From an outside perspective, Cao Yun's body was on the verge of death when the Evil Qi crept its way up his Bai Hui. Although demons had no meridians nor Dantian, they had acupoints. Although their position was often different, the Bai Hui also existed in demon physiology. Indeed, it was connected to their sea of consciousness, their soul and their mind, just like humans.
As such, Dian Mo was not surprised when the Evil Qi tried to get in Cao Yun's soul through this point. However, he was able to sense that there was something strange. Although that boy had used some peculiar mean to pass off as human, there was clearly more to the story than that. But for now, Dian Mo was unable to see through him and that just amped up both his excitement and his worry. He desperately wanted to possess a physical body so that he could finally leave this prison. But on the other hand, he was terrified by the idea of getting out. It was very strange, but in this place he was perfectly safe.
Although he had no real control over the Palace of Supreme Wisdom, he didn't really mind. In fact, if he could just see and everything that was going on and interact with people, he would be happy. After all those millenniums trapped in here, Dian Mo had become attached to this prison in some perverse way. This was both the reason of his suffering and a safe haven. Even a pure spirit could develop inner demons. Luckily for him, it had not yet reached this stage, but he could feel that it was getting there. And that made him want to leave even more while also feeding his anxiety and terror.
Dian Mo was currently a ball of anxiety and hope, an embodiment of an oxymoron.
Watching Cao Yun very closely, he could feel subtle changes. The young demon was fighting off the Evil Qi. He was way more powerful than Dian Mo had imagined. At first, he had only been impressed by his physique and his blood. But now even his will seemed tenacious. However, he could feel no attempt at countering the invasion. Cao Yun was barely steeling his resolve and his will to try and fend off the attacker. Ultimately, it would fail.
Dian Mo did not know Cao Yun's cultivation, but he had not reached the Accomplished Demon realm yet. That was for sure! And because of that, he had no way of resisting him. Yet, Dian Mo stayed extremely cautious, maybe too cautious in fact. However, getting a new body was not a small thing. If he did things right, his life would then get tied to the body. Yes his mind and soul would be more powerful than those of an ordinary demon, but he would become as mortal as a demon. Anyway, even as a spirit, he wasn't technically immortal. His lifespan was extremely long but it was tied to the array formation that would ultimately vanish with time. And if he couldn't cultivate, he would never be able to prolong his lifespan past this.
That was the reason why Dian Mo had put Cao Yun through those tests. He wanted to make sure his body was top-notch and potentially improve it a little before taking over. Even he was beyond impressed by what he had seen. Besides, he still had some of the treasures left behind by Demon God Da Mo. And he had his greatest treasure. With that in hands, even Spirit Warriors would have to be careful around him. Although he probably couldn't take the entire Piaolu planet alone, he was fairly confident in eradicating the humans with time. Indeed, Dian Mo was certain he could improve Cao Yun's body even beyond Demon God Da Mo.
All of a sudden, he sensed a powerful aura from the young demon's soul. Then, it completely disappeared. In fact, the Evil Qi was now stronger than ever. Some Evil Qi was even leaving some of Cao Yun's acupoints.
Finally! Cao Yun's soul had put up a very good fight. But in the end, it had crumbled. Now Cao Yun's body was ripe for the taking. He was about to go in there right away but he got worried. Maybe it was a ruse... Paranoia was slowly taking over. Now that he was really about to leave this place, a huge wave of anxiety washed over Dian Mo. He felt very strange, and extremely weak. It was as though something had poisoned him but it was his own mind playing tricks on him.
This place was not some safe haven. It was a prison from which he could barely catch a glimpse of what was happening outside. Only one year every seven years did his leash loosen up a little. The other six years, he was in total darkness and isolation. It had been almost forty thousand years now. Anyone would have slowly gone insane. The mere fact that Dian Mo could retain his memories and his sanity was incredible. It showed how determined he was. But now that he was just about to step outside of his prison, anguish was taking a hold of him.
