Chapter 242 - The Root and the Gaze
"GRAAAAAAAAH!"
A deep, distorted cry erupted from the flesh mass and reverberated through the altar.
The sound was unlike the layered threats Su Bai had heard from the sealed sources before. There was no arrogance in it, nor was there any attempt to intimidate him.
There was only pain.
Su Bai paused with a piece of the root organ between his teeth.
For the first time since encountering these things, he learned something surprisingly ordinary about them.
They could suffer. Quite badly, apparently.
The thought crossed his mind while he continued chewing.
He had initially considered cooking the root organ first. Eating something that had existed inside one of these creatures for who knew how many thousands of years without so much as heating it felt questionable even by his increasingly loose standards.
Unfortunately, the root was still pierced by the enormous ancient weapon and embedded within the sealing formation.
Using the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame here was one thing. Bringing out a stronger Heavenly Flame directly beside the root and the ancient seal was another.
Su Bai had no intention of discovering whether the formation could tolerate that experiment.
So he had bitten it raw.
Nothing bad happened. In fact, the exact opposite occurred.
The moment the first piece entered his stomach, Su Bai felt something spread throughout his entire body.
His eyes brightened.
The brood organ had already contained an astonishing concentration of Ashen-Blood essence, but compared with what had just entered him, its nourishment suddenly seemed almost ordinary.
This root organ was on another level entirely.
A single bite sent an indescribably dense vitality through his body. Reversal immediately overturned the hostile portions mixed within it, but even before Su Bai had time to examine what remained afterward, another realization distracted him.
It tasted ridiculously good.
Su Bai chewed more slowly.
He had eaten countless kinds of meat before, including things that no reasonable person would willingly place anywhere near their mouth. Some had been surprisingly delicious after preparation, while others had only been tolerable because his stomach apparently lacked basic standards.
This was different.
The flavor carried something strangely fundamental.
Su Bai could not compare it to any meat he had tasted before. It was rich without being heavy, unfamiliar without being unpleasant, and carried a depth that made ordinary meat seem incomplete by comparison.
For a brief moment, an absurd description entered his mind.
’Why does this taste like the ancestor of meat?’
He nearly stopped chewing.
That description sounded ridiculous.
Unfortunately, he could not think of a better one.
Behind him, the ancient saber erupted into spiritual laughter.
"GAHAHAHA! This great one cannot believe you actually ate it!"
The hammer released a deep vibration of satisfaction.
"After listening to these things boast for thousands of years, I admit that was satisfying."
Several of the younger artifact spirits stirred excitedly as another agonized roar shook the altar.
The saber’s laughter only became louder.
Su Bai swallowed.
The sealed source convulsed violently beneath the ancient weapon.
Golden formation patterns immediately spread across the altar, and the enormous weapon piercing its root released a heavy pressure that forced the struggling mass back down.
Another furious voice came from one of the neighboring sealed sources.
"STOP."
Su Bai glanced toward it.
The word had sounded very different from their earlier threats.
He took another bite.
The reaction was immediate.
The flesh mass before him spasmed so violently that several exposed layers tore apart around the ancient weapon. Its cry rolled through the clearing once again, while the other sealed sources strained against their restraints as though they had suddenly remembered how helpless those restraints made them.
Su Bai continued chewing.
The artifact spirits were still laughing when one of them suddenly quieted.
The bow had noticed something.
"So it does not recover."
The saber’s laughter weakened.
The hammer stopped vibrating.
Every artifact spirit turned toward the root organ.
The section Su Bai had bitten away remained missing.
The exposed edges twitched and contracted around the wound, but no new flesh grew across it.
There was no regeneration.
The sealed sources noticed as well. Their struggling stopped for the briefest moment.
Su Bai looked at the damaged root and immediately understood why the silence had appeared.
Ordinary wounds on these creatures recovered.
Even flesh burned away by Immortal flames had eventually returned.
The root itself had once reconstructed after being reduced to ash.
Yet the portion inside Su Bai’s stomach showed no sign of coming back.
A tremor passed through the neighboring flesh masses.
For thousands of years, they had endured weapons piercing their roots because they knew those wounds could not truly end them.
They had survived Immortals.
They had survived complete bodily destruction.
Even when their flesh had been burned until nothing remained, the connection to their origin had allowed them to return.
That certainty had survived longer than most civilizations.
Now, a young cultivator was chewing through it.
"YOU CANNOT—"
The layered voice stopped.
Perhaps even the sealed source itself no longer knew how to finish the threat.
Su Bai took another bite.
The root organ tore beneath his teeth.
The flesh mass screamed again.
This time, the other sealed sources did not insult him.
They shuddered beneath their restraints.
A possibility they had never needed to consider had finally appeared before them.
What happened if the root disappeared completely?
None of them seemed eager to discover the answer.
Su Bai, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly interested.
The transformed nourishment continued spreading through him with every mouthful. Something inside his body was reacting strongly enough that he could feel changes beginning beneath his skin, throughout his meridians, and even deeper within his foundation.
The sensation was difficult to describe.
His entire body seemed to be drawing closer together. The relationship between everything inside him was changing.
His Golden Core, Infinite Dantian, Gateway Qi Reservoirs, meridians, flesh, bones, and even the structures connected to his Crystalline Tree Spirit Root seemed to respond to the same invisible rhythm for fleeting moments.
Su Bai could tell that something significant was happening.
He chose not to investigate yet.
The root organ was still in front of him.
More importantly, it was delicious.
The results could wait until he finished eating.
Su Bai used his Qi Needles to separate more of the surrounding flesh and exposed a larger section of the root. The ordinary flesh no longer interested him nearly as much after tasting what lay beneath it.
Another bite disappeared.
The sealed source convulsed.
Another piece followed.
