Chapter 256 - Old Duties and New Nightmares
Several miles away from the Fallen-Star Sanctuary, the clash between two Void-Shattering cultivators continued to distort the sky.
Neither side fought recklessly.
At their realm, recklessness was rarely mistaken for courage.
A cultivator who had reached Void-Shattering had already spent centuries accumulating power, surviving enemies, avoiding hidden dangers, and protecting whatever had grown around them during those years.
The stronger they became, the more things they had to consider before throwing their lives into a battle.
The current cultivation world only made that caution more pronounced.
Compared to ancient eras, the surrounding regions had enjoyed peace for far too long. Great sects still competed. Old grudges remained. Demonic cultivators had never vanished.
But genuine battles between Void-Shattering cultivators were rare.
Once people at that level fought without restraint, the problem no longer concerned only the two people involved.
Mountains could disappear.
Rivers could change course.
Cities unfortunate enough to stand nearby could be dragged into the aftermath without anyone inside understanding why they had died.
Yue Cangyu understood that better than most.
Azure-Jade City had stood under his protection for years. Countless ordinary people and cultivators lived beneath its walls, while smaller settlements depended upon the stability surrounding it.
If Yue Cangyu fell carelessly, the consequences would not end with his own death.
That was why he would never provoke another Void-Shattering cultivator merely to satisfy his pride.
It was also why the man before him had irritated him so thoroughly.
The demonic cultivator had come prepared.
His cultivation was slightly deeper than Yue Cangyu’s, and almost every technique carried something troublesome behind the obvious attack.
A dark palm might conceal corrosive spiritual force. A blade of Qi could split halfway through its trajectory. Even retreating from one attack occasionally brought Yue Cangyu into the range of another technique prepared several breaths earlier.
Under normal circumstances, Yue Cangyu would have been forced to fight with extreme patience.
Fortunately, these were no longer normal circumstances.
The demonic cultivator’s spiritual sense had suffered an injury earlier.
Yue Cangyu still did not understand exactly what Su Bai had done from several miles away, but the result had been undeniable.
The injury was not enough to cripple a Void-Shattering cultivator, but it was enough to matter.
Every time the demonic cultivator extended his spiritual sense too aggressively, a subtle hesitation appeared. His control remained formidable, yet that tiny imperfection had given Yue Cangyu the opening he needed to equalize a fight against someone whose cultivation was otherwise slightly superior.
Yue Cangyu was not foolish enough to waste that advantage.
A dark crescent swept toward his chest.
His sleeve moved.
The space in front of him twisted just enough for the attack to miss, and Yue Cangyu answered with a palm strike that forced the demonic cultivator several dozen meters backward.
The man stabilized himself immediately.
His expression had grown increasingly unpleasant.
Yue Cangyu did not press blindly.
He had already learned that this opponent enjoyed leaving traps behind while retreating.
Instead, his gaze drifted toward what had once been the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
The battlefield around Su Bai had changed beyond recognition.
The thousands of demonic cultivators who had originally surrounded the Sanctuary had been reduced to a fraction of their former number. Their formations had collapsed one after another, and the remaining Nascent Soul cultivators were being forced to devote nearly all their attention to one pale young man and the ancient artifact spirits fighting around him.
Yue Cangyu watched nine faint lights tear through another defensive formation.
His expression became strange.
He had known Su Bai was unusual.
That was hardly a revelation.
The boy’s father had already been absurd enough.
His master was Lu Canghai.
Expecting the disciple produced by that combination to grow into an ordinary cultivator would have been far more unreasonable.
Even so, there should have been limits.
Su Bai was still a Golden Core cultivator.
At least, Yue Cangyu’s spiritual sense insisted that he was.
He watched a Nascent Soul cultivator retreat from one of the strange needles while Su Bai broke through another section of the formation with his bare hands.
Yue Cangyu almost laughed.
’His father was troublesome. His master is worse.’
His eyes settled on Su Bai.
’So naturally, the child became ridiculous.’
For countless years, Yue Cangyu and the generations before him had guarded the Fallen-Star Sanctuary without knowing whether the duty would ever truly end.
They had inherited responsibilities left behind by people who had died so long ago that even their names had become uncertain.
