Cao Yun and Huang Liyue found themselves in a complete maelstrom. Unlike their first entry into the Yellow Death World, their exit was not as smooth. When they entered the portal, some rubbles from the ruins around them fell into it as well. And as soon as they were inside, they saw those very rubbles explode and be reduced to powder then scattered everywhere. Space itself was a threat in this portal.
Since Huang Liyue had also no knowledge of space, she was forced to use brute strength to try and make it out of there. Because the portal was connecting a dying world to the Piaolu planet, it was very unstable right now. Even in the best conditions possible, using such a portal would have been a challenge for Huang Liyue, but she was now faced with the worst conditions she could imagine.
All around Cao Yun and herself, she extended her full spiritual senses. And she also injected her Wei Qi and even her Qi Manifestation of the True Fiery Fenghuang using her seven True Fiery Drops. In her arms, Huang Liyue was holding the Mountain Fenghuang egg while Cao Yun was still working on stabilizing the unconscious Can Mouye.
As they were adrift within the portal, they saw it fall apart before their very eyes. Most likely, the Yellow Death World had finally fallen for good. Both of their emotions were complicated. Indeed, the two of them had received a great deal of benefits from Cleansed Asura and the last traces of his soul had now been crushed into oblivion. On the other side, they also felt a bit guilty because they had lost so many treasures that were probably in this place and they were thinking about them despite what had happened to Cleansed Asura. The yellow stone alone should have been a great treasure, and every celestial palace had probably one, at least. No matter how emotional they were, there was still a bit of greed in their heart.
But after all they had gained from Cleansed Asura, it wasn't the main thing on their mind. But as he thought about all that had been lost, Cao Yun remembered that he had gained a seed from the world-tree in the black pagoda.
As the portal was collapsing behind them, Huang Liyue used all of her strength to try and speed up. The back part of her Wei Qi was getting ferociously assaulted by space itself. Under this assault, it got deformed more and more and put the entire structure at risk. They had to get out of there as fast as possible. But sadly, they had no other way than to follow the natural current of the portal and they could not know how long it would take, or if they would even be able to get out where they wanted to.
-
At last, Huang Liyue felt some pure Qi. They were getting closer to their goal. With her new cultivation, she was even able to perceive small details. Thanks to them, she was absolutely certain that this Qi came from the Hongchen Kingdom. They were finally going back home. With her hope renewed, Huang Liyue pushed even further. The shriek of the True Fiery Fenghuang made the entire portal vibrate.
Finally, everything calmed down. For an instant, there was no sensation at all, no sound, no light, nothing. The next moment, Cao Yun felt the Qi of the Hongchen Kingdom around him.
They had emerged somewhere else, in yet another small cave.
But Huang Liyue really wanted to breathe some fresh air after everything that had happened. Using her spiritual senses, she made sure that they were safe without anything around them. After all, there was a risk of demonic beast stampede. And they couldn't know whether it had already occurred or not. It was possible that it was literally happening right now. However, she found no sign of anything worrisome. The only demonic beasts around were not even 3-core ones. And they were quite a distance away.
Behind her, she felt the portal close completely. Most likely, there had been a number of portals linking the Hongchen Kingdom with the Yellow Death world. Since Cleansed Asura's body was embedded deep into the ground, his energy had probably infused the entire region. Thus Gui Bei had found one of those portals while looking for something else when he was out with other hunters. But now Gui Bei was gone, replaced by an even bigger threat. The only good news was that Old Demon had no direct grudge with the Huang family. And from what she had understood from Cleansed Asura, he would probably not emerge in the Hongchen Kingdom either. Now that he had no more support from Cleansed Asura's inner world, he should be quite weak compared to her. So until he was able to open a portal by himself, they were safe. His coffin was opened on another world and even Cleansed Asura was not sure what it was. Or maybe he had just been unable to tell. He had prioritized useful information.
For now though, she had no time to worry about this future threat that may or may not exist. Although it had to be taken care of at some point, her mind focused on her environment.
After making sure that the cave they were in was safe and that Cao Yun was alive as well as the egg, she focused on Can Mouye. Capturing a demonic cultivator alive was very rare. In fact, it had never happened once. Indeed, even if they wanted to surrender and save their life, the seals put on them prevented them from doing so. Surrendering was akin to dying for them. As such, they always fought till the bitter end. And even when an orthodox cultivator was able to subdue them without killing them in the process, the seals would kill them anyway.
A long time ago someone had tried to get into the sea of consciousness of a Mortal Warrior demonic cultivator. His own mind had been obliterated with the demonic cultivator's when some strange seal in his soul got activated by the intrusion. Since they were living in hiding, they had become extremely proficient in the art of hiding their secrets through death.
"Chen Guo, how is he?"
Before she even ended her question, she was already scanning Can Mouye's entire body. But because she knew Cao Yun had a great affinity with Evil Qi, he may offer her an interesting perspective as well.
Hearing his fake name once more, Cao Yun realized that he was finally back in the Hongchen Kingdom. Huang Liyue was probably using this name just in case someone could overhear them.
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"Senior, his Lower and Upper Dantian have been completely destroyed and most of his meridians are gone. However, I've been able to control what Evil Qi had remained in his body. I think that he's going to live."
Both of them wanted the same thing. Can Mouye was the best lead they had ever obtained. Through him they would be able to answer so many questions. The first part of Cao Yun's answer did not surprise Huang Liyue at all. In fact, she was even more aware than him of the situation of his meridians. She was the one who had destroyed them along with his Lower and Upper Dantian. After carefully selecting which ones were essential for him to survive, she had burned everything else within his own body. This was also the reason why he was unconscious. The pain itself had made him faint.
