Because he had already trained with it, Cao Yun could more easily move his spiritual senses throughout the swirling sand all over the place. On the other hand, the senses of the entire vanguard were diminished. In fact, he thought about using this opportunity to kill a few of them, but he still had some work to do before that. Besides, the real threat remained the eight soldiers and they were in a very cohesive formation at the moment. Getting close to them would be really difficult.
Spreading his spiritual senses around the three tribesmen, Cao Yun was finally able to completely invade the sea of consciousness of one of them. His Flying Poison entered that empty space in the form of Cao Yun.
The Turbid Demon in the shape of the young human appeared over a completely transparent ocean, under a completely transparent sky. The sea of consciousness was absolutely empty. Obviously it was strange. Furthermore, he could still sense that there were strange marks within, even though he couldn't see them at all. Using those senses, Cao Yun moved around toward where the closest mark was.
Although the sea of consciousness was infinite, he could get there in a few breaths. Once he was there, Flying Poison focused his senses around himself. The rage within the Turbid Demon began to change his form. His skin turned as red as blood with a few black shadows moving under its surface in ominous patterns. Some bones started to grow over his skin as though they were protruding from his body. On those bones, green moss began to grow until it turned into eerie green hair. Besides, three bony tails were slowly growing from his rear end.
Despite those terrifying changes, it still retained an uncanny resemblance with Cao Yun. In fact, the young human was literally feeling as though it was part of his very soul. To be honest, this wasn't feeling very good. By using the Flying Poison, Cao Yun's mind was filled with anger. At the same time, the Unclean Evil and the Stinking Lungs were also acting up so he had to focus on keeping them under control.
As the Flying Poison's rage was now condensed all around him, the air was turning turbid in his vicinity. The once pristine sea of consciousness was now being polluted by his mere presence. And with it, the spot right before his eyes was also changing to reveal what had been hidden. The air undulated and collapsed as a large black structure appeared. At first it looked like a large obelisk, but it turned out to be the pillar of a giant door. It looked like the door of an ancient temple, two pillars supporting a large wooden roof with many sculptures and engravings.
Written with charred letters within the wood was the name of the gate, the Door of Contrition. While the roof was high in the sky, the pillars were standing deep in the ocean below. There was no more transparency. In fact, the ocean around the pillar looked exactly like a rotting swamp. From its revealed surface, obscure vapors rose, completely changing the nature of this sea of consciousness.
Flying Poison roared with all of his rage. From the roof of the Door of Contrition, a couple bells rang, echoing with his insanity. Then, three doors appeared in total. They were all positioned toward a specific spot that was still invisible. The doors were Door of Contrition, Door of Agony, Door of Submission. Each one was a bit different while retaining the same architecture. Moreover, they were all the exact same height and same width. However, Cao Yun knew there was some kind of mystery behind them. He could still try to break them apart through sheer force, but he wasn't too sure it was a good idea.
Not only did he want to get rid of the seal without damaging the tribesmen, but he also didn't want to alert the soldiers or whoever had set up this seal. Thus, Flying Poison flew around the three doors without entering the area they were delimiting. By the time he was done, the sea of consciousness was filled with the odor of a decomposing swamp. This was a realm of death and rot. He could fully understand the look on the tribesmen's faces now.
Hesitating a little, Flying Poison literally took a protruding bone in his body, his ulna that was coming out of his left wrist. A long sword left his bloody flesh. On the bone itself, there were many small pikes and fissures. He swept the air causing drops of his blood to fly toward the center of the three doors. Before its eyes, the blood disappeared, turned into smoke in an instant. After several other tests, it was clear that one could only enter through the three doors and nowhere else. Once again, he might have been able to through pure brutality but it wasn't his goal.
Using his knowledge of array formations, Cao Yun tried to divine which door he should enter through first. Flying Poison flew up in the sky to try and get a better view. His blood expanded a bit around him as his eyes were turning into solid gold pellets. Some of his blood formed a makeshift compass in his hands. The three doors were hiding the main palace. But if he were to take the wrong door, he would be faced with a fake palace that would put him in danger. What he quickly realized was that the right door wasn't permanent.
Observing them, he could tell that they were always leading to different places, so he had to choose the right one at the right moment. Flying Poison went right in front of the Door of Agony. Once again, he sent drops of his own blood into the Door of Agony.
He could then feel that each drop was sent into a different realm. Indeed, this sea of consciousness had been divided into seventy-two independent realms. Of course, they were all within the sea of consciousness, but barriers were separating them. Most of the drops were pulverized in an instant. A couple were struck by lightning while another one was turned to stone before being smashed.
Flying Poison could detect ten thousands variations in the opening of the Door of Agony. They were literally moving around and ever changing. But what Cao Yun had realized in a matter of seconds was that each variation was an illusion. There was no true entry. In fact, all the gates were probably traps without a right answer. With his bone sword in hand, Flying Poison rose to the level of the roof and examined the inscriptions much more closely. The names of the door were written in a very ancient script of the Moshenhua. Thanks to his time studying languages, Cao Yun was very familiar with this script. Each character was much more complicated than the current script but it also meant that there was much more subtlety to them.
Within the Contrition character, there were ten different parts that could mean something different. After analyzing all the doors, Flying Poison gripped his sword firmly and struck down one of the characters. Suddenly, the door shook and the air within the opening shimmered. Without waiting for even a single breath, Flying Poison soared through the gate. Then, he found himself in front of a giant palace in the void.
