Chapter 181 - The Human Realm and the Ruined Robe
"Any last words?"
The flesh fragment pulsed once. This time, no Ashen-Blood Miasma surged out.
It seemed to have learned. Every drop of miasma it released would only be dragged toward Su Bai by the Petrified Calamity-Magnet.
For the first time, the fragment did not try to flood mist. Instead, it spoke.
The voice did not come from a throat. It seeped out of the flesh itself, as if many mouths buried under wet skin were speaking through one wound.
Yet Su Bai heard the words clearly.
"This is the Human Realm..."
The flesh fragment pulsed faintly.
"...yet no man of the Human Realm should endure our blood."
Su Bai paused.
He did not understand the context behind those words. But the way this thing said Human Realm did not sound like it was simply naming the world beneath his feet.
It sounded like it was distinguishing it from somewhere else.
Su Bai’s brows moved slightly.
That was troublesome.
Whenever an enemy started mentioning things beyond common knowledge, it usually meant the matter was either ancient, dangerous, or expensive.
Sometimes all three.
He took one step forward.
The flesh fragment remained on the ground. Compared to the first flesh fragment he had killed beneath the reversed altar, this one felt different.
The first one had been noisy before death, like a broken organ that refused to accept it would be removed.
This one was colder.
Its pulses were slower, more deliberate, and carried a kind of awareness that made Su Bai suspect the two fragments might not have come from the exact same piece of flesh. They might be the same kind, but not the same part.
That possibility was not pleasant.
The fragment spoke again.
"You may still this piece."
The voices overlapped, then dragged themselves into one sentence.
"You may silence this mouth, freeze this blood, and bury this memory beneath your little sky."
Its surface trembled.
"But what bleeds here is not alone. What you wound, the whole remembers. What you kill, the whole tastes. One piece falls, and the rest learns the shape of your hand."
A faint ripple passed through the surrounding mist.
"When the wound beneath all worlds opens again, your name will be carried in its blood."
Su Bai almost felt a chill.
Not from fear, but from secondhand embarrassment.
For a moment, a face from his previous life flashed through his mind. A coworker who had once spent three full lunch breaks explaining that ordinary people could not understand the darkness sealed in his left eye.
That man had also spoken with great confidence about inevitable awakenings.
Su Bai had hated those lunch breaks.
The flesh fragment continued.
"We are not an army. We are not a race. We are the hunger left when heavens fail to die."
Su Bai closed his eyes briefly.
"Enough."
Some memories did not need to be resurrected.
Several qi needles appeared around him.
They flashed downward at once.
The flesh fragment did not dodge. It had no limbs left to dodge with. The needles pierced its surface, sank through the burned flesh, and nailed it to the stone beneath. More needles followed, stabbing through every pulsing vein, every swollen fold, every place where miasma still gathered.
The fragment made no sound.
That made it worse.
Most things screamed when destroyed. Even the carrier had spoken before its end.
This fragment only endured.
The needles pierced deeper.
Ashen-Frost Blight Flame bloomed through several hollow Weeping Needles and spread in pale ash-gray lines. The fire froze and burned through the fragment at the same time, stopping each pulse before it could gather properly.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet remained active. Any trace of Ashen-Blood Miasma released from the fragment was dragged toward Su Bai and swallowed into the pressure already stored inside him.
A few breaths later, the flesh stopped moving.
Su Bai watched it for several more breaths.
He did not relax immediately.
Instead, he used more needles, then one more Weeping Needle.
Only after the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame passed through the fragment again without resistance did Su Bai take out a jade box from his system inventory.
He swept the dead fragment inside, sealed the box, added three layers of Qi, and two layers of Nether Threads over the lid before storing it away.
Now he had two dead flesh fragments.
His expression did not improve.
The fragment’s words settled in his mind again.
Human Realm. No man of the Human Realm should endure their blood.
Su Bai looked toward the distant direction of Outpost No. 3, hidden behind the red mist.
"Does that mean there are other realms?"
The thought came naturally, then he shook his head.
Guessing without enough information was a good way to create ten wrong answers and then become emotionally attached to the least accurate one.
He already had enough problems.
