Chapter 220 - The Failed Possession and the Final Inheritance
"You—!"
The old man’s expression changed the instant the darkness beneath Su Bai began to move.
His first reaction was to retreat.
The remnant soul immediately tried to sever the spiritual connection he had established and withdraw through the same passage he had used to enter.
After surviving countless years with only a fragment of his soul remaining, caution had already become instinct.
Yet the moment he pulled backward, his face turned grim.
The connection did not respond.
Something had changed while he was advancing deeper into Su Bai’s consciousness.
The harmless channel he had opened for the false inheritance was still there, but his own soul power had already penetrated too far through it. What had once been an escape route now felt like countless threads tangled throughout Su Bai’s spiritual foundation.
Forcibly tearing himself free would no longer be simple.
The old man understood that immediately.
"So you were waiting."
Su Bai regarded him calmly.
"You told me not to resist, Senior. I was only following your instructions."
The old man’s eyes narrowed.
Before he could answer, the darkness below erupted.
Needle Qi surged upward from every direction.
These were not the illusory manifestations of the Flaw-Piercing Intent Seed. They were extensions of the Qi already flowing throughout Su Bai’s body, responding to the foreign soul that had entered far beyond what his defenses would normally tolerate.
The old man swept one sleeve.
Soul power condensed before him and struck the first wave aside.
The collision sent ripples across the bleak sea of consciousness.
Several needles shattered, but dozens more followed.
The old man’s expression hardened.
Even as a remnant, his control over soul power remained far beyond that of an ordinary Golden Core cultivator. He had once stood at Void-Shattering, and the instincts carved into his soul had not disappeared merely because most of his strength was gone.
His fingers formed a sword seal.
A translucent sword appeared before him and swept outward.
The incoming Needle Qi broke apart in a broad arc.
"You hid more than I expected."
Another wave rose behind him.
The old man turned sharply and cut through it as well, but one needle slipped past the edge of his sword light and pierced his side.
His faded spiritual form trembled. A small hole appeared beneath his ribs.
The remnant soul staggered half a step before stabilizing himself.
Pain crossed his face.
A soul might no longer possess flesh, but damage to consciousness had its own agony.
Su Bai watched from a distance.
"Senior, you still have a great deal to learn about hostile acquisitions."
The old man frowned.
"Hostile what?"
Another needle struck him before Su Bai could explain.
The old man twisted aside, but the attack still tore through the edge of his shoulder.
His face darkened.
Whatever strange terminology the boy was using, the meaning was becoming clear enough.
"You expected me to try this from the beginning."
"I expected the possibility."
Su Bai did not bother denying it.
The old man stared at him.
That answer bothered him more than a boast would have.
Su Bai had not known for certain.
He had simply prepared for the worst and allowed the old man to reveal himself.
The remnant soul suddenly laughed.
The sound carried no madness and very little amusement.
"So that is how you survived this place."
His translucent sword dispersed, only to reform in his hand with greater clarity.
"I was wondering how much of your caution was genuine and how much was fear. It seems I underestimated you."
Su Bai raised an eyebrow.
"Senior still has time to compliment me?"
"If I am about to lose, I would at least prefer to understand why."
The old man’s gaze swept across the endless darkness again.
This time, he was no longer examining it as a potential possession target.
He was searching for whatever had prevented him from leaving.
He found nothing.
That was what unsettled him.
Su Bai’s sea of consciousness remained bleak and apparently empty, yet every instinct he had developed during countless battles was warning him that something far more dangerous had awakened beneath the surface.
The old man tightened his grip on the soul sword.
"Your Intent alone could not produce this."
Another wave of Needle Qi gathered, but before it could descend upon him, the darkness shifted again. This time, the movement was different.
Fine crystalline roots emerged from below.
The old man’s pupils contracted.
At first, only a few appeared, then more followed.
Translucent crystalline roots spread through the bleak spiritual world, Their surfaces gleamed faintly, yet the sensation they gave off held none of the vitality normally associated with Wood cultivation.
The old man lifted his sword.
The crystalline roots did not attack immediately. They simply surrounded him.
His expression became increasingly strange.
"A Spirit Root?"
Su Bai did not answer.
One root moved.
The old man slashed downward.
Sword light cut across it, but the crystalline surface only cracked before the damaged section began drawing itself together again.
A second root wrapped around his wrist.
The old man tore it apart with soul power.
Three more took its place.
Within several breaths, crystalline roots had curled around his arms, waist, and legs.
