Chapter 113: Chapter 113 - The Erasure Tribulation and the Null State
The Heavenly Erasure Bolt descended in silence.
The ancestors moved at the same time.
Old bodies that had looked dry and half-buried in time suddenly erupted with terrifying strength.
One ancestor raised a bronze bell covered in ancient cracks.
The bell rang once.
There was no sound. Instead, a translucent barrier expanded outward, carrying the weight of mountains and rivers.
Another ancestor threw out a jade ruler.
The ruler grew in the air, turning into a white line that seemed to divide heaven and earth.
A third ancestor opened his palm, and nine black tortoise shells flew out, arranging themselves into a defensive formation older than the current generation of elders.
More artifacts followed. Each artifact rose into the air.
Each technique flared.
For a moment, the space above the main peak became a sea of ancient light.
Su Bai stared silently.
The scene was terrifyingly beautiful.
It was the beauty of old people who had once stood at the peak of the cultivation world raising their hands against something impossible.
Techniques he had only read about on the white jade cliffs of the Ancestral Sanctum now appeared before his eyes.
Just looking at them made Su Bai’s mind tremble.
His Dao-Shattering Jade reacted faintly. Comprehension rose in his mind like sparks flying from a whetstone.
The route of Qi. The layering of defense. The way each technique avoided opposing the Erasure Bolt directly and instead tried to delay, divert, and thicken space around it.
Su Bai almost fell into comprehension. Then he immediately shook himself awake.
Now was not the time.
Void-Shattering ancestors were laying the road for him with their own lifespan.
He did not need to admire the road.
He needed to be ready to survive at the end of it.
The Heavenly Erasure Bolt struck the first barrier.
The Mountain-Bearing Bell dimmed.
A piece of the translucent shield vanished.
The ancestor controlling the bell grunted. His already dry face paled further.
The second barrier rose.
The jade ruler’s white line crossed the sky.
The Erasure Bolt touched it.
Half the line disappeared.
The ancestor holding the ruler coughed once, and several strands of hair turned ash-gray.
The tortoise shells spun.
One shell vanished instantly.
Then another.
Then another.
The Erasure Bolt slowed.
Only slightly. But slightly was enough.
The ancestors did not try to defeat it.
They knew they could not.
They layered techniques.
They threw artifacts.
They burned blood essence.
They burned lifespan.
They burned the vitality that the golden rain had just returned to them.
Su Bai saw it clearly.
The ancestors had only just awakened. The Twilight Qi had faded from them, but they were still old.
Every time they forced the Erasure Bolt to slow, their vitality dimmed by a thread.
Every time they rebuilt a vanishing barrier, time seemed to bite them again.
Su Bai’s chest tightened.
They had finally received vitality after who knew how many years of lying in coffins.
Now they were spending it for him.
At the side, the Peak Masters joined as well.
Lu Canghai’s cloud Qi spread like an endless sea, thickening the space below the ancestors’ defensive layers.
Jian Wushuang’s sword light drew thin cuts across the path of the Erasure Bolt, not to wound it, but to separate its pressure into weaker strands.
Huo Yan’s formation plates burned bright red.
The strengthened load-balancing array groaned as it tried to spread the remaining force.
Yao Ding’s medicinal mist turned dark, then golden, then pale, desperately trying to preserve the vitality of the ancestors as they burned themselves.
Shen Youran stood beside Su Bai, her calm Qi curtain wrapped around him like the last layer of water before a drought.
Mo Shanyue and his spirit beasts guarded the retreating disciples at the edge of the mountain, making sure no stray thread of erasure touched the juniors.
Li Xuanzong stood at the front with both sleeves lifted. His authority poured into the formation like a pillar.
...
The Erasure Bolt descended layer by layer.
Each defense disappeared.
But the colorless crack thinned. Its edges became less jagged. Its speed slowed. Its silence weakened.
Finally, after tearing through the final ancient seal, the Heavenly Erasure Bolt reached the inner formation.
It was no longer as vast as before, but it still existed, and even a thinned thread of erasure was erasure.
Lu Canghai turned sharply.
"My disciple!"
Su Bai looked up.
Lu Canghai’s black hair fluttered in the windless silence. His face was younger now, but his eyes were still the eyes of the old master Su Bai knew.
"Prepare for impact!"
Su Bai nodded.
