Chapter 193 - The Battlefield Beneath the Ruin
Tang Sisi sat on a broken crate with her hands folded neatly on her knees.
Behind her was a courtyard full of corpses.
In front of her stood the group.
For a moment, the difference between her appearance and her surroundings was so great that no one knew where to look.
Zhuge Jing was the first to recover.
"Sister Tang Sisi," he said politely, "when you said you stalked the enemies too far, how far exactly?"
Tang Sisi tilted her head.
"Very far."
Chen Feng’s eyelid twitched.
Tang Ziyan sat beside Tang Sisi and looked at her seriously. "Sisi, explain properly."
Tang Sisi nodded.
"Alright."
Everyone listened.
At first, they only wanted to know how she had survived. But as Tang Sisi began speaking, their expressions slowly changed. After a while, some of them even forgot to breathe.
It was ridiculous.
Not Su Bai-level ridiculous. That was a different category entirely.
But for normal genius cultivators, Tang Sisi’s experience was already unreasonable enough.
According to Tang Sisi, when everyone was separated, she did not land in a safe place. She fell near the broken remains of Outpost No. 1.
So Tang Sisi acted immediately.
She swallowed an Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pill, suppressed her breath, hid her aura, and disappeared from where she had landed before anything could find her.
Tang Ziyan listened quietly.
That part was very Tang Sisi.
If Tang Sisi found herself alone in a dangerous place, she would not shout for help first.
She would vanish first.
Shouting could wait until she knew who was listening.
Tang Sisi continued, "After hiding, I saw them."
"Them?" Zhuge Jing asked.
"Unfamiliar human figures," Tang Sisi said. "They were not wandering randomly. They had routes."
Everyone’s expression became more serious.
Tang Sisi’s eyes curved slightly. "So I knew something was wrong."
Chen Feng looked at her. "You saw strange human figures moving through the red mist, and your first thought was that something was wrong?"
"What else should I think?"
"That you should stay away."
Tang Sisi blinked.
"But if they had a route, that meant they knew where something important was."
Chen Feng fell silent.
Yan Lie looked like he wanted to say something.
Chen Feng whispered without looking at him, "Don’t."
Yan Lie closed his mouth again.
Tang Sisi smiled. "Also, this is the Fallen-Star Sanctuary. If there is something hidden deep inside, it might be treasure."
The group looked at her.
Tang Ziyan’s expression became complicated.
Tang Sisi added very honestly, "I am from the Tang Clan."
That explained nothing. It also explained everything.
Tang Sisi continued, "The problem was that the deeper I went, the thicker the mist became. My ordinary senses became less useful. Spiritual sense also became risky if spread too carelessly, because some things inside the mist reacted to attention."
She touched the corner of her eye.
"Fortunately, my eyes are a little better than most people’s. I could still see some things through the mist."
She said it casually, as if that explained everything.
Zhuge Jing’s eyes sharpened.
"Reacted to attention?"
Tang Sisi nodded. "Not everything inside was alive, but not everything dead was harmless either."
The courtyard fell silent.
That sentence carried more weight than her earlier casual tone.
Tang Sisi looked toward the deeper part of the inner area, as if remembering something.
"There were lingering intents deeper inside. Broken sword intent, spear intent, killing intent, formation intent, resentment, command will... things like that. Some were weak. Some were almost sleeping. But if one touched them carelessly, they would wake up."
Bai Zhi frowned slightly. "Wake up?"
"One beast brushed against a broken banner," Tang Sisi said. "The banner did not move, but the beast was cut into seven pieces."
Yan Lie’s face changed.
Tang Sisi raised one finger.
"Another human figure stepped on a cracked command platform. Something shouted without sound, and its head twisted backward."
No one spoke.
Tang Sisi raised another finger.
"There was also a broken spear stuck in the ground. I saw three enemies avoid it, so I avoided it too. Later, one miasma beast ran near it. The spear did not move, but the beast stopped existing from the chest upward."
Chen Feng looked at her for a long moment.
"You still followed?"
Tang Sisi nodded.
"I followed from farther away after that."
