Chapter 187 - The Hidden Bloom and the Weight to Carry
The guards around the flesh fragments were the hardest enemies in Outpost No. 1.
Everyone understood that soon enough.
The ordinary false bodies had already begun to weaken after Su Bai discovered how useful Starving Wraith’s Devouring Maw was against them.
The guards were different.
They stood closer to the flesh fragments, and their bodies had clearly been soaked in Ashen-Blood Miasma for far longer.
Several carried pressure near the peak of Golden Core. Two were even worse. Their weight brushed against Nascent Soul, though the pressure felt unstable and incomplete.
Still, unstable Nascent Soul pressure was enough to make the younger cultivators’ hearts tighten.
Su Bai moved forward with the Petrified Calamity-Magnet raised above him.
The red mist bent toward him. The clearing moved with him.
The procession followed carefully, fighting within the area where the mist thinned. Those outside the clear zone only supported from a distance, while those inside focused on binding, disabling, and pushing enemies away from the flesh fragments.
Su Bai’s Devouring Maw descended several times. Each time it passed through a false guard, red-black miasma poured out and vanished into his palm.
The false guards staggered, and their pressure fell sharply. Once weakened, Tang Ziyan’s poison, Ji Ruyue’s frost, Qin Baoshan’s shield line, Han Yuelin’s interruptions, and Chen Feng’s sword became enough to suppress them.
The battle grew steadier.
The first flesh fragment came within reach.
Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms tore at the crude miasma marks around it, while Su Bai pinned its movement with Qi Needles and Nether Threads. The fragment pulsed violently, trying to pull the mist back toward itself, but the Petrified Calamity-Magnet stole most of that response.
Weeping Needles flashed. Ashen-Frost Blight Flame bloomed in thin gray-white lines.
The flesh fragment screamed. A breath later, it stilled.
Su Bai sealed it inside a jade box, wrapped it with Qi and Nether Threads, and placed it into his system inventory.
The moment it disappeared, the surrounding mist weakened slightly.
That gave everyone hope.
Unfortunately, hope was often the moment the Sanctuary chose to become unpleasant.
One of the two Nascent Soul-level figures moved.
It was the sword-bearing woman.
Until that moment, everyone had treated her as a stronger false body. Her identity had been smooth. Her expression had been calm. Her sword forms had been clean. She had not shown the chaotic overlap of voices that Soul-Bloom Returnees usually revealed.
Either she had acted too well, or the soul fragments inside her were unusually compatible.
The mistake became obvious too late.
A spear pierced her side. A sword cut her shoulder. Tang Clan threads wrapped around one arm.
The sword-bearing woman looked down at her wounds, then smiled.
Her chest opened.
A red flower of flesh unfolded beneath her ribs.
"Soul-Bloom!"
The warning came too late.
The flower burst.
Corruption exploded outward.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet pulled most of the eruption toward Su Bai at once, bending the bloom away from the main formation. But the detonation had happened too close. Red-black flecks splashed across several cultivators before the pull gathered everything.
Three shield cultivators cried out.
A Tang Clan junior fell to one knee.
A sword cultivator clutched his face as red veins crept along his cheek.
Bai Zhi acted immediately.
"Lotus-Heart Clear Veil!"
White petals scattered over the affected cultivators, wrapping them in thin layers of light. The corruption slowed. It did not vanish, but it stopped sinking deeper.
Mu Qing rushed forward with medicine.
"Do not circulate Qi! Suppress your meridians!"
The affected cultivators obeyed with pale faces.
Su Bai looked toward them once.
He could remove the corruption, but not yet. There were still enemies near the flesh fragments. Turning away completely now would only give the remaining guards a chance to make the situation worse.
His gaze moved to the second Nascent Soul-level figure.
An old woman holding a rotted wooden staff.
She had also hidden herself too well.
Su Bai no longer gave her that chance.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet pulled harder. Devouring Maw opened. The old woman released a false Nascent Soul pressure, but the weight bent toward Su Bai and vanished into the dark mouth in his palm.
Her expression changed.
The next breath, Su Bai was already in front of her.
Nether Threads wrapped around her limbs.
