178: Chapter 178 The Base of the Wall

Bai Wuji scrambled up from the foot of the wall and looked at Bai Yu's back.

That back had become so transparent that the wall behind it was visible.

But that person was still standing.

The Bone Knife was pressed against his heart, and the symbol on his wrist glowed blindingly bright.

Bai Yu's lips moved one last time.

There was no sound.

But everyone understood the shape of his mouth.

I... will... come.

The Bone Knife plunged in.

The Bone Knife did not go in.

The moment the blade's tip pierced the skin, Bai Yu felt his chest slam into a wall. It wasn't a physical obstruction—it was that symbol.

The symbol on his wrist exploded.

Light surged from the inner side of his wrist bone, flowing backward along his Meridians, passing through his forearm, upper arm, and collarbone, burning all the way to his heart. The Bone Knife was repelled half an inch by that light, its tip stuck between flesh and ribs, unable to go further or pull out.

Bai Yu looked down.

A ball of light glowed at his chest. It wasn't blood; it was the light of that symbol penetrating his body, shining from his chest through to his back, illuminating his already semi-transparent torso like a lantern.

At the same moment, Bai Wuji, at the foot of the courtyard wall, let out a muffled groan.

His wrist also exploded.

Three lines of golden characters glowed simultaneously, with the symbol at the end of the third line shining most fiercely. The light surged from his wrist up to his forearm, flowing beneath his skin like molten iron. Bai Wuji bared his teeth in pain from the heat, but he didn't let go—he gripped the cracks in the courtyard wall's bricks and forced himself up from the ground.

“I told you,” Bai Wuji said, staggering forward, “the symbols are a pair.”

The fragments of the Pure Void Master flew out of his hand.

He didn't try to catch them. His entire focus was on the Bone Knife at Bai Yu's chest—two layers of Palm prints on the blade's surface glowed simultaneously. Most of the old Palm print had shattered, but the fragments were still shining. The new Palm print covered it completely, its light even brighter than the old one.

The light from the two layers of Palm prints intertwined on the blade.

The Bone Knife began to vibrate.

It wasn't a vibration of rejection—it was resonance. The entire knife emitted a low-frequency hum, like two strings being plucked at once, their different frequencies perfectly forming a chord.

Bai Yu's hand gripped the hilt, the outline of his finger bones flickering in the light. He tried to push the knife further in. He couldn't move it.

That light had locked the knife in place.

“The Legacy process is stuck.” The Pure Void Master's voice came from behind, fast and urgent, completely unlike his usual tone. “The rules of the negation seat are judging—it doesn't know which one to shatter.”

Bai Wuji walked up to Bai Yu.

A distance of three steps took him seven. With every step, the symbol on his wrist flared, and simultaneously, the symbol on Bai Yu's chest flashed in response. It was as if an invisible thread was stretched between them; when one end moved, the other trembled.

Bai Wuji reached out and grabbed the blade of the Bone Knife.

“Let go!” the Pure Void Master barked.

Bai Wuji didn't listen. His palm wrapped around the middle of the blade, his own Palm print pressing against the surface. Between the old and new layers of Palm prints, the warmth of his palm seeped in.

The Bone Knife's vibration stopped.

It stopped completely.

There was a breath of silence. Then—

Everyone's vision turned white simultaneously.

It wasn't that the light was too bright; the scene had changed. The courtyard, the walls, the sky, the grey mist—everything was instantly flattened, becoming an endless expanse of white. There was no ground beneath their feet, no canopy above. Only one color in every direction.

White.

Bai Wuji stood in the white Void Realm, looking down at his hands. The Bone Knife was gone, Bai Yu was gone, and the people in the courtyard were gone.

There was only himself.

And a stone seat.

The stone seat was three steps directly in front of him. It was grayish-white, its surface covered in patterns he couldn't understand, with dim light flowing between the lines. The seat's design was so primitive it was almost crude; no armrests, no backrest—just a block of stone that had been chiseled flat.

The negation seat.

Bai Wuji stared at that spot for three breaths. Then, he heard a voice.

It wasn't a human voice. It was information appearing directly in his mind, not passing through his ears, without timbre, pitch, or volume—like a line of text forced into his thoughts.

“One sword must shatter. Choose.”

Bai Wuji opened his mouth and found he could speak.

“I won't choose.”

The information paused for a breath. Then it came again.

“If you do not choose, both will shatter.”

Bai Wuji clenched his fist.

Both.

It said both.

It acknowledged it. It acknowledged that he was also a sword.

Bai Wuji tilted his head slightly. He might not have known he was doing it, but if anyone who knew him had been there, they would have recognized it—this was Bai Wuji's standard expression when he was figuring out how to find a loophole.

“You just said one sword must shatter,” Bai Wuji spoke slowly. “After it shatters, what happens to the other one?”

The information returned.

“The other shall sit upon it.”

“And after sitting upon it?”

“Suppress the Ten Directions Array. Guard the Sky Curtain. Until the next Successor appears.”

“How long?”

“Indefinite.”

“Hundreds of years, or thousands?”

The information was silent for a long time. So long that Bai Wuji thought it wouldn't answer again.

“The last one sat for eight hundred years.”

Bai Wuji looked down at his palm. The lines were clear, the fingers complete, warm, and with a sense of touch. It was the hand of a living person.

“Is there any other way to choose?”

Silence.

“For example, neither of the two shatters.”

The silence lasted a long time. In the white Void Realm, there was no wind, no sound, only Bai Wuji's breathing.

Then the information returned. This time, the “tone” had changed—if information forced into one's brain could have a tone, this time it felt like a dust-covered footnote unearthed from an ancient rulebook.

“Neither shall shatter. Both shall sit.”

Bai Wuji's pupils shifted.

“The price.”

The information was delivered word by word.

“Two swords shall suppress the Ten Directions Array together. Array power shared. Lifespan shared. Senses shared.”

Bai Wuji understood.

Suppress together. Share equally.

It wasn't one person shouldering it for eight hundred years. It was two people each shouldering it for four hundred. Or rather, two people bound together, carrying the same weight.

Lifespan shared—if one dies first, the other cannot live. Senses shared—if one feels pain, both feel pain.

Bai Wuji stood before the stone seat, staring at the rough grey stone for a long time.

“I choose this.”

The information did not respond.

The patterns on the stone seat suddenly lit up. All the dim light surged at once, spreading from the seat's surface to the ground—if the void beneath his feet could be called ground. The light patterns spread toward Bai Wuji's feet like roots, extending all the way to his toes.

Then they stopped.

Waiting for him to step on them.

Bai Wuji raised his foot.

“Wait.”

A voice came from behind him.

Bai Wuji turned his head.

Bai Yu stood ten steps away. His right arm was transparent, his left hand was only an outline, and the expression on his face was as stiff as a corpse. But his mouth was moving.

He spoke.

His voice was very soft, hoarse to the point of breaking, but every word was clear.

“You... don't know what you're agreeing to.”

Bai Wuji tilted his head and looked at him.

“I know.”

“You don't know.” Bai Yu took a step forward, his foot creating a ripple in the void beneath him. “Four hundred years. Do you know how long four hundred years is?”

“I don't,” Bai Wuji answered honestly, “but I know one thing.”

He turned around, facing Bai Yu with his back to the stone seat.

Those eyes, which remembered nothing, were as clean as a freshly wiped mirror.

“You've sat there alone for who knows how long.”

Bai Yu's mouth closed.

“Now someone is sitting with you. What is there to be unwilling about?”

Bai Yu looked at him, and in his already unfocused pupils, something was shattering.