The outpost still needed help.
Su Bai looked down at himself.
A moment later, he changed into another spare robe. He checked the sleeves, confirmed they existed, and only then moved back toward Outpost No. 3.
A cultivator could face danger with courage.
There was no need to face it without clothing.
•••
When Su Bai returned near Outpost No. 3, he was surprised by the intensity of the battle.
The situation had not collapsed, but it had not become easy either.
The miasma beasts were no longer the true danger. Without the flesh fragment feeding them from the damaged boundary, their movements had become simpler, their strength no longer climbed, and their deaths no longer flowed back with the same obedience as before. Many had already been cut down, frozen, poisoned, or pushed away from the weak point.
But the Soul-Bloom Returnees had learned.
That was the problem.
They started fighting like enemies that understood exactly what the defenders feared. They pressed forward recklessly, not because they were stupid, but because they knew the young cultivators did not dare kill them carelessly.
Zhuge Jing’s fan moved constantly.
"Binding group three, rotate back."
"Do not isolate that one too far from the shell."
"Shield line, left side lower. It is baiting your upper guard."
"Formation cultivators, reinforce the first shell. Medicine cultivators, move the injured behind the second pillar."
His voice remained calm, but his expression was colder than before.
The Returnees had grown harder to seal after the first success. They no longer allowed themselves to be pushed toward the shells easily.
One would pretend to be trapped, then twist its body and strike the guiding plate. Another would let frost catch one foot while its hands formed miasma seals behind its back. A third deliberately exposed its throat to make nearby sword cultivators hesitate.
The defenders were learning.
Unfortunately, so were the Returnees.
The first star-metal shell still shook near the inner line.
Boom.
The sound made several cultivators tense every time.
Lin Weiyang stood beside it with a pale face and very busy hands. Her bronze mechanisms hovered around the shell, constantly adjusting temporary formation marks.
"This one is still holding," she said through gritted teeth. "But if it gets angrier, I will personally request it to calm down, and then die from failure."
No one knew whether that counted as humor.
No one had time to decide.
On the injured side, Liu Meng, Mu Qing, and Bai Zhi moved almost without pause.
Liu Meng identified injuries and pill needs faster than most medicine cultivators could ask questions. Mu Qing stabilized meridians and miasma burns with steady hands. Bai Zhi’s lotus light purified and protected those who were still vulnerable after treatment.
The injured who recovered enough stood up again.
None of them retreated.
That was both admirable and troublesome.
Su Bai watched from the mist’s edge for only a moment before his eyes narrowed.
The Returnees had realized something.
If too many beasts died, they would lose their last source of chaos. Without the beasts constantly charging the defense line, all attention would fall on the Returnees. Once that happened, sealing groups would have more room to act.
So their pattern changed again.
One Returnee suddenly moved.
It did not attack. Instead, it dove straight toward a group of young cultivators who had just rotated back from the front line.
Their formation was thin. Their breathing was uneven. Several had miasma burns still smoking on their sleeves.
The Returnee smiled.
Zhuge Jing’s fan snapped toward it.
"Stop it!"
Ji Ruyue’s frost shot across the ground.
Qin Baoshan turned, but he was too far.
The Returnee did not dodge. It opened its arms.
Its body swelled.
The expressions of the nearby young cultivators changed.
They understood too late.
It was going to bloom itself.
A violent red light burst from inside the Returnee’s chest.
The air screamed.
The young cultivators tried to retreat, but there was nowhere fast enough to go. The blast was too close, and the miasma inside the Returnee was too dense. If it erupted fully, those cultivators would be swallowed before they could even take their Immaculate Lotus-Heart Pills.
For one breath, their faces turned white.
But just then, Su Bai appeared.
He stood between them and the blooming Returnee.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet was already in his hand.
The red mist that had just burst outward twisted.
It stopped spreading. Every thread of Ashen-Blood Miasma bent toward Su Bai instead. The blooming wave collapsed inward before it could touch the cultivators behind him.
The young cultivators stared.
The red mist surged into Su Bai’s body.
His newly changed robe immediately hissed.
Su Bai’s face changed from anger.