Devouring Maw passed through her chest again and again.
The dense miasma inside her poured out in a roaring stream. Her pressure collapsed from that unstable Nascent Soul weight, falling stage after stage until her body could no longer hold its shape.
A flesh flower tried to open beneath her robe.
Su Bai lowered the magnet slightly.
The bloom erupted directly toward him.
All of it bent inward.
The red-black corruption vanished into Su Bai’s Dantian and Qi reservoirs without touching anyone else.
No one spoke for a breath.
The lesson was clear.
The enemies could hide as false bodies. Some of them could still bloom.
That mistake had almost cost lives.
Su Bai turned at once.
"The injured."
That woke everyone.
Lin Weiyang moved the affected cultivators onto the bronze platforms. Bai Zhi kept the lotus veil around them, while Mu Qing stabilized their wounds and prevented the corruption from spreading.
Su Bai crouched beside the first shield cultivator.
The red veins had not reached his Dantian.
Good.
A small Devouring Maw opened above Su Bai’s fingers, no larger than a coin. The corruption inside the wound trembled, then pulled outward in thin strands. Su Bai siphoned it carefully, taking only the Ashen-Blood corruption and leaving the cultivator’s own Qi untouched.
The red veins faded.
The shield cultivator exhaled shakily.
Su Bai moved to the next person, then the next.
Fortunately, the amount that entered their bodies was not large. Bai Zhi had reacted quickly, and the lotus pills had helped resist the first invasion. One by one, Su Bai pulled the corruption out.
No one died. That fact settled slowly over the procession.
But the fear remained.
Zhuge Jing stood with his fan lowered.
For once, his expression was not calm.
He had judged wrong too.
That mistake had nearly caused deaths.
Su Bai glanced at him.
"Do not think too much."
Zhuge Jing looked up.
Su Bai said, "The enemy hid it well. Next time, assume anything with a face can bloom until proven otherwise."
It was not comfort. It was a rule.
Somehow, that helped more.
Zhuge Jing inhaled slowly and nodded.
"Understood."
After that, the remaining enemies did not last long.
The strongest guards had been dealt with. The Soul-Bloom trick had been exposed. Su Bai kept the clearing open while the others suppressed the weakened false bodies and beasts.
Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms broke the crude miasma marks around the remaining flesh fragments, and no one approached recklessly again.
Su Bai turned toward the fragments one by one.
He did not delay.
He would not gamble on whether the flesh fragments could lure cultivators into obedience. He would not wait for them to pulse, call something from below, or strengthen another hidden enemy.
When a fragment was isolated, he killed it.
The reactions were different.
One screamed. One cursed him. One laughed in several voices at once. One bled without sound, but every drop tried to crawl toward the deep wound where the Boundary Pillar had once stood.
Su Bai killed them all.
Qi Needles pinned them. Weeping Needles carried Ashen-Frost Blight Flame into their edges. Nether Threads sealed their convulsions. The Petrified Calamity-Magnet swallowed the leaking mist before it could touch anyone.
Each dead fragment was placed into a separate jade box. Each jade box was sealed with Qi and Nether Threads. Each box entered his system inventory.
When Su Bai reached the last visible fragment, it stopped pulsing.
For a breath, the ruined outpost became too quiet.
A voice entered Su Bai’s ears clearly.
"You carry what was cut away."
Su Bai’s fingers paused.
A chill ran through him.
Perhaps it came from the same source as one of the fragments he had killed before.
Su Bai’s gaze sharpened.
Weeping Needles descended.
The last fragment froze.
Su Bai sealed it in another jade box and stored it away.
The red mist around Outpost No. 1 thinned.
The lotus barriers stopped hissing so violently, and the cultivators near the rear finally breathed without tasting blood at the back of their throats.
Zhuge Jing approached Su Bai slowly.
"What happened?"
Su Bai looked at him.
"You did not hear what it said?"
Zhuge Jing shook his head.
"I heard many voices overlapping. They echoed at the same time. I could not distinguish the words."
Su Bai froze for an instant. So only he had understood it.
Zhuge Jing noticed, but this time, he did not ask more.
