This time, it was Huang Cixi's endurance that reached its limit before her prey. Sensing the weakness in the human, the Silver Winged-Lion tried to rip off her head with its beak. And at this moment, the attack would be deadly as Huang Cixi lacked the energy to dodge well enough. Just before the beak got close to her head however, a powerful shriek echoed in the valley and a huge shadow covered the entire body of the Silver Winged-Lion. Terrified, it didn't even try to look up to see what it was. The 4-core demonic beast fled as fast as it could.
And in its stead, Elder Ying landed in front of Huang Cixi who collapsed on its feathery side. She had lost consciousness.
When she woke up, Huang Cixi was lying on the soft feathers of Elder Ying. The beast had sensed her move and turned his head to look her in the eyes. At first, Huang Cixi's vision was hazy but she soon focused on these beautiful eyes. It was very vague but she understood something. Then, she stood up and the Blue Mane Falcon did the same. He jumped into the sky and flew around the young girl.
His movements were very peculiar and almost looked like a dance in the air. Huang Cixi was completely transfixed by its charm and elegance. Meanwhile, Huang Liyue was also admiring this scene and immediately understood what Elder Ying was trying to do.
'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheels', the Huang family's martial art, had been invented by observing a True Fiery Fenghuang. Obviously a Blue Mane Falcon was nowhere close to such a legendary beast, but they still had quite a few things in common. Moreover, Elder Ying had been raised with the Huang family. As such, he had observed their martial art for a very long time. And right now, he was literally showing his own understanding of these arts to Huang Cixi.
Admiring his beauty, even Huang Liyue understood several things about her own martial arts. As a demonic beast himself, although he had no blood from a True Fiery Fenghuang, Elder Ying was closer to it than humans were. Hence, he had a more instinctive understanding of these arts. In his movements, he had removed some things that had been added by humans to correspond to their own bodies and views. Seeing such a raw illustration of the martial art, Huang Cixi, and even Huang Liyue, got new insights.
Huang Cixi used the advantage she had. She circulated her mind cultivation to increase her focus. Moreover, she had one chamber of her Upper Dantian energized which increased her understanding. Every single subtle movement of Elder Ying got engraved in her mind. At one point, she also got the idea of using her two True Fiery Drops to try and move in unison with Elder Ying. And she was surprised to see that it was highly effective. The blood in her body started to move according to the 'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheels'. Slowly, Huang Cixi entered in a state of epiphany. She let go of all control and all restriction.
After her blood, it was her Qi which escaped, voluntarily, her control. During the process, some of her acupoints even began to open themselves. And Huang Cixi followed up by using the essence of the True Fiery Fenghuang in her blood to try and activate them even more. All the training she had done these last few days, further amplified by the training she had already done beforehand, just clicked. Suddenly, some new insights on 'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheels' became quite obvious to her.
Without her realizing it, a strange phenomenon took place in her sea of consciousness, similar to the one Cao Yun had experience unknowingly as well. Deep in the water, very peculiar and unknown characters began to form. They seemed to be made of blood and fire, and their form was reminiscent of small feathers. Considering that Huang Cixi was unable to enter her sea of consciousness, she couldn't see them or even know that they existed. But if she had been able to, she would have recognized the same kind of characters that were in the 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' manual. Those were Insight Writings, the physical form of someone's understanding of nature.
They were extremely rare and depended on each individual. In fact, only Spirit Warriors were even aware of their existence as they were the only ones, usually, who could enter their own sea of consciousness. And even for powerful Spirit Warriors, forming them was due to fate more so than to talent alone. Cao Yun and Huang Cixi had been able to form them thanks to their mind cultivation that had reached the second layer, but not only thanks to that. Cao Yun had the ability to literally see the stars that had inspired the creator of his martial art. And Huang Cixi had witnessed moves very similar to the ones her ancestral matriarch had probably seen.
Of course, a Blue Mane Falcon was not on the same level as a True Fiery Fenghuang who was a legendary beast. But he had a lot of similarities and all his life, Elder Ying had been exposed to the influence of this legendary beast through the Huang family.
When Elder Ying was done, Huang Cixi instinctively began to practice her martial art. She performed several forms from 'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheels'. This martial art had three different forms, 'Dance to the Burning World', 'Wheel of Searing Beauty' and 'Peacock Displays a Firestorm'. Huang Liyue observed her young mistress and realized that some of her movements were now widely different. Of course, every martial artist had small variations in his practice, but they almost looked like different forms now. And Huang Cixi alternated them several times with seamless transitions.
In fact, it looked like they were one and the same form. But it had been cut up in several pieces put together. Right now, Huang Liyue realized that some moves of 'Dance to the Burning World' would be better if they were directly followed by sequences of 'Wheel of Searing Beauty' for example. Even she gained a bit of insights from this experience.
But the one who gained the most was obviously Huang Cixi. Several of her acupoints got tempered and she became closer to a breakthrough. Even her Pure Golden Dantian reacted. The Qi within her Lower Dantian got denser and denser. Even without training, her new Lower Dantian seemed to always gather more Qi and condense it. And she also discovered that her way of seeing the True Fiery Drops had been right. If she used them as she had imagined, the results would be extraordinary. Not only could they improve her martial arts, they could also increase her cultivation.
After that, Huang Cixi was full of energy and vitality. She absolutely needed to use her techniques in a real fight. Thankfully, Elder Ying was aware of it. He went in the nest of the previous Silver Winged-Lion. The 4-core demonic beast's wings were still covered with a thin layer of blood. Faced with this mighty beast, the Silver Winged-Lion was shivering and submitted fully. It knew that its life was entirely up to Elder Ying.
