Cultivating in Reverse: My Sign-In System Wants Me Dead

Chapter 159: Chapter 159 - The Ravine Echoes and the First Wave

The group left the Treatment-and-Containment Hall behind.

More than thirty cultivators moved through the miasma in a loose but guarded formation.

The unconscious victims floated near the center on Lin Weiyang’s bronze platforms.

Su Bai walked at the front.

His pace was not fast, but it was steady.

That steadiness soon became strange.

After leaving the hall, the direction of the group began to blur again.

At first, the change was subtle.

A cultivator would glance left, then frown.

Someone else would look back and feel as if the path behind them had shifted.

The red mist curled around stones and broken roots, making every direction look half-familiar and half-wrong.

"This mist is interfering again," someone muttered.

Another cultivator said uneasily, "I feel as if we have turned twice."

"We have not," Zhao Heng said.

He sounded certain.

Then, after a pause, he added, "Probably."

The group became even less comforted.

Several people looked toward Su Bai.

Su Bai did not pause.

He simply continued forward, as if the mist’s confusion had nothing to do with him.

That steadiness calmed the group more than words.

Chen Feng frowned.

"How are you so certain of the route?"

Su Bai thought for a moment.

Then answered, "Intuition."

Chen Feng stared at him.

Several cultivators immediately relaxed.

"Oh."

"If it is Brother Su’s intuition, then it should be fine."

"Brother Su’s intuition is usually more reliable than maps."

Chen Feng’s expression became complicated.

Everyone had accepted the most suspicious answer as if it were natural.

He suddenly felt that reasoning with this group was becoming difficult.

Su Bai remained calm.

Of course, it was not only intuition.

The dead soldiers’ memories had given him fragments of old routes.

Chen Feng’s map gave him the current markings.

His spiritual sense, instead of being suppressed by the miasma, was being sharpened by the pressure.

Three things overlapped in his mind.

Old memory. Chen Feng’s map. Present terrain.

None was fully trustworthy alone.

Together, they were enough.

Su Bai did not intend to explain any of this. He preferred to remain a person with good intuition.

That sounded safer.

As they continued, Su Bai noticed three people were far less affected by the red mist than the others.

Ji Ruyue walked in silence, her expression unchanged.

Whether the mist confused her senses or not, her heart did not fluctuate. Her Heartless Sutra kept her mind cold and steady. Even if the world turned crooked, she would probably only adjust her footing and continue.

Lin Weiyang had several bronze mechanisms floating around her. From time to time, they pulsed faintly, correcting direction through formation traces and subtle flow changes.

As for Tang Ziyan...

Su Bai glanced at her.

Tang Ziyan walked through the red mist with her arms crossed, looking annoyed rather than threatened.

The miasma curled around her lotus barrier, but from time to time, faint purple poison threads spread from her body and forced it away.

Her poison... was making the miasma retreat.

Su Bai’s eyes moved slightly.

Purple Calamity Venom-Body.

Tang Ziyan’s poison was not merely toxic. It had its own dominance.

Su Bai looked at the pale lotus-light barrier around her.

He suddenly understood.

She had probably eaten the Lotus-Heart Pill mostly to protect her clothes.

Su Bai looked down.

His own robe had begun to corrode again.

The edges of his sleeves were slowly thinning. A faint red stain crept along the hem, eating at the fabric one breath at a time.

The old members of Su Bai’s group noticed and calmly looked away.

They were already used to it.

The newer cultivators were not.

One young female cultivator’s eyes widened.

"Brother Su, your robe..."

Before she could finish, the older members nearby coughed in unison.

The female cultivator blinked.

The old members immediately turned their eyes away.

Su Bai just sighed and blamed everything on his Glacier-Lung Bone Mask again.

"The mask protects me enough," Su Bai said calmly. "The robe is less fortunate."

Several new cultivators looked at the mask with awe.

"So that mask is such a treasure..."

"As expected of Brother Su."

"It can resist miasma directly?"

Su Bai did not confirm. He also did not deny.

Tang Ziyan glanced at his corroding sleeves and clicked her tongue.

"You gave your pills to others, yet you refuse to use one yourself?"

The others froze.

Right. Su Bai clearly had Lotus-Heart Pills, but he had given them away instead.

Everyone fell silent.

Su Bai looked at Tang Ziyan.

"Are you worried?"

Tang Ziyan’s eyes narrowed.

"Hmph. Who would worry about you? You are scarier than the miasma."

After saying that, she turned away.

The others froze.

Su Bai paused briefly. Then continued walking.

Still, he felt quite good.

The thick miasma near the altar had already failed to corrode his flesh. After his recent improvement, ordinary miasma in this area was even less threatening.

His body cultivation had clearly advanced, even if he still could not classify it properly.

The robe problem was unfortunate. But compared to flesh not melting, losing sleeves was acceptable.

The group continued forward.

As expected, more people meant more noise.

Tang Ziyan insulted someone for stepping too close to her poison aura.

Chen Feng told two cultivators to stop whispering if they were only going to scare themselves.

Ji Ruyue said nothing at all, which somehow made people straighten whenever she passed.

Su Bai listened to everything without much expression.

He did not expect perfect order.

These were young cultivators from different factions, not trained soldiers.

