That was a sword cultivator responsible for protecting the formation cultivator. He wore a tattered gray robe, his face young yet weathered.

He didn't hesitate in the slightest. His entire body lunged forward, the longsword in his hand carrying an utterly resolute determination as it met the diving Iron-Feathered Eagle.

"Thud—"

The sound of sharp claws piercing flesh was so dull it made one's heart palpitate.

One of the Iron-Feathered Eagle's claws directly pierced through the sword cultivator's left shoulder, pinning his entire body in mid-air.

But the sword cultivator let out a fierce grin amidst the excruciating pain. His right hand swept the longsword upward in a reverse slash, accurately stabbing into the Iron-Feathered Eagle's softest abdomen, before his spiritual energy erupted wildly.

"Get the hell away from me!"

Sword energy exploded inside the eagle's belly.

The Iron-Feathered Eagle let out a shrill, mournful cry, its massive body plummeting out of control and crashing heavily onto the ground less than three feet away from Su Ming.

The rank, hot eagle blood mixed with the blood from the sword cultivator's shoulder poured down like rain.

"Plop."

A few drops of scalding hot blood splashed onto the formation plate before Su Ming, slowly flowing along the dark blue formation lines before instantly being vaporized by the high temperature into a wisp of red blood mist.

A few drops of blood also landed on Su Ming's cheek.

He didn't wipe them away. He didn't even blink.

His hands remained firmly pressed against the formation plate, maintaining the flow of spiritual energy.

Because he knew, the time that sword cultivator had bought him with his life wasn't for him to stand there in a daze.

"Formation plate stabilized, spiritual pressure receding."

Ten breaths later, Su Ming rasped out a shout.

Only then did he feel his legs go a little weak, that post-crisis feeling of exhaustion washing over him like a tide.

Support disciples immediately rushed over from the side, carrying away the severely wounded and unconscious sword cultivator.

Su Ming looked at the sword cultivator's pale face and the half of his body soaked in blood. That spot was only half an inch away from his heart.

"Stop looking."

Zhao Tiji had walked over at some point, holding that giant pincer in his hand, his own body bearing wounds as well. Dark red blood dripped down his armor.

He glanced at Su Ming's hands, which were still trembling slightly, and at the few drops of dried blood on the formation plate.

"This is Iron Wall Pass."

Zhao Tiji's voice was very soft, drowned out by the chaotic shouts and killing sounds around them, yet it clearly pierced Su Ming's ears.

Su Ming nodded silently in response.

He lowered his head and continued cleaning the impurities from the gaps in the formation plate, his movements mechanical yet precise, as if that life-and-death moment from just moments ago had never happened.

...

Half an hour later.

As a sliver of fish-belly white appeared on the eastern horizon, the tide-like demon beasts finally retreated.

The roaring sounds outside the light curtain gradually subsided, leaving only the occasional sporadic beast roar, tinged with unwillingness and exhaustion.

"They've retreated! The demon bastards have retreated!"

Scattered cheers rose, but more people simply collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath, lacking even the strength to move a finger.

Su Ming leaned against the cold stone wall, looking at the scene below the ramparts.

It had become a slaughterhouse.

Countless demon beast corpses were piled up like mountains, some still burning, others already turned to dust.

Black-red blood converged into rivers, reflecting a sinister luster under the morning light.

And amidst that mountain of corpses and sea of blood, one could still see fragments of shattered human magical implements, and... incomplete limbs.

A group of support disciples wearing gray hemp clothes moved silently through it all.

They had no expression, their movements practiced and numb.

Some were responsible for retrieving usable arrows and magical implements, some for harvesting valuable materials from the demon beasts, but most were carefully gathering the remains of their fallen comrades into black body bags. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

There were no sobs, no wails.

Only suffocating silence.

Su Ming watched all this, feeling as if a large stone was lodged in his chest.

"If you want to vomit, then vomit. It's not shameful," Lin Yu's voice rang out in the Consciousness Sea, carrying a hint of a sigh. "For your first time seeing a scene like this, your mental fortitude is already considered quite strong."

Su Ming shook his head.

He pulled out a water skin from his robes, took a gulp of the cold, clear water, forcibly suppressing the churning in his stomach.

"Master, what was the name of that sword cultivator who saved me?" Su Ming suddenly asked.

"Didn't see his identification tag clearly," Lin Yu said. "But judging by his clothes, he was probably a wandering cultivator from Bing Battalion. There are the most of those kinds of people at Iron Wall Pass, and they die the fastest too."

Su Ming pressed his lips together and said nothing more.

He lowered his head to look at his own hands.

