Cao Yun's sea of consciousness had changed quite a lot during his stay in the Yellow Death World. But even very recently, more changes had happened still.
In the sky, there were six stars forming most of the Azure Dragon constellation. The Horn Star, the Neck Star, the Root Star, the Room Star, the Heart Star and finally the Tail Star were shining brightly in the clear sky. Blue, orange, white and red were moving through the firmament. As of now, only the Winnowing Basket Star was missing, the seventh and final star of the Azure Dragon Constellation. This one was very different from the others in the fact that according to what Cao Yun had read, it should refer to attacks with the bottom half of the spear. In the 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' manual, the moves associated with this star were very similar to moves with a weighted staff.
All the stars were perfectly formed and looked absolutely identical to real ones.
Beneath them, there were the Five Agents. Each one had the appearance of a statue made in a different matter. The Shen character was above the other four as it was spreading a veil of faint flames around its brethren. Among them, the Po character was the strangest one. At first, it used to look like an ivory statue of the character. But now, it almost looked like a bone that had been carved. There was also a light cloud of white dust around it. All these tiny particles were in fact Death Energy.
In the middle of the Five Agents, there were two things. The first one was the forming Five Echoes Pearl. Now and then, some faint filaments of energy shot out from the characters and mixed together within the pearl. And it was a pearl. Right now, it was still tiny but it would grow until Cao Yun could finally energize the next chamber of his Upper Dantian, hopefully the Chamber of Heavenly Court this time around.
Beneath that pearl was the Drop of Wrath. Even that drop of blood had changed. Its shape and color were identical. But inside there was something new now. Indeed, there was a Po character perfectly identical to the one outside of it. The only difference resided in the absence of the cloud of Death Energy around it, not the character itself. The Drop of Wrath had devoured all the Death Energy sent in it.
Finally, at the very surface of the ocean below, there was a golden character floating. It was trying to float away from the water. But each time it really tried to get up there, it fell back down again almost immediately. Cao Yun could still not see too deep beneath the ocean, but there were many more such characters in the depth of his ocean. However, he now was conscious of that. Even though he couldn't know how many there were, he knew what they were. Those were Insight Writings born from his own understanding of his martial art and of the spear. In fact, there could also be other Insight Writings from other understandings of his.
In this sea of consciousness, an intruder appeared. This was an intruder Cao Yun had been expecting, and even hoping for. From the horizon, a black wave was disturbing the tranquil ocean. Obviously, this black wave had been caused by the Evil Qi sent by Old Demon. Not only did he want to get the full control of the Drop of Wrath, but he also wanted to torture Cao Yun's very soul.
What he was not expecting though was that Cao Yun was ready to receive him. Even with the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun should not have been able to enter his sea of consciousness. So he should have been confused and unprepared. However, it was the absolute opposite.
Still, Cao Yun waited for the Evil Qi to get as close as possible. He wanted to strike a powerful blow to Old Demon. And the best way to do so was to let him invest as much energy in this endeavor as possible. The moment he would realize this was a trap would be too late to pull back. Unfortunately, Old Demon did not send his own soul within Cao Yun. But he had sent a part of his intent to seize control of the Drop of Wrath.
In theory, this was a good plan. Indeed, the Drop of Wrath had still some intent from Cleansed Asura in it and he was able to resonate with it. Maybe he was indeed the real Cleansed Asura and Cao Yun's master had been fake. But that really didn't matter in the least. What Cao Yun knew was that his master was a noble cultivator and that this Old Demon was obscene. Because of the image of his master being attached to the name Cleansed Asura, Cao Yun was refusing to use it for his current enemy. Even if he learned that he was indeed the real one, he would never call him that. Besides, it infuriated him, so Cao Yun quite liked it.
A whirlwind of black energy began to surround the Drop of Wrath. Suddenly it got inside of it. That was when Cao Yun closed the trap. High in the sky, the Heart Star expanded all of a sudden. In an instant, it became as vast as the entire sky and everything turned bright red, even the ocean below. From the outside world, no more Evil Qi could penetrate Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. And Old Demon felt an ominous sensation in the back of his mind.
The Shen character started to rotate on itself, producing a wall of fire around both the Five Agents and the Drop of Wrath. By its sheer rotation, the tornado of flames sucked in more and more of the Evil Qi inside the young man's sea of consciousness.
Within the Drop of Wrath, something also happened. Using the influence of Old Demon on it, Cao Yun had been able to detect exactly where the intent of Cleansed Asura still resided inside. Using his Po character, he took control of the intent of the Drop of Wrath. Then, he guided tongues of fire inside. In a matter of several seconds, he purged all this former influence. And the Evil Qi of Old Demon was now trapped within the Drop of Wrath without any anchor in it to try and influence its actions. As such, the Drop of Wrath naturally started to digest this intruder. Cao Yun had worked hard on his connection with this blood. He would not let anyone take it from him now.
Outside of the inferno, the black energy coalesced into a face. This was Cleansed Asura's face but with a different character on his forehead.
"You think you can contend with me, boy? I have crossed the veil of thousands of universes! I traveled through the void! I even transcended godhood! And you think you pathetic efforts will do anything except crumble before my might?!"
"If you are so mighty, why do you feel the need to boast about it? Show me that you are just that powerful. Come and take it!"
"You...!"
On the forehead of that figure, the character began to shine with golden lights. Gradually, the inferno surrounded Cao Yun's Five Agents slowed down more and more, until it simply stopped. Then, vortexes of black energy attacked it on all eight directions.
It was only a matter of seconds before the wall of fire would fall. But Cao Yun had not even used his most powerful means yet. For now, he was still busy controlling the Po character within the Drop of Wrath. He had methodically chased down and purged all traces of any former influence in the Drop of Wrath. And then, he had stimulated it to consume the Evil Qi sent by Old Demon inside. As most of his mind cultivation was focused on this process and not what was happening around the Five Agents, it had allowed Old Demon's partial intent to deal a great blow to the protection of Shen the Fire Spirit.
