Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

The divine light struck Wang Ba.

At that exact moment, the bone fragment in his hand flared to life, resonating with the others nearby.

A spectral barrier rose around the cultivators linked by the White Bone Formation. The formation acted as a circuit, instantly distributing the crushing force of the impact across everyone in the network.

Even so, the residual energy that slammed into Wang Ba was catastrophic.

The ‘Sacred Heart Mirror’ talisman hidden against his chest vibrated violently, erupting in blinding light before shattering into dust.

His senses were stripped away.

The world collapsed into a kaleidoscope of spinning, fractured colors. A roar like crashing seas and crumbling mountains drowned out all thought. His nose was assaulted by a chaotic mix of sickening sweetness and putrid rot. His mouth tasted ash.

It felt as though a pair of invisible hands had reached into his chest and were peeling his soul away from his flesh.

I’m dying.

Just as his consciousness began to drift into the void, a familiar tremor echoed from deep within him.

The Yin Spirit Abode.

The reservoir of Yin Spirit Power he had painstakingly accumulated over years began to burn.

Drop by crimson drop, the power vanished. It evaporated at a terrifying speed, consumed as fuel to anchor his soul.

In the blink of an eye, a third of his reserves were gone.

Then, just as abruptly as it began, the drain stopped.

The world snapped back into focus.

Wang Ba gasped, his lungs burning as he gulped down air. He frantically scanned his surroundings.

The White Bone Formation had been devastated. Less than half of the cultivators were still standing.

Further out, the scene was a graveyard. The Left Path cultivators who had been encircling the island lay in heaps, silent and still. It was impossible to tell who was dead and who was simply unconscious.

Most shocking of all, the disciples of the Joyous Life Path—and the possessed ‘Yunjing’—were gone. Vanished without a trace.

“What… what kind of power was that?” Wang Ba whispered, his hands trembling.

From the sky above, Lu Yuansheng’s icy voice cut through the silence.

“Mi Lan, Supreme Elder of Mirror Moon Manor, is dead! Disciples of Mirror Moon, surrender immediately!”

A heavy silence hung over the ruins. Then, a voice rose from the island—grief-stricken, yet defiant.

“The Manor Lord is dead. The Supreme Elder is dead. We have lived by the grace of the Sect. Though we are women, we will not live as slaves!”

Hundreds of figures rose from the island. Qi Refining disciples, led by a handful of Foundation Establishment survivors, flew into the sky in a final, suicidal charge.

Lu Yuansheng didn’t bother to speak again. He merely snorted in contempt.

Below, Bai Yu, who had barely survived the chaos himself, regained his composure. His eyes flashed with cruelty.

“Kill them all!”

Dawn broke, painting the horizon a pale, sickly gray.

Wang Ba stood amidst the ruins, staring at the devastation.

The lake, once a perfect mirror reflecting the moon, was now a cratered, muddy swamp. The delicate palaces of the island were reduced to rubble.

The Left Path cultivators swarmed over the debris like locusts, digging three feet into the ground in search of loot.

Along the shore, rows of captured female cultivators sat in a daze, their eyes empty. Heavenly Gate disciples in red and black robes walked among them, inspecting them like cattle at an auction.

Jokes were cracked. Shoulders were slapped. The future of these women was decided with casual, laughing indifference.

Wang Ba caught snippets of conversation from the Joyous Life Path disciples lecturing their juniors.

“See this one? Good looks, high aptitude, decent cultivation. Keep her. Prime furnace material.”

“This one is second-tier. Good spiritual roots, maybe a special constitution. We can trade her to the Mystic Maiden Path for resources.”

“Third-tier. Decent cultivation, but nothing special. Sell her to the Profound Puppet Path. They always need fresh bodies.”

“And the trash? Toss them to the Blood Bone Path. They need bone sources.”

“Senior Brother,” a young female disciple of the Heavenly Gate Sect asked, “what about the male cultivators?”

The men around her leered.

“Same process, Junior Sister. If you want specific instructions on how to… process them, come to my quarters later. I’ll teach you.”

Laughter erupted.

To an outsider, the scene might have looked harmonious—a group of colleagues joking after a hard day’s work.

If you ignored the mutilated corpses piled at their feet.

Wang Ba walked past them, his face a mask, but his heart churned with a complex mix of pity and revulsion.

He didn’t stop. He was searching.

Where are they?

He was worried about Bu Chan and the others.

Suddenly, he paused.

Lying in the rubble ahead was a familiar figure. She was covered in blood, but her beauty was still recognizable.

Xu Shi.

Her body had been sliced cleanly in half at the waist, as smooth as cut tofu. The woman who had tried to seduce him mere hours ago was now just meat.

Wang Ba shook his head.

Dust to dust.

Grievances died with the person. He circulated a bit of Spiritual Power, shifting the earth to bury her. It was a small mercy.

As he walked away, he saw another cultivator dig her up and stuff the two halves of her corpse into a Storage Bag.

Wang Ba sighed and looked away.

Finally, he spotted them.

Bu Chan and Shen Fu.

Bu Chan was crouching on the ground, her shoulders shaking. Shen Fu was kneeling beside her, his eyes bloodshot, gripping a pale hand that protruded from the debris.

