The young man got flustered when he became self-conscious about the half-naked woman in front of him. Her tender skin was covered in small scars, with a few that were very big. For example, she had a massive burning mark on her shoulder where she had received the biggest attack earlier. And on her face, there was a terrible scar over her right eye. But it seemed way older. That intrigued Cao Yun. Indeed, as a middle or late Spirit Warrior, she could have healed it fairly easily, both herself or through an alchemist or a physician.
Anyway, despite all those painful scars, her skin was extremely beautiful albeit dangerously pale. And the heat that Cao Yun could feel from her body writhing around was disturbing. Although she was in pain, Cao Yun found himself admiring her body and quickly activated Chamber of Moving Pearls to get over it. Despite his cultivation and the eventful life he had lead, Cao Yun was still a young man. And his only real experience with the other sex had been with Feng Yingyue.
For now, he solely focused on finding ways to extract the Evil Qi and Death Energy from her body. The first way he thought about was the best one but also one that turned his mind upside down. He could dual cultivate with her. By being inside her, he could share his own Qi and absorb hers. However, he quickly dismissed the idea. First of all, she was unconscious!
Although he wanted to help her, dual cultivating with a woman against her will was clearly part of the demonic ways. Of course, it would be the best way to help her, but the cost was very huge for both of them. Indeed, Cao Yun was Dao companion with Feng Yingyue. He could not betray her in such a way, no matter how much he could rationalize it. Besides, if he were to engage in such an illicit act, he would probably form an inner demon due to the remorse. Even with his powerful mind cultivation, this would be too much shame to bear.
Even if she had been conscious and willing, Cao Yun would have not wanted to perform such acts with someone else than Feng Yingyue. Thankfully, he was able to push aside his young impulses. However, those thoughts were still somewhere in his mind and they polluted his view of the woman in front of him. Just to be serene, he used the Chamber of Moving Pearls. Definitely, this chamber had been useful to control his emotions.
With a clear mind, Cao Yun looked back at the woman. He had to admit that she was incredibly beautiful, with very toned muscles all over her body. She was unlike some beauties he had seen in the Coiling Silk Faction who had very slender and small bodies. But now, he was analyzing the situation without any passion. The other best thing to try in order to extract the Evil Qi was to send the intent of the Drop of Wrath inside her through his own Qi.
The main difficulty would be that her body would probably try to fight off his own Qi and intent as any intruder.
Cao Yun had very little knowledge about medicine, but he had read about that subject. As such, he searched his memories to find the best way to send his Qi. Very quickly, by mobilizing his Chamber of Ultimate Truth, he was able to identify a few acupoints. Most of them were located near her Lower Dantian and in her back. The two points with the best characteristics were Qi Hai and Ming Men. Both of them were around the same place, one in front and one in the back, around the location of the Lower Dantian, near the navel.
Both were great doors to send Qi into a body. In fact, Chief Instructor Peng had used Qi Hai to perform 'The Snake Invades the Shell'. Unlike him though, Cao Yun would need to get into contact with Huang Liyue's body. Although her Wei Qi was weak, he had no way to control his Qi. Unless he sent a very powerful surge which could hurt her, he was not confident in going through her Wei Qi without her letting him do it. And even if his Qi was able to somehow get inside of her, the connection with the Drop of Wrath could be lost as well.
Chasing all indecent thoughts from his mind, Cao Yun delicately removed the few clothes hiding Huang Liyue's stomach. Her pale skin was covered in perspiration. When Cao Yun put his hands on her skin, he felt both her spasming muscles and her rugged breathing. Then, he tried to inject as little Qi as possible. With it, he mixed in the intent from the Drop of Wrath.
However, the first attempt was a failure. Almost immediately, he felt some force trying to push him away. Most of his Qi got dispelled before it could penetrate deep enough into her system. In order to succeed, Cao Yun put his other hands in the crook of her back, over the Ming Men acupoint.
