Chapter 173 - The Glass-Lotus Saint Root and the Soul-Bloom Returnees
The exchange of information took longer than anyone expected.
At first, both sides only spoke of simple things. Where they had landed. Which routes they had taken. How many people they had met.
But the more they spoke, the heavier the atmosphere became.
Su Bai listened quietly.
Lin Weiyang set several small recording mechanisms nearby to preserve the important parts.
Zhuge Jing sat opposite Su Bai with his folding fan resting across his knees, occasionally asking a question when someone’s account contradicted another.
Bai Zhi remained near the injured.
After some time, Su Bai finally understood the general situation.
Outpost No. 1 had not fallen after the Sanctuary opened. It had already failed before this generation entered.
That one sentence made many people go cold.
If Outpost No. 1 had collapsed before the opening, then the instability of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary might not have been an accident. It might have been one of the reasons the gate opened early.
The one who brought that news was Bai Zhi.
Among everyone gathered in Outpost No. 3, she had been the unluckiest and perhaps also the luckiest. When the Sanctuary opened, she had landed near the ruins of Outpost No. 1.
Unlucky, because Outpost No. 1 had already become a place no young cultivator should approach.
Lucky, because she had survived long enough to bring the warning out.
Bai Zhi lowered her eyes slightly as everyone looked toward her.
"The Boundary Pillar of Outpost No. 1 was already broken when I arrived," she said. "There was no true safe zone left. The mist did not stay outside the outpost. It moved through the streets and ruins as if it had lived there for a long time."
Her voice remained gentle, but the words made the listeners’ backs tighten.
Bai Zhi was a Holy Maiden of the Glass-Lotus Holy See. Her reputation had not come from appearance or title alone. Among the current generation, she was one of the rare prodigies whose spirit root was special enough to be recorded separately.
The Glass-Lotus Saint Root. It was a mutated Light-Water Root with a faint Wood affinity.
Light was not one of the five elements. It belonged to the category of Primordial Roots.
Having even a trace of such an attribute made a cultivator unusual. Bai Zhi’s root was not a pure Light Root, nor was it a pure Heavenly Root, but because its attributes were harmonious and its purity was extremely high, her cultivation speed was no worse than many Heavenly Root geniuses.
More importantly, her root was not built for raw destruction. It was made for purification, protection, healing, and soul-soothing.
That was why she had been able to survive near Outpost No. 1 long enough to escape.
The luring voices in the mist had affected others, but her mind had remained clear. The corruption had pressed against her, but her light had kept her senses sharp.
Su Bai looked at Bai Zhi for a few breaths.
The soft light around her still made him uncomfortable. It was a faint instinctive rejection, as if something deep inside him disliked being touched by that kind of purity.
A thought crossed his mind.
Was his other origin connected to darkness?
Su Bai silently pushed the thought away.
This was not the time.
He looked at Bai Zhi and asked, "What did you see there, Sister Bai?"
Bai Zhi’s fingers tightened slightly around the edge of her sleeve.
"I saw people," she said, then she paused. "No. I saw things wearing people."
The outpost became silent.
Several survivors from Outpost No. 2 lowered their heads as if the words had dragged something out of their memories.
Bai Zhi continued, "They were moving through the broken outpost in groups. They were bringing unfamiliar things toward the remaining outposts."
Lin Weiyang’s eyes sharpened. "Toward the outposts?"
Bai Zhi nodded. "Yes. Wherever they passed, the Ashen-Blood Miasma became thicker. The mist followed those objects like water following a channel."
Everyone fell silent.
The enemy was not merely attacking outposts. It was feeding the mist toward them.
Bai Zhi sighed slowly. "I tried to stop one group, but the moment I purified one of the objects, the things wearing people noticed me. They spoke with human voices."
A few cultivators shuddered.
Bai Zhi said, "I escaped toward Outpost No. 2 to warn others. Along the way, I met several injured groups. Some were real. Some were not..."
She looked toward one unconscious cultivator lying near the wall.
"One disciple remembered his sect, his master, and his technique. He cried when he saw his junior brother. But when Zhuge Jing asked him about something only the real person should know, he smiled with the wrong expression."
Zhuge Jing’s fan closed fully.
"We killed him," he said.
Bai Zhi lowered her eyes. "After that, his body bloomed."
A chill passed through the outpost.
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Bai Zhi’s voice became softer.
"It was like the body opened from the inside. Red mist and broken voices poured out. Those nearby who breathed it in became unstable. One cultivator lost himself and turned into a beastlike thing. Another kept speaking in three different voices. A third still looked human, but his answers no longer matched his memories."
Several Outpost No. 3 cultivators went pale.
Some had clearly seen it. Some had survived it.
Bai Zhi’s hands tightened. "My purification could suppress the mist. I could protect some people. But I could not heal those who had already been changed too deeply. The more we killed, the worse the corruption spread. By the time we understood that these things must not be killed carelessly, Outpost No. 2 was already under attack."
Yan Lie’s fire Qi stirred despite himself.
