Chapter 196 - Layer Two and the Battlefield Intents
By the twenty-first day inside the Fallen-Star Sanctuary, the group had finally stepped beyond the deeper edge of Layer One.
According to the records left by previous generations, the exit portal of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary would open after one month inside.
No one knew whether the Inner Area followed the same rules perfectly, but no one dared gamble their lives on a hopeful guess either. They had already spent most of their time inside, and the remaining days were becoming more precious with every step they took.
Because of that, the group quickened their pace. Of course, quickening their pace did not mean becoming reckless.
No one who had reached this point still had such a childish thought. Every cultivator present understood that they were already walking in a region their predecessors had rarely, if ever, reached.
Even if they did not obtain another treasure from this point onward, simply returning alive with the records they had found would already shake their sects and clans.
But since they had reached this place, who would be willing to turn back empty-handed?
The deeper regions of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary had not been swept clean by previous generations. That alone made everyone’s heart beat faster.
...
Su Bai walked at the front as usual, but part of his attention was on the system interface.
For the past few days, the repeat sign-in reward from the Inner Area had stabilized into one consumable item.
[Blood-Rot Pill]
[Description: An ancient poison pill used to rot blood, weaken flesh, corrode meridians, and collapse a cultivator’s physical strength from within.]
Su Bai was honestly satisfied.
For ordinary cultivators, these pills were poison. But once their harmful nature was reversed by his constitution, they had a chance to become nourishment for his body refinement.
The group continued forward.
Their Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pill supply had dwindled greatly ever since entering the Inner Area.
In the Outer Area, one pill could protect them for a comfortable length of time as long as they did not push too deeply into dense miasma.
Here, even High-grade pills were consumed quickly. At most, they could last several hours before the lotus barrier weakened and needed to be replaced.
Tang Sisi had it worse. Low-grade Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pills had to be taken almost every hour, and Mid-grade pills only bought her a little more breathing room.
She did not complain, but every time she counted the bottles in her sleeve, her eyes became visibly more careful.
The only ones who remained relatively calm were the disciples of the Radiant Sky Sect and Tang Ziyan.
Liu Meng, Ji Ruyue, Qin Baoshan, Han Yuelin, and Tang Ziyan still had supplies of Transcendent-grade Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pills.
At first, even they had thought that what they brought might not be enough for an entire month inside the Fallen-Star Sanctuary, especially after entering the Inner Area. But the Transcendent-grade pills were more formidable than they expected.
Even under the pressure of the Inner Area’s miasma, their barriers remained stable for far longer than ordinary pills.
Yan Lie noticed it more than once.
He looked at the stable lotus light around Liu Meng, then looked at his own barrier, which had already begun flickering at the edges.
His mouth moved.
Chen Feng glanced at him.
Yan Lie closed his mouth.
After traveling with Su Bai for this long, Chen Feng had developed a skill that had nothing to do with sword cultivation. He could stop Yan Lie from asking troublesome questions with one look.
This skill was becoming increasingly useful.
As the group went deeper into Layer Two, they finally understood what Tang Sisi had meant when she said the deeper battlefield was dangerous.
Layer One had still carried traces of order. There had been roads, storage halls, supply markers, broken command boxes, and ruined shelters. Even when those places had become dangerous, their original purpose could still be recognized.
Layer Two was different.
There was no shelter here, no supply zone, and no safe courtyard. Only a vast battlefield.
Su Bai confirmed it through the fragmented memories left behind by the dead.
This was where the battle had truly begun to devour people.
Everyone became much more cautious. The danger here did not only come from wandering enemies.
Some formation arrays were still active after all these years. They were damaged, unstable, and incomplete, which made them more dangerous rather than less. A complete formation at least followed its own rules. A broken formation might sleep for a hundred years, then suddenly wake because a cultivator stepped on the wrong stone.
Lin Weiyang’s expression became increasingly serious.
"Do not touch the cracked pillars unless I say so. Do not step on stones with half-lit markings. Do not send spiritual power into anything just because it looks dead. If an array pattern is incomplete, it does not mean it has lost power. It may only mean it no longer knows how to stop."
Everyone remembered that sentence.
Zhuge Jing’s Profound Eye of Heavenly Abacus also became more useful here.
Some places looked ordinary but carried twisted killing intent. Some broken weapons had residual sword light sleeping inside them. Some empty patches of ground made Zhuge Jing’s eye ache the moment he looked too long.
Whenever he raised his fan and marked a direction, the group avoided it.
Whenever Lin Weiyang knelt to examine the ground and shook her head, the group changed route.
Whenever Tang Sisi suddenly stopped smiling, everyone stopped walking.
The strangest dangers were the intents.
Sword intent. Blade intent. Spear intent. Axe intent. Bow intent. Fist intent.
They remained in the battlefield like scars that had never healed.
Some were faint, like old echoes. Some were terrifyingly sharp, cutting through the red mist without needing a physical blade. A few were so concentrated that the space around them seemed warped, as if the ancient strike that had created them still had not fully ended.
One sword scar stretched across a broken hill. Around it, space trembled silently.
Zhuge Jing stared at it for one breath and immediately closed his eye.
"Do not approach that line."
No one asked why.