The surrounding Needle Qi stopped attacking.
The old man struggled once.
The roots tightened.
His remaining soul power surged, and for a moment the entire spiritual space shook beneath the pressure of what had once been a Void-Shattering cultivator.
Yet his remnant had endured too many years.
He had also spent a considerable portion of what remained trying to infiltrate Su Bai’s soul.
The roots held.
The old man finally stopped struggling.
He looked down at the crystalline bindings before slowly raising his head toward Su Bai.
"You..."
His expression contained disbelief more than fear.
"Are you truly human?"
Su Bai fell silent.
Of all the questions he could have asked, that one was becoming irritatingly common.
He eventually nodded.
"As far as I know."
The old man stared at him for several breaths.
Strangely, that answer seemed to satisfy him more than an immediate declaration would have.
He let out a long breath.
"If that is true, then this era has produced something I do not understand."
Su Bai approached.
The old man watched him come closer without trying to struggle again.
"Any final words, Senior?"
The question was direct.
The old man’s gaze sharpened slightly.
"You intend to destroy me?"
"You entered my soul and tried to erase me."
The old man actually smiled.
"Fair."
He looked away for a moment.
When he spoke again, his voice had lost much of the authority he had used earlier.
"Once I committed to the possession, I pushed too much of my remaining soul into yours. Even if you released me now, pulling everything back carelessly could damage both of us."
Su Bai had already sensed what was happening.
The old man believed he had simply pushed too much of his soul into the possession and become difficult to separate from Su Bai.
In reality, the harmful connection had already begun reversing the moment it took hold.
The moment the foreign soul power entered with hostile intent, his Reversal Body had already begun turning the influence back on its source. The deeper the old man pushed into Su Bai, the stronger that reversed connection became.
What had been meant to suppress Su Bai’s soul had instead begun binding the remnant soul to him.
By the time the old man realized something was wrong, retreating was no longer simple. His own soul power had become the path holding him inside.
He had gambled his remaining existence on the possession.
He had lost.
Strangely, there was no resentment in his eyes over that fact.
Su Bai studied him for a moment before speaking.
"Senior, before this ends, I can answer one of your questions."
The old man’s expression shifted.
His gaze became unusually focused.
"Then answer me honestly. How do you truly endure the miasma?"
Su Bai hesitated.
He still had no intention of explaining the Reversal Body.
But he could at least give the old man one final mercy before he disappeared.
A little hope.
"I ate their flesh."
Silence followed.
The old man stared at him.
Su Bai continued, "The flesh from the things sealed beneath the altar. My body changed after consuming enough of it. Eventually, the Ashen-Blood Miasma stopped being something I had to resist."
The old man’s eyes slowly widened.
"You..."
His mouth opened, but no words emerged.
Su Bai waited.
The remnant soul looked at him again from head to toe.
His gaze moved toward the bleak darkness, the crystalline roots binding him, and finally back toward Su Bai.
A laugh escaped him.
It started quietly. Soon, the old man was laughing hard enough that his fading spiritual form trembled.
His laughter continued for several more breaths before gradually fading.
"I spent all that time examining your foundation, questioning your cultivation, and calculating whether your body could carry what remained of my soul."
He looked genuinely amused with himself now.
"And the entire time, I was planning to seize the body of someone who eats those creatures."
Su Bai considered correcting him that he mostly ate pieces of them rather than entire entities.
He decided the distinction would not improve the old man’s mood.
The remnant shook his head again.
"Foolish."
His expression softened.
"Truly foolish."
There was no self-pity behind the words, only acceptance.
The old man looked toward Su Bai.
"If your body can endure their flesh, then perhaps the world has finally produced something those monsters did not anticipate."
"That’s a lot of responsibility to place on someone you met today."
"You are the one wandering naked through their prison and eating them."
Su Bai had no response to that.
The old man’s smile widened slightly.
For the first time, it felt entirely genuine.
"Young man, I do not know your real name."
He paused.
"Nor do I believe that ridiculous Myriad Swords Sect story."
Su Bai remained perfectly calm.
The old man chuckled.
"But I no longer need either."
His expression became solemn.
"If you someday possess the strength to end them, do it."
Su Bai studied his face.
"Senior still hasn’t told me what they are."
The old man’s gaze lowered.
"Because I do not know."
That answer caught Su Bai off guard.
The old man continued before he could speak.
"I knew enough to fear them." His voice became quieter. "But the Immortals who descended for the sealing knew far more than we did."
