Chapter 236 - The Spearhead and the Battlefield
Su Bai returned to Layer Two.
He followed the route he remembered from the retreat. The ancient weapons accompanied him in silence until the ruined battlefield finally appeared ahead.
Su Bai slowed.
There were no Returnees waiting for them.
There were only broken stone, dried traces of corrupted blood, and fragments of an ancient weapon scattered across the ground.
Su Bai stopped.
The ancient spear’s shaft had been destroyed.
Pieces of it lay among the rubble, some no larger than a finger, while others had been split until almost nothing recognizable remained.
The ancient weapons became completely silent.
Su Bai closed his eyes briefly.
He had expected this possibility from the moment they escaped.
Expecting it did not make seeing it easier.
Just then, something faint suddenly touched his spiritual sense.
Su Bai’s eyes opened.
Several steps away, half buried beneath shattered stone, a dark metallic point remained intact.
A weak spiritual fluctuation came from it.
Su Bai appeared beside it almost immediately and pulled the spearhead from the rubble.
"Senior Spear?"
No answer came.
The faint fluctuation remained, so weak that it could easily have been mistaken for residual spirituality left inside an ancient artifact.
The saber approached slowly.
After examining it for several breaths, it spoke.
"His consciousness is gone."
Su Bai’s fingers tightened slightly around the spearhead.
The bow floated closer.
"Perhaps not completely."
Su Bai looked toward it.
The bow’s spirit fluctuated faintly before continuing.
"The spearhead was the most important part of his weapon body. If even a trace of the artifact spirit remained attached to it before his consciousness collapsed, reforging the weapon might allow that trace to recover."
"Might?"
"No one can promise it."
The hammer moved around the broken spearhead.
"A treasure that nourishes artifact spirits could improve the possibility, but such things are rare. Few cultivators would waste one on a weapon whose spirit may already be gone."
Su Bai looked down at the spearhead again.
"Then I’ll waste one."
The ancient weapons fell silent.
Su Bai did not explain further. The spear had burned its own foundation to keep several Void-Shattering Returnees behind while Su Bai escaped.
If there was even a small possibility of restoring it, he would take it.
He placed the spearhead inside his system inventory.
The surrounding artifact spirits remained quiet for several moments before Su Bai looked toward the deeper ruins.
His expression changed.
Melancholy disappeared beneath something colder.
"We’re going back for them."
The saber immediately understood.
"The Returnees?"
"All of them."
The hammer released an eager vibration, but Su Bai raised a hand before any of them moved.
"You don’t need to kill them."
Several weapons turned toward him.
"Keep the others occupied and stop them from surrounding me. If your weapon bodies start reaching their limits, retreat immediately."
The saber gave a dissatisfied hum.
Su Bai continued before it could object.
"I can replenish your Qi. I can’t replace your bodies if you shatter."
That silenced it.
"As for repairing you, I know people who might be able to help. But we’ll have to wait until we get out of here."
Lin Weiyang’s faction immediately came to mind.
If anyone in the current era could understand these ancient weapon bodies well enough to attempt restoration, Su Bai would rather start there than hand them to some random refiner.
The hammer vibrated.
"You are very confident."
Su Bai glanced toward the place where the spear had made its final stand.
"I’ve been stuck in this place for more than seven months. I’ve had plenty of time to become confident."
The weapons did not argue.
This time, there was no reason to wait for the enemy to find them.
The artifact spirits scattered through Layer Two to search for the Returnees while Su Bai selected a ruined region large enough for a battlefield.
He did not remain idle.
Thin black threads spread from his fingers and disappeared among the broken structures.
The Nether Threads crossed cracked pillars, buried themselves beneath rubble, stretched through collapsed halls, and overlapped across open ground.
Su Bai had used thread formations before.
This one was different.
Tang Sisi’s traps had taught him that threads did not need to exist merely to bind or cut. Their real usefulness came from forcing enemies to move where the trap wanted them to move.
Su Bai therefore built the network in layers.
Some threads remained loose enough to move when disturbed. Others waited under tension. Several were positioned to catch ankles or redirect limbs rather than sever them outright.
A faint layer of Ashen-Frost Blight Flame entered selected filaments.
Su Bai smiled slightly.
After that, he placed the Petrified Calamity-Magnet nearby and began absorbing the surrounding miasma.
The haze slowly thinned.
If he was going to fight the Returnees again, he had no intention of letting them keep every advantage they enjoyed last time.
...
It did not take long.
Several ancient weapons suddenly returned from the distance. Their speed told Su Bai enough before they even reached him.
The saber stopped beside him.
"We found them."
Su Bai stood.
The hammer followed with the second piece of news.
"They brought everything."
Su Bai looked past them.
The surrounding miasma stirred.
Spatial fluctuations spread through the ruins one after another.