He sat cross-legged again.
His Black-Ice Core carried nine marks, and the Golden Core Engine had sealed, but now it had to face something that might erase it entirely.
Su Bai grabbed a Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill.
He swallowed it.
His thoughts accelerated. The crystal root network inside him lit up thread by thread.
Then he took out another Corpse-Chill Yin Pill and held it ready.
His breathing slowed.
And finally, the thinned Heavenly Erasure Bolt entered the formation.
Shen Youran’s curtain touched it.
A portion of the curtain vanished.
Shen Youran’s face paled.
She stepped back half a pace, but she did not retreat.
But then... the bolt reached Su Bai.
It touched his chest.
There was no explosion. A small hole simply appeared.
Su Bai’s flesh disappeared. Then the erasure entered his body.
Su Bai shuddered.
This was worse than pain. Pain at least told him something was still there to hurt.
This was absence.
His flesh vanished in small patches. His meridians lost segments. Several crystal root threads disappeared before they could even tremble.
The edge of the Black-Ice Core’s aura flickered.
The Taiji loop stuttered.
Su Bai’s pupils shrank.
Lu Canghai had been right.
His Reversal Body did not reverse it.
His constitution reached for a harmful effect and found nothing to grasp.
For a moment, Su Bai felt the limit of his Reversal Body.
The Heavenly Dao was still something far beyond his current understanding.
The Erasure Bolt pierced deeper.
A thread of blankness entered the Infinite Void Dantian.
Part of the surrounding void disappeared.
Several solid Qi needles in the asteroid belt vanished without a trace.
The crystal tree shook.
The Ashen-Frost Blight Flame canopy flickered.
The Black-Ice Core trembled.
Su Bai popped the Corpse-Chill Yin Pill into his mouth.
The reversed life force erupted through his body.
At the same time, he pushed the Golden Core Engine to its limit.
The Black-Ice Core spun.
The golden Yang sun inside it flared.
The nine tribulation marks lit up together.
The crystal root network tightened through every part of his body.
His Macro-Taiji Engine roared silently.
Su Bai could not reverse erasure. So he did not reverse it.
He replaced what it removed.
The Erasure Bolt deleted flesh. The Taiji loop generated new flesh.
It erased crystal roots. The Black-Ice Core pushed Yin through the network and grew new threads.
It removed parts of his spiritual sea. The Infinite Void Dantian expanded and filled the missing space again.
It erased Qi needles. The rotating asteroid belt condensed new fragments from the circulating Qi.
It tried to take away the edge of the Black-Ice Core. The golden Yang sun burned brighter, and the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame cold-forged the surface back into shape.
Su Bai’s face twisted.
His body shook violently.
He was not healing in the ordinary sense. He was being erased and recreated at the same time.
It was like trying to fill a bottomless pit while the pit was actively eating the ground around it.
The Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill accelerated the process.
The Corpse-Chill Yin Pill poured life force into the cycle.
Su Bai realized the only path.
Create faster than it erased.
His thoughts became terrifyingly calm.
His body screamed.
His Dantian shook.
His soul felt as if someone was scraping blank space across it.
Several times, his vision went dark.
Several times, he almost lost the rhythm.
Each time, the Black-Ice Core pulsed.
Dong.
The Golden Core Engine continued.
...
Outside, everyone watched in silence.
Lu Canghai stared at Su Bai with bloodshot eyes.
He wanted to help, but he could not.
If he interrupted now, the Erasure Bolt might mark him as another target, or worse, disturb the narrow balance Su Bai had found.
...
Inside the erasure, Su Bai gritted his teeth.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
Each breath felt longer than an entire day.
The hole in his chest opened, closed, then opened again.
The Erasure Bolt continued pressing forward.
But it was thinning.
The ancestors had exhausted most of its force.
Su Bai was consuming the rest by surviving it.
Finally, the colorless thread flickered.
For the first time, it weakened.
Su Bai felt it.
His eyes sharpened.
He forced the Taiji loop one more time.
The Macro-Taiji Engine rebuilt the missing point faster than the Erasure Bolt could vanish.
The colorless command trembled.
Then finally... it ran out.
The silence broke.
The Heavenly Erasure Bolt faded.
Su Bai remained seated.
His body was riddled with half-healed wounds.
His robes were almost ruined.
His face was pale beyond belief.
But he still existed.
