Chapter 186 - The Miasma Jars and the Hungry Maw
The battle at Outpost No. 1 did not collapse immediately. That alone proved how dangerous the place was.
Su Bai had stolen a clearing from the red mist. Within twenty feet of him, the endless replenishment feeding the enemies weakened.
But twenty feet was still only twenty feet. The ruined outpost was much larger than that, and there were too many enemies pressing from too many directions.
The human figures here were stronger than the ones from Outpost No. 2.
Most of them carried strength around the middle to upper stages of Golden Core. Some were weaker, some were stronger, but almost none of them could be treated as ordinary corrupted bodies. Worse, their techniques were clean enough to pressure even elite disciples.
If their intent had also been complete, the procession would have already suffered heavy losses.
That was their flaw.
They were like puppets wearing the memories of dead cultivators, using correct forms through hollow bodies.
Against ordinary disciples, that was still terrifying.
Against geniuses, it became something that could be endured.
Especially once Su Bai began stealing the mist around them.
Zhuge Jing saw the change clearly.
"Do not fight them as seniors," he said as his fan cut sideways. "Fight them as shells. Break the structure, not the reputation."
That order struck many hearts awake.
A young cultivator who had been hesitating against a familiar sword style gritted his teeth and changed his stance. The blade coming at him still resembled the technique of a predecessor from his sect, but the thing wielding it was no longer that predecessor.
The shield line pushed forward.
Qin Baoshan stood at the center, his shield planted like a stone gate. Miasma beasts crashed into him one after another, and each impact made his arms tremble, but he did not retreat.
Ji Ruyue’s frost spread along the broken ground, turning the path before the gate into a field of pale ice.
Tang Ziyan’s poison pressed along the right side, forcing the red mist there to recoil and curl in ugly folds.
At the center of all this, Su Bai moved slowly.
He could not rush carelessly.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet had to remain high above his head so the strongest pull would draw the miasma upward and inward instead of dragging every loose spell, poison cloud, and ally’s technique into chaos. If he lowered it too much or moved too quickly, the suction might disturb the battlefield instead of helping it.
The clear zone followed him.
Where Su Bai stepped, the red mist bent. Where the red mist bent, the enemies weakened.
But because the clearing moved with him, the group had to adjust constantly.
Fortunately, Zhuge Jing adjusted faster.
The moment Su Bai shifted half a step, Zhuge Jing’s fan moved.
"Left line, follow the clear edge. Right side, hold. Formation cultivators, mark Brother Su’s radius. Shield line, rotate three breaths later."
The formation shifted.
The procession moved as if the twenty-foot clearing had become a moving formation core.
It was not large enough to protect everyone, but it was enough.
Those who fought at the edge received relief from the miasma pressure. Those farther behind used the clearer air to recover and launch support. Injured cultivators remained on Lin Weiyang’s disc platforms behind the main line, protected by Bai Zhi’s thinning lotus light and Mu Qing’s medicine support.
Bai Zhi’s face was still pale from maintaining Glass-Lotus Clear Sight.
Liu Meng handed her a pill.
Bai Zhi accepted it without taking her eyes off the battlefield.
The glow of the lotus petals steadied again.
Su Bai’s free hand moved.
Qi Needles formed between his fingers. This time, he used gestures deliberately.
After fighting together for so long, the procession had learned to read them.
Whenever Su Bai’s hand rose, nearby cultivators instinctively left a path.
A Qi Needle shot past Qin Baoshan’s shoulder and struck the wrist of a false body forming a miasma seal. Another needle slipped between two sword cultivators and pierced a beast’s knee.
Nether Threads flashed from Su Bai’s sleeve and hooked a charging human figure by the ankle, dragging it half a step sideways just as Chen Feng’s sword cut through its shoulder.
Just then, a miasma beast opened its chest plates near the left side, revealing a mouth where no mouth should have been. Red-black light gathered inside it, then it aimed toward several injured cultivators behind the line.
Su Bai turned his palm.
Starving Wraith’s Devouring Maw.
The miasma beam bent before it could fully form. The red-black light twisted, stretched, and was swallowed into the mouth-like void in Su Bai’s palm. The beast staggered as its chest plates cracked from the failed release.
The injured cultivators stared.
One whispered, "Did Brother Su just eat that?"
The cultivator beside him swallowed. "Do not ask."
The fight continued.