Because the mist was thick and filled with things that reacted strangely, she did not rely only on her own senses. Instead, she followed the enemy.
She chose a group of human figures that seemed to know the route, stayed far behind them, hid her breath, and used Tang Clan tracking methods to move only when they moved.
When they stopped, she stopped. When they avoided an area, she marked it. When one of them was destroyed by something unseen, she remembered what had killed it.
Along the way, she gathered what she could.
A few broken weapons. Formation fragments. Two old jade slips. A command token. Star-metal shards. And several things she did not recognize but still took because they looked expensive.
Tang Sisi’s expression slowly became more serious.
"The deeper I followed, the more I realized that this place was not an ordinary mystic realm."
No one interrupted her this time.
She looked at the cracked walls around them and spoke more slowly.
"At first, I thought Fallen-Star Sanctuary was just an ancient ruin. That is what everyone thinks when they enter, right?"
Zhuge Jing nodded.
That was indeed the general belief among the major factions. The Fallen-Star Sanctuary had existed for countless years. Every opening brought danger and opportunity, but no faction had fully understood its true origin.
Even the Zhuge Clan had only gathered fragments of information.
Tang Sisi continued, "But deeper in, I saw battlefield roads. Supply routes. Old defensive lines. Places where soldiers had gathered."
Her voice lowered.
"This was not a simple ruin."
The group became quiet.
Tang Sisi said, "It was a battlefield."
Su Bai had already learned the same thing from dead soldiers’ memories, but hearing Tang Sisi say it from her own observation made the truth feel heavier.
Tang Sisi had no dead memories.
She had simply stalked the enemy, watched, survived, and understood.
Zhuge Jing’s fan moved once.
"How deep did you reach?"
Tang Sisi thought for a moment.
"I do not know," she said. "But I passed more than one defensive region. The enemies I followed went through broken roads, collapsed formation gates, and a place where the mist became heavy enough to press against the lotus barrier like water."
Bai Zhi’s expression changed slightly.
"Like water?"
Tang Sisi nodded.
"The deeper it went, the thicker the Ashen-Blood Miasma became. At first, it was mist. Later, it became like smoke soaked in blood. After that, it felt heavy. When it moved, it did not drift. It rolled."
The group listened without blinking.
Tang Sisi’s eyes lowered slightly.
"And after that, I saw a place where the mist looked almost solid."
Several people’s breathing changed.
Tang Sisi continued, "It was like a wall. More like the red mist had become so dense that it turned into a barrier by itself. The enemies I followed did not enter casually. They stopped outside it."
Zhuge Jing’s fingers tightened around his fan.
"A solid Ashen-Blood Miasma barrier..."
Just hearing those words made the group feel pressure.
The Ashen-Blood Miasma outside was already dangerous enough. If it became solid, what kind of density would that be? What kind of corruption would be gathered there? How many pills would it consume just to stand near it?
Tang Sisi looked very calm.
"I did not go in." Tang Sisi added, "I wanted to, but my lotus barrier started making cracking sounds."
Tang Sisi continued before Tang Ziyan could scold her.
"After I reached that place, the enemies finally found me."
The mood changed again.
Everyone became serious.
Tang Sisi’s tone remained calm, but the things she said next were not calm at all.
Some enemies died normally after being killed. Those were the easier ones.
But some enemies bloomed.
The first time it happened, Tang Sisi thought she had already killed the target cleanly. Her needle had entered the back of its neck, her poison had spread through its head, and her threads had already bound its arms. By all normal standards, that thing should have died without making a sound.
Instead, its body opened. The bloom erupted outward and struck her lotus barrier.
Tang Sisi’s expression turned thoughtful.
"That one broke my lotus barrier."
Liu Meng could not help asking, "Just the barrier?"
Tang Sisi nodded. "The pill I used was very good."
Tang Ziyan’s gaze moved slightly.
Su Bai noticed it.
Zhuge Jing noticed it too, but he did not ask.
Tang Sisi only said, "Our clan prepared a very precious Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pill for me. It formed a stronger lotus barrier than ordinary pills. When the bloom erupted, the barrier took most of the damage."