He had just changed this robe.
Just.
Changed.
It.
The fabric darkened at the sleeves and hem, surrendering to Ashen-Blood corrosion with a speed that felt personally offensive.
The Returnee’s self-bloom collapsed into Su Bai’s body.
The Reversal Body received the pressure. The Macro-Taiji circulation moved.
Everyone behind him remained safe.
The cultivators who had nearly been swallowed stared at his back.
"Brother Su..."
Su Bai did not answer.
He looked down at his robe. A burned hole slowly widened near his waist.
His expression became very calm.
Lin Weiyang, who had seen several unstable mechanisms before they exploded, suddenly felt that same feeling.
Zhuge Jing’s fan paused.
Tang Ziyan’s eyes shifted slightly.
Han Yuelin took one quiet step back.
Chen Feng noticed and whispered, "Why are you stepping back?"
Han Yuelin whispered back, "Because I feel Junior Brother Su is about to become efficient."
Chen Feng did not understand.
It was then that Su Bai moved.
The tenth tribulation mark, which had long suppressed his aura, loosened by a fraction.
A heavy pressure unfolded from Su Bai’s body. It was directed forward with terrifying precision. The aura descended like a dark mountain quietly deciding where to fall.
The nearest Returnees froze for half a breath.
That half breath was fatal.
Frictionless Phantom Step.
Su Bai disappeared.
He appeared beside the first Returnee.
Nether Threads shot out and wrapped around its wrists, elbows, waist, knees, and throat before it could twist away. The Returnee tried to form a hand seal, but a qi needle pierced through the gap between its fingers.
Su Bai vanished.
He appeared beside the second.
Threads tightened.
Then the third. Then the fourth.
Each time he appeared, the pressure of his partially released aura struck first, interrupting the Returnee’s rhythm. Nether Threads followed immediately. Qi needles sealed movement points.
The Returnees tried to adapt.
One twisted its neck and spat a miasma needle.
Su Bai was already gone.
Another tried to bloom. The Petrified Calamity-Magnet dragged the first pulse away before it could swell.
A third attempted to tear off its own arm to escape the threads. Su Bai added three more.
The whole process took only a few breaths.
Inside Outpost No. 3, hundreds of young cultivators watched as the Soul-Bloom Returnees they had struggled to restrain were bound one after another.
Then Su Bai appeared at the center of the tangled threads.
His hand closed.
All the Nether Threads tightened at once.
The remaining unsealed Returnees were dragged across the battlefield like unwilling sacrifices being pulled by invisible chains.
They thrashed, cursed, twisted, and released waves of Ashen-Blood Miasma.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet drank the waves.
Su Bai pulled harder.
The Returnees were dragged out of the outpost’s restraint range, past the weakened boundary, and into the red mist outside.
The entire outpost fell silent for a breath.
One breath ago, everyone had thought a self-bloom would contaminate half a defense group.
A few breaths later, the blooming mist had vanished, the Returnees were bound, and Brother Su had dragged them away like troublesome sacks.
Someone swallowed, then a young cultivator muttered,
"It was that simple?"
The cultivator beside him immediately smacked the back of his head.
"Simple, your ancestor. Go try it too. I will splash miasma in your face and see if you can call it simple."
The young cultivator covered his head and became enlightened.
Another stared toward the mist.
"So... Brother Su came back, got angry about his robe, and took the Returnees away?"
No one answered at once.
Because saying it aloud made the situation sound less like a battlefield and more like an unreasonable household expense.
Lin Weiyang looked at the first sealed shell, then toward the mist where Su Bai had vanished again.
After a long moment, she said sincerely, "If robes can be counted as battle losses, Brother Su’s contribution should be doubled."
This time, several cultivators laughed. Only a little. Only because they were still alive.
Zhuge Jing lowered his fan slightly, but his eyes remained fixed on the red mist.
The pressure around Outpost No. 3 had weakened further after Su Bai’s return. The beasts were nearly scattered. The barrier scar no longer pulsed with the same red veins. The first shell still shook, but the other Returnees had been dragged away before they could force another bloom among the defenders.
The outpost had survived the most dangerous moment.