The ancient weapon flared and suppressed it again.
Before long, an increasingly strange rhythm settled over the altar.
The tearing of flesh came first, followed by the sealed source’s pained cries and the laughter of the artifact spirits whenever its struggling accomplished absolutely nothing.
Even the saber eventually sounded impressed.
"This may be the most humiliating death this great one has ever witnessed."
The hammer gave a solemn rumble.
"It has not died yet."
"Give him time."
Su Bai ignored them and continued eating.
The root organ steadily shrank.
Its texture became denser the deeper he went, while the strange power contained inside it grew increasingly concentrated. Each piece sent another wave through his body, strengthening the sensation that something fundamental was being altered.
The flesh mass beneath the weapon changed as well.
Its earlier violent struggling weakened.
The Ashen-Blood Miasma that had constantly seeped from its body became thinner until even that gradually stopped.
Its flesh began losing the swollen vitality it had maintained for countless years.
Sections that should have regenerated remained damaged.
Torn tissue no longer closed properly.
The sealed source tried to gather its remaining essence deeper within itself, but there was nowhere meaningful left for it to retreat.
Su Bai was already eating the place where everything converged.
"GRAAAAH..."
Its next cry came out weaker.
If the enormous mass had possessed eyes capable of shedding tears, Su Bai suspected the scene might have become considerably more pitiful.
Unfortunately for it, crying probably would not have helped.
Su Bai tore off another piece.
The ancient weapon pinning the root glowed faintly.
"Thanks for holding it steady."
The weapon gave no verbal response.
A subtle spiritual fluctuation passed through its enormous body instead.
Su Bai paused briefly.
He looked at the weapon, but the fluctuation already vanished.
His eyebrows rose.
’Was that acknowledgment?’
He could not be certain.
Still, the weapon seemed considerably more cooperative than the thing beneath it.
Su Bai continued eating.
Time passed around the altar.
The root organ became smaller and smaller until only a fraction remained wrapped around the ancient weapon.
By then, the flesh mass had almost completely stopped struggling.
Its body sagged beneath the restraints while the surrounding tissue lost its earlier ability to rebuild itself. Even the layered voice that had threatened Su Bai countless times had fallen silent.
The other sealed sources remained awake. None of them spoke.
They were simply watching.
The artifact spirits had also stopped laughing.
What had begun as a bizarre spectacle was becoming something none of them had witnessed throughout the countless years these creatures had remained sealed.
The flesh mass was dying. Something holding its existence together was disappearing bite by bite.
The ancient saber floated slightly closer.
"It is actually weakening."
The bow remained fixed on the shrinking root.
"Continue."
Su Bai did not need the encouragement.
He reached for what remained.
That was when the root organ suddenly contracted.
Its crystalline surface twisted around the ancient weapon as a powerful pulse erupted from within.
Su Bai’s expression changed.
The enormous weapon moved at almost the same moment.
Its blade rose slightly.
The movement was small, but it was enough to loosen the final portion of the organ from the flesh surrounding it.
Su Bai stared at the weapon.
This time, there was no mistaking the faint spiritual fluctuation that came from it.
The ancient weapon was helping him.
A grin appeared on Su Bai’s face.
He raised one hand and gave the enormous weapon a thumbs-up.
"Good cooperation."
The saber immediately complained from behind him.
"You never praised this great one like that."
Su Bai did not have time to respond.
The loosened root moved.
The remaining organ tore free from the dying flesh mass and shot away from the ancient weapon.
It did not move like an ordinary organ.
Its surface contracted violently as the strange pressure Su Bai had sensed earlier surged outward, almost as if something beyond the Sanctuary were trying to pull it away.
The neighboring sealed sources erupted at once.
"RETURN!"
"RETURN TO THE ORIGIN!"
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.
So it could run after all.
Fortunately, he had already considered that possibility.
Nine black streaks emerged from his body.
The Natal Needles crossed the short distance almost instantly.
One struck first and pierced the fleeing root from above.
A second entered from the side before its direction could change.
The remaining seven arrived immediately afterward, surrounding the organ from different angles and pinning it against the stone beneath the altar.
The root thrashed between them.
All nine Natal Needles trembled beneath the strange force trying to drag it elsewhere, but the Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent Seed responded through their connection and stabilized them.
Su Bai stepped forward.
The sealed sources began struggling again.
"YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TOUCHING!"
Su Bai crouched beside the pinned organ.
"That’s true."
He grabbed it.
"But I can find out afterward."
The final remnants disappeared between his teeth.
The strange pull immediately intensified.
Su Bai swallowed.
For one breath, nothing happened.
The flesh mass beneath the ancient weapon went completely still. The pressure that had always surrounded it vanished. The enormous body remained lifeless beneath the seal.
The artifact spirits stared.
The other sealed sources stared as well.
An existence that had survived Immortals had finally stopped returning.
Su Bai barely had time to appreciate it.
Something inside him lurched.
The power contained within the final portion of the root did not spread like ordinary essence.
It pulled.
The sensation came from somewhere impossibly distant, yet somehow it had found him the instant the root disappeared into his body.
Su Bai’s surroundings vanished.
The altar disappeared together with the ancient weapons, the sealed sources, and the Fallen-Star Sanctuary itself.
His vision fell into darkness.
For an instant, Su Bai could not feel his body.
There was only an endless expanse stretching farther than his spiritual sense could comprehend.
There was nothing Su Bai recognized. Yet he immediately knew he was not alone.
Something moved in the darkness.
The scale was impossible to judge until a thin line slowly opened far ahead of him.
Su Bai stared.
The line widened.
An enormous eye revealed itself within the dark expanse.
It was so vast that Su Bai could not see where it ended.
The pupil shifted.
Across a distance he could not understand, the eye turned directly toward him.