"They came in waves," he said. "If you cut them down, they polluted the area. If you hesitated, they approached the Boundary Pillar. If you let them reach the formation lines, the pillar weakened."
Qin Baoshan added in a low voice, "We tried blocking them instead of killing them, but ordinary restraints did not last."
Han Yuelin smiled faintly, but there was no amusement in it. "A battlefield where killing the enemy helps the enemy. Very irritating."
That sentence made the younger cultivators feel even colder.
For cultivators, strength usually meant being able to kill. But what if killing was the wrong answer?
What if every victory poisoned the ground beneath their feet?
Su Bai was silent. The pieces had finally connected.
Soul-Bloom Returnees. The enemies might be the things from the cracked star-metal shells in the ravine.
Su Bai exhaled slowly.
"The enemies you met," he said, "should be the same kind as the things sealed in the shells we found earlier."
Everyone looked at him.
Zhuge Jing’s eyes sharpened.
"Shells?"
Su Bai did not answer with words at first.
He raised his hand. Several heavy objects appeared from his storage and landed on the ground.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The cultivators of Outpost No. 3 stared.
Even some newer members of Su Bai’s procession, who had joined after the ravine incident, widened their eyes.
They were... star-metal!
Lin Weiyang’s gaze fixed on them instantly. Her eyes became bright, then she remembered the recording and forcibly restrained herself.
Yan Lie stared at the shells with disbelief. "You found these?"
Su Bai nodded. "In a ravine. Some shells were intact. Some were cracked."
The word cracked made several people’s expressions change.
Su Bai continued, "The intact ones contained sealed enemies. I emptied them. The cracked shells were already broken before we arrived."
No one spoke. For a few breaths, the entire outpost only stared at him.
"You..." Yan Lie’s voice became strange. "You emptied them?"
Su Bai nodded again.
"How?"
Su Bai looked at him.
Yan Lie suddenly remembered that this was the same person whose procession claimed dead seniors guided him, who wore an execution mask as tempering, and who had somehow gathered half the outer region behind him.
Yan Lie closed his mouth.
Some answers were clearly not meant for ordinary mental stability.
Su Bai looked at the shells.
"Soul-Bloom Returnees. These enemies were sealed by the ancient defenders because they could not be killed normally. If killed carelessly, they bloom. The red mist contaminate nearby cultivators."
The survivors from Outpost No. 2 turned pale.
That description matched what they had seen too closely.
Bai Zhi whispered, "Soul-Bloom..."
Su Bai looked at her. "That is close to the name I found in the old records."
The name spread through the outpost like cold water.
A few cultivators repeated it under their breath and immediately looked as if they regretted giving it a shape.
Zhuge Jing’s expression became grave. "Then Outpost No. 1 may not simply have fallen. It may have been used as a source."
Su Bai nodded. "Most likely."
Lin Weiyang spoke carefully. "If they are carrying corrupted objects from deeper regions toward Boundary Pillars, then they may be trying to overload the remaining outposts one by one. Breaking the pillar is not only destruction. It changes the route of the mist."
Bai Zhi added softly, "And each collapsed outpost creates more wounded, more desperate survivors, more fear, and more chances for borrowed faces to mix in."
The conclusion made the outpost colder than the red mist outside.
This was not random. Something was guiding the collapse.
Zhuge Jing leaned over the shells, but did not touch them. "Can they be reused?"
Su Bai nodded. "The intact shells were emptied. They can still contain things, but the sealing lines must be checked."
He looked over everyone.
His voice was calm, but it carried through the outpost.
"If we encounter these enemies again, do not kill them carelessly."
The warning made many cultivators tense.
Su Bai continued, "Cutting limbs, freezing movement, binding with earth, poison suppression, formation restraints, anything that stops them without forcing them to bloom. Use those first."
His gaze moved across the outpost.
"If they must be killed, then they must be isolated first. Preferably sealed."
He pointed to the star-metal shells.
"Contain them in these. I will handle the rest."
The outpost fell silent.
No one misunderstood what that meant.
Su Bai was saying that the things which had destroyed Outpost No. 1, broken Outpost No. 2, corrupted cultivators, and made Bai Zhi unable to heal the victims would be handed to him after containment.
He said it as if asking others to place broken tools in a corner.
The cultivators of Outpost No. 3 stared at him.
They looked as if they had just seen an immortal lord descend into an outer-region outpost wearing a bone mask and calmly assign work.
The people from Su Bai’s procession reacted differently.
They were also shocked, but not as shocked as they should have been.
After all, Brother Su had already done too many things that made ordinary judgment feel tired.
One cultivator from the procession whispered, "So we are not killing them. We are packing them."
Another replied seriously, "In star-metal boxes."
A third nodded. "And then giving them to Brother Su."
The first thought about it.
"That sounds safer than many of our previous plans."
Several people nearby actually agreed.
The four Blood Iron Sect disciples were silent.
They looked at the star-metal shells, then they looked at Su Bai, then they lowered their heads even more.
One of them suddenly understood something with great clarity.
Being ordered to throw stones was not the worst job in the world.