For once, curiosity remained behind caution.
Su Bai did not put away the Petrified Calamity-Magnet yet. He kept the clearing open and let everyone rest inside its range.
The battle was over.
They had won, but the mistake with the hidden Soul-Bloom Returnee stayed in everyone’s mind.
...
After everyone recovered enough to move, Su Bai led them away from Outpost No. 1.
He brought the procession back to the old storage hall they had found before reaching Outpost No. 1.
Compared to the ruined outpost, the storage hall felt almost comfortable. It had walls, a roof, and no flesh fragment pulsing in the middle. At this point, that was enough for many cultivators to consider it a luxury residence.
The group settled inside.
Su Bai stood before the group.
The hall slowly fell silent.
"I plan to go deeper," he said.
No one looked surprised. Not after everything they had seen.
Su Bai continued, "You can make your choice here. The fight earlier was dangerous, and it will only become more dangerous later. Think carefully before following."
He looked across the hall.
Some cultivators lowered their eyes. Some gripped their weapons. Some glanced toward injured friends. Some looked toward the deeper mist beyond the sealed entrance.
Su Bai paused.
"I will give you one hour."
After saying that, he walked to a corner, sat down cross-legged, and began meditating.
The young cultivators remained silent for a long while.
They had followed Su Bai through ruins, beasts, Returnees, false seniors, flesh fragments, and red mist. He had saved them more than once.
Because of him, no one had died in battles where death should have been normal. Because of him, they had gained treasures, records, materials, and experience they would never have obtained alone.
But precisely because of that, a heavier thought appeared.
Were they following him?
Or being carried by him?
The mist did not affect Su Bai the same way. Corruption that terrified them became something he could absorb. Flesh fragments that could break outposts became enemies he could seal. Even Soul-Bloom corruption could be siphoned out by his hand.
But they were not Su Bai.
They could not always stand inside his shadow and call that courage.
A cultivator could accept help.
A cultivator could rely on companions.
But if every step forward depended on someone else shielding them from all consequences, then what exactly were they cultivating?
No one said that aloud at first.
The thought still spread.
One sword cultivator looked down at his blade.
A formation disciple stared at his cracked array plate.
A shield cultivator touched the place on his neck where corruption had almost reached deeper.
The young cultivator who had recognized Senior Uncle Ren sat with his head lowered for a long time. Eventually, he raised his hand and wiped the dried blood from the corner of his mouth.
"I almost listened," he said quietly.
No one mocked him. Because several others had almost listened too.
Another cultivator said, "I want to follow. But if I follow deeper and become something Brother Su has to save again, am I helping?"
A third replied, "If we stay here, are we helping?"
No one had an easy answer.
Near the entrance, Chen Feng leaned against a stone wall with his sword across his knees. His expression was ugly, but not from fear.
After a while, he said, "That false sword user was weaker after he stripped its power. Before that, I could not beat it cleanly."
Several people looked at him.
Chen Feng’s voice remained stiff.
"I do not like that."
That was all. But many understood.
He was not saying Su Bai was wrong to help.
He was saying he did not want to need that help forever.
Han Yuelin sat nearby and smiled faintly.
"Then improve."
Chen Feng looked at him.
Han Yuelin leaned back lazily. "Simple words. Painful path."
Chen Feng snorted.
For once, he did not argue.
Tang Ziyan remained quiet, her gaze lowered. Her fingers brushed the hidden weapons at her sleeve. Somewhere inside the Sanctuary, Tang Sisi was still missing. Every step forward might bring her closer to an answer, or closer to something she did not want to find.
She had no intention of turning back. But she understood why others might.
Bai Zhi opened her eyes slightly from where she rested.
Her voice was soft. "There is no shame in stopping before one’s heart breaks."
The hall became quieter.
Zhuge Jing stood near a broken pillar, fan half-open.
He listened to the discussions without interfering.
This was not a formation he could command. This was not a battlefield adjustment.
Everyone had to choose the weight they could carry.
One hour passed.
Su Bai opened his eyes.
The hall was still silent, but the silence had changed.
It was no longer confusion.
It was decision.