Chapter 235 - The Tenth Transformation and the Unified Body
More days passed.
Su Bai and the ancient weapons continued moving along the boundary of Layer Two, draining whatever regions still held enough Ashen-Blood Miasma to be useful.
Eventually, the familiar wall of solidified miasma appeared before them again.
Su Bai stopped before the formation hidden inside it and took out the ancient command seal. The formation responded almost immediately.
He glanced back at the ancient weapons. He had half expected the formation to react to them, but the ancient weapons passed through without resistance.
’Good.’
The solid miasma ahead was far more useful.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet began pulling the surrounding miasma toward him.
At the same time, Su Bai swallowed another Blood-Rot Pill from the repeated sign-in rewards he had accumulated.
He then circulated the Calamity-Reversal War Body Scripture, while the ancient weapons took their positions around him once more.
The ancient weapons released their spiritual pressure around him, steadily increasing the burden on his circulation.
Su Bai supplied all of them with Qi continuously.
The exchange had become strangely efficient.
As the cultivation continued, Su Bai began noticing something different.
Every small accomplishment of the body scripture caused his entire body to tremble.
At first, the sensation was faint.
After several more days, it became impossible to ignore.
His previous transformations had strengthened everything together, but there had still been countless subtle differences between the individual structures of his body. Flesh resisted force in one manner, bones in another, while tendons, organs, meridians, and blood each responded according to their own nature.
Now those differences were beginning to cooperate.
Whenever his flesh tightened beneath the pressure, his bones seemed to adjust with it. When the bones carried greater force, the surrounding tendons and muscles changed their tension almost instinctively. Even his organs shifted subtly with the rhythm of Macro-Taiji Circulation instead of enduring pressure independently.
It was not another breakthrough yet.
It felt more like his entire body was gradually reaching an agreement with itself.
Su Bai found the sensation fascinating.
The Binary Void-Sun Supreme Method could also temper his body, but its advantage had always been broader. It strengthened his cultivation foundation as a whole while refining Qi and supporting his physical transformation at the same time.
The Calamity-Reversal War Body Scripture was different.
It was much narrower.
For pure body cultivation, that narrowness made it considerably faster.
So Su Bai concentrated on it.
...
Days turned into weeks.
The solid miasma barrier that had once seemed almost inexhaustible gradually began thinning around him.
At first, only small gaps appeared.
Later, entire sections became translucent.
The Petrified Calamity-Magnet dragged miasma toward Su Bai without pause, while the Myriad-Path Meridian Web accepted the incoming energy through countless circulating routes.
The ancient weapons watched the barrier shrink day after day.
Eventually, even the saber fell silent.
A formation designed to endure for thousands of years had not accounted for someone deciding to consume the environment around it.
Su Bai considered that an oversight.
...
Fifty days passed.
By that point, the solid miasma around the region had become noticeably thinner.
Su Bai barely noticed.
For the last several hours, something inside his body had been changing.
He sat within the remaining haze while the ancient weapons maintained their spiritual pressure around him.
His breathing was slow, while each heartbeat seemed to resonate through his entire physical structure.
The sensation that had been developing for weeks had finally reached a point Su Bai could no longer describe as simple strengthening.
His skin, flesh, muscles, tendons, bones, marrow, organs, blood, meridians, and the greater Golden Core structure surrounding all of them were no longer reacting separately.
Everything was beginning to answer together.
Su Bai’s body shuddered.
A dull strain spread from his chest toward his limbs as Macro-Taiji immediately accelerated.
The sensation did not disappear.
It intensified.
Su Bai remained still.
He could feel the threshold.
There was no record for it in the War-Ghost Iron Body Scripture. Body Refinement was supposed to end at nine stages, yet his body was clearly approaching something beyond that limit.
Another tremor passed through him.
This time, a faint red glow emerged beneath his skin.
The ancient weapons immediately noticed.
Fine crimson traces spread across Su Bai’s body, following neither ordinary meridians nor blood vessels. They crossed his chest, shoulders, arms, spine, and legs before gradually connecting into a single network.
