Suddenly, all the blood around Cao Yun began to flow toward the same place. Instead of reanimating the corpses, it began to solidify into a huge creature. The blood even began to turn into various tissues. And before long, the shape of a gigantic fox with several tails made of blood started to take form.
Cao Yun decided not to wait and to attack right away. Using the modified version of 'Dance of Slaughter', Cao Yun disappeared and reappeared just beside the forming creature. It was towering several meters above him and yet it was not done growing.
During his previous fight, Cao Yun had slowly began to incorporate elements of various martial arts into his 'Dance of Slaughter'. Each time he did, he could feel the Drop of Wrath reacting to his movements. Thanks to it, he created an art that was optimal to use with it. Unlike before, it wasn't just several moves of different arts put together in a new way. No, Cao Yun had truly created a martial art. He had used all the knowledge he had absorbed and had modeled it around both the 'Dance of Slaughter' and the Drop of Wrath.
As such, he had no idea how powerful this art was or to which degree he could push it. However, he could clearly feel that he was close to forming Palm Aura. After mastering Spear Aura to a good extent, displaying other auras was not rare. Usually it still took some time, but Cao Yun had been training with Chief Elder Baishen who only used her palms against him and he had now been fighting almost a month with his bare hands. In total, he had probably fought longer with his palms and fists than with his spear or his sword.
This new martial art had no name yet. Quite frankly, this wasn't a concern of Cao Yun right now.
His palm pressed against the flank of the beast. It felt like jelly. The sensation was not really pleasant as it was truly coagulated blood. And the smell was also atrocious. Of course, after almost a month in this blood world, Cao Yun was completely desensitized to that stench.
A powerful vibration spread into the creature and its entire flank exploded toward Cao Yun. Once again he was covered in blood. But this time was different. As it was on him, the blood was still wriggling. It was alive. Several drops began to agglutinate and formed thick filaments. Without hesitation, Cao Yun began to tear them apart. Some were trying to burrow into his skin. All over his body, his Wei Qi intensified. Most of the blood was blown away. Some filaments had been able to pierce his skin here and there, but they were completely crushed by his Wei Qi. They wriggled as though they were in pain and imploded.
All the blood on the ground went back into the fox figure. Now, it had hundreds of tails made of thousands of filaments of blood. The face of the fox was completely deformed, way too elongated with a huge grin and going all the way to its ears. However, it had no eye at all. Its very body was in constant flux as it was made of living blood.
The monstrous beast jumped around. It was a bit faster than Cao Yun at the peak of his speed. Of course, if he had his spear and could use his 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars', he could exceed that by a margin. But right now, he was not proficient enough to do so without his spear. Anyway, despite its speed, Cao Yun was able to follow it without any problem. Not only had he developed his perception through the 'Ashen Feather Seal', but also thanks to the Chamber of Heavenly Court which allowed him to think faster.
The Palace Spirit was not trying to kill him. And he had told him that this creature was meant to test his control over blood. But right now, he did not see how it would do such a thing. That was when even he got surprised. He was expecting the attack to come from the blood fox, but it came from below.
As it had been moving all over the place, the fox had sent his tails into the ground. He had so many of them, and they were moving so fast, that even Cao Yun had not been able to follow them all. And now, several filaments of blood were getting inside his body. They were so thin that they entered his skin without piercing it. And no amount of Wei Qi was able to protect him. Those filaments were just too thin to be crushed. He had to either cut them off or rip them away.
The filaments were now in his bloodstream. In a record time, they completely invaded his veins and arteries. Then they even went through all his capillaries. And the blood in his vein reacted violently to those intruders. Within Cao Yun's body, a battle was raging between the two clashing bloods. At least, he knew what the Palace Spirit was talking about.
The fox got closer to Cao Yun who was now completely entangled in its tails. They looked like real tails but completely soaked in blood. Strangely, they looked warm and fuzzy as though they were extremely comfortable. Anyone would have loved to sleep in them, but they would have never woken up from such a nap. Right now, the victim got raised through the air and approached the fox's terrible grin. From the blood, hundreds of fangs appeared, ready to devour the prey.
As he was completely paralyzed, Cao Yun only saw one option. He began to circulate his blood cultivation since it was the purpose of this test. In an instant, all of his blood got condensed into his heart. The moment his veins got empty, it caused some kind of suction that attracted the filaments into Cao Yun's heart. Under the pressure of his own blood, it created some kind of ball of threads into his heart. Inside the organ, the Drop of Wrath was radiating its anger and rage, transmitting it into Cao Yun's blood.
When it touched the intruding filaments, the reaction was brutal. They immediately writhed as though in pain. On the other hand, the Drop of Wrath was not happy at all. Cao Yun was deeply connected to it and could feel its anger rising and rising. It did not take well the prospect of someone trying to still its blood. For the Drop of Wrath, all of Cao Yun's blood seemed to be its now. And it was ready to go to great lengths to protect its blood. The Po character in it shined an ominous color and rage spread into all of Cao Yun's body. He could feel that he had the power to stop it at any moment but he didn't. Right now, he needed this rage. He had used it for several weeks now against the other feral beasts. There was no reason for him to stop now. Although this rage was in him, it wasn't from him and it wasn't him. Cao Yun was still perfectly calm and in control within. Or at least, that was how he was feeling.
From the outside, the situation seemed completely different. Cao Yun was being constricted by the fox's tails when he suddenly began to scream as loudly as possible. His skin almost turned crimson red. Watching the transformation, Dian Mo was a bit reassured. This boy truly was a demon. To be honest his plan would have also worked with a human, but he would rather have a demon. In his view, humans were just too weak compared to demons. But of course he was biased by the origin of his birth. Demon God Da Mo had created him. He had even modeled his name to mimic his.
