Almost all of the Five Bloods Pheasant's cores were destroyed by the explosion. It was so devastating that even the air was vaporized in an instant. When the explosion was done, there was a powerful suction. Air from all around got sucked into the vacuum. This caused some small trees to be uprooted. But more than that, a sudden influx of oxygen caused fires to break out everywhere around the area. The Yunling Forest had lost a rather large area. Even the Silan lake where Zeng Bei's team had been received some damage.
It would take a few years for nature to restore itself completely. Some trees had been there for hundreds of years. In a matter of minutes, they had burned away into ashes and dust.
Apart from an early Spirit Warrior, no cultivator could have survived such an attack. However, Cao Yun had a trump card. Sect Leader Xuan had given him a Spirit Condensation Barrier. In order to produce such an artifact, one had to literally take a part of his soul. Thus, Cao Yun would never use it unless he was in a situation he was certain he could not survive. Thankfully, it hadn't been the case.
In the smoking crater down below, Hongyu was laying down with Cao Yun unconscious in her feathers. His Qi Manifestation had been completely blown away and neither Cao Yun nor Hongyu had any form of Wei Qi left. Right now, even an early Mortal could have slain Hongyu. Cao Yun's skin was maybe a bit tougher to penetrate thanks to his blood cultivation and the training of Chief Instructor Peng. But a middle Mortal could kill him if he really wanted to.
That meant that many demonic beasts around those parts could slaughter them both without any problem at all. But thankfully, the devastation had chased away all the demonic beasts that had not already been killed during the clash. And right now, they were not in a hurry to go toward the crater. After all, they were mostly certain that the self-detonation of the Five Bloods Pheasant had obliterated everything. Even his demonic cores had not survived such a destruction.
And they were mostly right. His cores had mostly turned into powder. Only a few fragments had survived, scattered over the ground. They had lost all of their luster and were almost like normal rocks now. Most of the energy within them had been used as a catalyst to cause this gigantic explosion brought by the Five Bloods Pheasant's rage.
As Cao Yun was unconscious, the evil core within Hongyu was running out of control. Thankfully, the blast from the explosion had blown away the black flames so she was not burning like the Five Bloods Pheasant. But her only choice to keep the evil core from damaging her was to use her prenatal Jing in order to try and keep it in check. Otherwise, she would die in a matter of hours as her own organs would be corroded by the Evil Qi within it.
At the same moment, Cao Yun was lost in his sea of consciousness. A voice brought him back.
"Boy, you're crazy! You almost killed me! Do you realize that?! If you don't value your life, at least value mine!"
Dian Mo was rather furious about what had just happened. But Cao Yun could sense both sincere worry and deep relief. Dian Mo had really been anxious about Cao Yun's survival and not just because he would have died too.
"You could have easily flown away before it came down to such a self-destructive fight!"
"But he would have attacked the city then... I took the fruit. I couldn't let those people suffer for my actions. But do not worry, I'm not suicidal. If I had thought that I couldn't survive, I would have used the Spirit Condensation Barrier although it would have cost me. To be honest, I didn't think this stupid chicken would blow himself up. He could have lived and harvested another Hellish Dragon Fruit. Sure, it wouldn't have been as good as this one, but still... It would have been better than to kill himself, right?"
"You clearly know nothing about how demonic beasts think. They don't reason like humans. In that aspect, they might even be closer to actual demons if I say so myself."
"That would be an interesting topic but we'll have to postpone this conversation."
Cao Yun was obviously worried about Hongyu and he was right to be. Forcing his mind to wake up, he came back to the physical world. The poor Hongyu was in incredible pain beneath him. Forgetting all the pain in his sore body and the few burns here and there, Cao Yun felt terrible. He had thought that his preparation was enough to take care of the Five Bloods Pheasant. Hell, he had even thought this would be a good opportunity for Hongyu as she could have absorbed his demonic cores. But he had miscalculated the demonic beast's rage and power.
Without wasting any more time, Cao Yun began to meditate. Instead of cultivating, he was using all of his Five Prodigious Gates to send Qi within her body. This time, he did not even think about the damage to his Bai Hui. And as he didn't think about it, it stopped to exist in that moment. Indeed, the damage was in fact gone. There was just a trauma in Cao Yun's mind about it. Each time he thought about pushing his Bai Hui a bit too much, he became self-conscious about it. Right now, he was only thinking about saving Hongyu's life, nothing else.
Quickly, Cao Yun realized that he could calm the Evil Qi but it had already damaged her flesh. Hongyu's wounds were too severe to be healed in a short amount of time. But thankfully, Cao Yun had the perfect ingredient to help her out.
From his spatial ring, Cao Yun first gulped down a pill to restore some of his Qi. Then the Hellish Dragon Fruit appeared. As soon as it was out, it tried to fly away. Although the fruit had no consciousness, it was aware of its surrounding just like plants which were attracted to the light of the sun. It was just acting on impulses, without any ability to think, feel or reason. However, it was powerful. Thankfully, Cao Yun knew about this and was ready. He trapped the Hellish Dragon Fruit with the little strength he had regained.
Using his 'Ethereal Scissors of Tranquility', Cao Yun took out one scale of the fruit and sent the rest back within his spatial ring before it could break free from him. Considering Hongyu's current condition, Cao Yun extracted the medicinal essence from the scale himself. With it, he absorbed a lot of Fire Qi. For a brief moment, he tensed up, remembering what had happened in the lava ocean. But he had to save Hongyu who had risked her life for him, just like her parents.