His heartbeat became heavier.
The ground beneath him trembled.
At first, it was barely noticeable, but with every beat of his heart, the vibration spread farther through the ruined stone.
Small fragments rolled from broken walls.
Dust slipped from ancient pillars.
A shallow crack slowly extended across the ground beneath him.
Even the surrounding Ashen-Blood Miasma began behaving strangely.
The haze closest to Su Bai rippled outward with every pulse, as though something invisible were pressing against it. The effect spread several dozen steps before the miasma finally stopped advancing toward him altogether.
Instead, it slowly retreated.
The ancient weapons became unusually quiet.
Su Bai had not released any technique.
The disturbance was coming from his body alone.
His muscles tightened without growing larger. His bones gave several muffled sounds from deep within, while his flesh seemed to compress around them.
The red glow brightened.
For several breaths, his entire silhouette looked as though it had been forged inside a furnace.
One of the ancient weapons instinctively reduced its pressure.
Su Bai immediately spoke without opening his eyes.
"Don’t stop."
The pressure descended again.
His body shook violently. The accumulated force from fifty days of tempering finally reached the threshold.
Something inside him seemed to snap into place.
The crimson lines across his body connected completely.
At that exact moment, the surrounding ruins jolted.
A low tremor swept outward from where Su Bai sat, passing through the fractured ground and shaking several nearby structures. Loose stones jumped before dropping back down, while the already-thinned miasma around him was pushed away in a broad ring.
For a brief instant, several dozen steps around Su Bai became almost completely clear.
The ancient weapons stared.
Su Bai felt none of it.
For one brief moment, he could sense every structure inside himself at once.
A slight contraction of his fingers affected the alignment of his wrist. His wrist changed the tension through his forearm, which altered the position of his shoulder and spine. His legs adjusted naturally beneath him even though he had not moved.
Every part supported the others. The final trace of resistance disappeared.
Just then, the crimson glow flashed once.
Su Bai’s body transformed.
His flesh compressed slightly as countless minute imperfections were corrected. His bones became denser, while his tendons and muscles settled into a tighter balance around them. His organs shifted almost imperceptibly into positions better suited to receiving and dispersing force, while even the flow of his blood became smoother.
The trembling ground gradually stilled.
The miasma that had been pushed away did not immediately return.
For several breaths, Su Bai remained seated at the center of an unnaturally clear patch within Layer Three, surrounded by ruined stone and lingering crimson light.
When the glow finally faded, everything became quiet again.
He opened his eyes.
His tenth major body transformation was complete.
Su Bai looked down at his hands.
At first glance, nothing seemed particularly impressive.
His skin had returned to its usual pale appearance.
In fact, he seemed even paler than before.
The hammer slowly floated closer.
"Are you dying?"
Su Bai looked at it.
"No."
"You look worse."
The saber circled him once.
"He does."
Su Bai’s mouth twitched.
Before he could answer, a faint pressure escaped from his body.
The ancient weapons immediately stopped moving.
The pressure was not spiritual.
It came purely from his physical presence.
The nearby dust shifted away from him.
Several fractured stones beneath his feet gave quiet cracking sounds despite Su Bai still sitting motionless.
The saber no longer commented on his complexion.
A moment later, the pressure disappeared.
The Void Ring concealed it completely.
Su Bai slowly raised one hand and clenched his fist.
There was no violent burst of power. His grip simply closed, yet he immediately felt the difference.
Strength no longer seemed to originate mainly from his arm.
His shoulder, spine, waist, legs, and even the balance of his entire frame had participated in that simple movement without conscious instruction.
Su Bai stood.
Nothing appeared unusual until his foot touched a loose piece of broken stone.
The fragment collapsed into powder beneath him.
Su Bai stopped.
He lifted his foot and stared at the dust.
The bow floated several steps farther away.
Su Bai carefully adjusted the force in his legs before moving again.
This time, the ground survived.
His body had become denser.
He could feel the increase in weight clearly, yet moving somehow felt easier than before. His physical structure no longer wasted force through tiny imbalances that he had never even noticed.
