All of a sudden, a downpour of black rain fell from the sky. One instant the world was dead and absolutely silent, the next instant, Cao Yun was in the middle of a storm. Thankfully, there was no wind so the black rain fell perfectly vertically. Thus, Cao Yun was protected from it by the white rib towering over him. Clearly, it had been a good decision to hide while in an unknown world. Indeed, this black rain was similar to the black water.
Right now, Cao Yun could feel the air start to fill with Evil Qi. In less than a second, it was as saturated in Evil Qi as the Hongchen Kingdom was saturated in Qi. And it kept on increasing until it was even three times denser in Evil Qi. The very first thought of Cao Yun was not about the Drop of Wrath that would soon act up and try and absorb this Evil Qi around Cao Yun. No, his first thought was for the egg. It had been deprived of Qi since it had come into this world. Naturally, it was going to absorb the Evil Qi in the air. Obviously, it would be a terrible thing for the chick inside the egg.
Cao Yun felt responsible for Huang'er and Feng'er's death. After all, Can Mouye had been after him and they got caught in his own problems. Most likely, Can Mouye had been somewhat related to what had happened with the Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras in the Lunar Marsh. That meant that this assassination attempt was due to his activity in the Wubei Sect. This was a good thing because it suggested that they knew nothing of his relation with the Cao family. But on the other hand, it meant that he had put the lives of his friends and of this couple in danger by his mere presence.
The only way Cao Yun could think of to protect the egg was to keep it very close to his heart. Indeed, the Drop of Wrath was going to absorb the Evil Qi in the air. And the Drop of Wrath was in his heart. The closer the egg was to this organ, the fewer Evil Qi he would receive as most of it would be diverted by the Drop of Wrath.
But on the other hand, it meant that Cao Yun could not really try to prevent his Drop of Wrath from absorbing too much Evil Qi. Otherwise, the rest would go into the egg.
Anyway, Cao Yun tucked the egg in his clothes, nestled against his chest once more. He had the sad impression of replacing its mother. But he had no choice if he wanted to protect it from suffering any damage.
Then, Cao Yun quickly focused on his mind cultivation. The Drop of Wrath had come out of its lethargy once more as soon as the Evil Qi was powerful directly around Cao Yun. And now, it was starting to absorb it like crazy. Around the Drop of Wrath, there was already a thin layer of Evil Qi. Thankfully, it wasn't as concentrated as Can Mouye's attacks. The Drop of Wrath was able to digest it almost as fast as it was pulling it in. But it still wasn't fast enough and the layer got thicker and thicker.
If Cao Yun did nothing, it would soon touch his heart directly. Moreover, he was suffering a small yet uninterrupted stabbing pain in the acupoints by which the Evil Qi was getting into his body. Fortunately, those were acupoints he had already fully opened, but he wasn't sure how long they could take this kind of punishment.
In his sea of consciousness, Cao Yun saw that the Drop of Wrath was extremely active. Below it, the ocean was turning gray and even black right under the Drop of Wrath. Immediately, Cao Yun regained his composure thanks to his emotional control. Then, he guided the Five Echoes Pearl down. All his intent was on the very center of his Upper Dantian. Just like the three other chambers, he saw a powerful light inundate his sea of consciousness. Unfortunately, it did not affect the Evil Qi at all.
Cao Yun saw no immediate change after energizing his Chamber of Medicine Field. But he could feel that his Upper Dantian was more vibrant than ever. He then focused on both the Chamber of Moving Pearls and this Chamber of Medicine Field to try and contain the Evil Qi. Evil Qi was the name given to a kind of Qi intertwined with both resentment and all kinds of negative emotions created, in most cases, by a violent death. And those emotions were able to influence the Qi so much that it would become extremely corrosive to any living being. In a way, it felt like some kind of hatred from the dead against the living.