The backs of his hands were covered in blisters, red and swollen. Those were burns left from forcibly channeling overloaded formation plates with water spiritual energy earlier.

This kind of injury wasn't severe, but with his spiritual energy depleted, the pain was excruciating.

"Let's head back."

Zhao Tiji walked over and patted Su Ming's shoulder. This time, he didn't use much force, his movements even carrying a hint of care.

"Did well. Node A-3 didn't collapse. You get the main credit for that, kid."

Zhao Tiji pulled out a small porcelain vial from his robes and tossed it to Su Ming. "Burn ointment. Not as good as the sect's Jade Muscle Powder, but it works well for pain relief."

Su Ming caught the vial. It felt slightly warm to the touch.

"Thanks, Brother Zhao."

...

By the time he returned to Stone House Number Seven, Bing District, the sky was already bright.

Su Ming closed the stone door and re-established the protective restriction.

Only at this moment did that tightly strung nerve finally relax completely.

He plopped down onto the meditation cushion, lacking even the strength to remove his armor.

"Master."

Su Ming raised his red, swollen hand, looking at the inferior ointment smeared on it. "I always used to think that the so-called 'formation lines stained with blood' was just an exaggerated figure of speech in books."

"Now you know?" Lin Yu's figure materialized, looking at Su Ming's hand with a complex expression.

"Now I know."

Su Ming nodded.

He closed his eyes, the scene replaying constantly in his mind: the sword cultivator's resolute lunge toward the Iron-Feathered Eagle, the warmth of the blood splashing onto the formation plate.

An unprecedented emotion stirred in his heart.

It wasn't fear, nor was it simple shock.

It was a deeper understanding of the two words "power" and "survival."

At the sect's Repair Hall, what he repaired were "objects," focusing on efficiency, cost, standardization.

But at Iron Wall Pass, what he repaired were "lives."

Every rune here, every spiritual circuit, connected not just spirit stones and formation bases, but countless living human lives.

"The Way of Survival..."

Su Ming murmured softly, his voice somewhat hoarse. "Master, the Way of Survival you taught me before was about hiding one's abilities, staying low-key, about keeping one's head down and not getting involved."

"But in a place like this, if one truly just hides their abilities all the time, acting like a slacker..."

Su Ming opened his eyes, his gaze falling on the corner where the "Wood Demon Core Fragment" was buried. "...you might not even know how you died. That sword cultivator saved me, not because I looked pleasant, but because I was repairing the formation plate, I was protecting everyone's lives."

Lin Yu was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed.

That laugh held less mockery and more gratification.

"Disciple, you've grown up."

Lin Yu floated in front of Su Ming, his illusory finger tapping Su Ming's chest. "The true Way of Survival was never about being a turtle hiding in its shell. It's about making yourself indispensable, making yourself extremely important, so important that everyone is willing to risk their lives to protect you."

"This is what's called—a value shield."

Su Ming nodded thoughtfully.

Enduring the intense pain in his hand, he retrieved the jade slip of the "Eight Gates Lost Trace Incomplete Formation" from his storage pouch, along with the "Earth Hearing" data chart he recorded last night.

"Master, I want to solve this incomplete formation."

Su Ming's gaze gradually grew resolute. "No, not just solve it. I want to use the thinking behind solving this incomplete formation to re-examine this entire Big Dipper Seven Stars Demon Locking Grand Formation."

"Oh?" Lin Yu raised an eyebrow. "Not tired anymore? Not bothered by the trouble anymore?"

"I am."

Su Ming grinned, showing his white teeth. "But I don't want to die even more. Those rats underground are still gnawing at the foundations. The fact that that Iron-Feathered Eagle could break through last night means the light curtain's vulnerabilities are even bigger than we imagined."

"If we don't patch up these holes, the next blood splashed on the formation plate might be my own."

Lin Yu looked at the youth before him, whose face was full of exhaustion and hands were red and swollen, but whose eyes burned with a flame called "the will to survive."

That youth who used to be timid and submissive in Qingshi Town, who only wanted to hide behind his master and muddle through life, had finally been tempered by this night of blood and fire, revealing a trace of true edge.

"Good."

Lin Yu waved his large sleeve, his heroic spirit surging forth. "Since you want to do it, then let's, master and disciple, pull off something big. It's just a broken formation, right? We'll take it apart, crush it, and then put it back together!"

Su Ming took a deep breath, pulled out a spirit stone from his robes, held it in his hand, and began recovering his depleted spiritual energy.

Outside the window, the morning wind remained bitingly cold.

But inside the stone house, the youth's state of mind was already different.