As it was surrounded by pure nothingness, a large golden and jade palace was floating before Flying Poison. On its roof, there were large braided ropes that were tied to the palace. Their other extremity was disappearing into nothingness. But as there were six such ropes, Cao Yun guessed that they were connected to the six pillars of the three gates leading to this palace. This time there was no word on the roof, but Cao Yun had the strange feeling that this palace was called the Three-Gated Government Palace. Although demons had no Upper Dantian, their sea of consciousness was located in their head, just like humans.
Right now, Cao Yun felt as though he was literally in the Chamber of Government of this tribesman's Upper Dantian, even though he had no such thing. However, it made perfect sense. The Chamber of Government was responsible for motivation and focus. It was situated to the west and was related to the Water element. Most likely, this seal was forming a makeshift Chamber of Government to completely break down the victim's will. Once their will was destroyed in such a way, it was extremely easy to force them to do anything, like guiding this vanguard party toward the settlements of the Sand Wolves Tribe.
What truly made Cao Yun think was the level of sophistication of this seal. It was much more complicated and subtle than the mere Slavery Brand. He simply couldn't believe that even an extraordinary master could imprint such a technique on a plate of some sort. Most likely, a true Accomplished Demon had been responsible for setting up this seal within those tribesmen. And it also explained why they had chosen tribesmen who were extremely weak. They couldn't put up any mental resistance to this intrusion.
Now that he knew what he was dealing with, Cao Yun could find a way to break this seal apart. The golden and jade palace seemed to be carved out of a single large piece of ore in which various precious elements had merged together. In fact, Cao Yun couldn't detect anything within and the doors were purely decorative. Very quickly, he identified that the palace was a diversion, just like the doors had been. The crux of the problem was what tied this palace to the sea of consciousness, the three gates themselves. And those gates were linked to the palace through the six braided ropes. Thus, Cao Yun had to cut them apart and the palace would lose any connection with the sea of consciousness. It would drift into nothingness and dissipate.
Of course, the problem was to destroy the ropes without causing lasting damage to the sea of consciousness. If the tribesmen died for no apparent reason, it would look very suspicious indeed.
Once again, Cao Yun analyzed the seal himself as Dian Mo seemed strangely quiet. When the young human tried to connect with him, he realized that the Palace Spirit was almost sleeping. Since his injury, he had moments when he was in a form of deep slumber. Day after day, Dian Mo was worrying Cao Yun more and more. But it wasn't time for worrying. Thankfully, Dian Mo had trained Cao Yun in the art of seals for quite some time now. Thus, he was confident he could deal with the present situation. And he did.
Flying Poison rose in the air with his bony sword in hand. From his rear end, three bone tails covered in spikes and fresh blood had fully formed. By that point, Flying Poison barely retained any feature of Cao Yun apart from his face, even though it had also changed a lot. With his golden eyes, Flying Poison looked at the place where the six braided ropes were tied to the Three-Gated Government Palace. Then, he struck with all of his strength. Cao Yun was using 'Weeping Demon' at the same time as he was mobilizing his Spear Aura and his 'Three Storms'.
From 'Weeping Demon', the entire space trembled and the golden and jade sculpture got covered in cracks. It found itself submerged in an ocean of blood and wailing. All over the gorgeous sculpture, tortured spirits appeared in the form of disfigured corpses. Then, this ocean of torment and gore turned into a savage hurricane under the effect of 'Three Storms'. That was when the sword finally reached the braided ropes. As that attack struck, the ropes got imbued with blood just as they were being cut apart. It didn't take long for the seal to break. Under Flying Poison's full wrath, it had no chance at all. Even if it had been set up by an Accomplished Demon, they couldn't be stronger than an early Accomplished Demon.
Now that the ropes were cut apart, the golden and jade palace simply sunk into the nothingness below it. Without the seal to stabilize this space, it was collapsing on Flying Poison. Even though he had succeeded, he risked being crushed which would heavily injure Cao Yun. So he didn't stay idle. His three tails flailed around and reached for one of the braided ropes before it was engulfed into nothingness too. Once he had it, he flew toward the end of the rope as fast as he could.
Just as the space was collapsing, Flying Poison found himself in the sea of consciousness of the tribesman. The three gates were still there but they were now full of cracks. The ocean below was still a warm but there was now a thick odor of blood everywhere. From the swamp, a bright red light emerged as the water turned into fresh blood. A radiance shot forth, causing the three gates to turn into dust and crumble. There was no doubt to have, the seal had been thoroughly broken and the demon's strong will was shining through once more.
Most of the Flying Poison left that sea of consciousness. Now that Cao Yun knew how to deal with this seal, it was fairly easy to take it down. Although it was complex and sophisticated, it wasn't meant to be very resistant, just tricky to get rid of without injuring the victim. At least, it was a relief as it meant whoever had set them up wasn't extraordinarily powerful.
Once the three tribesmen were out of their daze, they all received a telepathic message by Cao Yun.
"This humble one is named Tie, surname Po. This one was sent by the Wolves to protect their cubs. Do listen to these words as you might be able to take revenge on those snakes who attacked your den."
Displaying his full understanding of their dialect, Cao Yun spoke like a true Sand Wolves tribesman while retaining some form of outsider's accent. The name Tie Po stunned the three of them. But they had heard storied about the way he had unraveled the Curse of Blood and Sorrow before. Combined with the fact that he had freed them from the Three-Gated Government Palace, they were now fully trusting him. Thankfully, the sandstorm hid their shock. No one noticed that their expression had changed, so they quickly played their part again.