Demons had special unique abilities that they were born it and evolved according to their cultivation base, even though Yun Jhin fought a multitude of demons in his past lives, it didn't mean he would be able to remember all of the abilities they exhibited, after all, would you remember the ability of an ant you squashed under your foot?
Yun Jhin's mental attack transformed into an invisible bullet-shaped soul attack that hurled directly to the man's forehead, it hit him directly shaking his soul and making him drop Yun Jhin from his grip, Yun Jhin became invisible as he used his stealth technique again and hid in the shadows.
The man's eyes widened as the dark green flames in them intensified, he shouted:
"You don't know what you have done you little rat!"
Dark feathered wings grew out of his back as his dark aura intensified, his power increased as he shot out 5 bolts of energy out of his demonic hand, the eldritch energy rampaged around the cave, like an unleashed beast as it hit the ground randomly.
Yun Jhin dodged the energy bolts by a hair width as some of them almost impaled him on the ground, he couldn't throw out his baby dragon as it would be useless in this fight, he gritted his teeth as a lightning bolt appeared above his hand, the energy used by Yun Jhin alerted the half-demon and he shot more energy bolts at him.
Yun Jhin took two bolts to the stomach as his lightning bolt skewered the now raven-looking man, it hit him directly in the chest as a cloud of blood appeared.
The cloud of blood crystallized then broke into the form of the elder man, he didn't seem injured at all but there was something different about him, a demonic voice could be heard out of his mouth:
"Thanks for your help little halfling, the way you dealt him such a delicious blow, it made me able to control his body for some time..."
Yun Jhin ignored the mad ravings of the demon, his lightning only temporarily disabled the man's body, even though the demon was talking like nothing was wrong, his veins could be seen pulsing in an attempt to try and move his body.
Yun Jhin charged directly to the man as he punched him while he was immobilized, the punch made him fly into the ceiling of the cave and beyond, the cave started to collapse as Yun Jhin followed the man through the gravel, both of them appeared outside the cave in the demonic forest.
The ruckus startled the demonic animals and attracted predators, but the formations laid down by the old man were still active, dozens of mutated animals fell like flies as they died, their blood essence was devoured by the formation and in return gave to the old man.
The old man smiled as his injuries healed but then he frowned as he clutched his face and shouted:
"NO I JUST GOT OUT TO PLAY, YOU CAN'T PUT ME BACK IN THERE!"
A grunt could be heard as the man's personality changed back to what it was before, he coughed a mouthful of dark blood as he glared at his left arm, he looked at Yun Jhin's injured body and said:
"It seems I did a number on you."
Yun Jhin ignored him, it seemed the man wasn't stable at all when he attacked him in the cave, he seemed to be calmer now and less offended.
The man sat down on the ground which puzzled Yun Jhin, then he opened his mouth and said:
"I'm sorry if I frightened you, where are you from young man?"
Yun Jhin wasn't sure if the man was trying to fool him or if it was anything else, but Yun Jhin decided to play along as his injuries healed, it was a fight between two old foxes trying to outsmart each other at this point, Yun Jhin opened his mouth and asked:
"Shouldn't you introduce yourself first?"
The man laughed as he said:
"Yes, how rude of me, my name is Sardo, former general of the 1st legion of the Empire, tell me boy you are from the Empire as well aren't you?"
There were a few empires in the upper region and so Yun Jhin wasn't sure which one he was talking about, but there was a high chance of it being the one he joined recently...
Yun Jhin talked a little bit about the Empire and the man's fiery eyes intensified, there was hatred and also disappointment in them as he said:
"So you are from the Zumo Empire, that goddamn old Emperor Zumo Taicheng he even sent assassins out for me!"
The man demonic hand reacted as an attraction force started to appear around Yun Jhin again, but Yun Jhin jumped out of the attraction force area and shot a few energy bullets at the old man trying to pin him down to the ground, the energy bullets were shaped in the form of sharp sticks, if the impaled him to the ground he would be able to kill him instantly by decapitation.
The man's arm created a forcefield around him that deflected all of the energy bullets, the bullets hit some trees behind him that made them groan seemingly like they were alive.
Yun Jhin ignored the Dark Ebonite trees groans as he circled the old man, from what he said the man was a former general of the Empire, but his cultivation base was quite low, he should have been crippled in action and exiled by the emperor for his hatred to be this accentuated to the empire.
Yun Jhin watched as the man's arm continued to glow with an eerie dark green energy, he seemed to struggle controlling it as the demon from inside wanted to take control again, this was a good opportunity for attacking!
Yun Jhin dashed and seemingly teleported behind the man's back but he heard a chuckle coming from his front:
"You thought that it could be this easy to kill me, boy?"
The same wings as before unfurled on his back as a dark green aura engulfed the man, the aura started to stretch and engulf Yun Jhin as well, Yun Jhin's vitality started to drop as his life force was forcefully drained by the man.
Yun Jhin quickly jumped away from the old man's aura area but an attractive force pulled him back inside it, after the attractive force stopped, eldritch dark green energy bolts assaulted his weak body which created a pool of blood below him.
This was the hardest fight Yun Jhin went through since his reincarnation, and that was because the man was lucky enough that his demonic eye that he shot at random in the cave revealed him.
Yun Jhin was quite injured and he couldn't trigger his forbidden technique again, but suddenly a shout could be heard coming from ahead of him, Lulu jumped down from a tree as she tried to bisect the old man but she only clipped off one of his dark wings.