Once again, he sent a more powerful surge of Qi from both of his hands. And just like before, her Wei Qi tried to dispel the intruder. But this time, he had sent enough Qi so that some of it would be able to go deep enough. Finally, the Drop of Wrath reacted to something. With its intent mixed in Cao Yun's Qi, as soon as it touched any trace of Evil Qi and Death Energy, the Drop of Wrath tried to attract them to digest those energies.
At first, the Wei Qi of Huang Liyue tried to oppose the action of the Drop of Wrath. It was purely instinctive. Thankfully, Huang Liyue was now way too weak to fight against the Drop of Wrath. And as the Evil Qi and Death Energy were slowly sucked out of her body, her Wei Qi ceased to oppose the movement. Somehow, Huang Liyue's body had understood what was going on. Instead of losing energy fighting off this exterior force that seemed to help Huang Liyue, her body let it do whatever it wanted.
Suddenly, Cao Yun felt that all the Qi he was sending in her was effectively sent into her system. Although he was unable to control his own Qi once outside of his body, Huang Liyue was capable of such a feat. Apparently, her unconscious mind was guiding Cao Yun's Qi toward the Evil Qi and Death Energy in herself. It was very strange because Cao Yun was somehow able to sense the touch of Huang Liyue's mind as she was unconsciously taking over his own Qi.
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Huang Liyue was in a deep fog. She had entered her sea of consciousness as soon as she had left the battlefield. Her body had been invaded by both Evil Qi and Death Energy. Even by using her five True Fiery Drops, it was difficult to fight both of them at the same time. As such, she focused her Qi and her blood on the Evil Qi to protect her physical body. And in her sea of consciousness, she focused her Soul Embryo on the Death Energy.
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With her current cultivation, her soul was fully inside her Soul Embryo as she was trying to merge them definitely.
And in her sea of consciousness, there was now a small figure looking almost like her. But it was in a meditative posture, levitating high above the water. In the sky, there were five True Fiery Fenghuang flying around while a giant wheel of fire was visible even higher in the sky, just like the stars in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. This wheel was made of ten thousand feathers of fire of all colors. And those colors were radiated in every direction, coloring the water below. They were even bathing the Soul Embryo in its radiant glow.
Under the water, there was also a giant iron fan made of Insight Writings. In a sense, it looked very similar to what Cao Yun had in the depths of his own sea of consciousness, but in a more advanced stage.
The water had turned black and a bone hand was getting out of it, going for the Soul Embryo. Suddenly, out of the water, the iron fan leapt up and started to break down the bone hand. Unfortunately, it was reforming just as fast. From the Soul Embryo, the lights from the wheel of fire erupted in all directions. Under the violence of the outburst, the bone hand exploded. But the dust swirled in the air and reformed into a new hand.
Even the True Fiery Fenghuang acted to attack the bone hand. A terrible fight was taking place in Huang Liyue's sea of consciousness and she was completely cut off from the outside world.
After several days that seemed like an eternity, Huang Liyue felt something else in her sea of consciousness. An intruder was trying to break within her mind. At first, she sensed a pull on her very soul. There was an immense rage from the intent she felt. Immediately, she reacted by focusing the ten thousand lights of the giant peacock wheel of fire. Combining them, she easily pushed against the red light that was slowly permeating her skies.
But she had had to divert some of her attention away from the bone hand that had now grown into an entire arm. Still, she had been victorious...
Once more, the sky began to turn red. But this time, she realized something new. The red light was not focused on her at all. It was looking for something else. And she quickly realized that the something else was the bone hand below her Soul Embryo. It really wasn't her Soul Embryo.
Huang Liyue tried to control the red light in the sky. Although she could feel she wasn't strong enough to really take it over, she had an idea. Since it was looking for the bone hand, she just had to help it find it. Using all of her mental strength, she shined a giant beacon from her Soul Embryo onto the bone hand. Following that, the red light in the sky got more and more concentrated around this beacon, just like a tiny red star.
