Chapter 355 - Receiving Vessels and an Unfamiliar Guest

Chapter 355: Chapter 355 - Receiving Vessels and an Unfamiliar Guest

For several breaths, Ning Shuang said nothing.

She looked toward the prisoner, then back at Su Bai, as though comparing his words with every movement she had observed since the man returned.

Her fingers tightened against her sleeve. The confidence with which she had described the capture remained, but a new caution entered her eyes.

"Void-Shattering?"

"He was, before losing his body."

Su Bai described the man as he had appeared during the battle and explained enough of the escape for her to understand what he meant.

He spoke of the formations carved into the body, the sacrificed companion, and the soul carried eastward beneath an unfamiliar light.

He left the Dark Mark inside him out of the explanation.

Ning Shuang listened closely, her complexion growing paler as the description continued.

When he finished, she turned toward the captive again.

"I have seen that man before."

Su Bai’s gaze sharpened.

"He visited our sect once. My master was among the people who received him." Ning Shuang drew a careful breath. "He belongs to another demonic sect."

The statement left the clearing quiet.

Su Bai considered the borrowed body and the man who had chosen it.

A fleeing soul might seize whatever shelter it could reach, but this one had ended up inside a disciple traveling with a different faction. He had then known enough about that faction to make his false identity convincing.

Ning Shuang’s account had already shown how deliberately he intended to use the others.

Su Bai put the bone mask back over his face as he approached the prisoner.

The familiar connection remained faint but steady.

He crouched beside the tree and extended his spiritual sense, examining the borrowed body more carefully than he had from the edge of the clearing.

Its circulation was badly unsettled, with traces of force moving through routes that seemed unable to support them properly. He followed one of those disturbances toward the man’s shoulder.

Something beneath the torn clothing caught his attention.

Su Bai moved the damaged fabric aside just enough to expose the skin.

Fine markings ran beneath the ordinary bruising, faint enough that a casual glance might mistake them for old scars.

His spiritual sense followed them across the shoulder and down toward the torso. The arrangement stirred a memory of patterns lighting across another body while blood surged into them.

His hand stopped.

The escape formation had been carved into the demon’s original flesh.

This body carried a formation as well.

Su Bai brought the Dao-Shattering Jade’s clarity into his thoughts and studied the routes without feeding them any Qi. Several portions remained unfamiliar, and he had no intention of activating something he did not understand.

Nevertheless, the direction of the surviving flows was suggestive. They gathered inward around the places where the intruding spiritual presence had settled.

He remembered the soul leaving its ruined body beneath the protection of the first formation.

These markings appeared arranged to receive something.

Ning Shuang had come closer, watching his expression.

"What is it?"

"Give me a moment."

Su Bai traced the pattern to its next junction, then looked toward the other unconscious men.

His spiritual sense passed over the nearest one.

Beneath the man’s clothing, another set of faint markings crossed the skin.

The arrangement lacked the strained, active quality he had found in the prisoner, but several of the same junctions appeared in the same places.

Su Bai examined a second man and found another.

His gaze moved toward Ning Shuang before he had finished thinking.

Spiritual sense followed the instinctive motion.

She stiffened immediately.

Su Bai withdrew it almost at once, cursing himself silently for the lapse.

Anxiety had carried his perception past the courtesy he would ordinarily observe, toward a part of another cultivator’s body he had no permission to examine.

The fact that he was worried did little to improve the manner in which he had expressed it.

He stood and stepped back.

"Forgive me, Sister Ning Shuang. I found something on the others and became concerned that you might have it too."

A faint red color had reached her cheeks.

The brief contact had felt strangely distinct, like a touch passing across places he had never physically approached.

Ning Shuang had already seen his expression change before his spiritual sense reached her, and the alarm in it was difficult to mistake.

She cleared her throat and glanced toward the men lying beside the fire pit. By the time she looked back, she had recovered most of her composure.

"What did you find?"

"Formation markings beneath their clothes. The prisoner has them as well."

He gestured toward the exposed shoulder.

"The man who escaped had formations carved into his original body. These are arranged differently, but some of the principles appear related. The ones here gather inward."

Ning Shuang’s gaze lowered toward the pattern.

Su Bai chose his next words carefully.

"I suspect his escape had destinations prepared for it."

The color left her face.

She crouched beside one of her subordinates and drew aside the edge of his collar. The markings became easier to see once she knew where to look.

Ning Shuang studied them, then checked another man while Su Bai remained beside the prisoner. Neither touched the formations themselves.

After a while, she straightened slowly.

"I do not have them."

Su Bai watched her look across the unconscious bodies, and something colder settled behind her eyes.

She seemed to be remembering an event whose meaning had changed completely.

"There was a visitor at the sect," she said.

Su Bai waited.

"He was introduced as a formation master. Some disciples were sent to him in groups. I was supposed to go with one of them."