Now, the Sanctuary had returned to the world after Su Bai walked out of it.
The thought brought a strange satisfaction Yue Cangyu had not expected.
For the first time in countless years, there was no sealed boundary behind him that needed to be watched.
There was only land.
And somewhere inside that pale young man’s head were probably answers Yue Cangyu had wanted for most of his life.
He needed this fight to end.
He wanted to speak with Su Bai before another disaster found the boy.
Judging by the battlefield below, that might already have been an unreasonable hope.
Something changed among the surviving demonic cultivators.
Yue Cangyu’s attention sharpened.
The remaining Nascent Soul leaders had finally abandoned the careful methods they had relied upon before.
Blood began rising from the battlefield. Not only from the living. The blood spilled by their fallen companions lifted from the ground in thin streams and flowed toward a formation taking shape above the survivors.
Yue Cangyu’s expression hardened.
"So they finally stopped pretending."
The Void-Shattering demonic cultivator heard him.
A cold smile appeared on the man’s face.
"They were always too restrained."
Below, the blood formation expanded.
The surviving demonic cultivators no longer seemed concerned with preserving corpses, treasures, or even the remains of their own people.
Several bodies burst apart as their remaining blood essence was forcibly extracted.
Dark-red patterns spread across the ground.
The air surrounding Su Bai became foul enough that even Yue Cangyu could sense it from several miles away.
Poisonous mist gathered.
Tiny insects emerged from black jars and disappeared into the air.
Several cultivators bit through their tongues and spat blood onto talismans covered in distorted markings.
Curses followed.
The demonic cultivators had apparently decided that if ordinary formations, direct attacks, hidden weapons, and coordinated assaults could not kill Su Bai, they would use the methods that had given demonic cultivators their reputation in the first place.
Yue Cangyu watched carefully.
Even he had to admit that the combination was troublesome.
A corrosive blood formation pressed down from above while poisonous mist crawled along the ground. The nearly invisible Gu insects approached from different directions, and several curses bypassed the more obvious defenses entirely.
The ancient artifact spirits intercepted what they could.
Su Bai stood in the middle of it.
For the first time since Yue Cangyu had started watching him, the young man stopped moving.
The demonic cultivators seemed to notice too.
One of the Nascent Soul leaders shouted something Yue Cangyu could not hear clearly from that distance.
A dagger shot toward Su Bai.
Its blade was dark green.
Even without approaching it, Yue Cangyu could tell the weapon had been soaked in something vicious.
Su Bai caught it.
Yue Cangyu’s brows rose.
The young man examined the blade.
For some reason, he looked almost curious.
Yue Cangyu suddenly had a bad feeling.
Su Bai brought the dagger closer to his face.
Yue Cangyu stared.
Su Bai touched the poisoned edge with his tongue.
Yue Cangyu’s expression went blank.
Across the distant battlefield, the demonic cultivators also stopped for a fraction of a breath.
The reaction that followed was not what any of them expected.
Su Bai’s pale face relaxed. He looked satisfied.
The Nascent Soul cultivator who had thrown the dagger visibly stiffened.
Yue Cangyu slowly looked away.
He had questions.
He had many questions.
He was beginning to suspect that some of them were better left unanswered.
A curse reached Su Bai next.
Unlike the dagger, there was nothing obvious to block.
A dark mark appeared briefly above his shoulder before sinking into his body.
Several demonic cultivators watched with anticipation.
Su Bai simply stood there.
A few breaths passed.
The young man’s shoulders loosened slightly.
His expression became comfortable.
One of the demonic cultivators took a step backward.
Another looked at the curse user.
The curse user looked at his own hands.
Yue Cangyu finally understood why the surviving cultivators had begun looking at Su Bai as though he were something far worse than themselves.
The demonic cultivators had spent their entire lives studying methods designed to make ordinary people fear them.
Poison. Curses. Gu. Blood arts. Corrosive techniques.
They had finally used those methods against Su Bai.
And Su Bai looked healthier for it.
Yue Cangyu’s lips twitched.
He almost laughed.
A black spear passed close enough to his cheek to erase the amusement immediately.
Yue Cangyu shifted aside and returned his attention to the man in front of him.
The Void-Shattering demonic cultivator’s expression was dark.
"Getting distracted while fighting me?"