His new chamber was supposed to be able to promote positive emotions and reduce any negative ones. The main use of this chamber was to drastically reduce the possibility of forming an inner demon. Of course, Cao Yun had no inner demon so it was difficult to evaluate this property. However, he was also thoroughly convinced that he could use it to restrain and gain some more control over the Drop of Wrath since it was literally made of some part of a corrupted Po. This was the closest thing to an inner demon that was in Cao Yun's mind.
Hopefully, it would also have some effect on Evil Qi. And combined with the Chamber of Moving Pearls which balanced his own emotions, Cao Yun focused on those chambers and tried to gain access into his Drop of Wrath. If he could control it, he would be able to diminish the flow of Evil Qi and keep it safe for him. After all, the air around him was very dense in Evil Qi, but not that dense either.
Cao Yun elevated his Shen and produced a powerful fire that spread to all the other four agents revolving around the Drop of Wrath. Then, he used his Zhi to amplify his Yi and focus his intent on Po. Hun was only used to stabilize his soul while he was using everything else. Po was the corporeal soul. The Drop of Wrath was literally a broken part of Axiu Qian's Po. So of course, Cao Yun's Po had the best chances to form a deeper connection with it.
Unlike Hun, Po was closer to the body as its role was to keep the body alive. But it also meant that it was more easily swayed by desires and emotions. For example, Po pushed humans to eat, but it could also push them to eat too much, and even become greedy. Those seven Po could thus more easily give birth to inner demons. But they were essential to keep the body alive. Unlike the Hun which leaved the body after death, the Po could stay in the bones for some time before returning to the earth. They were way closer to the physical world, both in good and bad aspects of it. So Cao Yun was also keeping his Hun activated to balance out the effects his attempt was going to have on his Po.
He wanted to impregnate the Drop of Wrath with his own Po, not the other way around. Thankfully, his Five Agents and his now four chambers of the Upper Dantian would help him, especially the last chamber he had just energized.
Indeed, Cao Yun felt immediately a kind of connection between his Po and the Drop of Wrath. He was now able to use his intent focused through the ivory statue that was the Po character to penetrate the Drop of Wrath. Immediately, he tried to draw the Po character itself inside the Drop of Wrath. His goal was clear. The drop was instinctively trying to reform his entire Po. What Cao Yun wanted to do was to use his corporeal soul as a model to insert his own imprint into the Drop of Wrath. Like that, he would be able to gain control over it. In fact, as the Po inside would slowly try to rebuild itself, Cao Yun would gain more and more control as it would duplicate his own Po instead.
And it did seem to work. The Po character that was very faint inside the Drop of Wrath became more and more clear. In a matter of seconds, Cao Yun was able to feel a deeper connection with the Drop of Wrath. Of course, it would take weeks, if not months, to really connect with it deep enough to have some more control over it. But right now, he tried to send a single thought into the Drop of Wrath.
"Stop!"
Right now, he only wanted for the Drop of Wrath to stop sucking in Evil Qi in such quantity. He didn't want it to stop altogether because he had to protect the egg. Besides, if the Drop of Wrath stopped, the Evil Qi in the air would probably run havoc in Cao Yun's body. For the time being, it was being directed toward the Drop of Wrath and was thus unable to harm Cao Yun's internal organs. But the drop was just sucking in too much of it. It was pulling in more Evil Qi than what would naturally enter Cao Yun's body. He just needed to find the right balance.
However, something happened that was unexpected. Just like in the black water, there seemed to be something else with the Evil Qi and Cao Yun did not know what it was. The ocean under the Drop of Wrath was now blackened and the water started to bubble up. From the black water, a huge white shape emerged. There was a bone hand with seven fingers almost identical to one another. And this bone hand was going for the Drop of Wrath.
Cao Yun pushed his mind cultivation to its limit. His surprise got silenced and from the Shen character the fire intensified. All around the Five Agents and the Drop of Wrath, there was now a ball of fire. When the bone hand tried to touch it, a sizzling noise resounded. The bones were not strong enough to go through the fire but the hand still tried to force through. At the same time, Cao Yun was now able to feel the Drop of Wrath being attracted by this hand.
