Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 131: Substitute Death, Old Acquaintance

“Impossible!”

Zhang Can froze, staring at a scene that shattered his entire worldview.

He had watched with his own eyes as the Mystic Gold Awl pierced the target’s heart. How could he still be alive?!

Seeing his prey attempt to flee, Zhang Can didn’t have time to overthink. He hurriedly recalled the Mystic Gold Awl, infusing it with Qi once more. This time, he held nothing back.

He didn’t aim for the heart. He aimed for the neck!

Although the physique of a Qi Refining cultivator far surpassed that of a mortal, a direct hit to the neck was certain death.

Whoosh!

The Mystic Gold Awl flew from his hand!

It struck the target’s neck with blinding speed.

Yet, a sight that left Zhang Can dumbfounded occurred once again.

The little cultivator was struck in the neck by the Mystic Gold Awl and sent flying by the immense kinetic force. But then, he simply scrambled back up, discarded the weapon stuck in his neck, and took off running again!

There wasn’t even a scratch on his neck!

However, as he ran, his speed began to strangely decelerate.

There is something wrong with this Qi Refining cultivator!

“Zhang Can! What the hell are you doing!?”

Not far away, the red-haired cultivator, who was being suppressed to the point of suffocation by the heavily injured Ye Lingyu, couldn’t help but roar in anger.

Hearing the red-haired cultivator’s frantic urging, Zhang Can’s eyes turned red with frustration.

“Damn it! I don’t believe this!”

This time, he suddenly bit his own palm and rapidly formed hand seals.

The sole remaining Yin Ghost in his body let out a mournful wail as it dissolved into a dense surge of soul power, flooding into his spiritual platform.

In an instant, he felt the soul power within his body skyrocket!

Slowly, he opened his mouth.

“Om!”

A wave of soul power far exceeding the early Foundation Establishment stage erupted, using him as the center and expanding rapidly toward the fleeing Qi Refining cultivator.

Sure enough, the running figure instantly stiffened!

Zhang Can closed the distance in a few leaps, arriving directly in front of his target. Channeling Qi into his palm, he reached for the cultivator’s Dantian.

This time, he would crush the Dantian with his own hands.

He refused to believe this little cultivator could keep hopping around with a shattered Dantian!

However, the moment his hand reached out, Zhang Can’s expression changed abruptly.

He recoiled as if electrocuted!

But it was too late.

Between Wang Ba’s ribs, a shocking streak of sword light erupted!

If Ye Lingyu’s sword was a shard of solitary, biting frost, then this strike was a torrential river, pouring forth with irresistible force!

Sword waves rolled; sword tones howled!

Thump!

Zhang Can’s corpse collapsed to the ground. His eyes remained wide open, holding a trace of shock, disbelief, and thick, lingering unwillingness…

This sudden upheaval caused both the red-haired cultivator and Ye Lingyu to stop their fight simultaneously.

To their astonishment, they saw that an additional figure had appeared beside Wang Ba.

Hovering in mid-air, the figure was vivid and lifelike, yet clearly not a creature of flesh and blood.

Seeing that silhouette, Ye Lingyu’s eyes filled with suspicion and uncertainty. Then, as if realizing something, her entire body trembled, and her face washed over with shock.

Wang Ba, barely recovering from Zhang Can’s soul attack, stared at the cold, stern figure standing with his back to him. His mind was in turmoil, filled with disbelief.

“Senior Brother… Zhao?!”

“You’re not dead?!”

But he immediately shook his head.

Impossible. He had seen Senior Brother Zhao’s corpse with his own eyes. He had even intended to bury him, but the body had vanished—likely taken by the Heavenly Gate Sect—and he had never found it.

Hearing Wang Ba’s exclamation, the figure slowly turned around.

The face was cold and stern, the temperament equally austere. Who else could it be but Zhao Feng?

However, compared to his former icy demeanor, he now carried an inexplicable sense of detachment and peace. Hearing the question, he offered a faint, carefree smile.

“Heh. I died, yet I am not entirely dead.”

Wang Ba was momentarily confused by Zhao Feng’s words, but that confusion was quickly replaced by immense joy.

“It’s good that you’re still alive, Senior Brother Zhao! But… how did you deceive the Heavenly Gate Sect?”

Zhao Feng’s gaze swept across the area. He smiled. “No rush. Let me deal with these people first.”

Sensing imminent danger, the red-haired cultivator immediately abandoned Ye Lingyu, pouring Qi into his flying Magical Artifact.

In the blink of an eye, he fled several hundred zhang away.

Zhao Feng remained calm. He simply flicked his finger.

Ding!

A streak of sword light leaped up, dancing through the air as it pursued the target. It caught up effortlessly, gently circling the red-haired cultivator’s neck.

Instantly, head and body were separated!

“Hmm?”

Zhao Feng seemed slightly surprised. He pointed a finger again.

The sword light stabbed into a specific point in the empty void. A miserable scream followed.

The red-haired cultivator was dead.

This move was technically the same as Ye Lingyu’s earlier kill of the Heavenly Gate Sect cultivator, yet it possessed a level of ease and free-spirited grace that she lacked.

Seeing this, Ye Lingyu’s expression turned grave.

On the other side, the Incense Path cultivator, Gao Yong, saw the situation turn grim and bolted in the opposite direction.

But Zhao Feng merely flicked his finger again. The man didn’t get far before he was decapitated, his soul extinguished before it could even attempt to escape.

The sword light twirled gently, hooking several Storage Bags from the two corpses before returning to Wang Ba’s side and dropping them into his hands.

“Alright, now we can talk.”

