Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 196: Mountain Collapse!

The newcomer wore ordinary robes, his features entirely forgettable. The intensity of his aura felt even weaker than Shen Fu’s own. Yet, this was the man Shen Fu had agonized over during their years of separation—his Senior Brother, Wang Ba.

Seeing Wang Ba, Shen Fu’s face became a chaotic spectacle of emotion. Disbelief warred with a sudden, fierce elation. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, rendering him temporarily speechless.

“Senior Brother, you… how did you get here? How are you so…”

How are you so powerful?

How did you reach Foundation Establishment so quickly?!

I wanted to come back and finally show off in front of you…

At this moment, Shen Fu felt exactly like a wanderer returning home, eager to boast of the fine wines and grand vistas he had experienced abroad, only to discover his family possessed far superior treasures. It was a cocktail of pleasant surprise and a vague, grounding sense of loss. But overwhelming it all was pure joy.

The eerie voice in his head fell utterly silent, shrinking back into the depths of his Spirit Platform.

Shen Fu didn’t care. He stepped forward eagerly. Wang Ba’s eyes mirrored that same delight. He closed the distance in quick strides, firmly grasping Shen Fu’s arms to inspect him. His eyes lit up with profound approval.

“Good! Good! Your foundation is impossibly solid. It seems you’ve clawed your way through a lot these past few years, kid!”

But the memory of the bloodbath just moments prior washed over Wang Ba, and a lingering chill of fear darkened his expression.

“Still… you were entirely too reckless this time. Daring to charge head-on against the Incense Burner Path with nothing but a ragged band of Rogue Cultivators? If I hadn’t taken an extra glance just now, we would be standing on opposite sides of the grave!”

He couldn’t hold back the harsh reprimand. Yet, hearing Wang Ba’s sharp tone, Shen Fu’s usually cold and ruthless face melted into a rare, genuine smile. He actually looked like he was enjoying the scolding.

Wang Ba faltered, his glare losing its heat. “You’re smiling! I’m lecturing you on surviving, and you’re smiling?!”

“Hehe. Getting scolded in front of Senior Brother… it just feels normal,” Shen Fu chuckled.

The cold, vicious predator who had commanded the Rogue Cultivators was entirely gone. In his place stood an obedient younger brother.

Hearing those words, the hardened edge in Wang Ba’s gaze softened. He was instantly pulled back to their most brutal days after first entering the Heavenly Gate Sect. It was only by huddling together for warmth—him, Bu Chan, Shen Fu, and Su Lingling—that they had survived the meat grinder. That bond was forged in absolute misery; it defied ordinary comparison.

If only Su Lingling and Yun Caixiang had made it…

A shadow passed over Wang Ba’s heart. He forced it down, rallying himself as he clapped Shen Fu heavily on the arm. “Alright! Surviving to see each other today is a joyous occasion. I’ll spare you the rest of the lecture. Let’s head into Qianyu Lake first. I recently offended a— move!”

Wang Ba’s heart seized.

His Divine Sense whipped backward like a physical lash. Beyond Wangfeng Mountain, a violent streak of light was tearing through the sky from the southwest, dragging up a massive dust storm in its wake.

The speed was sickening. It made Wang Ba’s pulse hammer against his ribs. Worse, the moment his Divine Sense brushed against that approaching light, an absolute, bone-deep frost threatened to freeze his very consciousness.

Sensing Wang Ba’s probe, the streak of light instantly locked onto him, radiating a suffocating, hyper-concentrated malice.

Yin Ghost!

What a terrifying Yin Ghost!

Wang Ba’s scalp tingled with pure terror. A name detonated in his mind:

Zheng Yuanhua!

It’s Zheng Yuanhua!

He actually came to slaughter me himself!

He had known the Incense Burner Path wouldn’t let him walk away after he maimed Li Canghai, but he never dreamed they would dispatch a monster of Zheng Yuanhua’s caliber. And so terrifyingly fast!

The oppressive, lethal weight radiating from this man was a full tier above Li Canghai. But the true nightmare was the cold, tactical realization dawning in Wang Ba’s mind: he had absolutely nothing in his arsenal that could threaten this man.

His mind calculated the odds in a fraction of a second. He made the fastest decision of his life.

“Go! Flee! Into Qianyu Lake!”

Shen Fu didn’t ask questions. He instantly ignited his flying Magical Artifact, rocketing toward the water. Wang Ba burned his dwindling reserves of Qi to follow, simultaneously transmitting a desperate warning to Meng and the other two.

“Escape?”

A deep, mocking voice echoed from behind the mountain. It sounded miles away, yet whispered directly into their ears, dripping with cold disdain.

