Mo Zi had mostly deciphered the array formations of Sun Liao. Even if he was only a Mortal, Sun Liao was extremely talented. As much as it pained Mo Zi to admit it, he was clearly better than him despite their difference in cultivation. Moreover, if Sun Liao were to practice the 'Blood Runes' method, he would soon become as powerful as him. Thus Mo Zi was happy that Sun Liao would never betray the orthodox cultivators. Otherwise, he would obtain a dangerous rival.
The woman who was by his side was watching without saying anything. In terms of array formations, she knew little and did not want to disturb Mo Zi. He was the favorite of Mo Tian and the only one in this operation who was essential.
All the demonic cultivators had received the order to sacrifice their own life to protect him. The only thing that mattered was to find the key. And if they were to fail, death would be a sweet mercy compared with what their masters would unleash upon them. Like many others, Wang Jinhua had witnessed so many atrocities that she was numb to them. At the same time, the idea that those tortures could be inflicted on her froze her blood. Her motto was to inflict all those sufferings on others to prevent them to inflict anything on her.
Finally, Mo Zi was done!
All of a sudden, the world seemed to be like a veil that was blown by the wind. Beneath that veil, they both saw Sun Liao. He was holding a strange bow and was aiming at the sky while looking down below.
Wang Jinhua did not understand right away but Mo Zi did. He was taken by panic when he saw Sun Liao.
"Kill him!"
Without hesitation, Mo Zi took out all his blood runes. His compass rose in the air and his blood runes rotated around it. Shocked, Wang Jinhua knew Mo Zi well enough to understand something bad was going to happen. This mission had started poorly...
"Farewell, traitor!"
"Stop him!"
"From the East, the Vault rises".
Sun Liao released his arrow. It whistled through the air. Up in the sky, it pierced the shadow and fell back toward the ground. When finally it touched the water, a quiet ripple was sent all around. And it caused a peculiar note that resounded in the air.
At the same moment, Mo Zi's blood runes had turned into small wheels. He hurtled them toward Sun Liao but they all got stopped by some kind of barrier. He had destroyed the concealment array formation but even he had not noticed the protective one beneath. Sun Liao's talent was way beyond his!
"The emblem! We have to take his emblem or we're screwed!"
Wang Jinhua had finally understood. Sun Liao had just passed the test and he was going to be taken away. But she failed to realize the full extent of what would consequently happen.
From her spatial ring, she took out a Guandao, a form of halberd with a curved blade at its extremity. All her Qi and blood runes got condensed around her weapon.
'Slashing Through the Mountains and Rivers'
The air around her began to swirl around the tip of the halberd. All the water in the air condensed into a powerful stream. Even the surface of the well began to stir. And a giant blade of water cut toward Sun Liao. It pierced through his protection as if it weren't there and was going for his neck. She would behead him in an instant.
"Too late..."
Just as he was about to be killed, his Supreme emblem shined and blinded Wang Jinhua and Mo Zi. Sun Liao was gone and the world around them was starting to unravel.
-
In the alchemy jungle, Cao Yun was ready to interrogate the demonic cultivator who seemed to have been the senior of the other two. After he had been done with the other survivor, Cao Yun was almost certain of his plan to get some information out of this man. The idea of torturing someone was not very enticing, even if that someone was a demonic cultivator, but he had to get as much out of him as possible and he couldn't yet search his soul. If Xiao Xuefeng had been there, she would already be sifting through his memories inside his sea of consciousness. But even with his mind cultivation, Cao Yun was just a Mortal Warrior. Hence, he couldn't use his soul or mind out of his body yet.
He could use his Qi though. And as an alchemist, he had a very good control over it, especially with the chambers of his Upper Dantian almost all energized. Thus, he sent surges of Qi within the archer's body. The first thing he did was to cut off every tendon and ligament that would allow him to move his limbs. Then, he even destroyed his meridians and some of his acupoints. The man was completely crippled for life now. Apart from a legendary medicine, there was no coming back from those injuries.
