Cao Yun made sure that the egg was secured and began to run toward the temples whose roofs he had seen in the distance. Of course, he stayed as vigilant and careful as possible. He even went to the extent of using his stealth technique, 'Locking the Seven and Stopping the Waves'. As a 4-star Earth technique, it wasn't incredibly good. Against someone higher than 1st-grade Mortal Warrior, it probably wouldn't work because he could literally sense the Qi within the person.
But Cao Yun was able to push it to the extreme of its possibilities. Hopefully, those bone crows had neither a good perception of Qi nor spiritual senses. Otherwise, there was nothing to do against that. As such, Cao Yun completely erased his presence. Not an ounce of Qi left his body and his feet made no sound on the ground. The only disturbance he was causing was his slow absorption of Evil Qi. Indeed, he had to protect himself and the egg by continually sending Evil Qi into the Drop of Wrath. Of course, he was only absorbing the minimum amount necessary. But it was a necessity. If he did not, the egg would suffer a lot as it was still vulnerable for obvious reasons. But even Cao Yun would suffer as his organs would be corroded by the Evil Qi without the influence of the Drop of Wrath.
His newfound ability to purify Evil Qi was still way too weak and slow to be really effective on its own. Moreover, he wasn't sure how the Drop of Wrath would react if he tried to completely deprive it of Evil Qi it could sense.
While running toward the temples he had seen in the distance, Cao Yun tried to hide under the white ribs raised toward the sky. Almost as fast as he was running away, the bone crows were coming toward this massive graveyard.
The moment they finally reached the first huge bones, the crows landed on them and began to peck at the bone. Since it was very resistant, they were only able to shave white dust from it, but they still kept at it. More and more bone crows flew over the graveyard and landed on those huge bones. Some were now completely covered with crows, forming very disturbing patches of rotten grass and moss all over those perfectly white bones. And the crows kept on pecking and pecking.
The few times Cao Yun looked back, he had the impression that some of the crows were getting bigger as they were pecking at the bones. With his heightened senses, he was even sure of it. Apparently those crows were literally feeding off those bones. Some of the crows were even reaching the size of a human child. The biggest of the crows was maybe two thirds of Cao Yun's size. He had no idea of their actual strength. But there were so many of them, even if they were individually weak compared to him, a full-scale attack on him would be a disaster. Maybe he could survive, but he would be exhausted. And he still had to survive in this world after that.
Thankfully, the bone crows seemed to be way more worried about pecking at those huge bones than to find any other target. As such, Cao Yun was able to run away without any problem.
As he was reaching the center of the graveyard, he felt the ground shake. Everywhere around him, the black sand was agitated. Immediately, Cao Yun hid himself in the shadow of some bone and focused his senses all around. It wasn't literally all the black sand. In fact, the black sand around the giant ribs was not moving at all. But there were things burrowing underground all over the place. Maybe there were some crows here, or something else entirely.
But this time, Cao Yun was right in the middle of it. He had several options. Maybe he could throw caution to the wind and rush forward, hoping to reach the temples. But then, he had no idea what was waiting for him there. He hoped to find clues, but he could find even more enemies. The best thing would be to stay as discrete as possible. Another option was to try and hide until everything calmed down. But he had no idea what was going on and whether it would calm down in hours, in days, in years. Besides, if those things were after bones, they could still go after him.
There was one thing for sure, Cao Yun had to make a decision. He got a little bit annoyed, because he had wanted to energize the Chamber of Heavenly Court for some time. Apparently, it could both enhance reaction speed but also decision making. Cao Yun found that the was too indecisive. And to survive here, he had to take a decision.
Finally, he chose to try and run from this place while maintaining as much stealth as possible. But his priority was neither stealth nor even the temples now, he just wanted to get away. Just as the crows had been limited to the black plains with rotten grass, the shaking black sand was limited to this graveyard. Hopefully, if he was able to leave this area, he would be safer. After all the crows were attracted by the giant bones here. It was not absurd to think that many other dangerous creatures would be as well.
Before he could begin his newest retreat, Cao Yun felt the wind in his back.
'Dragon's Fang'!
Instinctively using a lesser move of his 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars', Cao Yun turned around and stabbed something in the air. The short collision let out some noise and a heavy little thing fell to the ground. It was a small bone. Looking more closely, it looked like a phalanx of some kind. But it also looked like a tiny throwing knife. That thing had been aimed directly at his heart, through his back.
In the wet sand, there was a tiny hole at the spot where the phalanx had come from. This hole was a bit removed from the area delimited by the giant ribs. And just like everywhere else, it was now shaking a lot. Gradually, the black sand rose. To be more precise, a figure rose with the black sand on it. But because it was still so wet, it stayed stuck to the figure. However, as it started to move around, most of the black sand fell down.
Cao Yun had stood his ground, ready to fight for his life. Running from an unknown enemy was not necessarily a good idea. The previous attack was neither very fast nor very powerful. Hopefully, the enemy was just as strong as that, which would put him at the level of a 4th-grade or maybe 5th-grade Mortal. If that were the case, Cao Yun could destroy him with a single strike. Thus, it was the perfect opportunity to learn more about the enemy before he got swarmed by more.
Just as he had guessed, his new enemy was another skeleton. But this time, it was as big as Cao Yun, maybe even one head or so taller. And its bones made absolutely no sense to Cao Yun. First of all, the bones themselves clearly belonged to different species. That skeleton seemed to be a poor assemblage of disharmonious bones. Besides, none of them seemed familiar to Cao Yun. With everything he had read he had a very good grasp of the ecology of the Hongchen Kingdom. Although he did not know every species, those characteristics did not match anything he had read.
