With his Spear Intent focused on his 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar', Cao Yun had also used his 'Dragon's Heart' to its limit as well as his Black Heart Flame. Everything he had, he had poured into this attack. Thus, his strength was colossal. Even if he had not known anything about the Crimson Dune Lord, Cao Yun would have guessed his weak spots. Indeed, although his shell armor was incredible, his flesh was less resistant. Still, it was an 8-core demonic beast so not just anyone could have penetrated it. But Cao Yun had done it with more ease than he had thought.
Since his fight with High Mother Qin Xue, he had not really been able to test out his strength. But he knew that his cultivation alone shouldn't have made things so easy. It was clearly his Spear Intent combined with it. Martial states were incredibly powerful but they were also extremely hard to attain. No level of cultivation could help someone to reach them. No, they had to be understood through one's martial art. Of course, cultivation also increased one's ability of understanding and even feeling certain things. Besides, living longer was also helpful as some states could take centuries to achieve. But in the end, even a mere mortal could theoretically reach them.
Cao Yun remembered a legend he had heard. A mere mortal had been wounded and his Lower and Middle Dantian had been destroyed when he was very young. Unable to cultivate his Qi above the basics of the Foundation Realm, he turned to martial arts. In a few decades, he had mastered Sword Soul, the fifth martial state. One day, he fought a late Spirit Warrior. Although he died during the fight, he had been able to wound his opponent. And this Spirit Warrior always bore the scars of this battle. Even the best medicine he had could not heal him completely. Then he died a few years later because of those injuries. Most likely, the legend was a bit exaggerated but it proved a point. Cultivation alone was not enough.
Just to be sure, Cao Yun flew down. He took out his sword 'Unrivaled Above the Sand' and unleashed the full form of 'Three Storms'. The beast was cut into tiny pieces and his eight demonic cores fell to the ground. Before they could touch the sand though, Cao Yun's spiritual senses took them in. They ended up in his spatial ring in an instant. There was no doubt that this Crimson Dune Lord was thoroughly dead. Unlike cultivators, his soul could not survive outside of his body. It could produce Evil Qi of course, but under such a powerful sun, it would be burned away very soon before it could really become a problem.
All around Cao Yun, the demonic beasts were stunned. They didn't know how to react at all. It just seemed unreal for most of them. Only the 6-core demonic beasts were able to accept what had just happened. Among them, the Silver Six-Tailed Fox recognized Cao Yun immediately. Unlike him, the human had grown a lot. His strength was incomparably higher than during their fight. Now, Cao Yun could kill him in an instant without moving a finger, just by controlling his spear through the air.
Disregarding the thousands of eyes upon him, Cao Yun appeared before Hongyu in an instant. She was wounded and covered in the blood of her friend. The Five Bloods Pheasant was completely dead as well. He had probably died thinking that Hongyu was also going to meet a terrible fate. Thus, she felt incredibly bad about it. For years, she had grown closer to him and now he was gone forever. More than that, she had been unable to do a thing about it. At that moment, she felt exactly as Cao Yun had felt several times already.
The beast looked up toward her brother. Her emotions were conflicted. In those pupils Cao Yun could feel sadness and joy mixed together. Although he didn't know everything that had happened, he could quickly put things together. Clearly, this bloody Five Bloods Pheasant had been dear to her and he had died while protecting her, like her parents. If Cao Yun had come a bit sooner, he would have lived. But he had first gone to his spatial ring. This decision had sealed the fate of this poor beast who had given his life for Hongyu.
Once again, Cao Yun felt bad, but not as bad as before. He had come to accept than certain things were unavoidable. His decision had caused his death, but he had no way of knowing it beforehand. Like always, he was forced to make decision without knowing everything, no one could know everything. So he had to stop feeling guilty about it all. Instead, he had to learn and try to do better the next time. Besides, without his weapons, he might not have been able to kill the Crimson Dune Lord so easily. If he had not recovered his spatial ring first, Hongyu could have died as well during the fight. There was no way for him to know for sure.
"Hongyu... I'm sorry about your friend..."
The Raging Blood Fenghuang understood his meaning. She bowed her head as a sign of appreciation. Then, she turned toward the body of the Five Bloods Pheasant. Delicately, she moved him around so he was resting peacefully on the ground. All around her body, flames danced as she burned away the blood covering her. For a few minutes, her flame intensified and then spread all around the Five Bloods Pheasant. With his Vermilion Bird bloodline, flames shouldn't have hurt it much. But now that he was dead, they were able to completely engulf his flesh.
Everyone stayed silent as Hongyu was burning away his body. Before long, there remained only ashes. Hongyu turned toward Cao Yun with a glint in her eyes. He understood her intent. Thus, he used his spiritual senses to recover all the ashes and none of the sand. Although she was injured, Hongyu tried to fly but she couldn't do much. Discreetly, Cao Yun helped her with his spiritual senses. They rose a bit higher. Finally, Cao Yun scattered his ashes in the wind. Even his demonic cores had been destroyed as Hongyu didn't want anyone to eat them. For fiery birds like them, turning to ashes was a form of great respect.