Her gaze returned to the markings beneath the man’s collar.

"My master stopped me."

"Did she explain why?"

"She said she had other work for me." Ning Shuang’s voice became quieter. "At the time, I thought she simply wanted me nearby."

Su Bai glanced from her to the prisoner.

The escaping soul had carried a protective formation away from the battlefield.

Here, a body already marked with a related arrangement had received it, while several nearby disciples carried similar patterns.

Ning Shuang had independently remembered a formation master being given access to those same people.

The pieces fit together well enough to make him uncomfortable, even with the exact mechanism still beyond his understanding.

Ning Shuang looked toward the men on the ground.

"Were they being prepared as vessels?"

"It is possible."

She gave a short, humorless laugh.

"They were pleased when they returned. Some thought they had been chosen for something important."

Su Bai studied the dormant markings again. Their purpose could not be fully confirmed by examining the direction of a few flows, but the prisoner offered an example that would be difficult to dismiss.

He had arrived carrying another man’s soul, inside a body prepared before Su Bai ever reached the Eastern Region.

Whatever the complete arrangement was, it had survived the loss of the demon’s original flesh.

"The formation master," Su Bai said. "Was he a demonic cultivator?"

Ning Shuang shook her head slowly.

"I saw him only briefly. He was tall and kept his hood forward, so I could not see his face clearly."

She considered the memory before continuing.

"I could not distinguish his Qi either. I never sensed enough to tell whether he practiced a righteous or demonic method."

Su Bai’s eyes narrowed above the bone mask.

That absence proved very little by itself.

An accomplished cultivator could conceal his cultivation, and Ning Shuang had only been allowed a brief look at the visitor.

Still, he remembered the recovered artifacts Huo Yan had examined after the attack on Radiant Sky Sect.

Different craftsmen and different materials had carried principles none of them could easily explain.

Now similar preparation appeared written into living bodies.

Ning Shuang noticed the change in his expression.

"Brother Su, do you think the visitor is behind this?"

"We need more than a resemblance to know that," he replied. "But we should find out who invited him and which disciples were sent to him."

Her gaze shifted toward the prisoner.

"He may know."

Su Bai nodded, although his attention returned briefly to her.

"It is fortunate that your master kept you away."

Ning Shuang lowered her eyes.

For a moment, the anger on her face gave way to something more difficult to read.

Her master had offered an ordinary excuse, and she had obeyed without thinking much about it.

Looking at the markings now, she could imagine how easily she might have accepted the same appointment as the others. The thought left her unusually still.

Just then, a sharp movement disturbed the Nether Thread.

Su Bai turned before the prisoner finished lifting his head.

The man’s breathing had changed, and a faint effort passed through the circulation Su Bai had been watching. He tried to move his arms, only for the chains to tighten across his bruised body.

His gaze found Ning Shuang first. The hatred in it became almost tangible.

Then he noticed Su Bai standing beside her.

His eyes moved toward the unconscious disciples, the exposed formation markings, and the clear thread of Qi maintaining watch near his body.

Understanding arrived in pieces, each one making his expression uglier. He tried to straighten despite the chains. The effort drew a strained breath through his teeth.

"You..."

Ning Shuang watched him without answering.

"You are working with a righteous cultivator?"

Her face settled into the same cold expression she had shown while directing the interrogation.

Whatever private thoughts the discovery had stirred, she allowed none of them into her voice.

She stepped aside as Su Bai approached the tree.

The prisoner followed the movement, staring at the pale mask.

"You will answer for this," he hissed at her. "Your master will—"

Su Bai lowered the mask.

The threat stopped halfway through.

For a moment, the prisoner seemed unable to comprehend the face in front of him.

His gaze fixed on Su Bai’s features, then moved down as though searching for some explanation beneath the ordinary robes.

The recognition reached him with enough force that his shoulders pressed hard against the tree.

The chains rattled again.

Su Bai crouched until their eyes were level.

"Hello, Senior. We meet again."

The prisoner’s mouth opened.

No sound emerged immediately. He had last seen that face inside a sect protected by people who had destroyed his body and forced him into a desperate escape.

Now it had appeared in a forest clearing, beside the girl who had spent hours allowing her subordinates to beat him. His breath caught as the implications settled.

Su Bai rested one arm loosely over his knee.

"I have a few questions about your escape."

The prisoner tried to gather himself, but his attention kept shifting toward Ning Shuang and back again.

She stood close enough to hear everything, her expression calm in a way that made the encounter considerably worse.

Su Bai waited until the man’s gaze finally settled on him. A faint smile touched his lips.

"How would you like to suffer?"

The prisoner jerked against the chains and coughed. Fresh blood reached his mouth as the movement pulled at the injuries across his chest, leaving the threat he had been preparing buried beneath a ragged breath.

Ning Shuang looked down at him with quiet interest. Su Bai remained crouched in front of the tree, patiently waiting for an answer.