It was Su Lingling’s hand.

Wang Ba’s heart sank. A cold premonition seized him.

He hurried over.

Lying peacefully in the ruins, as if asleep, were Su Lingling and Yun Caixiang.

They were dead.

Bu Chan looked up, tears streaming down her face. “The black light… it hit them. They didn’t stand a chance.”

Wang Ba felt a lump form in his throat. He remembered their voices, their smiles, the way they had bickered and laughed just days ago.

Gone.

He swallowed the grief, forcing himself to be the pillar they needed. He placed a hand on Bu Chan’s shoulder.

Shen Fu finally broke. Two lines of bloody tears carved paths down his face.

“Lingling… we just became Dao Companions. We promised… we promised to seek Immortality together…”

His voice cracked into a sob.

Wang Ba and Bu Chan fell silent.

Su Lingling had always bullied Shen Fu. Wang Ba realized now that beneath the teasing, deep affection had taken root.

Bu Chan looked at Wang Ba, her eyes filled with a complicated emotion. In the face of such sudden death, an impulse stirred within her.

The looting was thorough. The Heavenly Gate and Left Path forces scraped Mirror Moon Manor clean before boarding the flying boats for the return journey.

This time, the boats didn’t bother with stealth. They flew openly under the sun.

Wang Ba stood on the deck, the wind ruffling his robes. He watched the lake shrink into the distance until it was nothing but a speck.

For the survivors of Mirror Moon Manor, this was the apocalypse.

For the Heavenly Gate Sect, it was just Tuesday.

Southwest of the Wind Descending Continent.

Deep within a boundless, noxious black swamp.

A colossal statue with twenty-four arms sat enthroned in the muck, radiating an ancient, oppressive power.

Lu Yuansheng stepped out of a teleportation array and flew to the statue’s chest, bowing deeply.

The voice of Sect Master Ning Daohuan resonated from the stone giant.

“Did you bring it?”

“This disciple has secured the item.”

Lu Yuansheng respectfully presented the black skull with both hands.

An invisible force seized the artifact, pulling it up into the statue’s massive head.

“Good,” Ning Daohuan’s voice warmed with satisfaction. “It is indeed the Soul-Dispersing Divine Light. You have done well.”

“With this, even without the Spirit-Locking Bell, we can partially harness the power of Fan Ming’s Primordial Spirit.”

Lu Yuansheng bowed lower. “This disciple is guilty. Four years ago, I failed to seize the Spirit-Locking Bell. I betrayed the Sect Master’s trust.”

“Haha, what guilt?” Ning Daohuan laughed. “You are my chosen successor. Without your coordination from inside the Eastern Sage Sect, their Fourth-Grade Grand Formation would have cost me dearly to break, even with secret arts.”

The Sect Master’s tone shifted, becoming heavy.

“However… we paid a price this time. We lost a Golden Core Elder.”

Lu Yuansheng looked up, shocked. “How? The Elders were only supposed to run harassment operations.”

“That was the plan,” Ning Daohuan sighed. “But we underestimated the courage of these decaying sects. They realized our strategy. Each sect left behind a single Golden Core defender and used teleportation arrays to mass their forces at one location. Elder Jin of the Profound Talisman Path was caught off guard and overwhelmed.”

“I underestimated them.”

Lu Yuansheng frowned. “Sect Master, the sects of the Jiang Kingdom are weak compared to the State of Chen. Why don’t we crush them all at once? Unify the Jiang Kingdom under our banner?”

“It is not that simple.”

Ning Daohuan’s voice carried a rare note of helplessness.

“The neighboring great powers are watching Jiang like tigers. If we disrupt the balance by unifying the region, the great sects of the surrounding kingdoms will form a coalition to exterminate us.”

“Think, Yuansheng. Why are our outposts so scattered? Why don’t we consolidate our power in one nation and expand from there?”

“It is not that we do not wish to. It is that we cannot.”

Lu Yuansheng was stunned. He had wondered, but he had never realized the geopolitical precariousness of their position.

Ning Daohuan offered no further explanation.

“Once a new Elder for the Profound Talisman Path is selected, prepare for the next operation.”

Lu Yuansheng hesitated, then bowed. “Sect Master… the Left Path cultivators suffered heavy losses. We gained few recruits from Mirror Moon Manor. Launching another campaign so soon… do we have the numbers?”

“We have no choice. We must act quickly.”

The Sect Master sounded tired.

“The Southeast Incense Path is spreading like a plague. Refugees from the northwest are pouring in from other continents. Our window of peace is closing.”

“Maybe ten years. Maybe a few decades.”

“As for the Left Path fodder…” Ning Daohuan’s voice turned cold. “Order all outposts to raise the price of goods by twenty percent. Squeeze them. Slow down their promotion to formal disciples. I will dispatch Elders to hunt for more rogue cultivators in the wilds.”

“Your priority is the next operation. Do you understand?”

“This disciple understands.”

Lu Yuansheng bowed and retreated.

Before he stepped back into the teleportation array, he glanced up at the towering statue, his mind racing.

The next target… is it the Mountain Sea Sect?