Maybe the outside world was nothing at all like what Cao Yun had described. Maybe humans would end up winning. Demon God Da Mo had been invincible in his eyes and yet he had passed away. Apparently, Nuwa had done so. Even Dian Mo could remember the small slave. She had been a personal maid of Demon God Da Mo. In his memories, the image of a young, shy and weak young girl was vividly engraved. He could not imagine her defeating his master. But his master had really died, it was undeniable.
If even Demon God Da Mo had been slain by such a weak and meek girl, he could also be killed. After all, according to Cao Yun, the humans were ruling right now. But again, he could have been lying to get his hands on the treasure.
Many conflicting thoughts and emotions were going through Dian Mo's mind and he got paralyzed just in front of the goal he had been desiring all this time.
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Sun Liao and Ren Chao had found their sister Mei Hua as well as twenty other Wubei disciples. It was difficult to say whether the others had been killed, were hiding, or had even betrayed mankind. In fact, it was impossible to be sure whether the disciples around them right now were loyal or not. Even if they used to be, maybe a demonic cultivator had put a seal in them to blackmail them.
No need to say it, but the atmosphere was particularly tense. Thankfully, Sun Liao, Mei Hua and Ren Chao had a certain aura to them. It wasn't just because they were each the direct disciple of a chief elder, but also because they were very close to Cao Yun. In the disciples' mind, he was the least suspicious of being a demonic cultivator because of the incident with Lu Meihan two years ago.
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Many of them were wounded. Those wounds had not been caused by demonic cultivators but by the chaos both of the last transportation and also of this current patchwork of a world. Many realms with conflicting rules had been smashed together and it had produced a very unwelcoming environment. They had even found two Wubei disciples who had been transported literally within rocks. Now, Sun Liao was absolutely certain that the Palace of Supreme Wisdom would be unable to get them out safely. Apart from waiting for his master outside to figure something out, the only thing to do was to try and confront the demonic cultivators.
For now, Sun Liao had only shared his opinions with his brother and sister. After all, morale was already low. And although some were suspecting that truth, they had not yet accepted it. In their minds, it was still just a possibility, an unlikely possibility.
Morale was already very low, but if this possibility became a reality, some might break. After all, the sky was now completely red with ominous tears everywhere. Moreover, the storms had spread in the sky. Yellow thunderbolts were crisscrossing the crimson sky. The colors were so vivid that they were completely unnatural. But there was nothing to be done about that.
Besides, even if they had the numerical advantage, all the demonic cultivators were Mortal Warriors. In the group, only Mei Hua had reached that stage. And she was not a fighter. But she had put her competence to good use, healing the people around her. Sun Liao could use his new 'Heavenly Mirror Longbow' to fight off early Mortal Warriors and Ren Chao was strong enough to fight hand-to-hand with them. But against middle Mortal Warriors, they would have no chance. From what they could know, the demonic cultivators had to be at least around ten and were very strong. Besides, they had the blood runes Cao Yun had talked about after his fight against Luduo Bu. That moron had obviously been a test run for this new technique they had discovered.
With a plan that had been prepared so long ago, they were all ill-equipped to stop them.
Instead, Sun Liao decided to focus on finding a way to survive the collapse of this space. Hopefully, the Palace of Supreme Wisdom would not collapse entirely. Thus, they had to find a way to get deeper within the array formations. Indeed, they were surrounding the physical Palace of Supreme Wisdom. If they could get in there, they would probably be safe until the realms collapsed. Once this space was gone, there were high chances that the Palace of Supreme Wisdom would be able to recover.
The plan was anything but perfect. But this was the only plan that made sense, gave them a chance to survive and did not completely crush the morale of everyone present.
