All of a sudden Cao Yun could hear his heart beat in all of his cells. As he was cultivating both the asura and the human systems, Cao Yun had already opened all his cells to his Qi and was about to do the same with his blood. This powerful rhythm was vibrating through his entire body. For a few moments, all of his tissues shook. Cao Yun had finally stepped into the 5th-grade Blood Child stage. All his organs had been imbued with his blood. Every part of his body had thus been changed by his blood cultivation. Both his superficial and internal tissues were new. What remained to work on were his bones.
The intense pressure and heat of the Hellish Dragon Fruit had forced him to use his blood to protect his internal organs. By doing so, Cao Yun had pushed his blood cultivation to the next level. Breaking through without meaning to wasn't such a good sensation for Cao Yun as he wanted to make sure that his cultivation was very stable. But thankfully, it was the case. This breakthrough had been made possible because Cao Yun had already worked on his blood before.
As a 5th-grade Blood Child, Cao Yun would need to learn how to circulate his blood in order to make it plentiful everywhere. This would be a very easy step for him as he could already control his blood without any problem. Then, the three next steps would be related to his bones and his marrow. After working on one's blood, asura refined the marrow within their bones. As such, the last stages of the Blood Child realm were preparing the scene for that cultivation. It was in principle very similar to what had happened to Ren Chao.
For now, it didn't really interest Cao Yun. He was focused on his 'Ethereal Scissors of Tranquility'. But this increase in his blood cultivation was still appreciated. In fact, it had allowed him to resist the flames a bit more.
When he was finally ready, Cao Yun suddenly moved. In an instant he was close to the Hellish Dragon Fruit. This time, he literally felt his Wei Qi begin to evaporate under the intense heat. But in an instant, he had his right hand above the fruit. His Qi turned into a thin blade and cut off the fruit from its vine. The moment it got plucked, the fruit lost its sustenance. The tree was making it more powerful as it was connected to the ground and it could extract the Qi from both the air and the soil. Besides, there were still traces of the Five Bloods Pheasant's blood on the bark.
With this sudden separation, the fruit became weak enough for Cao Yun to envelop it in several layers of Qi. All of its heat was contained and then, it turned into a blue light and entered Cao Yun's spatial ring.
Because he knew that the Five Bloods Pheasant would notice right away, Cao Yun immediately hid his presence and ran toward the territories of the Flame-Tailed Wolf and the Golden Plumed Jackal. However, he was careful to make a sloppy job. He used his own Qi to leave a track behind, just noticeable enough to make the Five Bloods Pheasant believe it was a mistake. And he had chosen a road leading toward the Golden Plumed Jackal.
Since he had already thought about what would happen were Huang Si's plan to fail, he knew what to do. The first thing he had to do was to attract the Five Bloods Pheasant away from Zeng Bei's team. If all else failed, he would be forced to use his martial arts and he didn't want to, not yet.
As soon as the Five Bloods Pheasant felt the absence of the Hellish Dragon Fruit, he screeched to the skies. Black clouds appeared over his dominion as his scream was echoing through a burned area. Opening his wings, the Five Bloods Pheasant rose into the air. Beneath him, a small firestorm hit the ground and Zeng Bei's team. All around the demonic beast, there were chains meant to trap him. In an instant, they all melted. Zeng Bei's team was forced to use their last card. In order to survive the enraged onslaught of the beast, they dived into the Silan lake.
The Five Bloods Pheasant didn't care about those humans at all. His goal was to get his fruit back. Without any ounce of rationality in his eyes, he rushed toward his nest. From his very feathers, tongues of fire licked the ground as he was flying over his land. There was fury and rage in the air. At that moment, Cao Yun completely hid his presence and the fake track stopped. He quickly found a spot to hide and let the bird continue onward.