As a 3rd-grade Mortal Warrior, Cao Yun was supposed to use Fire Qi and Water Qi to temper his Five Prodigious Gates and slowly make them able to resist more and more powerful Fire Qi. Indeed, a Mortal Warrior had to accumulate large quantities of Fire Qi and then prepare his body for the clash between this Fire Qi and the Water Qi already gathered before. Such a clash would create the Soul Embryo. But it could as easily destroy one's body and soul.
Right now, Cao Yun was not thinking about this, but he was still inadvertently tempering his Five Prodigious Gates. As he was doing so, he felt the influence of the world tree within his Five Prodigious Gates. It was obviously rich in Wood element. And Wood element was destroyed by Fire as it was feeding it. As such, the Fire Qi extracted from the Hellish Dragon Fruit grew stronger but Cao Yun's Prodigious Gates were under a lot of pressure.
In order to soothe them, Cao Yun controlled his Water Qi deep in his Lower Dantian. Instead of clashing directly with the Fire Qi, Cao Yun decided to nourish the Wood element in his Five Prodigious Gates. Just as Fire Qi was burning it to nourish itself, the Water Qi was rejuvenating it. Although it wasn't his main goal, Cao Yun was indeed cultivating. Later he would need to meditate on that. This was very similar to alchemy so he could surely find better ways to make it efficient.
For now though, he was worried about Hongyu's health. As he was extracting and even nourishing the Fire Qi from the scale of the Hellish Dragon Fruit, Cao Yun was then circulating it in Hongyu's body. Considering her bloodline, Hongyu had a high affinity with Fire Qi. This would help her stabilize her condition. And indeed, it did. After a few hours, Hongyu was breathing peacefully. Most of her injuries were gone.
Of course, she was still exhausted, but her life was not in danger any longer. Cao Yun also worked on her evil core to strengthen the intent of the Drop of Wrath within her blood around it.
-
When Hongyu finally woke up, she felt the warm sensation of the Fire Qi seeping through her body. Immediately, she recognized the touch of her brother in it. She knew that he had saved her life and was now doing so again. Comfortable, she enjoyed the sensation. After the deadly touch of the Evil Qi within her, it was more than welcome. Although this evil core could make her powerful beyond her current strength, it was also killing her very slowly. In fact, without Cao Yun, it would have been killing her very fast.
After a while, she opened her eyes and saw the desolation around her. Then, she saw the fragments of the demonic cores of the Five Bloods Pheasant. Although they were mostly depleted, they were still pieces of 6-demonic cores that had belonged to a species very close to her. As such, she couldn't disregard them. Even though they would not be enough for her to form a fifth core, they were still a good source of nutrients for her cultivation. However, Cao Yun was forced to stop her.
Originally, he was ready to feed her the demonic cores, but he might be in need of them now. Indeed, they had almost been completely destroyed so for his purposes, he might be forced to use everything that remained, even some pieces of the Five Bloods Pheasant's body.
Cao Yun knew that for his trick to work, he had to act fast. His goal was to deceive the Golden Plumed Jackal and the Flame-Tailed Wolf. After his fight with a powerful 6-core demonic beast, he didn't want to relive the experience. Thankfully, he had had several ideas on how to deal with them. Right now, he simply needed to keep them to their respective territories. The Five Bloods Pheasant was the only one who was dangerously close to forming a seventh core. The other two would not be a problem before at least a decade. In the meantime, mankind would be faced with worse threats to be honest.
Following his idea, Cao Yun gathered everything he could find that had belonged to the Five Bloods Pheasant. Since he was completely exhausted, it took a bit more time. He couldn't even use his Qi to lift heavy bones.
"What are you trying to do?"
"The other two beasts can't know for sure whether their rival is dead or not. But as long as they believe he still draws breath and he's licking his wounds, they would probably keep him in peace. Even if they think he's seriously injured, they wouldn't open themselves to an attack by their other rival. And from everything I've read about them, there's no way they can team up together to take care of a beast that isn't a threat anymore."
"So you want to make them believe the Five Bloods Pheasant was terribly injured but survived?"
"Exactly! That way, they won't be afraid of him so the tensions within the Yunling Forest will slowly decrease. By the time they realize the deception, the Huang family should be settled in this place so they won't dare attack them either."
"I see... And you want to create an array formation to do so..."
Of course, Dian Mo was an expert when it came to array formations so he could immediately think of many possibilities. In fact, there was probably not a living being on the surface of the Piaolu planet who knew more about array formations than Dian Mo. Besides spending millenniums studying the complex array formations of the Palace of Supreme Wisdom, he had also read almost every manual within the treasury of that place. That included the 'Crossing the Three Chasms in the Eight Directions' which Sun Liao had received. That manual explained how to best use array formations to cultivate faster.
"Show me what you want to use."
At first surprised, Cao Yun did show him his blueprint. To be honest, he wasn't absolutely confident about his array formations as he had worked on his alchemy more recently, with the Alchemy Conference that was coming. With a single glance, Dian Mo understood the array formation.
"You tried to put together the 'Scorched Earth Embers', the 'Roaring Heart Waves', and I even see a glimpse of 'Universe Engulfing Sparrow' that you clearly didn't understand. This is a botched job... Really, what were you thinking?! Let me rework that..."
It took Dian Mo less than ten minutes to have a working array formation.
"I'm not sure whether there are still enough parts left of the Five Bloods Pheasant. But this array formation should give off a faint trace of his bloodline. Over time, it will even increase slightly, giving off the impression that he's slowly recuperating. Of course, a Spirit Warrior would see right through it, but demonic beasts wouldn't. They could only see through it if they physically come there."
"Well, I already had an idea for that. Hongyu has a similar bloodline. I intend to make her appear as the Five Bloods Pheasant. The two rivals will just see him leave the battlefield hurt and go into seclusion. This should cement the illusion of the array formation in their mind."
"A dead pheasant will scare a wolf and jackal away..."