. Its grip loosened, allowing the spear to escape and return to Su Bai.
He caught it with both hands.
For the first time since the battle began, Su Bai felt genuine excitement.
The artifact spirits gave him far more options than he normally possessed.
The bow could carry his needle-shaped Qi across difficult trajectories. The saber could force enemies into unfavorable positions, while the hammer could create openings by disrupting their balance. Even the weaker ancient weapons could interfere long enough for Su Bai to take advantage.
But the Returnees were adapting just as quickly.
The wounded one suddenly stopped protecting its damaged shoulder.
The flaw remained completely exposed.
Su Bai noticed immediately.
It was exposing the weakness on purpose.
He did not move.
A moment later, black-red miasma erupted from beneath the exact area he would have crossed to reach the weakness.
The Returnee had deliberately used its own flaw as bait.
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.
It was learning how he fought.
The Returnee disappeared from his sight immediately afterward.
Su Bai barely raised the spear before the attack arrived.
Bang!
The impact hurled him across the chamber and through a ruined wall.
Blood rose into his mouth while his arms went numb from the force.
The spear had absorbed part of the attack, but the difference in raw strength remained enormous.
Macro-Taiji Circulation immediately began repairing his injuries as Su Bai pushed himself free from the rubble.
The ancient weapons were also beginning to show their limits.
Fresh cracks had appeared along the saber’s corroded blade. The war hammer had been driven deep into the broken ground, while the bow’s spiritual fluctuations had weakened considerably. Several of the lesser weapons had already withdrawn after consuming too much of their remaining artifact power.
They could fight the Returnees, but they could not fight indefinitely.
The Returnees seemed to understand that as well.
They stopped pursuing the ancient weapons individually and began moving closer together, gradually tightening their formation around Su Bai’s group.
Su Bai watched them carefully.
His gaze returned to the shoulder he had already pierced twice.
Something had changed.
The flaw was spreading.
Miasma circulation around that entire side of the Returnee’s body had become increasingly unstable. Each attempt to regenerate the damaged junction forced more power through the same imperfect connection, placing additional strain upon it.
Su Bai’s Intent Seed trembled.
He had always treated a flaw as something that already existed within an opponent.
But the weakness in front of him was no longer the same one he had first discovered.
His attacks had enlarged it.
Every movement of the regenerated arm strained it further, while the Returnee’s own regeneration continued forcing energy through an increasingly unstable structure.
A flaw could worsen.
If enough pressure was repeatedly concentrated upon the same weakness, eventually even the enemy’s own power could begin helping tear it apart.
The illusory needle within Su Bai’s Intent Seed trembled more strongly.
It was not an epiphany yet, but he could feel another understanding beginning to take shape.
The Returnees gave him no time to explore it.
Their formation tightened and they moved again.
Su Bai stepped out from the ruined wall with the spear in his hands.
Needle-shaped Qi flowed around him once more, weaving between the ancient weapons and the approaching Returnees.
By now, the enemies could no longer easily tell which streams were attacks and which were meant to replenish the artifact spirits.
Su Bai’s eyes settled upon the widening flaw in the wounded Returnee.
This time, he did not merely intend to pierce it.
He wanted to see how far he could make it spread.