Having lost all reason, the Five Bloods Pheasant was about to enter the territory of the Golden Plumed Jackal. But at the last moment, he stopped himself. Those humans had tricked him earlier to steal his Hellish Dragon Fruit. He knew that the Golden Plumed Jackal would never ally himself with humans. Clearly this was another trick. And if humans were behind this... The Five Bloods Pheasant turned his eyes toward Yunling City.
Damn it!
Cao Yun's plan had failed. But he had other contingencies. Seeing the Five Bloods Pheasant fly in the other direction, he was forced to resort to someone else's help. Unfortunately, Cao Yun couldn't fly. Thus, he took out a spear and sent a powerful blow toward the sky. Where he was standing, he pillar of light rose in the air. Of course, the demonic beasts all saw it as well.
Sensing a terrible battle about to begin, Cao Yun got ready. He literally went back from whence he had come and stood near the Five Bloods Pheasant's nest. He had also taken the Hellish Dragon Fruit out to force him to come to him.
Even if he could deal with the Five Bloods Pheasant, Cao Yun would then need to deal with the other two 6-core demonic beasts. And he was truly wondering whether Huang Si had set him up for that. If he got rid of all three of them, she would probably be quite happy and carefree. Although he wasn't sure, this was a possibility. Most likely, she had already seen through his fake identity. As the Young Sect Master of the Wubei Sect, Cao Yun could indeed strike down 6-core demonic beasts.
One thing was certain though, Cao Yun wouldn't leave Yunling City be destroyed by the demonic beast he had infuriated himself. Once he was done with it, he might ask Huang Si for compensation though...
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In his fury, the Five Bloods Pheasant would probably be extremely dangerous but not too smart. After sensing the Hellish Dragon Fruit, he changed his course once more. Cao Yun had waited just long enough to show himself so that he had some time to get ready. Thankfully, the Five Bloods Pheasant wasn't too fast compared to the flying demonic beasts Cao Yun was used to.
Blindly going toward his target, he was killing everything he could feel moving around. A few weak demonic beasts had dared to show themselves on his path and had immediately been reduced to ashes. Even their cores had been destroyed. Right now, the Five Bloods Pheasant was completely insane. Almost a century of work had disappeared in front of him. And he intended to get it back!
Above the Five Bloods Pheasant's territory, black clouds with red embers within started to form. The demonic beast was above them. Although he couldn't see it right away, Cao Yun was able to sense the killing intent of the Five Bloods Pheasant. It was mixed with an incredible heat that would make any mortal suffocate in a few instants. Even the water in the air had been vaporized. Usually the Five Bloods Pheasant was reining in this heat but now, everything was off. He was completely devoured by rage.
This time, Cao Yun had deliberately stopped his 'Ashen Feather Seal' because he was trying to attract the demonic beast. Hopefully, he had gained enough time for his plan to succeed.
The moment Cao Yun had decided to steal this Hellish Dragon Fruit, he had been ready to fight this 6-core demonic beast. Of course, he would have preferred not to. But now that he was that pissed off, he was probably going to attack Yunling City too just to take out his anger on humans. Thus, Cao Yun would have to take care of him here and now. But it would not be enough. He also had to make sure that the Golden Plumed Jackal and the Flame-Tailed Wolf would not cause any ruckus. At the same time, he also had to do all that without showing his best martial art and his true strength. Unfortunately, he had only found one way for that and he wasn't too pleased with it. Clearly, Huang Si would have to make it up to him after that!
Finally, the Five Bloods Pheasant appeared within the black clouds. He was covered in sizzling flames all over his colorful and magnificent plumage. His eyes were injected with blood as black flames were dancing in them. Apart from those terrifying balls of pure hatred, almost nothing could be seen of his real body as both the clouds and the flames were hiding it. Above Cao Yun, there was a living inferno. But he had literally been bathed in a pool of magma. This kind of heat wasn't a problem for Cao Yun.
Deep within his mind though, it was acting on Cao Yun's recent trauma. Even now, he had not completely got over it.
