Just as the Xue residence was in turmoil with many great experts striking their own protective array formations, chaos was happening within Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. The Flying Poison of the Drop of Wrath was brutally attacking the giant skeleton. As it was devoid of intelligence, it couldn't figure out that Gu Song's Soul Embryo was really behind this. However, Gu Song might soon realize that the beast was just mindless. If that were to happen, this would be a problem. Right now, the Drop of Wrath was very difficult to control because a part of it was precisely the Flying Poison.
Thankfully, Cao Yun had prepared for that possibility. His goal was to weaken both the Flying Poison and Gu Song's soul so he could take care of them himself. Whether the other part of Gu Song's soul was absorbed in his sea of consciousness or not, he could get to it in the end.
In the physical realm, Gu Song was absolutely overrun by everything Cao Yun had thrown at him. Although he had had a mere few months to get ready, he had prepared judiciously. And now Gu Song could feel that his Soul Embryo who had penetrated his opponent's soul was in danger. With each passing moment, his soul and Soul Embryo were being assaulted and sucked out of his own flesh and blood. Now that he had injured his Upper Dantian himself, the strength of the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish was enough to attract his soul outside of his body. Beneath his feet, the shadow of the giant fish had never disappeared.
Thankfully, he had his spatial ring, he simply had to take a few pills to restore himself. Thus, he activated it, but nothing happened. As he was in such a chaotic situation, he couldn't figure out what was going on. In his spatial ring, there were enough pills to help him deal with everything that was going on around him. Cao Yun had been able to use his spatial ring to take out his spear, then he couldn't understand why he was unable to use his.
The truth was that Cao Yun had also prepared for that. He had used Gu Song's confusion to place a seal on his spatial ring. It wasn't so strong that Gu Song couldn't do anything about it. But he was panicking and wasn't thinking clearly. Besides, Cao Yun still had other ways to ensure that Gu Song wouldn't use his spatial ring. As soon as Gu Song tried to use it, Cao Yun felt the seal on the verge of being broken. Even without thinking straight, Gu Song was just too powerful and the seal couldn't take it.
Although Cao Yun had other ways he had prepared, he decided to improvise. Indeed, he was literally in a room filled with both Ghost Energy and Death Energy. From the 'Death Verses', he had learned very little. For now, he had only been able to read 'See Through the Mud' and 'Death Reeling' that were allowing him to sense Death Energy and harness it as he would Qi. However, he had also learned of a minor technique of 'Death Reeling', it was a simple palm technique. Now was the right moment to use it. His goal was indeed to weaken Gu Song's soul as much as possible. In addition to getting his answers and putting a leash on the Flying Poison, Cao Yun might as well try to develop his understanding of Death Energy.
In his sea of consciousness, the hymns that were protecting his Five Agents slightly changed. Cao Yun's mind came back to the physical realm for this attack while the Flying Poison was fighting like crazy against the giant skeleton. He let go of his spear and made several mudras while chanting a mantra in Antique Sixian. Then, the Death Energy around the room began to condense around his hands. He was channeling the corrupted souls of Gu Song's victims. As he was the man who had murdered and tortured those souls, this technique would be even more efficient against him. Even in the Black Heart Flame, the fuel had been Gu Song's victims, apart from the two women tortured by Xue Rui, who was his disciple.
As he was focusing the Death Energy around his palms, Cao Yun could feel the rage of the dead, they wanted retribution. Although they would not be able to destroy Gu Song as he was too powerful, they would still wound him as much as they could. Of course, those weren't coherent thoughts but raw emotions. Even in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness, those emotions affected the Flying Poison. This was a welcomed surprise. With all those emotions going through Cao Yun, the Flying Poison's wrath began to focus on Gu Song as well. Even if he was fighting the giant skeleton now, it was starting to shift its focus onto Gu Song's Soul Embryo.
'Death Splintering Palm'!
Cao Yun's hand now looked as though all of his flesh had disappeared. It was strange as one could see his hand but at the same time, it was the hand of a white skeleton. The two realities seemed to exist at the same time. Of course, this phenomenon was the Death Energy condensed around his palm, just like a form of Qi Manifestation. However, the image was more visible as it was literally striking the soul.
At the very same moment Cao Yun's palm struck Gu Song's chest, Cao Yun's bloody eyes sent a shivering sensation throughout the Spirit Warrior's body.
'Bleeding Eyes'!
All of a sudden, a cold feeling engulfed Gu Song entirely. Usually, it wouldn't have been so efficient, but this attack had affected him a lot. Then, the hatred came rushing in. All the souls he had tortured and experimented on where assaulting his physical body. A small part of his corporeal soul, his Po, had even been ripped apart by Cao Yun's technique. Although he wasn't a Spirit Warrior, Cao Yun's technique had been able to injure his very soul. Indeed, he was using a technique that was related to the Dao of Death. Now that he had used his first attack from 'Death Verses', he fully realized how powerful this was.
If Cao Yun could understand the Dao of Death, he might be able to control the corporeal soul of someone while they were still alive. And of course, it would also give him a lot of benefits regarding his own corporeal soul.
While Gu Song was fighting against those he had himself tormented, the poison and the black flames were still attacking him. Instead of getting in each other's ways, all those attacks were coordinated. Indeed, even without Cao Yun's guidance, they all wanted to kill Gu Song because of his past actions. It seemed like his karma had come to bite him. And since he was so busy dealing with those, Cao Yun was able to steal his spatial ring without too much effort.
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Right now, Cao Yun was completely spent. He had used most of his Qi already and his mind was under a lot of pressure. Of course he had pills for that, but he still looked through Gu Song's spatial ring. There he found it. He took out a small pill and gulped it down immediately. It was a Gushing Argent Well pill. Such a pill could restore some of the Qi of a Spirit Warrior. For a Mortal Warrior, the effects would restore all of their Qi and some more. Indeed, that was exactly what happened.