Although he did not know what it was, Cao Yun was not stupid enough to do nothing and wait to see the result of their interaction. His chambers intensified and he focused more and more on his Po character. Slowly, he was able to reduce the suction force of the Drop of Wrath.
After a few minutes, it was absorbing as much Evil Qi as it was able to digest at a given time, no more, no less. However, there was still a thick layer of undigested Evil Qi inside his heart. Thankfully, it was still being attracted by the Drop of Wrath and it would probably not cause any problem. Still, it wasn't very comfortable for Cao Yun. He had something in his heart that could kill him as soon as he lost control over it. Overtime the Drop of Wrath would digest it as well, hopefully.
But now that the main problem was more or less solved, he focused on the bone hand. As the Drop of Wrath was absorbing the Evil Qi, it was also absorbing this thing too. Using his Chamber of Medicine Field, Cao Yun tried to analyze that hand. The bones looked exactly like the ones from the world he was in. Using his Shen, he tried to spread his flames over the bones themselves. But the bones were regenerating as fast as Cao Yun was burning them away. In fact, he felt like they were starting to regenerate faster as time went by. Maybe because he had prevented his Drop of Wrath from absorbing it, all this strange energy was being focused on the hand.
Then, he got an idea. He could try to feed tiny portions of it to the Drop of Wrath to see its reaction. It was risky but he had now some kind of connection with it, so he would be able to get a better idea of what was going on. The Drop of Wrath had completely turned Evil Qi into his own power. Maybe it could do the same with that thing, whatever it was.
As his mind was focused on the bone hand, Cao Yun started to see the effects of the Chamber of Medicine Field. The bones appeared more and more like a bobbin of silk. Indeed, it was condensed in the form of a hand, but it was formed of millions of strands of an unknown energy. After that, Cao Yun looked back at the Evil Qi and he saw the very same thing. He was able to see the literal strands of resentment attached to the pure Qi, coiled around it in an intricate manner.
But for now, he focused on this bone hand. With his Shen, he directed the fire to extract one small strand of this energy. Then, he simply let go and it naturally got absorbed by the Drop of Wrath. At that moment, he finally realized what it was. It was a degenerate form of Po. This energy melded with the Evil Qi was an amalgam of degenerate corporeal souls. Usually, Po would go back to the earth after death. In fact, Po was responsible for the processes attached to death. Thus, while Hun was the first one to exit the body to go into the world of the dead, awaiting a future reincarnation, Po was staying in the bones for some time.
But there occurred some occasions when Po could not exit the bones and would slowly decay until it became something known as Death Energy. In the Hongchen Kingdom it was very rare, but there were still cases in some books Cao Yun had read about. Hun could become ghosts if it was damaged or corrupted, but Cao Yun had no idea what this Death Energy could produce. However, its origin explained the attraction of the Drop of Wrath, they were very similar in a way. The Drop of Wrath was a corrupted Po while Death Energy was a decayed Po.
As the strand of Death Energy was absorbed by the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun felt a surge of energy in his entire bloodstream. It was very faint, but the Drop of Wrath had completely absorbed and digested the Death Energy. But then, it became hungry for more. Unlike the Evil Qi which did not seem to satiate its needs, this Death Energy could. So it wanted more of it.
Cao Yun was still afraid of letting the Drop of Wrath absorb too much at once. Indeed, it could potentially corrupt it even further. And now that he had a better control over it, Cao Yun used his Po to calm it down. Still, he used his Shen to slowly extract some strands of Death Energy. Strand by strand, Cao Yun fed the Drop of Wrath.
While focusing on the connection between the Drop of Wrath and his Po to keep it firm, Cao Yun felt it become deeper and deeper as the drop was getting stronger and stronger. Even his blood was now becoming stronger. It was getting richer in Qi. In fact, his blood was now similar to the blood of a demonic beast. It had more than twice the amount of Qi of a human being. Just like Evil Qi had condensed into black water in this world, the Drop of Wrath had turned Cao Yun's blood into a form of condensed Qi as well. But there was still more actual blood than Qi in his veins, for now.