Chapter 178 - The Broken Boundary and the Borrowed Voice
Miasma beasts were not supposed to enter safe zones.
That was one of the few rules the young cultivators had trusted after entering the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
That was why the survivors from Outpost No. 2 had spoken with such horror. They had seen beasts enter.
At that time, no one had understood how.
Now, Outpost No. 3 was about to witness the answer.
Outside the boundary, the red mist thickened until ordinary eyes could no longer see past it.
The cultivators at the outer line tightened their grips on their weapons.
Su Bai stood quietly behind the first defense ring.
His eyes did not move much, but his spiritual sense had already spread through the miasma.
The world outside Outpost No. 3 opened to him in sharp, unpleasant detail.
The miasma beasts were gathering near the boundary, but they did not move like ordinary monsters. Their bodies twitched each time the pulsing flesh fragment released another breath of red-black force.
That force entered them through their mouths, eyes, and cracked mineral shells. Their limbs thickened. Their joints warped. Their bones gave off dull grinding sounds as if something inside them was being forced to grow faster than it should.
They were being fed.
Su Bai’s gaze remained calm, but his fingers moved slightly.
The flesh fragment was not only empowering the beasts. Part of the Ashen-Blood Miasma released by the fragment had curled around the damaged section of the outpost’s protective array.
It flowed into the old scar of the formation line, sank into the cracked array veins, and spread there like red dye seeping into broken jade.
So that was it. They were turning the damaged part into their own path.
Lin Weiyang’s bronze mechanisms screamed a heartbeat later.
Her face changed.
"The damaged array line is being polluted!"
Bai Zhi’s lotus light trembled softly.
Her expression became solemn. "The barrier is not only resisting from outside. Something is entering the formation vein."
Zhuge Jing’s eyes narrowed.
He did not ask more. There was no time.
"Everyone, prepare your Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pills," he ordered. "If miasma enters the safe zone, take them immediately. Those already injured are not to move without order."
Several cultivators stiffened, then hurriedly took out their pill bottles.
Everyone knew what those words meant.
A safe zone might stop being safe again.
Outside the boundary, the first miasma beast moved. It struck the faint barrier around the damaged section and should have been burned away by the outpost’s protection.
Instead, the red veins inside the scar pulsed.
The barrier thinned for half a breath.
The beast pushed its head through.
A chill ran through the outpost.
The beast’s skull cracked under the pressure of the barrier, but its body forced forward. Flesh hissed. Bone smoked. Miasma peeled from its body like burning skin, yet it still crossed the line.
And then, it landed inside the safe zone.
For one breath, no one moved.
The impossible had happened in front of them.
Zhuge Jing’s fan snapped downward.
"First ring, block!"
The front shield cultivators roared and stepped forward as one. Spiritual shields, iron shields, mountain-shaped protective arts, and hastily activated defensive plates formed a rough wall at the weak point.
The beast crashed into them, forcing several cultivators back by half a step before Qin Baoshan strode forward and slammed his shield down.
The ground shook.
The beast’s charge stopped.
"Second ring, joints!" Zhuge Jing ordered.
Sword and saber cultivators moved behind the shield line. Blades flashed at the softer joints beneath its forelimbs, jaw, and ribs.
These were weaknesses Su Bai’s procession had learned through repeated suffering and repeated profit. Cut the hard shell and one only wasted strength. Break the movement points and even a monster with a stone body could be turned into an inconvenient statue.
The first beast fell.
Before anyone could relax, three more forced themselves through the thinning barrier, then five, then more.
The battle began properly.
Outpost No. 3 erupted into movement.
Formation plates lit up along the ground. The outer line shifted into three rotating defense rings under Zhuge Jing’s command.
Shield cultivators received the first charge. Sword and saber cultivators cut from behind them. Medicine cultivators dragged the wounded farther from the breach, while Bai Zhi’s lotus light covered the injured area like a quiet moon over troubled water.
Ji Ruyue raised one hand.
Frost spread outside the weak point. It crept along the ground in thin, precise layers, catching beast claws, slowing legs, and turning sudden lunges into awkward slips.
Several miasma beasts crashed face-first into the ground.
Han Yuelin appeared behind one of them and tapped his sword lazily against its neck joint.
The beast... collapsed.