Because he was still under the effect of the Purple Fragrant Door pill, he was completely paralyzed and unconscious. So Cao Yun had no problem doing this dirty work. Then, he also used his Drop of Wrath to extract all of his blood runes. Although they had been produced through the pain and torment of many innocent people, Cao Yun could put them to good use. The Drop of Wrath digested all of them without any problem. Alas, it barely improved Cao Yun's blood. Now, 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace' would probably be more efficient to cultivate his blood than those. Only if he could get his hands on Evil Qi or Death Energy way more condensed, or of a completely different quality, would his Drop of Wrath be satiated.
Then, Cao Yun took his time to thoroughly destroy his Lower Dantian and his Middle Dantian, without killing him.
Finally, he took care of the several seals within his body. Unlike the other demonic cultivator, he had three seals in his sea of consciousness. In Cao Yun's eyes, this was a clear indication that this man knew enough to be interesting. With the experience he had accumulated on the first guy, Cao Yun was able to extract and digest the seals on his body through the Drop of Wrath. But those in his sea of consciousness were different. In fact, the first guy's soul had been destroyed when Cao Yun had tried to extract the seal. So this time, Cao Yun tried something completely new.
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His Qi, turned into ashes, got imbued with the intent of the Drop of Wrath and penetrated his Upper Dantian. With extreme caution, those ashes coated the three seals entirely, cutting them off from the outside world. Hopefully this would prevent them from getting activated. Since he couldn't enter his sea of consciousness, Cao Yun relied on the Drop of Wrath. It had been attracted to the other seals, so he thought that this would work.
After examining the archer's body several times, Cao Yun was satisfied with his work. The man would have no way to resist at all. However, Cao Yun had never interrogated anyone. Besides, this man was clearly smart and he wouldn't fall for stupid tricks. That being said, he had no other choice. From his spatial ring, he took out another pill and controlled its medicinal essence to cancel the effects of the Purple Fragrant Door pill.
Slowly, the archer regained consciousness. Everything was a bit fuzzy and he stayed in a haze for some time. The moment he realized that he couldn't move his limbs, the demonic cultivator began to panic and looked around him. Suddenly, seeing the face of Cao Yun, all his memories came back to him and he became extremely alert. But no matter how much he tried, he was thoroughly paralyzed. He couldn't even feel what was going on in his body. All of his cultivation had been dispersed and his body was not responding to his commands.
Instead of panicking, the young man looked at Cao Yun right in the eyes. He was trying to gauge him.
"I think you understand your situation. You have no way of moving or protecting yourself. Moreover, I took care of all the seals in your body. So you can talk of any matter without risking the torment your masters imagined for you. What is your name?"
The archer kept his gaze on Cao Yun for some time. Through his mind cultivation, the young man was able to exude a powerful aura of determination. When he coupled that with the intent of the Drop of Wrath, his eyes looked as though he was the greatest tormentor under Heaven. Even the young demonic cultivator had never seen such a look in his worst master.
"My name is Yang Tianyi."
"Who do you serve?"
"My current master is Mo Tian."
"Is it his real name? Is he known under any other name?"
"It's probably not, but I don't know anything about him. I couldn't even describe him to you."
For every question, Cao Yun was using his mind cultivation to see whether Yang Tianyi was truthful. And for now, he had been.
"How many of you are there in the Wubei Sect?"
"I do not know."
"How many of you are there in the Palace of Supreme Wisdom?"
"There are six of us."
Although he tried to conceal his lie, it did not escape Cao Yun's eyes.
"Unfortunately, it seems like you do not take me seriously..."
Cao Yun was still hesitant to really torture someone who was completely defenseless. But he had a way to get rid of this hesitation through his mind cultivation. However, he also had another way to make up his mind.
"Tell me, how many people did you slaughter to get the complete 108 blood runes that I extracted from your body? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?"