But now, it was finally done! There was no more trace of anything foreign within the Drop of Wrath. Unfortunately, that didn't mean that Cao Yun had the full control or authority over it. But it was now obeying him with far more ease. And the first thing he did was to test it out full-scale.
Once more, a red giant began to emerge from the Drop of Wrath. It towered over the vast ocean and was almost tall enough to touch the Heart Star with the summit of his head. As it grew, the wall of fire surrounding the Five Agents disappeared in its body. In all eight directions, the Evil Qi sent by Old Demon was pushed back no matter how much strength he was putting in that attack. And before long, the figure was fully manifested. It had still only one face and one pair of arms. But its body was now a bit different.
Obviously, he was completely crimson red, the color of Cao Yun's blood now. All over his body, there were golden lines forming complex engravings as though he was literally a statue. But now, there were also a few jewelries on him as well as a golden clothe around his hips.
When he opened his eyes, this demon let out an aura so powerful that even Old Demon's face flickered. His eyes shined on the face of his enemy. And in the middle of his eyebrows there was now a character as well. This character was very familiar to Cao Yun, for this was the Po character he had engraved in the Drop of Wrath.
Old Demon's intent focused all of his energy on a single point. From all the black energy, an arrow condensed above the reddened ocean. As the golden character on his forehead shined, the arrow was hurtled toward the red giant. Immediately, he caught the arrow with his right hand. While yelling, the demon crushed the golden arrow that dispersed into a cloud of black dust. Then, that black cloud simply fused with his red skin. In no time, all of the black energy had been completely absorbed by the manifestation of the Drop of Wrath. Then, it was Old Demon's intent's turn.
Using both of his arms, the demon grabbed the face that had appeared in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. With all of his might, the red demon tore it apart. He even brought it to his mouth and sank his teeth in it. Amidst the screams of agony and anger of Old Demon, the red giant devoured the entire face.
-
In the real world, Cao Yun woke up. Everything had happened so fast that Old Demon was still confused. All of a sudden, his connection with a huge part of his intent had been cut off and he found himself unable to send more Evil Qi in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. In his pride, he did not even think that Cao Yun could cause such a problem. Thus, his first idea was that the Drop of Wrath had escaped the young man's control as he was trying to seize it. He wasn't entirely wrong on the fact that the Drop of Wrath was partially responsible. But his analysis was truly lacking.
By sending a part of his intent into Cao Yun's sea of consciousness, Old Demon had weakened himself. Thanks to that, Cao Yun was able to activate 'Dragon's Heart' and broke the restriction of the black chains on his body.
"You! What did you do?! What trap was that?! What did that old bastard give you?!"
"This wasn't my master's doing right now. You're just not as powerful and mighty as you thought you were."
"Die!"
As one, thousands of chains went straight for Cao Yun's chest, ready to gouge out his heart.
'Dragon's Chest'.
Circulating his blood and the intent from the Drop of Wrath in his chest, a new result happened with his technique. All around his chest, dragon scales appeared on the surface of his clothes. All the chains struck him but none were able to pierce his flesh. However, Cao Yun was violently thrown against a wall.
"What?! Qi Manifestation...?!"
Old Demon stepped backward. A Mortal should not be able to do so. No matter how powerful he was, Cao Yun should not be able to manifest his Qi. This was just impossible. But then, Old Demon noticed the reason behind the phenomenon. This wasn't real Qi Manifestation. Just like Huang Cixi, this wasn't his Qi that had manifested these scales, this was his own blood. By a process similar to demonic beasts, his blood rich in both Qi and the intent of the Drop of Wrath had called forth this manifestation.
Then, that meant that this boy had almost a full control on the Drop of Wrath... This was not acceptable! Even Old Demon wasn't sure whether he could control the Drop of Wrath. Yet, in front of him a boy who had not even reached twenty had done so! No matter what it took, he would kill him and take out his very heart!
"I'll open your chest, drink your blood and devour your heart!"
"New idle threats..."
Without flinching, the young man grabbed his spear. To be honest, he did not know whether he could fight indefinitely against this opponent. With his cultivation, he was very sensitive to every cell in his body and he could hear all of his bones and muscles screaming in agony. Just now, his spine had almost be ruptured by the shock. But it wasn't as though he had any choice. Right now, he was completely trapped in this fallen palace. If he tried to flee, the black chains would attack him from everywhere all at once.
After his bloody fight against Can Mouye, his body was at the point of rupture and so was his spear. Thanks to the attempt by Old Demon to invade his sea of consciousness, Cao Yun had restored some of his mental strength and some of his Qi as well. But despite the show he was putting on, he was incredibly weak. The mere fact that Old Demon was unable to see through his bluff proved to him that he too was weaker than he was letting on.
From his own words, he had captured this Gui Bei to put his soul in it so that he could survive. If Cao Yun had to guess, he had rushed the process because the entire place was about to go down on him as well. Apparently, he was right. And that explained why he was still alive right now. If Old Demon had been at full strength, Cao Yun would probably already be dead. The fact that he was so adamant to get the Drop of Wrath was another proof that he was probably extremely weak. In fact, he might even be weaker than a Mortal Warrior.
The problem was that within this dying world, Old Demon could control those chains. Even if he was weak, those chains contained a lot of Evil Qi. Cao Yun had resisted them just now, but he probably wouldn't be able to last very long either. As soon as Old Demon would call out his bluff, he would be dead.
While Gui Bei's face was distorted by rage, another tremor shook everything. But this one was different from the previous ones. It had come from deep below.