While he was inflicting untold torments on Yaxue, Cao Yun didn't feel alright. To be honest, he had no qualm and no guilty doing that to such a character. After all, he had seen how he was treating slaves. The mere fact that he had abducted people in order to sell them into slavery was enough for Cao Yun to not care about his fate. However, what he was worried about was himself. Even in that moment, he was thinking about his little sister. And he wasn't sure to which extent he was ready to go to get back to her.
This time, he could justify his actions no matter how cruel because of the crimes of his victims. But if those demons had only been ordinary merchants, Cao Yun wondered whether he would have been ready to torture them for information as well. Of course, he wanted to believe that he wouldn't have, but to be absolutely honest he wasn't sure of that. That thought was plaguing his mind.
It took some convincing but Yaxue ended up spilling everything he knew, not just his blood. In a few hours, Cao Yun had a good understanding of this place. This was a large continent surrounded by what was called the Divine Blood Ocean. The reason for that name was simple, this was a hyperbole to claim that even gods would be turned to blood in that ocean. Indeed, there were powerful demonic beasts. Some even claimed that there could still be Immortal Beasts sleeping in its depths. But none had ever seen one since the Forsaken Dao Era had begun. In the past, there were probably Immortal Beasts, but by now they should either have left the planet or died.
Anyway, the main point was that crossing that ocean was almost impossible alone even for powerful a Accomplished Demons. However, there was trade between the Nalupu Kingdom and the other demon kingdoms on the main continent. No one knew exactly how they operated but the Xinian Confederation had a way to send boats through the Divine Blood Ocean. Even then, in average, one out of three boats was lost at sea. Moreover, there was only one harbor that was able to send boats sailing through that deadly ocean. And that harbor was under the conjoint control of both the Xinian Confederation and Lord Wanghuo himself. There were other small harbors of course but they could not send boats away from the continent.
In other words, Cao Yun was stuck in that place until he was able to secure a boat toward the main continent. According to the map of the Piaolu planet drawn by Emperor Nuwa, there was indeed a large continent named the Ruptured Land. That name had been given because this continent had literally been created during the Great War. Indeed, the fights had been so terrible that this part of the main continent had been ruptured and separated from the rest of the land. Obviously, the demons had another name for that land, the Desolate Sepulcher. While the main continent was called the God's Land.
Obviously, Cao Yun got very interested in Lord Wanghuo, the supreme ruler of the Nalupu Kingdom. Apparently, he was an 8th-grade Accomplished Demon. That meant that he had already turned the seven parts of his Po into Turbid Demons and that he was currently working on merging them together to create a perfect Demon Soul. Unlike the Soul Embryo of humans, demons and asura were building their Demon Soul bit by bit. Just like a Po, a Demon Soul was made of seven parts that were then merged together. Right now, Lord Wanghuo was way above what Cao Yun could deal with even by using all of his cultivation and trump cards.
Lord Wanghuo was said to have thousands of wives and concubines. Frequently, he received new women in his harem. But most of them didn't last very long, either because of his attention or because of the other women themselves. Staying alive in there was a never-ending battle. From that harem, he had had thousands of children of course. To this day, Lord Wanghuo had ever only had boys. It wasn't clear whether he had only produced boys or if the girls had been killed. But even among his children, competition was so terrible that many of them were also dead. To be honest, it wasn't easy to keep count of all his children. But most people thought that, among the adults, only a dozen of them were still alive to this day. And they were all in positions of power of course. Still, he kept having children.
Even for demons, this was highly unusual. Unlike the humans who had decided to limit the births in order to avoid conflicts between the different generations, demons did so for a completely different reason. Demons liked to preserve their Jing as much as possible. The prenatal Jing a baby received during his conception came from the essence of both his parents. As such, having too many children would eventually hurt someone's Jing. For humans, this wasn't much of a problem. But for demons who put a lot of emphasis on blood and on blood essence in particular, this was an issue. Wasting one's blood essence was out of question. Thus, they didn't squander it by having too many kids.
Yaxue knew almost nothing of the inner workings of Lord Wanghuo's rule of course. And he also knew very little about the Xinian Confederation. Unfortunately, that was also true of the Sisters of the Abyss. In his mind, they were just an influential religious order that was known to buy a lot of female slaves. From what he knew, there was only two ways the slaves could serve the Sisters of the Abyss, either in death or in life.
Those who were chosen to become Sisters were trained by the order. Since the training was intense, many didn't survive it. As a consequence, the Sisters were extremely talented. They could be hired as assassins, spies, advisors, seers and many other occupations. Thanks to those positions, the Sisters always had a grip on the political rulers of the Desolate Sepulcher. On the other hand, those who lacked the talent to become full-fledged Sisters were sacrificed to the brutal gods. No one knew exactly what was going on in the temple of the Sisters. And no one had the courage to try to find out. Lord Wanghuo had been the only man ever to set foot in one of those temples and get out alive.
Finally, Cao Yun learned about the surrounding city-states. Of course, what Yaxue knew best was Yixin City. That city was ruled by Boss Gui. She was both the representative of the Xinian Confederation and the ruler of that city-state. Like her nickname suggested, the Smiling Flayer, Boss Gui was an incredibly cruel woman. It wasn't rare for her to torture her own subordinates to death in public. And she had a particular affection for flaying people. For her, this was an art to the point that she boasted to be able to get someone's skin off his flesh without letting a single drop of blood fall.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Because Yaxue had fallen behind in his quota, he had decided to risk it all by crossing the Desolate Dune Desert. He knew that there were many tribes hiding either in the desert or on the other side. Thankfully, he could capture some slaves to sell for Boss Gui. Otherwise, he knew what would ultimately happen to him and this wasn't very pleasant. Unfortunately for him, he had crossed Cao Yun's path. But to be fair, without Cao Yun, he would have died anyway while fighting the Tyrant Sun Scarab.