Several enemies noticed the problem immediately.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet was not only clearing the mist. Devouring Maw was also swallowing miasma techniques that should have forced the group to scatter.
Together, the two abilities turned Su Bai into the most irritating point on the battlefield.
The false bodies changed tactics.
Three human figures rushed toward Su Bai at once.
One attacked from the front with a palm seal. One appeared behind him using water-step movement. One leapt from a broken wall, fingers stretched toward the Petrified Calamity-Magnet above his head.
They were trying to disrupt him.
No. One of them was trying to steal the magnet.
Zhuge Jing saw it before the attack fully formed.
"Brother Qin, front!"
Qin Baoshan shifted without hesitation. His shield slammed into the palm seal and forced the attacker back.
"Sister Ji, above."
Frost flashed.
The figure leaping from the wall met a sheet of ice midair. Its hand still reached for the magnet, but the movement slowed just enough.
Su Bai’s eyes lifted.
A Qi Needle pierced the figure’s shoulder and spun it aside.
"Brother Han, rear."
Han Yuelin sighed as if deeply inconvenienced and appeared behind Su Bai. His sword tapped the water-step figure’s ankle.
The figure’s movement broke.
Su Bai’s Nether Thread caught its waist and threw it toward Chen Feng.
Chen Feng’s face changed. "Why toward me?"
His sword still moved.
The false body lost an arm.
Su Bai said calmly, "You were free."
Chen Feng almost choked.
He was not free. He was suffering.
Zhuge Jing’s fan hid a faint smile, but his orders did not stop.
The battlefield stabilized again.
For a while, the procession fought in rhythm with Su Bai’s moving clear zone. They advanced, paused, bound, cut, and retreated before the mist thickened around them. The method was working, but it was slow.
The flesh fragments still pulsed behind their guards. The false bodies could not replenish as freely near Su Bai, but those farther away remained difficult to suppress.
Su Bai looked toward the guarded flesh fragments. Several false bodies turned their gazes toward him at once.
Their meaning was obvious.
Come.
Su Bai did not.
Instead, he raised his free hand.
Another miasma spell came from the right side. This one was unavoidable, a wide red-black curtain meant to fall across the shield line and poison the cultivators behind it.
Su Bai opened Devouring Maw again and swallowed it before it landed.
Just as the maw closed, a blue-robed figure slipped through the fading curtain.
Senior Uncle Ren. His smile was gone.
His hand pierced toward Su Bai’s ribs. His fingers were wrapped in red-black miasma.
The timing was excellent. Su Bai had just used Devouring Maw, the magnet was still raised overhead, and his free hand had not fully returned.
The figure was too close.
Su Bai could dodge, but if he did, the clear zone would shift suddenly and expose the cultivators behind him to the remaining curtain.
So he did not dodge.
He turned Devouring Maw directly toward the human figure.
The dark mouth opened.
It passed through the blue-robed figure’s chest like a shadow crossing water.
The blue-robed figure froze.
For the first time, its expression changed completely.
The red mist inside its body surged toward the Devouring Maw and vanished.
The figure staggered backward. Its aura fell.
Middle Golden Core pressure dropped sharply, thinning until it was closer to the lower stage.
Everyone with sharp senses felt it.
Zhuge Jing’s fan stopped.
Tang Ziyan’s eyes narrowed.
Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms paused for half a breath, as if even they wanted to record the result carefully.
Su Bai also paused.
The miasma swallowed from the figure was dense.
Su Bai looked at the blue-robed figure.
The blue-robed figure looked back.
The silence between them became very unpleasant for one side.
Su Bai slowly opened his hand again. Devouring Maw appeared.
The blue-robed figure retreated at once.
Su Bai understood.
His Devouring Maw could not devour these false bodies entirely.
But their power? The dense miasma filling them?
That could be taken.
And once it was taken, their strength fell.
A slow realization spread through Su Bai.
This place was dangerous. But once again, the Fallen-Star Sanctuary was generous.
Su Bai stepped forward. Devouring Maw descended.
The nearest false body tried to dodge. It avoided most of the dark mouth, but one shoulder was still touched. The maw passed through the edge of its body and pulled out a stream of red-black miasma.
Its arm weakened immediately.
Tang Ziyan’s poison cut across its leg.
The leg cracked.
"Bind it," Zhuge Jing said instantly.
Tang Clan threads wrapped around the figure.
Another beast lunged toward Su Bai.