Destroying his cultivation base was essential, both to subdue him, but mainly to prevent him from killing himself. At any moment, he could have detonated his Lower Dantian. In fact, he could even have attempted another breakthrough just to make both his crystallized Dantian explode. This kind of shock was way more powerful than a mere Dantian detonation. Of course, Huang Liyue could never get hurt by that, but Cao Yun maybe, if he were taken by surprise. Anyway, the point was to prevent him from dying as she wasn't too worried about anyone else being hurt in her presence.
"Good."
The next words she spoke went directly into his mind through her spiritual senses.
"Cao Yun, I saw most of what happened with Cleansed Asura. Although I have not all the details about what he has given you, you should keep it a secret. More than that even, you should keep your affinity with Evil Qi as secret as possible. Even if it isn't demonic per se, it really wouldn't look good.
"There are many things we should discuss as well. Until then, keep your true identity hidden, just in case."
Now was not the time to talk. They first had to find out where they were exactly and what had happened in their absence. Cao Yun and Huang Liyue knew for a fact that time had been flowing at the same rate in both the Hongchen Kingdom and the Yellow Death World. Indeed, they had merely compared the time Huang Liyue had gotten inside with the duration she had felt inside. And that duration was exactly the same as the difference between the date of her getting inside and of Cao Yun getting inside later.
So it should have been around seven to eight months Cao Yun had spent inside the Yellow Death World, and a few more months for Huang Liyue. She had probably spent nearly a year in there. Even though she had almost died, she had now completely exceeded her wildest expectations in terms of both Qi and blood cultivation.
Since the situation within the cave was absolutely calm, Huang Liyue began to expand her spiritual senses around. Slowly, they went all the way to the surface. Even she was surprised by the difference she was feeling. Her breakthrough had been so sudden, she had had no time to really savor it. But now, she was. Not only could she expand her soul farther than ever before, her sensitivity was greatly enhanced. Through her spiritual senses, she could notice every dust in suspension in the air. All the way to the vibrating filaments of Qi forming the strands of Qi in the air, in the soil, in small animals and insects all around.
The world had truly metamorphosed in her eyes. And she realized that this was how Matriarch Huang Yufeng was seeing the world and herself. In fact, her senses were probably even more subtle since she had broken through to 9th-grade Spirit Warrior. Thinking about this, Huang Liyue could not stop herself from imagining what a Sage was able to see and feel. The main difference between a Spirit Warrior and a Sage was that a Sage could see the world through the Third Eye in his Soul Embryo directly. This Third Eye was a sense that completely transcended all others. Unless someone had opened it, they could not even begin to imagine what it was like. It would be like explaining colors to someone who had been blind since birth. In that moment, Huang Liyue fully realized that she was the blind one. Although she had little hope of ever becoming a Sage, she was now dreaming about it. Doing so, she understood why her matriarch had risked so much to try to get a glimpse of this realm.
Slowly, her spiritual senses expanded until they reached the sky outside of the cave.
Outside, there was almost no sign of demonic beasts. Apparently, the only ones that were still around were those underground that she had felt not too far from the cave they were in. From that information, she could imagine that the stampede had already happened, or was happening right now. Indeed, she quickly recognized the place. They were very close to Baziyun City and she knew those mountains very well. In theory, this place should have been swarming with weak demonic beasts. If none were there, then they had probably been displaced by the stampede.
During a stampede, weaker demonic beasts were scared off by more powerful ones. And a chain reaction caused a giant herd of beasts to attack human settlements and even large cities like Baziyun City.
As she was exploring the vicinity with her spiritual senses, Huang Liyue found out the cause of the absence of weak demonic beasts.
In the sky, two giant figures were fighting each other. Immediately she recognized the first one because that figure was exactly what she was able to manifest with her Qi. Indeed, high in the sky, a giant True Fiery Fenghuang was fighting against another giant bird. There was no doubt that this True Fiery Fenghuang was in fact a Qi Manifestation from a late Spirit Warrior. There weren't that many in the Huang family. Moreover, Huang Liyue was able to sense that this Qi Manifestation was at least as powerful as hers. However, it was not winning.
It wasn't losing either though. But the fight was incredibly hard. Most likely, the other bird was a 9-core demonic beast.
Immediately, Huang Liyue wanted to act and to protect her family member fighting against the giant bird. But she had to think about both Cao Yun and Can Mouye. Can Mouye was essential for mankind because he was a source of information. In the worst case, she could literally extract his soul. As a matter of fact, this was her plan, but she would prefer someone more competent than her to do so. With her cultivation, the matriarch would be better suited than her to extract his soul intact and then search through it. But if the situation called for it, Huang Liyue could attempt it. Hopefully, they wouldn't lose too much.
Concerning Cao Yun, her emotions were now more clear. Looking at him, she wasn't seeing someone with her own family blood on his hands. She could relate a lot to his situation. Like her, he had suffered the death of someone very close to him before his own eyes. Moreover, he had saved her life several times at the peril of his own. It could be argued that he had needed her to stay alive, but she knew that it wasn't just that. In addition, her own young mistress had asked her to protect him. If she had not been willing at first, now she fully understood the order and wanted to comply with it.
Even without spiritual senses, Cao Yun saw that there was some conflict within Huang Liyue's eyes. The woman had lowered her guard and Cao Yun was learning how to read her mood.
"Senior, what's going on?"
"Someone from the Huang family is fighting a 9-core demonic beast over our heads..."
"If you want to go, go! I can take care of myself. Do not worry about me!"