Cao Yun could feel all of his strength coming back to him. The medicinal essence of the pill was so potent that even his blood and his flesh absorbed some of the Qi as well. All around him, his Wei Qi was fully restored, more vibrant than ever. Without even trying to seek it out, his blood cultivation finally crossed the threshold as his blood seeped into his bones. He had already been so close to it but now he was officially a 7th-grade Blood Child. There wasn't much improvement in his strength of course. In fact, his blood even began to pour into the marrow within his bones. This was the goal of this 7th-grade Blood Child stage. From then on, he would slowly shift from cultivating blood to cultivating marrow, and then fusing them together.
At that moment though, he didn't really care. However, he planned ahead and kept some of the medicinal essence within himself. That pill was just too rich for a Mortal Warrior. But maybe he would need it again during this confrontation since he had no idea how everything was going to turn out.
Without his spatial ring and assaulted from every possible angle, Gu Song was truly in a hell of his own making. Everyone he had killed and had the Soul Sucking Catfish kill while in the Subei Province was coming for him. In his very sea of consciousness, Gu Song's sea had turned black. There were thousands of hands emerging from this rotten water, reaching for the sky. Howling screams were echoing throughout this space. In the sky, clouds of blood had formed, hiding everything above them. They were the only color in this world as everything else was either gray or black. Powerful winds were also moving both the water and the clouds. This was a true vision of horror. Gu Song could not even see the manifestation of his own techniques anymore.
Just like Cao Yun had the seven stars of the Azure Dragon, Gu Song had a few manifestations of his knowledge. But now they were all blocked out by this. As the sea of consciousness was a manifestation of one's psyche, this chaos was caused by the primeval fear that was growing in him. He had never fought against such odds, and all of that was due to a mere 3rd-grade Mortal Warrior, this was unthinkable. And indeed it was.
Gu Song was not just fighting a 3rd-grade Mortal Warrior, he was also fighting a 7-core demonic beast, a 2-star Heaven poison, thousands upon thousands of tormented souls and even the remnants of a demon's rage. Cao Yun had no real idea how powerful Axiu Qian had been when he had died, but he was surely as strong as a God, or even a God-Monarch like Cleansed Asura. His rage was strong enough that Sages would be careful against it.
In other words, Gu Song was fighting alone while Cao Yun had assembled all the forces he could think of. Besides, if things went south, he could still use Sect Leader Xuan's Spirit Condensation Barrier. And he also knew he could count on General Yun as well.
Indeed, General Yun's forces were now controlling the exterior of the Xue residence. The Governor had acted too late and his own officers were trying to negotiate with General Yun. The chain of command wasn't too clear right now as no one apart from General Yun knew what was going on. Considering how slow Governor Jiahe was to take any decision, General Yun knew he had at least one or two hours. Way before then, the Xue family would have broken down their own defenses anyway. Obviously, General Yun wasn't letting anyone on his side try to break them down. He was trying to buy as much time as he could allow to Cao Yun.
Sensing that the array formations were falling, Cao Yun used his last array formation. From the ground, golden chains pierced through Gu Song's Lower Dantian. Of course, his body was still powerful enough that they were stopped. Then, they also assaulted his Middle Dantian with the same result. However, within, all the forces attacking him were also getting to those Dantian instead of focusing on his soul. A loud explosion reverberated throughout the Xue residence. Gu Song's Lower Dantian had been ruptured.
Under the pain, Gu Song's body wasn't able to resist the golden chains any longer. They perforated his abdomen and completely destroyed his Lower Dantian. Besides everything else, Gu Song felt that his cultivation was slowly leaving his body. Although the Upper Dantian was the only essential Dantian for a Spirit Warrior, that didn't mean that the others were useless. His body had been ruined and his soul was not faring that much better.
Patriarch Xue realized that one of the strongest offensive array formations had been activated. Despite his preparations, Cao Yun had not been able to use it to its full potential, but it was strong enough to injure an early Spirit Warrior. In his current condition, Gu Song could do nothing. Thus, he finally took the most difficult and the worst decision of his entire existence. He decided to abandon his own body. Even if his soul couldn't survive for more than a century outside of his body, he could still imagine ways to palliate this.
With the energy of despair, his soul hid in the recesses of his Soul Embryo. Both of them erupted and went toward Cao Yun's Bai Hui. At the very least, he would kill the young man. Surely, he had many secrets he could use. Maybe he might even try to take over his body.
-
Now, all the fight would happen in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. No matter what happened, Cao Yun had just killed a 4th-grade Spirit Warrior. Such a feat had never happened. But to be fair, Cao Yun had been helped by many others and his enemy had more or less killed himself to run away from his maimed body.
Anyway, such a deed would bring a lot of attention on Cao Yun and the Wubei Sect. The Young Sect Master of the Wubei Sect was able to kill a middle Spirit Warrior by himself. The story would become more and more ridiculous. Some would even claim that he had killed him with a single strike of his spear. Then, others would say he had simply struck him with a palm to take him down.
At that moment though, Cao Yun's fight was not over. The battleground was now his sea of consciousness. And he had two enemies, Gu Song's full Soul Embryo and the Flying Poison. Hopefully, they would slaughter each other and Cao Yun would just get the spoils of their fight. Thankfully, the Flying Poison was still under the effect of the Death Energy Cao Yun had gathered. After sensing how it had moved the Flying Poison, Cao Yun had decided to absorb some of it in his own body.
The bloody chains did not prevent the other part of Gu Song's Soul Embryo from merging with the one inside. They were just preventing anyone from leaving. Now, Gu Song was trapped with an enraged demon.