Chen Feng stared. "Was that even a strike?"
Han Yuelin smiled. "It was tired."
Chen Feng almost choke.
On the other side, Tang Ziyan’s poison aura spread at the outer edge of the battlefield. It did not flood the outpost. It remained thin, controlled, and frighteningly patient.
Whenever beasts tried to circle from that side, their movements slowed. Some instinctively avoided the purple haze, only to be driven back toward Qin Baoshan’s shield line.
Yan Lie’s flames surged beside another defense point. His fire struck in short, controlled bursts, forcing beasts away from weaker cultivators while avoiding the injured area.
Occasionally, his gaze flickered toward Liu Meng’s direction, then immediately returned to the battlefield with excessive seriousness.
Liu Meng remained near the medicine cultivators. She did not fight at the front. Instead, she helped identify who needed pills immediately and who only needed bandaging, which saved far more lives than one more sword at the boundary.
The battle was difficult, but not hopeless.
They had fought miasma beasts before.
Those who had followed Su Bai the longest had learned their weaknesses too well. They shouted reminders to newer Outpost No. 3 cultivators.
"Do not cut the back!"
"The knee! Aim for the knee!"
"If it has no knee, make one!"
"Do not ask where to cut! If you cannot see a weak point, hit the place that looks least expensive!"
That last shout made several cultivators hesitate.
Then, strangely, it worked.
The miasma beasts were stronger than before because of the Ashen-Blood power feeding them, but the defenders were no longer ignorant.
Fear still existed, yet it moved with discipline now. Under Zhuge Jing’s command, panic had no room to spread properly.
Su Bai acted only when necessary.
A qi-formed needle flashed from his hand and pierced the throat of a beast about to spit condensed miasma at the shield line. Another needle struck the ground beneath a cultivator who had stepped too far forward, forcing him to stumble back right before a beast’s claw tore through the place where his chest had been.
The cultivator turned pale.
Su Bai did not look at him.
"Stay in formation."
"Yes!"
After that, the man stayed in formation with the obedience of someone who had nearly become an example.
But Su Bai’s true attention was not on the beasts.
It remained on the farthest part of the mist.
The human figures walked behind the miasma beasts slowly.
They did not hurry even as their beasts died. They did not flinch when ice covered the ground, when poison altered the flow of the battlefield, or when Zhuge Jing’s commands prevented every quick opening they tried to create.
That made them worse.
A beast that charged could be understood.
A human-shaped thing that watched the charge fail and continued walking without changing expression was harder to accept.
Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms tracked them constantly.
"Human figures are maintaining distance," she called. "They are using the beasts as cover."
Zhuge Jing’s expression remained calm. "Outer line, do not chase. Hold position. If human figures enter restraint range, bind first."
Several cultivators near the star-metal shells tightened their formation.
They were ready, or at least they hoped they were.
just then, the human figures changed their method.
One of them raised its head.
Its face was still indistinct through the mist. Its mouth opened.
A voice spread across the battlefield.
"Second ring, withdraw three steps."
The command sounded exactly like Zhuge Jing.
Several cultivators moved by instinct, only half a step. But on a battlefield, half a step was enough.
A miasma beast slammed into the gap.
Qin Baoshan roared and blocked it, but three cultivators were knocked aside. One formation plate cracked. The defense ring distorted for a breath.
Zhuge Jing’s eyes turned cold.
"That was not my order."
Another human figure opened its mouth.
"First ring, open the left side."
This time, fewer people moved, but hesitation still appeared.
The voice was too similar.
The tone, rhythm, even the calm elegance behind the words were copied well enough to make the skin crawl.
The battle nearly turned chaotic.
Just then, Su Bai’s voice cut through the outpost.
"Look at his fan."
Everyone froze for a fraction of a breath.
Zhuge Jing understood instantly.
His fan lifted.
"From now on, only obey my orders when my fan moves with them," Zhuge Jing said. "Verbal commands alone are false."
The outpost immediately steadied.
One cultivator shouted, "What if the enemy copies the fan too?"
Lin Weiyang answered before Zhuge Jing could.
"If they can copy Brother Zhuge’s fan from that distance, I will retire from mechanisms and become a farmer."
One of her bronze discs shook violently beside her.
She glanced at it.