A slight smile appeared on Zhao Feng’s stern face as he casually beckoned to Ye Lingyu.

“You are Junior Sister Ye, correct? You’ve already reached Foundation Establishment Perfection… It seems I have slept for a long time.”

Hearing this, Ye Lingyu hesitantly called out, “Senior Brother Zhao,” before her face went pale. She quickly sat cross-legged, swallowed a healing Pill, and began rapidly recovering her Qi.

Wang Ba, however, couldn’t wait.

“Senior Brother, what exactly is going on? And how… how do you seem even more powerful than before?”

“I have to thank you for that,” Zhao Feng said with a smile.

“Me?” Wang Ba was stunned.

“If not for your continuous infusion of Qi over such a long period, and then suddenly flooding the ‘Soul Nurturing Pearl’ with a massive amount of energy just now, I would have woken up in a state no different from when I died,” Zhao Feng explained frankly.

Massive amount of energy… He was likely referring to the two Top Grade Blood Dharma Pills.

Recalling the surging Qi within those pills, Wang Ba nodded repeatedly. It was indeed massive. Even for a Foundation Establishment cultivator, that amount of power would be astonishing.

Earlier, under the pressure of the Incense Path cultivator, he had panicked and dumped all the chaotic energy from the Blood Dharma Pills into the pearl within his body.

After all, while the Substitute Death divine ability could block fatal physical damage, passive defense would eventually fail.

But Wang Ba quickly latched onto a key term.

“Soul Nurturing Pearl? That pearl you struck me with back then?”

“Correct,” Zhao Feng nodded. “You should know that I possess the ‘Clear Sword Heart.’ Those with this talent are naturally gifted in the Way of the Sword.”

“But in reality, limited by my physical body and the many tethers on my heart, I was never able to truly utilize this talent to its fullest.”

“That is, until Master devised a method. He completely stripped my Clear Sword Heart—along with a portion of my soul—and transformed it into a seed, which he planted within the third-grade treasure, the Soul Nurturing Pearl.”

“The plan was to wait for the Clear Sword Heart to fully deduce and evolve the sword techniques Master passed down to me. Once complete, I would reclaim the Clear Sword Heart. At that time, I might have even used the momentum to step into the Golden Core realm.”

“It is a pity… The Heavenly Gate Sect attacked suddenly, and the Sect suffered a crushing defeat. Even Master perished. I knew Senior Brother Lu had long been wary of my talent and would likely not let me live. So, I could only place my hope in you.”

“Now it seems my intuition was correct.”

Hearing this, Wang Ba vaguely understood why Zhao Feng said he was ‘dead, but not completely.’

The entity before him was less Zhao Feng the person, and more Zhao Feng’s remnant soul.

However, nurtured by the Soul Nurturing Pearl and Wang Ba’s long-term Qi infusion, this wisp of a remnant soul had gradually reached Perfection. It had effectively replaced the original body’s consciousness, becoming the true Zhao Feng.

After all, the body and the remnant soul shared the same consciousness originally. Since the other soul had perished, viewing the entity before him as Zhao Feng himself was perfectly logical.

In a sense, Zhao Feng had been reborn.

Thinking of this, Wang Ba felt genuinely happy for him. Since stepping onto the path of cultivation, Zhao Feng was perhaps the person who had helped him the most.

In the past, he could only watch helplessly as Zhao Feng went to his death. Now, having helped him revive, a heavy weight was finally lifted from his heart.

Wang Ba was about to speak when Zhao Feng suddenly turned his head.

His gaze fixed intently on the meditating Ye Lingyu.

No—not just Ye Lingyu, but the third-grade magic sword resting beside her.

His eyes shifted back and forth between the woman and the sword. The smile he had worn while talking to Wang Ba slowly vanished.

“Senior Brother, what’s wrong?” Wang Ba asked curiously.

Zhao Feng’s expression was complex. He remained silent for a moment before suddenly speaking.

“Tell me what changed after I died.”

Wang Ba quickly recounted everything he knew.

“So, they are Incense Path cultivators… Water Controlling City… Eastern Sage Sect… Heavenly Gate Sect…”

“So that is how it is.”

Zhao Feng sighed. He looked at the third-grade magic sword again, his eyes holding an inexplicable hint of desolation.

The Clear Sword Heart allowed one to pierce through illusions and see the hidden connections between seemingly unrelated things.

He spoke again, his tone decisive.

“Junior Brother, your soul aura has been marked by the Heavenly Gate Sect. I have no way to resolve that for you momentarily. However, you know me.”

“Return to the Heavenly Gate Sect for now. Stay there quietly and focus on self-preservation.”

“Once I find a solution, I will come find you immediately.”

Wang Ba was stunned for a moment before reacting. “Senior Brother, you’re leaving? Are you going back to the Eastern Sage Sect?”

Zhao Feng nodded, then shook his head.

“I will not return to the Eastern Sage Sect. I have repaid the Sect’s kindness in full. Now, it is time to focus on my own cultivation.”

Beside Ye Lingyu, the third-grade magic sword remained silent.

“But Senior Brother, you are currently just a soul…” Wang Ba hesitated.

“It matters not. If I wished to perform Body Seizing, while not as effortless as it is for a Golden Core True Person, it would still be as easy as turning over my hand.”

Zhao Feng shook his head dismissively.

For some reason, Wang Ba felt Zhao Feng’s words were strange—as if they carried a hidden meaning directed at someone else.

At that exact moment, Ye Lingyu, who had been meditating with her eyes closed, suddenly snapped them open. Her voice carried a trace of anger, but the tone was not entirely her own.

“Zhao Feng, are you insinuating something about this old man?”