That wasn't very surprising considering the place he was in. But the fact that this skeleton was so disharmonious suggested that it had been formed postmortem. Either someone had built that thing, or it had built itself...
The skeleton Cao Yun was facing had some kind of humerus replacing a vertebra. It had four shoulders but only one full arm. However, it had three legs, among which two were partially made of tail bones. Its ribs were fractured and it had some spikes here and there. With the black sand still sticking to it here and there, that skeleton seemed both scary and pathetic at the same time.
'Dragon's Twin Horns'.
Cao Yun controlled his force and sent an attack just powerful enough to kill a 4th-grade Mortal. The cone of wind stabbed through the deformed skull of the bone creature, but it did not fall down. Instead, it kept on approaching Cao Yun. The attack was powerful enough to shatter the bones but apparently the head was not vital. After all, such a thing had no organ to begin with...
Still, Cao Yun decided to test out another theory. 'Dragon's Twin Horns'. His attack was just as powerful but he had sent a few surges of Qi with it. Despite his lack of control over it, the Qi naturally followed the cone of wind as though it was sucked in. This time, his attack shattered the spine and the creature shook a little before falling to the ground, inert. He still couldn't be sure but Cao Yun was convinced that his Qi had made the difference. It wasn't so far-fetched, Qi was the life energy flowing through every living things. Moreover, there was no Qi here, just Evil Qi.
Most likely, those things were moving through Evil Qi, just like humans were living through Qi. By sending his own Qi inside that creature, he had probably disturbed the circulation of Evil Qi and the damage was high enough that the creature ceased to... live. If that was the appropriate word for a skeleton.
That discovery was interesting. But what interested Cao Yun more was that his enemy had been rather weak, thankfully. Thus, he got a bit more assured and kept on running away. Being swarmed by weak opponents would not be a good thing, but his prospects of survival were higher than before.
Just as he had guessed, from everywhere in the graveyard, similar skeletons rose from the ground. Some were a bit taller, some a bit smaller. And none had the same bone structure. Many had very mismatched bones, just like the skeleton Cao Yun had destroyed. Even though he wasn't actively trying to, Cao Yun still noticed that those skeletons looked like more or less advanced stages of construction. Many only had one or two arms, not even fully formed for some. But a handful of skeletons had up to six arms and even more limbs with only a few bones in them. More and more, Cao Yun was seeing some kind of pattern.
And his suspicions turned out to be true. Some of those humanoid skeletons began to fight one another. Each time one skeleton lost, it gave up one bone to the victor. But every duel was not as peaceful. Among the more deformed skeleton, the fights were way more ferocious. Just like the crows, a band of skeletons attacked one who had lost a duel and bludgeoned it to dust. Most of its articulations got destroyed and they stole many of its bones until it simply stopped moving. Then, they inserted them where they would fit, creating very bizarre scenes.
Slowly, the crows and the humanoids also started to fight each other. The crows were trying to steal some bones as well but they could not attach them directly to their own skeleton. Instead, each time they could take one bone, they just flew away in the distance. Most likely they would consume it in some way, but where they were safe.
Another thing that Cao Yun noticed was that the density of Evil Qi was very slowly decreasing. Indeed, as he was always absorbing a small amount of it, just to protect both the egg and his own organs, he was keenly aware of that fact. The only explanations he could come up with were either that the skeletons were absorbing it like humans or beasts absorbed Qi, or that the black sand itself was. It wasn't unheard of for soil to absorb Qi, just like it could absorb water. Moreover, there could be other lifeforms, or maybe other dead creatures, underneath.
For once, this was a good news for Cao Yun. It meant that the pressure on him would slowly decrease as well. Even with the Drop of Wrath, constantly absorbing something that could kill him if he lost control was not particularly enjoyable. However, this was probably the only good news right now. As it turned out, Cao Yun was now completely surrounded by thousands of skeletons. And from what he could see, their strength varied from 3rd-grade Mortal to 9th-grade Mortal. Apparently, their duels were their way of cultivating. And with each bone won, they could become stronger. Hence, that meant that it was possible for some of them to reach a stage similar to Mortal Warrior for humans. And of course, Cao Yun had no idea what this would mean for those things.
Because he wasn't looking forward to finding it out, he decided to run toward the temples. Contrary to the crows, the humanoids were now actively trying to attack him, just like the previous one. Most of them did not waste even their phalanxes, but they still attacked. Thankfully, Cao Yun was way faster than them but he had to push his leg muscles once more. In the woods, he had been so harsh on them that they had not fully recovered. Yet he was tormenting them again.
From time to time, Cao Yun found himself hindered by a few skeletons. Since he didn't want to slow down so that he would never be surrounded, Cao Yun used lesser moves related to the Tail Star he was trying to form. For now, he only had a very slight understanding of the star, but he knew it was related to sweeping motion firstly. Thus, he used sweeping attacks to control the crowd. 'Scales Under the Waterfall'.
Cao Yun became more and more desperate in his running away. Once he was close to the temples, he would have way more ease to hide. Deep down, Cao Yun was beginning to fear what was to come. The first creatures to wake up were the murder of crows with rotten grass. After witnessing their fights with the humanoids, they were all inferior to even 3rd-grade Mortals. Then, came the humanoids between 3rd-grade and 9th-grade Mortal. Besides, those humanoids had been buried in this place.
In this place, there were other things buried, the giant ribs. The image of those giant ribs rising from the ground with a strength superior to a 1st-grade Mortal Warrior was now fully etched in Cao Yun's mind. And he did not want to stay here to find out whether he was right or wrong. Right now, he would rather go toward the temples and hide behind those structures, just to be safe. If those things were constantly fighting, they would end up using all their strength and maybe go back underground.