In the end, it coalesced into a single red dot. Just as soon, it flew down below into the bone hand. At that moment, Huang Liyue felt that the bone hand was trying to fight it off and she grabbed the opportunity. Her iron fan slashed the bone hand while the True Fiery Fenghuang attacked it. The lights from her peacock wheel kept on shining on it as though they were some kind of beacon. As soon as they were broken, the bones got completely crushed under the pressure and the heat from the True Fiery Fenghuang and the peacock wheel. Then, all of the dust, instead of reforming the hand, got sucked into the red dot.
In the actual body of Huang Liyue, the Death Energy and Evil Qi were both sucked out of her system. They were following the intent of the Drop of Wrath and the Qi of Cao Yun. When they then entered the young man's body, he could partially also sense a few strands of Huang Liyue's Qi. Somehow, he could also feel her touch on it. And he was able to feel her emotions. There was much confusion and pain, but also a powerful desire to survive. In her mind, he could feel that she had a strong desire to meet someone again and maybe get rid of some regrets and resentment.
This near-death experience had made her realize some things about people she cared about. And what Cao Yun did not know was that some emotions of Cao Yun also slipped into Huang Liyue's mind, although she was unconscious right now. But inside her sea of consciousness, she could still barely feel the young man's touch, albeit very faintly.
When those energies entered Cao Yun's body, he quickly activated all of his mind cultivation. While a huge part of those energies were sucked into the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun still focused on trying to improve his control over Evil Qi. He could now clearly see each strand of both negative remnant emotions and pure Qi. But it was still difficult to fully separate them. Just as it was difficult to untangle silk threads, merely seeing the Qi strands did not mean it was easy to extract them.
At the same time, he also drew the Po character again and again inside his Drop of Wrath. Although it was very slow, he realized that as he was getting faster and faster with it, he had a deeper connection with the Drop of Wrath. Moreover, he could also see the Po character grow bigger. Right now, it had almost turned from an ivory sculpture to a real bone. However, the Po outside of the Drop of Wrath had stayed perfectly the same. As it was happening, Cao Yun also noticed that the Drop of Wrath was able to absorb more and more Evil Qi.
But soon, it reached some kind of plateau. Apparently, Cao Yun had completely nourished the Drop of Wrath. Even though it was still digesting the Evil Qi and Death Energy, it did not change much. Those energies were now too weak for the Drop of Wrath. Even the Po character did not advance any further. However, Cao Yun felt that his blood was changing faster than ever, until it too reached some kind of plateau.
In his own veins, he felt that his blood had become four times heavier. It felt as though he had mercury in his veins. Besides, it was charged with Qi to an incredible degree. As the Drop of Wrath had absorbed everything it wanted from those energies, it sent the rest into his own bloodstream.
At first, it was difficult because Cao Yun had to consciously move his own blood due to its heaviness. Thankfully, his muscles had been thoroughly trained, even the tiniest muscle meridians had been trained thanks to Chief Instructor Peng. Thus, his body very quickly adapted to this. If it had been another Mortal, it would probably have been way more difficult and if he had been too weak, he could have suffered a terrible fate.
Finally, all the changes stopped altogether. Cao Yun had really reached the limit of what he could attain in his current condition with those two energies. And even he had been surprised by all the benefits he had gained from them. His blood was almost as rich in Qi as a demonic beast's blood essence. Unlike humans, they had no meridians and stored their Qi inside demonic cores. The blood essence was blood permeated with their own Jing and Qi directly from those cores. From this blood essence, all the blood in their bloodstream derived.
The only thing Cao Yun could improve right now through this treatment was his mental ability to manipulate Evil Qi and purify it. Helping that woman had really been a great idea. Hopefully, once she would be awake, she would be even more helpful.
Suddenly, Cao Yun felt a force against his body. Abruptly, he got thrown against the walls of the cave and almost felt his back break.