Then, reality shattered.

A deafening, catastrophic roar tore through the air. The sky above them abruptly blackened. A colossal shadow blotted out the sun, expanding with terrifying speed.

Wang Ba forced himself to look up, his breath catching in his throat. Half of the towering mountain peak had been sheared off and was plummeting directly toward them. The sheer mass of descending rock created the apocalyptic illusion of the heavens collapsing.

Even as Foundation Establishment cultivators, being crushed beneath a falling mountain would turn them into absolute paste.

“Get out of the shadow!” Wang Ba roared.

Flying ahead, Shen Fu shuddered, pouring every last drop of his Qi into his artifact, burning his reserves dry to violently alter his trajectory.

But as they scrambled, Wang Ba’s pupils contracted to pinpricks.

A deadly streak of light pierced through the avalanche of falling boulders, curving into a lethal crescent aimed precisely at Shen Fu’s neck. The aura rolling off the blade was suffocating—a genuine third-stage attack!

“Damn it!”

Wang Ba didn’t hesitate. His speed exploded. With a violent flick of his wrist, a massive, heavy shadow materialized from his sleeve. Channeling his Qi, he hurled the beast directly into the blade’s path.

It was a second-stage Middle Grade Azure Water Spirit Turtle he had recently cultivated.

Propelled by Wang Ba’s Qi, the turtle became a living cannonball, colliding perfectly with the crescent-moon light.

Squelch. The crescent blade barely paused. Before Wang Ba’s horrified eyes, the light easily sheared through the dense, enchanted shell of the Azure Water Spirit Turtle. Its brilliant glow dimmed by a fraction, but its lethal momentum remained unbroken.

Shen Fu, however, refused to be a sitting duck. The split-second the spirit turtle bought him was all he needed. Without even looking back, he blindly hurled a massive, door-sized cleaver over his shoulder directly into the crescent’s path.

The moment the two artifacts touched, the heavy cleaver flared with a blinding, unstable incandescence.

“Explode!” Shen Fu roared.

BOOM! The shockwave from the detonating cleaver forcefully stalled the crescent’s advance, finally revealing the physical form of the crescent-moon Magical Artifact hidden within the light.

Seeing the opening, Wang Ba mercilessly hurled a second Azure Water Spirit Turtle directly into the blast zone. This was one of the absolute last cards he had to delay a third-stage weapon.

In the blink of an eye, the crescent blade tore through the explosion’s aftermath, though its luminous aura was now severely degraded. It slammed into the second Azure Water Spirit Turtle.

This time, the weakened blade bit deeply into the heavy shell, but lacked the kinetic force to cleanly cleave it. With a sickening crunch, the crescent Magical Artifact became wedged tightly in the bone.

“Heh! You do possess a few tricks.”

A low, resonant voice echoed above the chaos.

A middle-aged man materialized atop the remaining jagged peak as if he had stood there since the dawn of time.

Simultaneously, the severed half of the mountain finally completed its descent, plunging catastrophically into the lake below. The impact annihilated the surrounding islands, instantly crushing them into dust. Billions of tons of water were displaced, throwing a tsunami-like wall of foaming waves into the heavens.

Amidst the swirling mists and churning white-water, Wang Ba, Shen Fu, and the middle-aged man floated above the violence, locked in a standoff.

But Wang Ba and Shen Fu’s faces were pale, etched with profound gravity.

Is this the true terror of a Perfection-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator? Senior Brother Zhao was right. The waters of late Foundation Establishment are entirely too deep! For the first time, Wang Ba completely, viscerally understood Zhao Feng’s warnings. Li Canghai had never been weak. He was a monster. It was only Zhao Feng’s heaven-defying sword strike that had intimidated him into caution.

Now, hunted by Zheng Yuanhua—a man equal in fame to Li Canghai but tangibly vastly superior—Wang Ba knew with chilling certainty that his bag of tricks was empty.

We’re dead this time, Wang Ba thought, a bitter, cynical smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Despite the despair, his survival instincts took over. He unhesitatingly uncorked a jar of Spirit Poultry essence, downing it in one gulp to violently force the refinement of Qi. At the exact same time, his Divine Sense frantically scoured every millimeter of his Storage Bags and Storage Rings, hunting for anything that could act as a final trump card.

His mental gaze brushed past a second-stage Low Grade Soul Seed. He considered it for a fraction of a second. Useless. The Phantom Chicken doesn’t need it, the Mountain Moving Ape doesn’t need it, and it won’t empower the Azure Water Spirit Turtle…

Hovering with his hands clasped behind his back over the roaring waves, the middle-aged man looked down at them with the detached apathy of a god viewing insects.