Tension between the two beasts disappeared all at once when both of them turned their heads toward the south. Huang Liyue also looked in that direction. And immediately, Huang Cixi heard her voice in her mind as she was starting to levitate in the air.
"Something's approaching!"
Looking up toward her bodyguard, Huang Cixi had an incredible sight. The sky turned into flames of myriad of colors. All around the Spirit Warrior, there was a prodigious rainbow of red, yellow, green, blue and purple. Each flame looked like a feather fluttering in the wind. And every color melted together in a wonderful mosaic. This was the first time Huang Cixi was seeing a Qi Manifestation of 'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheels' and it was eye opening.
Huang Cixi, controlled by her bodyguard, floated right behind her. From Huang Liyue's spatial ring, a blue light emerged and hundreds of iron fans appeared all around. At the exact same time, they opened and ignited. By then, the sky was engulfed in flames and riddled with wheels of fire. Joining her, Elder Ying soared in the sky and a trail of deep radiant blue scarred this magnificent wheel of fires. His body was twice as large as before as his Qi was fully manifested around him. In reality, demonic beasts could not actually manifest their Qi like humans.
Sometimes the term was used to describe their abilities, but it was closer to a manifestation of their blood. Unlike humans, demonic beasts had no real meridians or Dantian, their Qi was stored within their demonic cores and circulated through their blood. As such, this manifestation of Qi came from a mix between their own bloodline and their cores. On the other hand, Qi Manifestation in humans was due to their mastery of martial arts. A Mortal Warrior who would try to manifest his Qi without a martial art would just extend his own Wei Qi without any particular effects.
All the senses of Elder Ying were alert and Huang Liyue had extended her spiritual senses in the direction of the disturbance they had both felt. In the valley, both of their killing intents sent every demonic beast into a frenzy. They all tried to run as far as they could. The only demonic beast still present was the lightly wounded Silver Winged-Lion. After being subjected to Elder Ying's intense glare, it got frozen for a while. When it realized what was going on, it didn't dare to move. Its senses were not as great as Elder Ying's and yet it was now able to feel that something was indeed approaching. It was very faint but the earth was shaking.
Huang Cixi was unable to sense it at all and did not understand what was going on. But she knew that Huang Liyue would not act in such a spectacular way unless the problem was real. Thus, she decided to not say anything at all so that she wouldn't disturb her bodyguard. As of now, she would follow every one of her commands. Huang Liyue was a 6th-grade Spirit Warrior and she had the help of Elder Ying a 9-core demonic beasts who could contend with even Matriarch Huang Yufeng. If she was on edge, the threat was at least on the same level as them, an 8-core or even a 9-core demonic beast, or perhaps a late Spirit Warrior she didn't know. Could a demonic cultivator be after them?
Tension was palpable in the air. Suddenly, the Silver Winged-Lion tried to fly away and the earth turned upside down. The small peak in the south literally exploded into thousands of rocks as the mountain collapsed. A large and elongated black shape erupted from the ground and before Huang Cixi could get a good look, the Silver Winged-Lion got torn apart by this shadow. Blood exploded everywhere and covered the head of the new beast. Just as fast as it had broken through the mountain, this shape returned into the ground, completely destroying a part of the valley.
Huang Cixi was unsure of what it was but this certainly was a terrifying demonic beast. She wasn't certain, but this must have been a 9-core. Clearly, it didn't come all the way here just to devour a small 4-core demonic beast. The girl turned her gaze toward Elder Ying. This thing was probably here because it had felt another 9-core demonic beast and decided to come feast upon it. But no demonic beast should be that powerful so close to a city.
Periodically, cultivators organized cullings to make sure that no demonic beast became too powerful in the vicinity of human populations. Otherwise, people would be unable to live safely and form any manner of civilization. Against a 9-core demonic beast, even late Spirit Warriors were in danger. Most of the times they could win either because they worked in teams and used battle formations, or because they knew martial arts and various techniques demonic beasts could not understand, such as array formations. Having this kind of monstrosity in the land of the Huang family was not normal at all. And Huang Cixi vividly saw that in her bodyguard's eyes.
Before the calm could return, that shadow reemerged from the tip of another peak, soaring through the sky in the direction of Elder Ying. It was surrounded by some kind of black fog, almost like condensed dirt. And that thing was going straight for its prey. However, tongues of fire closed around Elder Ying from the wheel behind Huang Liyue. The creature collided heavily against this barrier. The shock was so intense that Huang Cixi felt the shock wave deep within her bones.
Huge dirty claws pierced through the living flames. Those were huge blades worn out by hundreds of years of digging into the earth. Elder Ying opened his wings and a blue fire flew to reinforce the barrier of Huang Liyue. The Spirit Warrior controlled a dozen of blazing iron fans and sent them to attack the creature's claws. But it was too late, the demonic beast was able to rip away a part of the flames and its face became visible. Just before it could do anything else, the iron fans exploded in harmony with the fire of Elder Ying. Moreover, the tongues of fires opened again, like the petals of a flower, blowing him away onto the ground below.
For an instant, the black fog around the creature had disappeared and everyone saw what it was, a Star Mole Dragon. Even Huang Cixi knew of this creature, a 9-core demonic beast who mostly lived underground. It only left its galleries to quickly devour its preys before going back. With a slender but extremely large body, this beast was totally blind and had a strange organ around its nose, like tentacles able to feel vibrations. There was no fur at all on this beast, but its flesh was blackened by dirt and just like Elder Ying, its Qi was flowing all around it to protect it further.
Such a beast had the ability to completely wipe out a small city. Only a group of Spirit Warriors could put up a fight against that. Luckily, it was especially strong underground, not exposed like it was right now. And its main tactic was to surprise its prey before swallowing them all of a sudden from below. However, this was the only good news right now.