A miasma beast wandered too close to the sword scar. Its body had barely brushed the edge when half of it disappeared. There was no blood, no roar, no struggle. The missing half was simply gone, dragged into a thin spatial turbulence that twisted once and vanished.
Tang Sisi swallowed.
For once, her expression almost cracked.
"I passed through this area before."
No one said anything.
It was already fortunate that she was still breathing here with them.
...
Layer Two was dangerous, but danger also meant opportunity.
The lingering weapon intents could kill, but they could also teach.
Even if the group could not approach them directly, observing from afar was already valuable.
They could not stay in one place for long. The battlefield did not allow it.
Some intents reacted to prolonged attention. Some formations stirred if too many cultivators gathered nearby. Some enemies were drawn toward movement, heat, or spiritual fluctuations.
Because of that, the group observed, recorded, withdrew, and moved again. No one cultivated on the spot. No one tried to comprehend recklessly. Even a moment of greed here could become a funeral.
Su Bai also watched.
From time to time, the Dao-Shattering Jade activated.
The jade consumed his Qi fiercely, and every activation made a faint purple mark appear deep in his mind. His already powerful memory sharpened further. The battlefield before him seemed to simplify, as if countless complicated traces were broken into clearer lines.
Sword scars became angles. Formation remnants became patterns. The flow of killing intent became direction. The warped spaces became boundaries.
After several breaths, what he had seen would settle into his mind.
Su Bai’s expression remained calm.
Inside, he was already calculating how much of this could be brought back, how much could be used to improve the sect’s records, and how much could get him beaten by his master if he described it too casually.
The answer to the last one was probably a lot.
...
Knowledge was one treasure, but it was not the only treasure.
There were intact weapons here.
Ancient swords stood stabbed into the ground. Spears leaned against collapsed walls. Broken-looking sabers still released faint pressure. A black bow lay across the bones of its former owner with its string long gone yet its body still hummed softly in the red mist.
These were ancient weapons that had survived time, erosion, miasma, and battle.
Some had lost most of their spirituality. Some were dormant. And some clearly had artifact spirits.
The moment the group discovered the first intact spiritual weapon with an artifact spirit, no one dared touch it.
It was a long halberd buried halfway in the ground.
The bones around it had already turned gray, but the halberd itself seemed unwilling to decay. When Yan Lie accidentally looked at it for too long, the red mist around the blade stirred, and a faint killing intent pressed toward his forehead.
Yan Lie immediately looked away. His back was covered in cold sweat.
Zhuge Jing examined the halberd from a distance with his Profound Eye of Heavenly Abacus. After a long while, his expression became grave.
"There is something inside it."
Lin Weiyang nodded slowly. "Artifact spirit. Damaged, but not gone."
The words made everyone’s eyes change.
A weapon with an artifact spirit was not an ordinary spiritual weapon. Even if damaged, it had once reached a level far beyond common treasures. If such a thing could be subdued and repaired, its value would be unimaginable.
But no one moved.
Ancient cultivators had many methods.
Some experts preserved remnant souls inside weapons. Some artifact spirits remained loyal to their former masters. Some were corrupted after endless years of miasma erosion. Some might only be waiting for a living cultivator to touch them before invading the sea of consciousness.
A treasure that could recognize a master was valuable.
A treasure that wanted to become the master was terrifying.
Su Bai also looked at the halberd.
The Reversal Body did not give him an obvious warning. In theory, he might have been able to test it. If the artifact spirit tried to invade him, it might run into things it would regret meeting.
But Su Bai did not touch it.
Being able to survive many unreasonable things did not mean he should collect every unreasonable thing with his bare hands.
He looked at the halberd once more, then said, "Mark it. Leave it for now."
No one objected.
Lin Weiyang placed a discreet marker nearby. Zhuge Jing recorded its position. Tang Sisi stared at it for three more breaths, sighed softly, and followed the group away.
After that, they became even more careful with intact weapons.
Weapons without obvious artifact spirits could be collected after inspection. Damaged swords, broken spears, cracked armor plates, and star-metal fragments were divided according to usefulness and contribution.
...
The journey through Layer Two continued like this.
They studied intents from afar, avoided unstable formations, marked dangerous weapons with artifact spirits, collected what could be safely collected, and fought enemies when they appeared.
The false bodies here were stronger than before. Some wore ancient armor that had fused with miasma. A few Soul-Bloom Returnees tried to hide among them, but the Soul-Bloom Bud exposed their active bloom structures before they could approach too closely.
Su Bai handled those personally.
Su Bai continued stopping from time to time when they found intact skeletons with cursed runes.
Each time the Vanguard’s Entropy-Detonator stirred, Su Bai gathered more fragmented battlefield impressions.
Days passed like this.
The group advanced through Layer Two inch by inch. Their pace was faster than before, but every step still had to be weighed. The remaining time inside the Fallen-Star Sanctuary continued to shrink, while the danger ahead grew heavier. Yet no one suggested turning back.
They had already found records of immortals.
They had already reached a battlefield where Golden Core cultivators had only been support soldiers.
They had already seen weapons with artifact spirits sleeping among corpses.
At this point, retreating without understanding more would haunt them more than the danger itself.