"Hmph! We used the cover of the demonic beasts stampede. Many villages were destroyed. No one cares if thousands of commoners and mortals died. The Imperial City has not even been able to count them to this day. Do you think I took the time to count them?"
"Indeed, human life has no value for you beyond what you can extract from it... Thank you, you dispelled my last doubts."
Then, Yang Tianyi felt an intense pain travel through all of his nervous system. Cao Yun could control Qi, but thanks to his Chamber of Medicine Field and the Drop of Wrath, he had learned to control Evil Qi as well. Unlike Qi, it was extremely corrosive. Besides, a good part of the Evil Qi Cao Yun was using right now came from Yang Tianyi's own blood runes. In a sense, he was literally using the suffering he had inflected on innocent people to punish him.
"Do not worry, I can stop before you die or you get into shock. You will suffer as long and as much as I wish so. Thus, I would advise you not to lie to me. Say anything unnecessary and you suffer. Refuse to answer and you suffer. Lie and you suffer. You should be able to understand those rules, right?"
At that moment, Cao Yun discovered a side to him that he never knew existed. But he could only think of the desolation he had seen in Baziyun City, and also in Fulao in the wake of Luduo Bu. In his eyes, he was seeing thousands of people being tortured and killed in horrendous fashions just to extract tiny fragments of the blood runes. Although he could have dispelled those images and feelings with his mind cultivation, Cao Yun needed that kind of emotional drive right now. If he was cool-headed, he wasn't sure whether he could go through the interrogation or not.
Cao Yun stopped the pain to let Yang Tianyi speak.
"You think... I'm afraid of..."
"You do not seem to have understood the rules of our game!"
Once more, pain shot through Yang Tianyi's entire body.
"Let's wait a little while. I'm sure you'll soon be quite happy to play along with me."
In Yang Tianyi's eyes, Cao Yun was able to see that he was ready to speak. Yet, he continued to manipulate the Evil Qi to torment him some more. With his recent energized Chamber of Bright Spirit, Cao Yun realized that he could completely understand the feelings of Yang Tianyi, just by looking at him. It made him sick to realize how much the young man was now seized by fear. In the eyes of a demonic cultivator, he had become a monster. But Cao Yun had long thrown away the idea of being a saint or a hero. Doing the right thing sometimes required doing terrible acts. What relieved Cao Yun was that he was not taking any pleasure in seeing the pain in his victim's eyes. He could only think of his thousands of victims, and of the thousands more he was sparing right now.
"I will ask again. How many of you are there in the Palace of Supreme Wisdom?"
"... We are a group of twenty."
Yang Tianyi's words were rather slow and each syllable showed how much he was suffering and how much terror Cao Yun had put in him. The only thing worse would be the seals of his masters.
"Under whose command?"
"Mo Zi."
"His real name?"
"I... I don't know..."
His voice shook as he was terrified Cao Yun would get angry by the answer. He knew that the young man could tell whether he was lying as he had seen through his best lie before. But if he didn't like the answer, he could still punish him for it.
"What is your mission?"
"We've been sent to retrieve some kind of key from the palace. Our masters need it to awaken something that will make them more powerful than anyone on the Piaolu planet. Demons and humans alike will be forced to kneel before us. If you join us..."
Once again, pain shot through Yang Tianyi's body.
"I would never join you! Do you have any more detail on your mission?"
"No, only Mo Zi knows. His master Mo Tian is the one who planned everything."
"Then, you'll tell me everything you know on each one of your comrades, their cultivation, their techniques, their weapons, their description, their personality, absolutely everything. Then, you'll tell me all you know on every single demonic cultivator you've met, as extensively as possible. If you dare try to hide anything at all, you know what happens..."
-
Yang Tianyi did give everything he knew to Cao Yun. As he was speaking, Cao Yun was slowly building a giant chart of the demonic cultivators in his mind. At the same time, he was feeling the seals he had contained. They were always trying to burn through his ashes. Apparently, he had not been good enough to completely stop them. But he just had to keep them under control until Yang Tianyi was done.