“The Master Ear indicates…” His voice carried easily over the deafening water. “…that the one who utilized the Spirit Ear is standing right here. Step forward.”

Wang Ba blinked, the realization crashing over him.

The Master Ear was held by Zheng Yuanhua all along! Shen Fu’s expression tightened. He shot Wang Ba a fleeting glance, then stepped directly in front of the second turtle and the wedged crescent blade. He lifted his chin.

“It was me!”

Reading the finality in Shen Fu’s eyes, Wang Ba’s heart constricted. He didn’t step forward to argue. Instead, his hands blurred as he manipulated the contents of his Storage Bags and Spirit Beast Bags with feverish speed.

“You?”

Zheng Yuanhua scrutinized Shen Fu, then shifted his gaze to Wang Ba. A look of genuine, chilling regret crossed his face.

“It seems neither of you is the prodigy who maimed Li Canghai. What a pity. Such a ruthless talent… I had hoped to recruit him. Since that is not the case, you two are utterly devoid of value.”

As he spoke, the crescent Magical Artifact wedged in the dead turtle’s shell began to violently hum and tremble, preparing to tear itself free.

But just as the killing intent peaked, a coarse voice, heavy with simmering fury, rolled out from the deep mist of the lake.

“Zheng Yuanhua! You have already driven us Rogue Cultivators to the edges of the earth. Will you still not let us breathe?!”

“Or do you intend to tear up the blood oath we swore?”

Zheng Yuanhua’s lethal composure faltered. He snapped his head toward the mist.

Slowly, the heavy fog parted. A weathered fisherman with a bristling beard strode directly over the violently churning surface of the lake. Despite the massive waves cresting and crashing around him, not a single drop of water touched his coarse robes.

Wang Ba’s pupils shrank.

Another Foundation Establishment Perfection cultivator! And judging by the suffocating weight of his aura, this man was not an inch inferior to Zheng Yuanhua. Yet, he carried a wild, untamed presence, like a force of nature born from the mountains and rivers.

A dragon hides even among the Rogue Cultivators! Wang Ba thought, stunned. He had assumed the unaffiliated masses were mostly mediocre frauds like ‘Gao Zhenxiu’. To see a man whose mere presence demanded such absolute respect was staggering.

Faced with this fisherman, Zheng Yuanhua’s god-like arrogance noticeably cooled. He narrowed his eyes, treating the newcomer as a legitimate threat.

“Fellow Daoist Wu, you misunderstand,” Zheng Yuanhua said, his tone perfectly polite, masking his lethal intent. “I was merely overzealous in my pursuit of Heavenly Gate Sect remnants, and inadvertently collapsed this peak. Please, set your mind at ease. Once I execute these two, I will withdraw immediately.”

“I have absolutely no intention of breaking our oath.”

The fisherman’s rugged face remained hard. His piercing gaze swept over Wang Ba and Shen Fu, pausing on Shen Fu’s familiar attire. He raised a calloused finger and pointed directly at him.

“That boy is not of the Heavenly Gate Sect. He is a Rogue Cultivator born of my Qianyu Lake. You will not touch him.”

Zheng Yuanhua’s eyes thinned into dangerous slits. He stared down the fisherman. The fisherman met his gaze with absolute, unyielding defiance.

From the corner of his eye, Zheng Yuanhua felt the faint, chilling prickle of multiple powerful Divine Senses locking onto him from the deepest, hidden corners of the lake.

His mind calculated the battlefield. Finally, he gave a curt, stiff nod.

“Agreed.”

“Go,” the fisherman ordered, instantly dropping down beside Shen Fu.

Shen Fu didn’t waste a breath on false bravado. He immediately fell back behind the fisherman’s broad shoulders, retreating over the water’s surface. Yet, the fisherman didn’t immediately withdraw into the mist. He planted his feet on the rolling waves, silently, heavily watching Zheng Yuanhua.

Zheng Yuanhua understood the implication perfectly. The old dog won’t leave until I’m gone. He inhaled sharply, forcing the murderous rage back down his throat. A flash of profound coldness flickered in his eyes.

Soon. Just endure it a little longer. These pathetic Rogue Cultivators won’t be breathing for much longer. Suppressing his fury, he reached out with his Divine Sense to recall his crescent-moon Magical Artifact.

Yet, as his will extended, a cold shock gripped him.

The mental tether to the weapon was intact, but the artifact itself remained completely inert. It refused to obey his command.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Zheng Yuanhua froze in utter disbelief.