"...I may choose a difficult field."
Despite the danger, several cultivators almost laughed.
The tension loosened just enough.
Zhuge Jing’s fan swept left.
"Second ring, close."
This time, the command and the fan moved together.
The line obeyed. The gap closed. The human figures stopped speaking for a moment.
Su Bai’s eyes cooled further.
Borrowing voices was not the same as borrowing people. This was not an emotional trap. It was battlefield interference, and in some ways, that made it more practical and more annoying.
The enemy had learned.
They had seen Zhuge Jing command and decided to use his voice against the outpost.
If the defenders had been more frightened, less organized, or less prepared, that alone might have caused a collapse.
But now the false command had failed.
The human figures continued walking.
Behind them, the flesh fragment pulsed again.
The damaged boundary flickered more violently.
More miasma beasts pushed through.
This time, several of them did not charge straight at the defenders. They threw themselves at Ji Ruyue’s frost and collapsed into red sludge, melting into the ground before reforming into miasma that flowed back toward the pulsing fragment outside.
Su Bai saw it.
His gaze sharpened.
The beasts were not only soldiers. They were fuel.
Every death near the weak point thickened the red flow connected to the flesh fragment. Killing them still protected the outpost, but killing them carelessly gave the enemy more material to work with.
Zhuge Jing noticed the battlefield change almost at the same moment.
His fan shifted.
"Do not overkill. Disable where possible. Push corpses away from the weak point."
The order worked.
The defenders changed tactics.
Qin Baoshan’s shield line no longer crushed beasts where they fell. It pushed them sideways. Ji Ruyue’s frost redirected bodies away from the damaged section. Tang Ziyan’s poison formed a thin deterrent corridor that made the beasts avoid certain paths. Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms dragged smaller carcasses with hooked chains before they could melt into the scarred array line.
Su Bai sent Nether Threads silently into the ground.
They were thin, almost invisible, and they moved beneath the red mist like black hair under water. Wherever the red sludge tried to gather into channels, the threads cut across them. He severed the flow before it could fully return to the flesh fragment.
Outside the mist, the flesh fragment pulsed violently.
For the first time, one of the human figures stopped walking.
Su Bai saw it. It had noticed.
The battlefield continued to roar around him, but Su Bai became quieter instead.
He had found the path.
The beasts, the false commands, the pressure on the damaged boundary, all of it existed to bring that pulsing flesh source closer. If the thing reached the scar and released miasma directly into the formation vein, Outpost No. 3 might stop being a safe zone entirely.
Su Bai did not rush.
The human figure carrying the flesh fragment was still far enough outside the boundary. Its strength was unknown. The other human figures might be Soul-Bloom Returnees.
If Su Bai charged alone too early, he would only become the most obvious target.
So he waited.
Let the enemy enter the battlefield.
Let Zhuge Jing draw their attention.
Let the beasts force the outpost to reveal its defenses, and let the human figures believe Su Bai was only supporting the line.
Then, when the carrier moved close enough to cross the damaged boundary, Su Bai finally moved.
The human figure holding the flesh fragment stepped toward the thinned section of the barrier.
The red scar pulsed. The barrier opened for half a breath.
It was then that Su Bai disappeared. A dead leaf appeared where he had been standing.
Falling Leaf Substitution.
No one noticed immediately.
By the time anyone felt something shift, Su Bai had already appeared in front of the human figure carrying the flesh fragment.
Up close, the figure looked almost human.
That made it worse.
Its face even changed when Su Bai appeared. Surprise flickered across its features with vivid, disgusting accuracy.
For a moment, anger rose in Su Bai’s chest.
It looked too much like a person.
Someone had taken the traces of real people and used them to dress a weapon.
Su Bai did not speak. He reached out.
The figure tried to retreat, but Nether Threads had already wrapped around its wrist, elbow, shoulder, and throat.
Su Bai stepped in, grabbed the figure by the front of its robe, and pulled.
The flesh fragment pulsed.
Fluid Ashen-Blood Miasma erupted around them.
To any ordinary cultivator, that burst would have been enough to burn flesh, rot Qi, and invade the spiritual sense. To Su Bai, the pressure crashed into his body and became cold clarity.
His grip tightened, then he dragged the figure away from the boundary.
Deep into the mist.