The man howled into agony as more bolts of energy tried to engulf Lulu, but she dodged easily by jumping backward making a big space between her and the demon, Yun Jhin took this opportunity to launch three big blue fireballs at the old man, the fireballs met with their destination as the man was burned quite badly by them.
Seeing an obvious opening Lulu dashed inside the man's aura sacrificing a bit of life force to cut his chest open!
Lulu appeared behind him as she grabbed Yun Jhin and tried to run away but an attraction force stopped both of them from leaving and dragged the duo into the man's aura field, the aura started to drain the boh of them of life force as the man's injuries started to heal, however, it seemed he was running low on ki.
Even though the aura stole life force it didn't recover the man's ki.
But it wasn't of much help to Yun Jhin and Lulu at the moment, Lulu came alone as she left everyone behind as they would be baggage to her, so there weren't going to be any reinforcements.
Lulu gritted her teeth as she took a second sword out of her spatial ring and took a stance, her left foot was in front and her right a little back, she stood with her head down as both of her swords were held vertically in front of her body.
She disappeared from where she stood as fire engulfed the old man's body when she appeared a white aura was around her and she vomited one mouthful of blood.
She looked as the man was immolated and dropped to the ground thinking that everything was done, but Yun Jhin and she were out of his aura range so he wouldn't be able to heal any more, and the technique she used wouldn't stop until his body would become ashes!
She started to lose consciousness as Yun Jhin approached the burning man as his life draining aura stopped working, her eyes closed but in the last moment, she saw how Yun Jhin severed the man's strange arm away from him and kept it inside his spatial ring.
Yun Jhin looked down at the ashes remaining from the man's body and shook his head, he wanted to give the body to the little dragon so he could improve his strength, but it seemed he couldn't now.
The dragon caterpillar walked slowly towards Lulu's downed form and put her on his back, he wanted to devour her but the Empress must have put her soul under surveillance, anyone who killed her would be marked by her consciousness and hunted down, this wasn't something he wanted.
He would also need to use her to get into the imperial family, she still had her uses so he decided to let her live for now.
Yun Jhin met with the others and most of them were either scared or trying to be brave, as they didn't have much experience, even though they killed some beasts here and there with the help of Lulu, their thoughts were still very shallow.
Most of them were glaring at Yun Jhin as he came back with Lulu on his back, the women didn't care much but the men were glowering in hatred, after all, the woman on his back was a beauty!
Her two mounds were pressing on Yun Jhin's back and it made the men glare harder at Yun Jhin.
Yun Jhin ignored their gazes as he walked away from their group, some wanted to stop him but seeing the injured form of the princess they stopped, Yun Jhin didn't know much about the princess but according to her previous interactions with him, he wouldn't make a good impression of her if he sent her to the protectors outside the forest as it would disqualify her.
Yun Jhin found an empty clearing where he prepared a camp and used a healing technique on her to help her wake up faster, after a few hours of meditating the woman finally woke up to Yun Jhin's visage that looked over her.
Lulu frowned as she looked around and realized that they won the fight and sighed, then she asked Yun Jhin:
"How come you found this guy in the forest and you didn't ask for help before engaging him?"
Yun Jhin chuckled awkwardly as he said:
"Well he found me before I could call for reinforcements, but there was also some luck involved for him."
Lulu frowned as she thought that Yun Jhin's abilities weren't as much as her mother made them be, but then she remembered how he slashed away the man's demonic arm and didn't comment, even though his cultivation base wasn't high he was ruthless and knew when to take openings meaning he had extensive battle experience, so what he said couldn't be a lie.
Lulu got up from the ground but she grimaced as she looked at her hands, the technique she used broke her fingers and injured her cultivation base a bit, she would need quite a while to recover from her injuries.
Yun Jhin got up and stopped looking at her as he said:
"Since you woke up my job here is done, You saved my life and I saved yours, if I let you there you would have been food for the animals of the forest."
Lulu frowned as she looked at Yun Jhin's back, was this man so heartless that she would let such a beautiful woman as her alone and injured inside a dangerous demonic forest?
Yun Jhin's silhouette started to disappear as he walked away from her, it seemed the answer was yes.
Lulu grimaced as she took out some healing herbs from her spatial ring and started chewing on them, as she thought:
"Atleast the clearing he found is pretty safe..."
Yun Jhin tried to find a place where he could absorb the demonic arm and gain its memories, it seemed the man's soul also refuged into it as he could feel the arm move inside the spatial ring, it was a battle for supremacy between the demon and the old man, he didn't care who won as the one who did would absorb the memories of the one who lost.
In the end, their memories would be his along with their soul power that he could use to refine his crown jewels further.
Yun Jhin started digging in the earth around a rather poor place where no animals or humans would want to go, then he covered himself in the dirt around 200 meters inside the earth.
Even though the soil of the demonic forest was quite hard, Yun Jhin's body was very sturdy and he could easily live underground like a mole, Yun Jhin took out the demonic arm and inspected it before he started to absorb its quintessence and refine the two souls inside of it.
Soul screams that sounded like wraiths came out of the arm, because it had no host anymore, both of the souls were rather weak and easy to refine, but it would still take him a little while as the soul's willpower wasn't broken.
He would grind them down, bit by bit, and then absorb both of them as no winner was made between them up till now. It was better for Yun Jhin anyways, he would be able to enjoy more starlight from their souls so he could refine his jewel further, he might even break through the middle stages.
Yun Jhin continued to refine the arm with closed eyes, he wanted to know where the entrance to hell was located, even though it would be a long while before he would go for it knowing the direction he had to go would be very good, even if the entrance disappeared, he would be able to find the remaining demons or devils around the area and scour their souls for the new entrance!