Su Bai’s eyes sharpened.
"They descended specifically to seal them?"
"Yes."
The old man nodded.
"They arrived with the sealing methods already prepared."
Something stirred in Su Bai’s thoughts.
That implied the Immortals had known what they were dealing with before descending to the mortal world.
The old man saw the realization in his expression.
"I asked questions then as well."
A bitter smile appeared.
"We were told that knowing would not help us hold the line."
He looked toward the darkness.
"I hated that answer."
Su Bai could understand why.
The old man sighed. He closed his eyes for a moment.
When they opened again, the last traces of bitterness had settled.
"Take my sword."
The old man’s lips curved slightly.
"After trying to steal your body, refusing you the sword would be somewhat shameless."
Su Bai nodded seriously.
"Senior is very reasonable."
"I dislike you more every time you speak."
"That sounds healthy."
The old man laughed softly.
The crystalline roots tightened.
Su Bai’s expression became more serious.
"Sigh. If you hadn’t tried to take my body, perhaps we could have spoken longer."
The old man met his gaze.
"Perhaps."
Su Bai continued, "But you chose to harm me knowingly. I cannot pretend that didn’t happen simply because I understand your reason."
The old man did not argue.
He had known the price when he made the attempt.
If their positions had been reversed, he would not have spared the person trying to erase him either.
"You are right."
His voice remained calm.
"Do what you must."
The crystalline roots began pulling.
The old man’s spiritual form moved downward.
As he descended through Su Bai’s internal spiritual connections, his perception finally reached places he had never been able to inspect from the sea of consciousness.
His composure broke again.
Enormous reservoirs appeared within his perception, each holding quantities of Qi that should not have belonged inside one cultivator.
Beyond them lay something even stranger.
An Infinite Dantian stretched beneath his awareness like an endless void.
The old man stared.
His gaze shifted again.
The Black-Ice Golden Core rotated within that impossible structure, dense and dark, while golden Yang remained stable within it.
Yet the Core itself was only part of something larger.
The old man’s spiritual sense followed the circulation spreading through Su Bai’s entire body.
His eyes widened.
"You made your entire body part of the Golden Core structure?"
Su Bai did not answer.
The old man began laughing again.
This time, there was almost admiration in it.
"Foolish."
The old man looked around at the impossible cultivation foundation surrounding him.
"I thought I had examined you carefully. It seems I saw almost nothing."
The roots pulled him deeper.
As they descended, the old man finally caught sight of the structure they belonged to.
His expression changed immediately.
An enormous crystalline tree spread through Su Bai’s spiritual foundation. Its translucent branches extended into the darkness while the strange withering nature hidden within it made his remaining soul instinctively recoil.
"What kind of Spirit Root is this...?"
Su Bai did not answer.
The roots continued dragging him toward the tree.
Only when they drew closer did the old man notice something embedded within its crystalline structure.
A stone stele stood there as though it had grown together with the tree itself.
The Dao-Devouring Blank Stele.
The moment the foreign remnant soul approached, golden radiance spread across its surface.
The old man’s eyes widened.
For an instant, the battlefield returned to him.
He saw banners torn beneath a blood-red sky. He saw his sword stained black with corrupted blood. He saw friends die. He saw himself promising that he would survive long enough to finish what they had started.
Countless years of hatred surged through him.
Yet beneath the golden radiance, something unexpected happened.
The hatred loosened.
The obsession that had held his broken soul together for so long suddenly seemed distant.
He had believed that letting go meant betraying the dead.
Perhaps that was why he had remained trapped for so long.
The old man slowly looked toward Su Bai.
There was no fear left in his eyes.
"Young man."
Su Bai waited.
The remnant smiled.
"Whatever your real name is, live long enough to find the truth."
The golden light grew brighter.
"And if those things truly can be killed..."
His smile became wider.
"Make sure they regret meeting you."
Su Bai nodded.
"I’ll consider it."
The old man laughed one final time.
"Brat."
The crystalline roots released him.
The golden radiance swallowed his remaining soul.
There was no scream.
The old man’s form simply dissolved within the light, fading more peacefully than Su Bai had expected.
For the first time in countless years, the remnant soul no longer needed to remain awake.
Just then, the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele trembled.
Lines began appearing across its previously empty surface.
One character followed another until an entirely new entry had been completed.
Void-Tempering Soul Scripture.
Su Bai’s expression changed.
Before he could examine it, the Stele released another pulse.
An enormous flood of memories struck his consciousness.