The black crystal was most likely the demon's core.
As soon as it was taken out from the demon's body, it started to disintegrate while giving off a faint fragrance which made his bloodline boil in excitement.
"The core of a greater demon…"
With its rapidly disappearing state and the intense urge from the bloodline, most would've immediately consumed it on spot. However, he knew that refining something unknown wasn't a good idea. As such, he kept a cool head and carefully checked if there was any kind of residual soul or something that could cause him harm.
The core was completely black but there were motes of white light on its surface twinkling like stars, making it look like a piece of a starry sky.
When he tried to take it inside his interspatial ring, there was a rejection force from the core which failed the process.
"Looks like the dao patterns on the core far surpass the spatial laws used to forge the ring. The only thing that can stabilise it would be fresh demonic blood…"
Before the core could dissolve any more, he swallowed it while inhaling the mist that sublimated from it.
Closing his eyes, he surrounded it with his lightning sense and started to stabilise it.
An incredibly pure spiritual energy entered his bloodstream. It was similar to the Luminescence spirit water but the intensity of the energy far surpassed it.
If the intensity of energy in the spirit ponds were like streams, then the energy in the core was like an ocean. Most likely, the dissipated energy from the core was affecting the water source and turned it into spirit liquid. It was the purest form of spiritual energy he had ever encountered.
The sudden energy from the core was so vast that it caught him slightly unprepared. Thundering rumbles echoed throughout his body as his blood continued to churn and release a blinding light.
As time passed by, his entire body was dyed in a shade of silver. There were a few places where the colour was still red, but it was also turning silver.
Unexpectedly, the demonic core had triggered his second change of blood. Once all of the bloody glow is replaced by the silver light, he would reach the middle stage of the Blood Surging realm!
During the first change, his body expelled most of the common blood out of the system and produced innate grade blood later on. However, this time, the blood wasn't expelled, but rather condensed further. It caused his muscles to shrink at a rapid pace.
Due to the loss of so much blood, his face became extremely pale. Every three drops of blood would coalesce and form a single drop. However, the energy contained in that drop would be thrice the other blood drops.
The different stages of the Blood Surging realm increase the blood energy contained in the essence and marrows. Compared to the early stage Blood Surging, the middle stage contained thrice as much as energy!
However, what was even more important is that the increase in blood energy was accompanied by an up-gradation in the quality of blood!
His primary bloodline was of silver wing roc. It was of innate grade with a purity of over 80%. Now that his bloodline started to evolve, the purity also started to increase at a dramatic rate.
85% ...87% …89%
Boom!
An explosion went through his body as his body refinement realm finally broke through the mid-stage of the Blood Surging realm.
However, the increase in his bloodline grade didn't stop and went all the way up to 95%! This massive increase in his bloodline wasn't just because of his foundation, but also because of his physique and the influence of the sacred blood drops and demonic core.
Once he could turn all the blood into innate grade, his bloodline would eventually turn into Royal grade! No matter which demonic clan he went to, he would be treated as a genius and demonic royalty!
The clothes on his body had already turned to dust. The condensation of the blood inside of him had caused his body to shrink at a ghastly rate. However, the combined aura of the essence and Qi aura coming from the body even surpassed Yin Yang cleansers!
However, Tianlong didn't notice any of that. When the demonic core boiled, it didn't completely dissolve but left a double pyramid-shaped crystal in his dantian. His entire attention was focused on it.
As it rotated in his dantian, he felt a strange pull in his mind which caused a battle will to surge inside of him.
Once he understood that the pull was just the last memory of the creature, he didn't resist it.
His mind buzzed and he found himself in a strange place.
The land wasn't familiar and neither were the stars in the sky.
The ground was littered with mangled corpses of humans, beasts, demons and various other creatures he didn't know of. It was a battlefield.
There was a stench of blood and burning flesh in the air. Lightning crackled in the sky and strange distortions covered the entire space.
Looking off into the distance, he could see war raging on. He could only make out the silhouette of some winged demons, swordsmen and beasts. Most of them were flying high up in the sky. Their enemies were a blur and he couldn't make out their figure.
He saw one such winged demon getting penetrated through his heart. With a burst of maddening laughter, he jumped on his attacker and self-detonated himself.
Besides their roars, Tianlong couldn't hear what they were saying. It was just a world filled with slaughter.