The biggest problem was that Sun Liao needed to find out what the demonic cultivators were doing. They had clearly a deeper understanding of this place. Just by watching them set up their array formations, it could give him some ideas on how this place truly worked. For that mission, he chose only Ren Chao and Mei Hua. Ren Chao would stay behind to only act as reinforcement if a fight was inevitable. With Mei Hua's perception, they would hopefully not be detected at all.
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Outside of the Palace of Supreme Wisdom, the chief elders were all being busy. Now they could all feel that the array formations were in a very tight spot.
To their surprise, Chief Elder Suxian left his position. He was the only one who could figure something out in time and yet he had more important things to deal with. Some almost raised their protests to Xiao Xuefeng. But they stopped themselves. She had given her permission for this little talk. Indeed, Chief Elder Suxian had also asked his friend Chief Elder Luoming to go with him. Among the chief elders, they all knew Suxian Zheng enough to know he wasn't abandoning them. But some elders were not that charitable with his intentions.
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In the Demon Palace, Cao Yun had lived through an incredible experience. After energizing his ninth and final chamber, his Upper Dantian felt as if it was an infinite ocean within his own body. It transcended everything Cao Yun had ever felt. For an instant, he had even felt as though he was one with the Universe, that he was even bigger than the Universe itself. But the feeling only lasted an instant. However, even after the breakthrough, the sensation in his Upper Dantian was still incredible.
Furthermore, his sea of consciousness had indeed changed. From the ocean below, nine rocky peaks had just surfaced. They had come out of nowhere and simply emerged from the water. Each one was rather thin but very tall. They looked like fingers pointed to the sky. In fact, all of them together resembled a hand trying to grab the Five Agents and the Drop of Wrath. Shen the Fire Spirit rose above them while Po the Metal Corporeal Soul was now rotating around them as a moon.
Those were the Nine Peaks representing the nine chambers of his Upper Dantian. Although they were truly looked real, they were just physical representations of his Upper Dantian inside his sea of consciousness. Thanks to their presence, his mind had become powerful enough to use 'Ashen Feather Seal' on his very soul.
From an outside point of view, Cao Yun's soul had been consumed by the Evil Qi. However, Dian Mo had not attacked yet...
This gave Cao Yun even more time to prepare himself. According to 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks', the third layer of his mind cultivation would be 'Subdue the Seven Demons'. In that layer, Cao Yun would need to subdue the Seven Turbid Demons, the different aspects of his Po, his corporeal soul. This was what he had been waiting for since he had formulated a plan to get the Drop of Wrath fully under his control. It wanted to reform its complete Po and Cao Yun had to get his under full control. Instead, he was thinking about reconstructing the Drop of Wrath's Po in his image while he was putting his own Po under his control.
If he was successful, not only would the Drop of Wrath be a true component of his being, but it would also become much more powerful.
As he was thinking about it, Cao Yun sensed something in his Upper Dantian. From the Chamber of Mysterious Elixir, a powerful warmth spread toward the top of his skull. Slowly, he could feel that his new mind cultivation was soothing his own Bai Hui. Although his Drop of Wrath had tried to repair it, the acupoint had been damaged and had suffered intense stress. But his mind cultivation was now dealing with it on its own. Unfortunately, he had to restrain it to keep up the appearance of weakness.
For an instant, he saw an image. His Drop of Wrath seemed to have sent him something. It was only a flash but he saw the world-tree he had approached in the Yellow Death World and from which he had obtained a seed. As it was alive, he couldn't take it in his spatial ring but he still had the seed in the Wubei Sect.
Despite all his efforts, Dian Mo had still not attacked Cao Yun. The young man now knew perfectly well what the Palace Spirit wanted. And for one, he couldn't wait for him to try it out. With the Drop of Wrath he was already certain of the outcome but with his new breakthrough into 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks', there would not be any suspense at all. This wouldn't even be a challenge. The challenge would be to lure him in and to not kill him.
Indeed, Dian Mo was a well of knowledge about the demons. There was no way Cao Yun was going to kill him without getting all the answers he wanted and needed.