Devouring Maw opened again.
This time, it passed through the beast’s head and upper chest. The beast’s body did not vanish, but the red-black power reinforcing its bones was sucked away. Its bone plates dulled and its claws softened.
Qin Baoshan smashed it into the ground with one shield strike.
The procession stared.
Su Bai moved again.
The battlefield changed for the second time.
Before, the group had to fight within Su Bai’s clear zone because removing the surrounding mist weakened the enemies.
Now, Su Bai was weakening the enemies directly.
Devouring Maw descended again and again.
He did not try to swallow bodies. He stripped power. He took the dense miasma inside false bodies, miasma beasts, half-formed spells, and corrupted reinforcements.
Whatever could not retreat completely from the maw lost something.
The enemies finally began to retreat.
Those touched by Devouring Maw tried to flee back into thicker mist to replenish themselves. Several false bodies abandoned their attacks and moved toward the flesh fragments. Beasts that had lost reinforcement crawled backward, trying to return to the red haze.
Zhuge Jing’s eyes sharpened.
"Do not let the weakened ones escape."
His fan cut downward.
"Right side, close. Sister Tang, seal their retreat. Sister Ji, frost behind them. Brother Qin, push forward. Brother Han, joints. Brother Chen Feng, cut the sword user. Formation cultivators, lock the ground."
Chen Feng moved before he could complain about being ordered by name.
A hollow sword form came toward him.
This time, the figure using it had already lost much of its miasma pressure. The form was still familiar, still correct, but without reinforcement, the emptiness behind it became obvious.
Chen Feng’s sword flashed.
The false arm fell.
His expression was grim.
"Your sword is borrowed."
The figure hissed.
Chen Feng’s second strike cut through its knee.
"And badly used."
That sounded a little more satisfying.
Han Yuelin tapped two fleeing beasts in the hind legs and watched them collapse.
"Running with borrowed strength is still running," he said.
Qin Baoshan pushed the shield line forward.
Tang Ziyan’s poison spread thinly behind the retreating figures, not enough to endanger allies, but enough to make the mist recoil and slow the enemy’s escape.
Ji Ruyue’s frost sealed the ground.
One by one, weakened enemies were forced back into the range of the procession.
The battle became easier.
Well, not really easy.
Outpost No. 1 still held several flesh fragments. The enemies near them were stronger than the rest. The deeper road still carried danger. Bai Zhi’s face remained pale, and Su Bai’s Dantian continued filling with dense pressure.
But the impossible feeling from before had cracked.
The enemies could be weakened. They could be stripped. They could be dragged down from their false height.
And Su Bai was the happiest of all.
He had not expected Devouring Maw to be this useful inside the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
The false bodies and miasma beasts were filled with dense hostile energy, held together by corruption, and replenished by flesh fragments.
In other words, they were walking storage jars with bad manners.
Su Bai decided not to say that aloud either.
Some thoughts were better kept inside the Dantian.
The blue-robed figure retreated toward one of the guarded flesh fragments. Its expression was no longer playful. Other false bodies moved closer to the fragments as well, forming tighter circles.
They finally understood.
Su Bai was not only preventing their recovery.
He was stealing it.
The figures guarding the flesh fragments turned toward him.
Their auras were stronger than the rest.
Several had pressure approaching the peak of Golden Core. One or two carried a weight that brushed against the edge of Nascent Soul, though their hollow intent made the realm feel unstable and incomplete.
For the procession, that pressure was terrifying.
For Su Bai, it smelled like concentrated opportunity.
The guarding figures froze for the briefest moment.
Perhaps the bodies they wore remembered fear.
Perhaps the miasma inside them did.
Su Bai looked at them. His expression was calm.
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, but it was difficult to call it a smile.
The nearest false guard took half a step back.
Lin Weiyang saw it and whispered, "It is afraid."
Chen Feng stared at Su Bai, then at the false guard.
For once, he agreed completely.
Zhuge Jing’s fan opened slowly.
His eyes were bright.
He had already understood what Su Bai intended.
The old tactic had failed. So Brother Su had simply found a worse one.
Su Bai raised the Petrified Calamity-Magnet higher.
The red mist bent harder.
Devouring Maw opened in his free hand.
The guarded flesh fragments pulsed uneasily.
Several false guards lowered their stances.
The procession tightened around the clear zone.
No one needed to say the next part out loud.
The records would remember it well enough.