The cruelty of the place was something that left him shaken.
However, he didn't force himself out of the dream.
He knew that watching such experts fight was a huge fortune in itself. Unfortunately, every time the experts attacked, the memory would distort that made him unable to view it.
However, he didn't mind it and calmly tried to sense the will of war in the place.
After an unknown time passed, the earth started to suddenly rumble. Just as people were thrown into panic, the land split apart and a humongous worm-like creature came out of it.
The creature was taller than the tallest mountain he had ever seen.
Looking at the battleground, it released a shrill cry and dived towards them. The sound of space tearing echoed out when it moved its gargantuan body.
The memory started to blur. Only their shrill cries and pained voices were audible.
Just as he thought the dream would end, he saw a man in a white coloured emperor robed man flying towards the place.
At first glance, he looked nothing special, but if one noticed carefully, they would see the stars seemed to light up with his presence.
From that obscured figure, he could sense an aloof gaze.
His entire presence was regal. The stars were his crown and he was the emperor of the starry sky.
Raising his fingers towards the sky, the man pointed towards the huge creature.
Starlight condensed in his fingers and weaved itself in the shape of a heavenly bull.
The bull's body was pitch black and a rotating constellation could be seen on its glabella. Its body was so huge that the two horns on its head looked like two mountains.
It roared at the sky and charged its massive head towards the creature. The moment the two creatures collided, he saw the rotating constellation shattering and the star fragments scattering under a blinding white light.
The dream came to an end.
His body refinement had reached the mid-stage of the Blood Surging realm, filling his body with explosive power.
However, Tianlong wasn't aware of any of this. He was unsure of how much time had passed or what happened to his cultivation base.
His mind kept replaying the attack of the emperor robed man and how he weaved the starlight into a heavenly bull.
After a long time passed by, he subconsciously raised his palm and pointed it forwards.
The spiritual qi in his body moved in a strange pattern and started to form dots of white light in his palm. Before they could take any shape, all of them condensed into a white beam of light and shot forward.
When it passed through the miasma, it caused the black mist to burn. All the frozen corpses that lay in its path also had a hole through them. It was as if an arrow had penetrated through them. What happened next, wasn't visible due to the miasma.
After casting the art, his face was even paler than before. That single move had consumed more than 20% of his spiritual qi.
"Most likely this winged demon was a participant of that war and died under the clash. The power of the attack was so huge that it changed his demonic core and left dao marks on it…" His guess wasn't far off.
After experiencing that dream, Tianlong couldn't forget what he saw. The scene of carnage and gore, the roars filled with battle intent, all left a lasting impression on him.
"Was that the era ending disaster which split the nine heavens and ten worlds? If it was, then who was the man? Someone from the Ancient Heavenly Court …?"
There were many speculations in Tianlong's heart regarding the matter. The identity of the man, the blurred figure of the enemies and that giant worm-like creature.
"Forget it, with my current strength, these things are of no concern to me. Knowing too much might instead cause me harm…"
Dispelling the lingering thoughts from his mind, he calmed himself.
Once he checked his condition, he was fairly surprised and happy. However, it wasn't the place to celebrate; he needed to get out of here fast.
With the destruction of the corpse, the death aura in the place would reduce drastically and alert the beasts.
Now that he had consumed the demonic core, the place would lose its spirituality and become a normal water source within a week.
He scouted the cave again. Besides finding a few more weak demonic cores, he didn't find anything useful.
Interestingly, he saw the footsteps of Qin Houzi in some places. Most likely, the man had scouted the outer areas where the miasma wasn't present and gathered the demonic cores from the corpses.
Diving back through the tunnel, he found himself at the turtle-shaped rock. There was something about it that caused spirit sense to go over it without noticing anything.
Scree!
The few beasts which were swimming there, were stupefied when they saw his figure emerging from behind the rock.
After a brief moment of surprise, their eyes turned murderous and they moved towards him with lightning speed.
Even if there were Jade core cultivators here, they wouldn't dare to fight the beasts here due to their excessive numbers. However, with his lightning sense, the last thing he feared was an ambush by low-level cultivators or beasts.
With his shiny silver eyes and sharp claws, he shot towards them at an equally frightening speed. The loss of a volume of blood and witnessing that war had turned him extremely bloodthirsty.
The colourless water turned a beautiful shade of red…