Bai Zhi’s eyes softened slightly with understanding.
"So that is why you were not corrupted."
Tang Sisi nodded.
"The barrier cracked, but I was fine."
Everyone became silent again.
Su Bai realized. She was talking about the Transcendent-grade Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pills he had refined.
Tang Sisi continued, "After that, things became troublesome."
Yan Lie frowned. "More troublesome than a blooming corpse?"
"Yes."
Tang Sisi looked at him as if that were obvious.
"One blooming corpse is only one blooming corpse. More enemies kept coming."
Tang Sisi explained that most of her pills had not been spent while exploring calmly through the mist. If she had only been moving carefully, hiding, and avoiding danger, her supply could have lasted longer.
The true problem began after she was discovered.
The enemies followed her trail.
Every bloom damaged the lotus barrier. Every serious miasma surge forced her to consume another pill or layer another protection. Even when she used distance, traps, poison, and thread techniques, she could not always avoid the aftermath.
"The exploding ones wasted the most pills," Tang Sisi said with a small sigh.
The group did not know how to respond.
Tang Sisi continued, "I left trails behind me before going deep, so I could retreat. But after they found me, I could not return by the same path immediately. Some paths were blocked. Some had awakened intents. Some had enemies waiting."
She pointed toward the courtyard.
"That led me here."
This supply zone had been close enough to reach and broken enough to hide in. Tang Sisi used the entrance, walls, beams, and ruined storage rooms to arrange Tang Clan Threads.
She used the old stones to hide needle angles. She placed warning lines where the miasma beasts liked to pass. She turned broken crates into blind spots and half-collapsed walls into killing lanes.
After that, enemies kept coming.
She killed them. More came. She killed those too.
Eventually, she ran out of pills.
The courtyard became what it was now.
When Tang Sisi finally finished speaking, the entire group fell silent.
This time, the silence lasted longer.
The Fallen-Star Sanctuary had existed for countless years. Every major faction knew of it, entered it, fought over its opportunities, and lost people inside it. But no one truly knew its origin.
If Tang Sisi’s story was true, then she had not merely survived. She had stumbled onto one of the greatest secrets of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
Zhuge Jing slowly opened his fan again.
His eyes were unusually bright.
"A battlefield divided by layers. Supply routes. Defensive regions. Lingering military intent. And a solid Ashen-Blood Miasma barrier deeper inside..."
He did not finish. He did not need to.
Everyone understood.
The question rose in their minds at almost the same time.
Who could pass through something like that?
Who could approach a place where Ashen-Blood Miasma had become nearly solid?
Who could survive the pressure, corruption, and hidden danger long enough to uncover what was beyond it?
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then, very slowly, almost everyone turned toward Su Bai.
Su Bai looked back at them.
Their eyes had changed.
Some were cautious. Some were excited. Some were already imagining something they had no right to imagine.
If there was one person here who might be able to uncover the hidden truth of Fallen-Star Sanctuary, it was probably Su Bai.
He had walked through miasma as if it owed him rent.
He had deceived a Soul-Bloom Returnee by pretending to be a half-opened disaster.
Compared with that, approaching a solid Ashen-Blood Miasma barrier sounded...
Still insane.
But at least it was Su Bai’s kind of insane.
Liu Meng’s eyes brightened.
"As expected of Senior Brother Su..."
Su Bai immediately felt that this sentence had become dangerous.
Zhuge Jing smiled behind his fan.
"If Brother Su truly uncovers the ancient secret of Fallen-Star Sanctuary, our names may be written in the records of every major faction."
Yan Lie’s eyes lit up.
Tang Sisi looked from one person to another, then finally looked at Su Bai.
"Brother Su can go there?"
The group looked at Su Bai again.
Su Bai did not answer immediately.
He was thinking.
Solid miasma. If Tang Sisi’s route was correct, then that place might be the boundary between Layer Two and Layer Three. Or perhaps the edge of the original red mist zone itself.
Su Bai looked toward the deeper part of the supply zone.
After a long moment, he spoke.
"It seems I really do need to go there."
The supply courtyard became completely silent.