A rift opened several hundred steps away.
Four figures emerged.
Su Bai recognized them immediately.
The surviving Void-Shattering Returnees.
Behind them came more distorted silhouettes. The False Bodies and Lesser Returnees.
Several stronger figures whose pressure already approached or entered the Nascent Soul Realm followed as well.
The number continued increasing.
Su Bai watched without moving.
"They really brought everyone."
The saber shifted beside him.
"They remembered you."
"I feel honored."
The Void-Shattering Returnees did not immediately attack.
Their gazes moved through the ruins.
They had learned.
Their spiritual senses swept across the battlefield until several of them detected the faint disturbance created by the Nether Threads.
One Returnee raised its hand. The lesser creatures moved first.
Su Bai’s smile disappeared.
Hundreds of feet entered the ruined field.
His fingers moved.
The Nether Thread Network awakened.
Threads hidden beneath rubble tightened at once.
Some rose from the ground and caught legs. Others contracted sideways, forcing charging Returnees into one another, while several thin lines swept across exposed joints and cut through weaker bodies.
The front ranks immediately reacted.
Corrupted Qi erupted from their bodies as they struck toward the threads.
That was when the second layer activated.
Foreign energy touched the filaments carrying Ashen-Frost Blight Flame.
The threads exploded.
Dark frost and ash-gray fire burst between the Returnees, engulfing several groups before they could retreat.
The creatures behind them continued advancing.
Su Bai lifted both hands.
Qi Needles emerged from his body. The needles vanished as soon as they appeared.
The sound came afterward.
Thin streaks pierced through heads, throats, joints, and distorted Soul-Bloom structures before many of the weaker Returnees could react.
Several Nascent Soul Returnees managed to twist aside.
The second wave curved.
A third changed direction around broken pillars.
The Myriad-Path Meridian Web supplied Qi through countless routes while the Innate Unified Body made every tiny release faster and more efficient than before.
Bodies fell across the ruins.
Where distorted Soul-Bloom structures ruptured, the Natal Needle stirred within Su Bai.
It emerged as a thin black line.
Bloom essence released by the dead Returnees was drawn toward it and disappeared into its surface.
Just then, the four Void-Shattering Returnees finally moved.
The anger in their distorted spiritual fluctuations was unmistakable.
One of them stepped forward.
The ancient weapons intercepted it.
The remaining artifact spirits split immediately, forcing the four Void-Shattering Returnees to divide their attention.
Su Bai continued cutting through the battlefield as a False Body lunged at him from the side.
Before it could close the distance, he stepped forward and disappeared from its perception, forcing the creature to twist around in confusion.
By the time it found him again, Su Bai was already high above the battlefield.
The stone beneath his launch point had shattered from the force of his leap, and after reaching the peak, his dense body dropped rapidly toward the cluster below.
He adjusted his posture in midair, bringing his entire frame into alignment before crashing straight into the group of Returnees.
The ground exploded.
Several bodies beneath him collapsed into blood and broken flesh as the impact spread through the ruined floor.
Su Bai rose from the crater.
A Returnee attacked from behind.
He turned his shoulder instead of dodging.
The claw struck.
His Innate Unified Body reacted immediately.
Muscle tension shifted. His spine adjusted. His stance changed by a fraction, while the force that would once have concentrated against his shoulder was carried through a much larger structure.
The claw still tore his skin.
It went no deeper.
Su Bai looked at the Returnee.
"That’s new."
His elbow moved.
The creature’s chest collapsed.
Another attacked his ribs.
Su Bai twisted slightly and allowed the strike to land.
His flesh compressed while his muscles and spine took part of the burden. The remaining force traveled through his stance and cracked the ground beneath his foot.
Pain came, but the strike failed to cause any real damage.
Su Bai grinned at the Returnee’s confusion before his palm snapped forward and crushed its head in a single blow.
From that moment, the rhythm of the battle shifted completely.
During their previous encounters, Su Bai had been forced to treat every close-range attack from stronger Returnees as a lethal threat.
Now his body itself had become a weapon capable of surviving mistakes.
The Calamity-Reversal War Body Scripture contained martial movements intended for body cultivators, and although Su Bai had nowhere near enough time to master them properly, mastery was becoming less important against weaker enemies.
A shoulder broke a sternum. A knee destroyed a pelvis. A palm sent one Returnee through a ruined wall.
Whenever an enemy slipped outside the reach of his body, a Qi needle left some part of him before the opening disappeared.
The battlefield became increasingly difficult for the lesser Returnees to approach.
Su Bai activated the Dao-Shattering Jade.
The world around him simplified.
Movements became structures. Attacks became trajectories. The chaotic battlefield separated into flaws, connections, pressure points, and paths.
His enormous Qi reserves fed the Jade continuously.