Pressing Yaxue a bit more, Cao Yun learned that he did in fact intended to try and enslave Cao Yun himself. Boss Gui was an early Accomplished Demon with at least two Turbid Demons fully formed. As such, he was convinced that she could subdue Cao Yun. With such a slave, Yaxue hoped to be safe from her fury and sadism. Of course, it hadn't turned exactly as he had planned. Anyway, Cao Yun decided it was safer to avoid that crazy woman. Instead, he tried to inquiry about other city-states.
They were all further than Yixin City and from Yaxue's description, their rulers were not any less brutal. Boss Gui was probably the most unhinged of them all. But none of those rulers was really a pacifist. Public torture and executions were common enough all around the city-states. And that was precisely why so many small tribes had decided to go live in the Desolate Dune Desert despite all the danger that came with such a life. Cao Yun could understand that. Unfortunately, he needed to get access to a boat. Thus, he had to find a way to join the Xinian Confederation somehow.
In the end, his best bet was maybe Boss Gui. From everything he got out of Yaxue, she was the ruler he knew the most things about. Although she was absolutely vicious and barbaric, she wasn't insane per se. All her actions were very rational. Thus, she might in fact be a safe bet. As long as Cao Yun knew how to handle her, he shouldn't have to fear her too much. Besides, with his Flying Poison, he could pass off as a 1st-grade Accomplished Demon. And as soon as his Unclean Evil was cultivated, he might even pass off as a 2nd-grade Accomplished Demon. Right now, he only missed his Golden Blood. Without it, this illusion could easily be seen through. But so long as he had created his Golden Blood, the young human was certain he could fool even a late Accomplished Demon.
Of course, he wouldn't really get the strength of an Accomplished Demon just by forming his Turbid Demons. But their distinctive aura would be able to dupe others into thinking he had. And from what he knew of Boss Gui, she wouldn't fight a demon if she wasn't sure she could kill him. The fact that demons refused to use poison as they didn't want to contaminate blood was a good thing for Cao Yun. To be fair, his understanding of poisons was highly developed, but the demons might have had some poisons he knew nothing about. The fact that he had no reason to fear for such an assassination attempt was good.
After getting as many details as he could out of Yaxue, he decided that it was time for him to die. Even his death would be used though. Indeed, Cao Yun was still trying to figure out the secret of the transmogrification of the Po into Death Energy. Thus, the young man used his entire Flying Poison to observe Yaxue's soul. He penetrated his sea of consciousness as he was dying. Then, he even sent his Black Heart Flame into his flesh.
In his own sea of consciousness, Cao Yun was chanting the few lines of 'Death Verses' he knew how to pronounce. His goal was to understand 'Living Death'. Hopefully, it might even help him form his Turbid Demons faster. After all, they were related to Po and Death Energy. While he was observing Yaxue's demise, Cao Yun thus focused on his Unclean Evil.
Once again, it was a failure. Although he could see Yaxue's Po and the Death Energy resulting from it, he simply couldn't point out when one had turned into the other. It was as though he had blinked and everything had changed. But the more he thought about it, the more he was about to find the solution. Maybe it was easier than what he thought. Yaxue's Po had always been Death Energy. What had changed was not his Po but something else that was interacting with it. Some form of balance had been ruptured and this had caused it to change its nature. Either it was an interaction with something outside of his Po of something within his own Po.
As soon as that balance was ruptured, one's Po would turn from a bringer of life to a messenger of death. This simple realization allowed Cao Yun to read a bit more of the 'Living Death' verse. His guess was correct. There was no change in nature between Po and Death Energy. This was just an illusion, just like ice, water and vapor were ultimately the same thing in different states. Within the Po, there were seven aspects always interacting with each other. If those interactions were disturbed, Po could turn into Death Energy. At that point, Cao Yun wasn't sure what had disturbed that balance. But he had found a great secret.
'Living Death' explained how someone could change the balance in his own Po so it could turn into Death Energy and back without dying. What truly astonished Cao Yun was the implication. If Death Energy could turn back into Po, it should theoretically be possible to restore someone's corporeal soul. Of course, he had no idea what consequence this would have on the physical body that had started to rot. But the mere fact that it was possible was interesting.
Unfortunately, this didn't mean that one could bring the dead back to life because the Hun was gone already. Within the Hun, the ethereal soul, was the part of an individual that would go to the Heavenly Court to later be reincarnated in this world or another.
Anyway, with his current analysis of the corporeal soul, Cao Yun had gotten a bit closer to understanding the Dao of Death. Even though he had the writings of Cleansed Asura, touching a concept belonging to the Dao was miraculous for someone who wasn't a Sage.
As Yaxue was dying, Cao Yun also consumed his Death Energy through his Black Heart Flame. Then, he decided to stay in his isolated array formation for some time. Outside, Xixue was calming and organizing the other slaves. All of a sudden, they saw water and food appear before them. This was a gift from Cao Yun. Even now, he felt a bit guilty for letting them be used as beasts of burden and being humiliated during his entire travel.
In his array formation, Cao Yun was focusing on his Unclean Evil. At the same time, a part of his will had entered the Drop of Wrath. He was carefully trying to carve out another Unclean Evil in it using his Black Heart Flame. Since it contained a lot of Death Energy, Cao Yun thought it might be possible to create a Turbid Demon with it. After all, the Drop of Wrath had once been inhabited by all seen Turbid Demons. He needed to give it a little push to form them back. All this time, this was what the Drop of Wrath was looking for.