Moreover, this young man was not only a demon, he had a quality of blood that Dian Mo had rarely seen. It was impossible that someone who was so young could have such potent and pure blood. The only explanation was that Dian Mo had been right. This boy had some kind of treasure on him and he wanted to find it. Imagining this kind of power in his own hands, Dian Mo was ecstatic. In his mind, Cao Yun's treasure was as good as his already.
But this wasn't just Cao Yun's blood that changed. Even his Wei Qi got transformed as well. It began to heat up and solidify here and there. Over Cao Yun's naked skin, another red skin began to form. This was a form of Qi Manifestation through his bloodline. The heat got so intense that even the fox could not stand it. It was forced to retract its tails and hissed toward Cao Yun. Even without eyes, Cao Yun could see the hate on its strange face.
Behind Cao Yun, the ethereal figure of Axiu Qian started to manifest itself. Cao Yun's new martial art had reached the level of Qi Manifestation. Although it was difficult to rank a new martial art, Cao Yun would have probably said it was a 2-star Human art for now. But it was nowhere near finished. That being said, a name finally came to him. In his mind, he saw some images of Axiu Qian in his giant red demon shape. And with it, came several names. Among those, Cao Yun chose the name of this new art, 'Axiu Qian's Blood Wrath'.
Now that he was free, Cao Yun fell back to the ground. But even in his fall, he decided to attack. Despite a lack of good grounding, he sent a direct palm toward the fox's face. No Palm Aura appeared but Qi Manifestation did. This Qi Manifestation was caused by both the Qi in his meridians and in his blood. The figure of Axiu Qian also sent its palm forward and both the real one and that one merged at the impact. Only one of those palms stopped though.
Cao Yun's face hurt the beast but did not push it away. On the other hand, the second palm that followed literally split it in two. Moreover, there was clearly heat and flames at the moment of impact. Until now, although he was an alchemist, Cao Yun had never practiced an art that was rich in Fire element. That was a nice surprise to say the least. If he could burn off all this blood, that creature would be done.
The figure of Axiu Qian was exactly the same as the one in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. For now, it only had one face and two arms. But Cao Yun knew that with time, it would revert back to the complete form he had seen in his visions, in Axiu Qian's old memories. And he was counting on completing the Drop of Wrath while making it in his image. As Axiu qian was outside, his Drop of Wrath had also morphed into him. In his body, Cao Yun's blood was now circulating in a specific pattern defined by his new martial art. It was happening instinctively, just like his Qi.
The fox tried to run away but Axiu Qian's palm was still within its fuming body. On the ground there were scorched marks. Axiu Qian's palm began to squeeze the fox by its split head. His other palm went toward the hind legs. In an instant, the fox was now held by the giant red demon. While screaming to the point where the very ground shook, Axiu Qian lifted the fox into the air until it was directly above his head.
If blood could reform that creature, he just had to destroy the blood. Axiu Qian looked toward the fox and the sky behind it. Then, with incredible strength, he tore it apart into two halves. All the blood started to gush out. And all of it fell into Axiu Qian's gaping mouth. Even Cao Yun did not know what the fox had seen when it had looked into the abyss. But he could imagine. Indeed, even as it was flooding Axiu Qian's mouth, each half of the fox was trying to flee. Its tails were spiraling across Axiu Qian's body, trying to reach Cao Yun to choke him to death. But they were literally burning just by touching the Qi Manifestation of the Drop of Wrath.
Because the Drop of Wrath had absorbed Evil Qi, it retained some of its properties. In this occasion, it was corrosive enough to burn away the aggressor. The fox was just powerless in front of so much hatred, wrath and rage melded in one entity. Such a creature had probably the strength of a late Mortal Warrior but in this situation, it was unable to do anything. A real Mortal Warrior could have used his own Qi to protect himself, but that beast was completely feral and only thought about attacking and destroying.
In the end, it was the beast that got destroyed, completely annihilated and devoured by the image of Axiu Qian. On the ground, Cao Yun's eyes were full of blood and his skin had turned crimson red as well. Anyone else watching him would have mistaken him for a full-fledged demon. But despite appearances, he was still fully aware. And he knew that he had to hide this power. No matter what he could explain, everyone would believe he was either a real demon infiltrating the Hongchen Kingdom or a demonic cultivator, that was certain. Maybe his close friends and Xiao Xuefeng would believe him of course. But it was better to never use this kind of power unless there was really no other choice.
Finally the fox stopped moving as Axiu Qian was still gulping down its running blood.
"Perfect! You've truly shown your competence. I admit that I was wrong about you. Although the demon kind has clearly fallen from grace, you can absolutely compete with even the geniuses of old. Even Demon God Da Mo would have been impressed by such a performance."
"Venerable, this is too much praise coming from you. This unworthy one is undeserving."
"But I am left wondering... Who is your master?"
"Venerable, sadly, I was forced to learn mostly alone. Recently, I've been lucky to find ruins that I believe are related to Demon God Da Mo. In there, I've found many manuals. One of them was named 'Blood Runes'. And among them, I discovered many secrets we had forgotten. For example, I found many things about this place as well as the treasure that is held in your Demon Palace."
Cao Yun knew that this was more or less what had happened with the demonic cultivators and it saved him from trying to make up a complete story. What he said was mostly right but it had happened to someone else. Now that Dian Mo had seen him with the skin of a demon, although it had been a Qi Manifestation, it was easier to make him believe his lies. Hopefully, he would get to see this so-called treasure soon enough.
"Yes... I remember that old manual. But 'Blood Runes' is just the technique that those who can't read between the lines learn. The real technique lies hidden beneath it all. What a pity that you don't have a powerful master to guide and protect you."
Although the spirit could not really smile as he had no body, his voice was full of smiles.