Inside his Dantian, the damaged spiritual sea repaired itself slowly.
The crystal root network regrew missing strands.
The solid Qi needle asteroid belt reformed its broken orbit.
The Black-Ice Core turned once.
Then the leftover trace of erasure wrapped around it.
Su Bai watched inwardly.
The trace did not become a line... It formed a ring.
A thin, colorless-black ring appeared around the Black-Ice Core, circling outside the nine tribulation marks.
It looked like absence given shape.
The tenth tribulation mark, a Void Ring.
The moment it formed, Su Bai’s entire aura vanished.
...
Outside, everyone felt it.
Lu Canghai’s expression changed.
Li Xuanzong’s eyes narrowed.
The ancestors’ gazes sharpened.
Su Bai sat there, alive, but they could no longer sense his Qi.
He felt like... a mortal.
No.
Even mortals had traces of life aura to high-level cultivators.
Su Bai felt like an ordinary person wrapped in perfect stillness.
The Peak Masters froze.
Yao Ding’s face changed.
"What happened?"
Huo Yan clenched his fists.
"Did the bolt cripple him?"
Jian Wushuang’s gaze became sharp enough to cut stone.
"No. His breathing is stable."
Shen Youran looked at Su Bai’s body.
"His life is still there."
Mo Shanyue frowned deeply.
"But his aura is gone."
The ancestors were silent.
They had seen more than anyone present. But even they had never seen this.
A Golden Core cultivator surviving a forbidden tenth tribulation was already unheard of. A Golden Core cultivator gaining no aura afterward was even stranger.
One ancestor slowly exhaled.
"Did the heavens erase his cultivation presence?"
Another ancestor frowned.
"Or did he hide beyond our perception?"
No one knew.
Their chest tightened.
They had been willing to save Su Bai even if the boy became a mortal.
As long as Su Bai lived, there would be a chance.
If Su Qingshan’s words were true, if this child really was the hope of the sealed immortal path, then surviving mattered more than any single realm.
Even if they had to spend their remaining years protecting a crippled disciple, so be it.
The merit of saving such a person would be worth more than dying in a coffin.
...
Then Su Bai opened his eyes.
Everyone immediately looked at him.
Su Bai blinked once.
Then he looked down at his hands.
He seemed to check himself.
His expression was strange. Then he slowly stood.
His legs shook slightly, but he did stand.
He cupped his hands and bowed deeply toward Lu Canghai, Li Xuanzong, the Peak Masters, and the awakened ancestors.
"Thank you, everyone."
His voice was hoarse.
"I have successfully reached the Golden Core Realm."
The main peak fell silent.
Lu Canghai stared at him.
Then he asked the question everyone wanted to ask.
"Disciple. Why can we not sense any aura from you? Did something go wrong?"
Su Bai looked at him, then he smiled.
"Master, nothing went wrong."
He raised one hand and lightly touched his chest.
"The Erasure Bolt left a tenth tribulation mark on my core."
The ancestors’ eyes widened.
Li Xuanzong’s expression changed.
The Peak Masters froze.
"Tenth... mark?" Yao Ding whispered.
Su Bai nodded.
"It seems to grant me a kind of null state."
Lu Canghai frowned.
"Null state?"
Su Bai thought for a moment.
"It hides my aura completely. Unless I release it myself, I appear no different from an ordinary person."
Everyone fell silent again.
The ancestors looked at each other.
A Golden Core cultivator with ten tribulation marks. A core that had survived erasure. And a body that could hide from perception so completely that even Void-Shattering ancestors could not sense his cultivation.
The old ancestor at the front suddenly laughed.
Then several other ancestors began laughing as well.
Lu Canghai stared at Su Bai.
Then he suddenly covered his face with one hand.
His shoulders trembled.
No one knew whether he wanted to laugh, cry, or curse Su Qingshan again.
Shen Youran looked at Su Bai quietly, then said softly, "Congratulations, Martial Nephew Su."
Li Xuanzong stared at Su Bai for a long moment, then he smiled.
"Radiant Sky Sect congratulates Disciple Su Bai on reaching the Golden Core Realm."
The words echoed across the emptied main peak.
Su Bai stood there, looking like a mortal who had accidentally wandered into a battlefield.
But everyone present knew the truth.
A monster had just been born.
And the heavens had failed to erase him.