Every movement flowed through the whole body.
Su Bai raised one finger.
A thin Qi needle appeared above it.
He flicked.
The movement was so small that the fingertip barely seemed to shift.
The needle vanished.
A hole appeared through a thick broken wall several hundred steps away.
A moment later, another hole appeared through the ruin behind it.
The saber turned toward the distant structures.
The bow remained silent for several breaths.
Su Bai looked at his finger.
He had learned from the bow that an attack becoming difficult to perceive did not automatically make it stronger. Proper preparation, trajectory, tension, and release still mattered.
His new body had apparently decided that even a casual flick deserved the involvement of his entire physical structure.
Su Bai summoned another needle.
This time, he deliberately reduced his strength.
The result was still considerably faster than before.
A smile gradually appeared on his face.
The physical enhancement was impressive, but it was not the most important part of the transformation.
When the tenth transformation completed, the Calamity-Reversal War Body Scripture had changed his understanding of what had happened.
His body had formed something that did not exist within ordinary Body Refinement.
An Innate Unified Body.
Su Bai placed one hand against his chest.
Before this transformation, a powerful strike landing there would primarily force his chest to withstand the impact. The ribs, muscles, organs, and nearby structures would help naturally, but each still resisted according to its own limits.
That had changed.
If the same attack struck him now, his whole physical structure would participate in resisting it.
The struck area would still receive the greatest burden.
The injury would still form there if the attack exceeded what his body could withstand.
However, part of the force would be absorbed and redirected through the interconnected structure before it could concentrate entirely at the point of impact.
His ribs could borrow support from his spine.
His muscles and tendons could help stabilize his bones.
His stance could carry part of the remaining force into the ground.
Even the deeper structures around his organs would adjust instinctively to reduce the shock reaching them.
The damage did not simply spread equally throughout his body. That would have been suicidal against a sufficiently strong opponent.
Instead, the entire body helped resist the force before damage occurred.
There was still a limit.
A Void-Shattering Returnee striking hard enough could still break his ribs.
A stronger blow could still damage his organs.
If the difference in power became ridiculous enough, no amount of structural cooperation would save him.
Su Bai found that perfectly acceptable.
He had never asked for invincibility.
He only needed those bastards to work much harder to injure him.
Over the next several hours, Su Bai began adjusting to his transformed body.
He tested his grip against broken pillars.
He practiced stepping without pulverizing the ground.
He struck ruined walls with his palms, elbows, shoulders, knees, and feet, gradually learning how much strength each movement now carried.
The ancient weapons watched with growing interest.
Su Bai eventually started testing increasingly strange angles.
A shoulder strike shattered half a stone slab.
A casual hip movement cracked another.
He stared thoughtfully at one remaining stone.
The saber immediately sensed danger.
"Do not."
Su Bai looked at it.
"I haven’t done anything."
"You were thinking."
"That’s normally encouraged."
The bow quietly turned away. The hammer followed. Several younger artifact spirits scattered almost immediately.
Su Bai glanced down, glanced at the stone, and apparently decided that scientific curiosity deserved commitment.
His dick moved.
A dull crack echoed through the ruins.
The stone split.
Every ancient weapon present became completely motionless.
Su Bai looked at the result with genuine consideration.
"So that works too."
The saber fled.
The bow had already disappeared behind a broken structure.
The hammer released a spiritual fluctuation carrying an emotion remarkably similar to disgust.
By the time Su Bai finished consolidating his tenth transformation, his control had improved considerably.
He stood among the ruined structures and looked toward Layer Two.
The humor slowly disappeared from his expression.
He had spent far too long inside the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
His master would already be worried. So would the others.
More importantly, there were enemies deeper inside who still believed the last battle had ended in their favor.
Su Bai remembered the ancient spear standing alone behind them. He still did not know whether it had survived.
Su Bai flexed his fingers once.
Golden Core Ninth Stage. Ten major body transformations. An Innate Unified Body.
The surviving Returnees had forced him to retreat twice before.
This time, Su Bai intended to see whether they could do it again.