When he saw Cao Yun still standing proud while the heat was so intense, the Five Bloods Pheasant knew that this opponent was not a small fry. He still couldn't tell whether this specific human was the one who had stolen from him but he saw the spatial ring on his finger. After getting the flying beast's attention, Cao Yun had put the Hellish Dragon Fruit back in his spatial ring. Although he couldn't use a spatial ring, the Five Bloods Pheasant was smart enough to understand what it was used for. Even if he had not stolen his fruit, this human should have killed several demonic beasts and taken their cores. That alone was worthy of death.
Of course, the Five Bloods Pheasant had killed and devoured many demonic beasts in order to form his six demonic cores. However, the idea that a human had killed his preys instead of him was infuriating. Demonic beasts were very territorial and the Five Bloods Pheasant didn't appreciate that a human was so close to his territory. Just for that offense he could have killed him.
The furious beast had a problem though. If the human had put the fruit into that ring, a demonic beast didn't know how to retrieve it. Only a human could do that. Cao Yun hoped that it would buy him some time as the Five Bloods Pheasant would hesitate and it worked.
In that moment of hesitation, Cao Yun launched his assault. All around him, blue sparks emerged. In the sky above even the flying bird, a large whirlwind began to form. And in Cao Yun's hands, his 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar' had appeared. Sensing danger for the first time, the Five Bloods Pheasant stopped hesitating right away. After all, if he took the spatial ring, other humans could open it for him. He didn't need this specific human to do so.
What the Five Bloods Pheasant ignored was that Cao Yun had worked on seals for quite some time. And he had worked on putting a seal on his spatial rings. They were not too strong yet, but not anyone could access his property from now on.
Now that he was decided, the Five Bloods Pheasant decided to immediately use all his strength. He was indeed smart. Even a lion would use all his strength to hunt down a rabbit. And considering that he had no way of estimating the strength of this human, the Five Bloods Pheasant would go with everything he had. Besides, he had recognized an array formation around him. Usually, he would have probably fled but he was in his own nest, facing the human who had stolen from him. There was no way he wasn't going to kill him, even by putting his own life on the line.
Flapping his battered wings, two small tornadoes of heated wind went directly toward Cao Yun.
The young martial artist scoffed at the attack. It clearly had enough strength to tear apart a middle Mortal Warrior. But Cao Yun's 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' was based around the concept of Wind from the Eight Trigrams, related to the Wood element. And now that his array formation was activated, he was completely concealed from prying eyes. Indeed, the array formation used by Cao Yun was the Scorched Earth Embers. This 2-star Human array formation was employed for concealment.
By using the principle behind 'Ashen Feather Seal', Cao Yun had made sure to conceal his own martial art. And to hide it less conspicuously, he had even created the illusion of a whirlwind all around them. From the outside, it would look like they were fighting in a tornado.
'The Pillar Piercing the Sky'!
His 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar' became as large as the pillar of a temple under his Spear Aura. Now that he could manifest his Qi, Cao Yun could literally rotate his Qi within his own weapon to create a powerful spiral of wind around his weapon. When it got discharged, two dragon horns pierced through the couple of tornadoes from the Five Bloods Pheasant. Between the two fighters, a hurricane uprooted many trees who fell back toward the ground. When they struck the ground, they crumbled to cinders as the heat was still unbearable. Despite this intense heat, Cao Yun was not even sweating one bit.
Even more pissed off, the Five Bloods Pheasant screeched with all of his rage. This created a shockwave that shook the entire area. Some weaker demonic beasts who had been hiding fainted. Some young ones even died under the shock. But this mental attack had no impact on Cao Yun whatsoever. In fact, he countered it with his 'Bleeding Eyes' from 'Weeping Demon'.
His stare met the Five Bloods Pheasant's. Both of their eyes were full of blood and fire. Not one of them could break the will of the other. And the fight kept on going!