They had different habits, different pride, different fears, and different levels of common sense.

The fact that no one had run screaming into the mist yet was already a good result.

He guided them patiently.

A correction here.

A warning there.

A slight turn when the terrain no longer matched the old memory.

A pause when his spiritual sense caught something wrong under the mist.

The red fog thickened as they walked.

The lotus-light barriers around the outer cultivators began to glow more visibly, resisting the corrosion.

Several people noticed and became tense.

"The miasma is getting heavier."

"My barrier is being consumed faster."

"Are we going deeper?"

Su Bai looked ahead.

The old route in his mind overlapped with the ground beneath his feet.

A broken marker should have stood somewhere nearby.

He sent his spiritual sense forward.

There.

A stone marker lay under a layer of red dust and dead vine.

It was cracked. But present.

Su Bai’s eyes narrowed slightly.

They were close.

"Prepare yourselves," he said.

The group quieted almost immediately.

"We are near."

Chen Feng glanced at him.

"How do you know?"

Su Bai looked at him.

Chen Feng suddenly remembered the earlier answer.

His mouth twitched.

"Intuition again?"

Su Bai nodded.

"Yes."

Chen Feng closed his eyes for a moment.

"I should not have asked."

Several cultivators looked comforted again.

Chen Feng felt worse.

A little later, the scenery began to change.

The ground sloped downward.

Broken stones appeared more frequently.

The red mist grew thicker.

Then the ground suddenly opened.

A deep ravine stretched before them.

Its far side vanished into red haze.

Its bottom could not be seen clearly.

Jagged rocks jutted out along the walls.

Su Bai raised a hand.

The entire group stopped.

"We arrived," he said. "Be ready."

No one rushed forward.

Su Bai stepped closer to the edge.

The ravine breathed cold miasma upward.

The lotus barriers of several cultivators flickered.

A faint sound drifted from below.

At first, it resembled wind.

Then it became voices.

"Senior Brother..."

"Help me..."

"This way..."

"I found something..."

"Come down..."

Every cultivator heard something different.

"That voice..."

"Do not listen," Su Bai said.

His voice was not loud, but it cut through the murmurs.

"Stay close. Guard each other. No one moves toward a voice alone. No one answers."

The group tightened at once.

Zhao Heng raised his shield.

Chen Feng drew his sword halfway.

Tang Ziyan smiled coldly.

"I hate noisy things."

Purple poison began to gather around her fingertips.

Su Bai’s spiritual sense swept down into the ravine.

Then his perception caught movement at the edge of its range.

Many.

They were climbing upward through the miasma. Their bodies scraped against stone, producing faint clicking sounds.

Su Bai’s expression changed slightly.

"Prepare to fight."

Everyone’s nerves tightened.

Chen Feng’s sword came fully out.

"What is it?"

"Miasma beasts," Su Bai said.

Several cultivators became nervous.

Then, strangely, some became excited.

Miasma beasts were dangerous.

But in the Fallen-Star Sanctuary, they were also signs.

They were often attracted to places with dense miasma, old remains, or special materials.

And everyone knew one rumor clearly.

Miasma beasts were often found near star-metal.

If they were here...

Then the ravine likely held real star-metal fragments.

A sword cultivator swallowed.

"Are they close?"

Su Bai’s gaze remained on the ravine.

"Very."

The group looked into the mist.

They saw nothing.

They almost doubt Su Bai.

Then the ravine screamed.

A sound crawled up from below.

Several weaker cultivators paled.

The sleeping victims on the floating platforms trembled under their lotus barriers.

Lin Weiyang’s bronze mechanisms snapped into defensive positions.

Tang Ziyan’s poison spread outward in thin purple threads.

Ji Ruyue stepped forward.

Frost gathered beneath her feet.

Chen Feng grinned despite himself.

"Finally, something that could be cut."

Su Bai’s spiritual sense locked onto the first beasts as they burst from the mist.

They were long-limbed things with gray-red hide stretched tightly over crooked bones. Their spines were lined with jagged mineral growths. Their heads had no proper eyes, only sunken pits filled with red vapor.

Their claws scraped against the ravine wall as they climbed.

Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.

"Do not let them reach the center," Su Bai said. "Protect the wounded and platforms."

Zhao Heng shouted, "Defensive line!"

The shield cultivators stepped forward.

Qiao Wen moved near the awakened victims.

Mu Qing spread wood Qi around the injured to steady their breathing.

Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms spun, releasing thin formation threads that marked the beasts’ paths.

Ji Ruyue vanished first.

A line of frost crossed the ravine edge.

One beast that had just leapt upward suddenly froze from its lower body down.

Chen Feng moved almost at the same time.

His sword cut through the mist and struck the frozen beast’s neck.

The blade rang against something metallic.

Chen Feng’s eyes sharpened.

"Hard."

Tang Ziyan raised her hand.

Purple mist poured forward like a silk veil.

The nearest beast opened its mouth to screech, then stumbled as poison seeped into the cracks along its jaw.

Tang Ziyan smiled.

"Still noisy?"

The beast shrieked louder.

Tang Ziyan’s smile faded.

"Annoying."

Su Bai lifted his hand.

Several black needles appeared between his fingers.

The first wave had arrived.