His voice carried across the distorted space between them.
"Have you grown that arrogant, Yue Cangyu?"
Yue Cangyu glanced once more toward Su Bai before facing him properly.
"I was checking whether I still needed to protect the boy."
The demonic cultivator’s eyes narrowed.
Yue Cangyu gave him a calm look.
"Apparently, I was worrying about the wrong people."
The man’s killing intent intensified.
Space trembled around him.
Yue Cangyu’s expression remained unchanged, but his spiritual sense spread carefully through the surroundings.
The demonic cultivator was still dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous now that his forces were collapsing.
Desperate cultivators made mistakes.
Cornered experts sometimes made much larger ones.
Yue Cangyu raised one hand.
"Are you certain you want to continue?"
The question caused the demonic cultivator to pause.
Yue Cangyu continued before he could answer.
"Your people are dying."
The man’s jaw tightened.
"You cannot reach them while I remain here, and you have already failed to remove me."
Yue Cangyu’s voice stayed calm.
"If we continue, one of us may eventually fall. Perhaps both of us will suffer enough that someone else benefits."
He looked briefly toward the distant city.
"Neither outcome interests me."
For several breaths, the demonic cultivator said nothing.
His spiritual sense swept toward the battlefield.
What remained of his force looked nothing like the army that had arrived.
The surviving Golden Core cultivators had been pushed together around a handful of Nascent Soul leaders.
The blood formation they had just activated was already destabilizing.
Su Bai remained standing in its center.
The pale young man was currently holding the poisoned dagger that should have killed him.
The demonic cultivator’s face darkened further.
"Useless."
The word carried enough killing intent to make several nearby clouds disperse.
His gaze moved from his surviving subordinates to Su Bai.
For the first time, the contempt in his expression disappeared.
What replaced it was colder.
Yue Cangyu noticed immediately.
The demonic cultivator raised both hands. His fingers formed a sequence of seals.
Yue Cangyu’s eyes narrowed.
The surrounding void shifted.
This was different from the man’s previous techniques.
Yue Cangyu immediately prepared to interrupt him.
But just then, a dark seal appeared between the demonic cultivator’s palms.
It was small, far too small for an attack meant to threaten another Void-Shattering cultivator.
Yue Cangyu understood a moment too late.
The seal did not fly toward him.
It vanished into the distance...
...toward Su Bai.
Yue Cangyu’s spiritual sense chased after it, but the mark moved strangely through space. It did not carry enough destructive power to justify forcing through every obstruction.
It was not an attack.
The dark mark reached the distant battlefield and sank toward Su Bai before anyone there could stop it.
Yue Cangyu’s expression hardened.
The demonic cultivator laughed.
"Now I know him."
Yue Cangyu turned back.
The man had already begun tearing open the void behind himself.
Space split open behind him, revealing a turbulent passage through the void.
Yue Cangyu did not rush forward.
The demonic cultivator watched him from the edge of the opening.
"Keep the boy alive if you can."
His smile contained no amusement.
"What happened today will not end here."
Yue Cangyu’s eyes became colder.
The demonic cultivator continued.
"The next time we come, we will know what we are hunting."
Yue Cangyu’s voice remained level.
"If there is a next time, bring enough people to bury."
The man’s smile disappeared.
For a moment, the two Void-Shattering cultivators simply stared at one another.
Neither needed to explain the threat.
Finally, the demonic cultivator stepped backward into the torn void.
Before the spatial passage closed, his gaze moved once more toward Su Bai.
"Tell that young man to enjoy whatever he took from the Sanctuary."
The void snapped shut.
The pressure covering the surrounding region faded with it.
Yue Cangyu remained where he was.
He could have pursued. Perhaps he could even have forced the demonic cultivator into another exchange before the man escaped completely.
He chose not to.
Azure-Jade City was too close and the surrounding land had already endured enough disturbance from their battle.
Chasing another Void-Shattering cultivator through unstable space without knowing what preparations waited on the other side would have been stupidity disguised as courage.
There would be another opportunity.
Next time, Yue Cangyu intended to be considerably better prepared.
His attention returned to the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
The first thing he saw was Su Bai staring at the place where the dark mark had entered him.
Yue Cangyu’s expression changed.