Hongyu and Cao Yun looked down below toward the demonic beasts. Without any hesitation, the young man took the carcass of the Crimson Dune Lord in his spatial ring as well. However, he did leave at least half of it for the other demonic beasts. Of course, they waited for Cao Yun's departure. As they were leaving, Hongyu looked intently at the Silver Six-Tailed Fox. They had also grown a tiny bit closer in those three years, but were mere acquaintances. She didn't feel attached to him at all, nor him to her. That being said, she knew that he could become a powerful ruler of this region.
Once the two were gone, the Silver Six-Tailed Fox was the first one to feast on the flesh of the Crimson Dune Lord in the hope of forming a seventh core.
-
Because Hongyu was injured, Cao Yun didn't bring her to the Oasis of Life immediately. Instead he helped her heal. In his spatial ring, he still had a lot of alchemy pills. Besides, he had the body of the Crimson Dune Lord and of High Mother Qin Xue. Cao Yun had obviously no respect for either of them. Thus, he simply gave them to Hongyu to eat. And she did without any hesitation.
Combined with the pills, she recovered all of her strength and some more. Then, Cao Yun even gave her one of the 8-demonic cores, but he kept the other ones for now. They would be much more useful once turned into pills. Moreover, he might need them for his own cultivation since he intended to go through the Lesser Tribulation.
With all his spiritual senses, Cao Yun examined her entire body. There were many scars and injuries that had not healed completely. In those three years, she had been through some hardships for sure, but they had not been too terrible. There was nothing worse than what could be found within any wild demonic beast. In fact, it was even on the lighter side of things. Her Evil Core and Wrath Core were also perfectly fine. The properties of the Drop of Wrath were still balancing out the Evil Qi in her. In fact, she could probably control the Evil Qi to some extent, not as well as Cao Yun of course, but this was still impressive. Few demonic beasts on the Piaolu planet could do such a thing, although Cao Yun had heard about legends.
Finally, he saw traces of her seventh core being formed. It would take a few years for it to come to fruition, but he was confident he could help her fasten things up. In less than a year, he could probably help her form her seventh core. Cultivation for demonic beasts was much simpler than for humans or demons. They were always just collecting energy in order to form demonic cores. Of course, one could not form a demonic core all of a sudden, just like a human couldn't develop great muscles just by eating a lot. The body had a limit to how fast it could build muscles, and the same was true for demonic beasts and demonic cores. That being said, Cao Yun knew of many pills that could help Hongyu.
Moreover, now that he understood Antique Sixian perfectly, he was working on deciphering all of Cleansed Asura's documents. In them, he had found treatises on alchemy and array formations. By combining what he had understood with his own knowledge, he had reached a level that no one on the Piaolu planet could boast to master. In fact, his understanding of alchemy had probably reached the Spirit level. Even Spirit Masters Hua Fenfei and Xiao Xuefeng had probably not reached this level. But he had not tried forging a Spirit pill and was not too confident about it. First of all, he needed to fully master the forging of Heaven pills. And as soon as he was a full-fledged Spirit Warrior, it would be so much easier.
With a Spirit pill, he might really be able to help Hongyu forge her seventh core in a matter of months, not years.
After he was confident in Hongyu's health, they both flew away. Cao Yun matched her speed as she was flying a bit slow. At first, he was afraid that he had missed some injuries but he quickly understood. She was saying farewell to this place. Instead of going in a straight line, she flew all over the place and Cao Yun followed her without saying anything. He completely let her do what she needed to do. Then, they did fly faster and faster.
At first Hongyu was trying to be mindful of her brother. Now that he could fly, he probably couldn't fly as fast as she could. But as he could still match her speed, she went faster and faster. Even Cao Yun, and even while using an artifact to fly faster, couldn't go as fast as she could when she went all out. But in the Desolate Dune Desert where space forced them to slow down considerably, he could follow her without any problem. However, he would not be able to match her sudden bursts of speed during a fight.
-
Finally, they both came back to the Oasis of Life and into the Monastery of Bliss and Repose. Many people were there to celebrate High Mother Lisha and to mourn former High Mother Qin Xue. However, the very big shots had not arrived yet so Cao Yun and Hongyu had no problem sneaking in. High Mother Lisha saw through their stealth because of their bloodlines. But to be fair, Cao Yun wasn't hiding them that wall considering he was just trying not to be seen by the crowd.
Once again, he asked to be informed of any new development but the Desolate Sepulcher had really come to a stop since the announcement of High Mother Qin Xue's death. This was a very good thing for Cao Yun and his plans. He didn't have to worry about anything for quite some time. Thus, he might go ahead and try to breakthrough once more. His Qi cultivation didn't match his blood cultivation and this would become an issue over time. Thus, he wanted to go through the Lesser Tribulation as soon as he could.
For a few days, Cao Yun visited all the Sisters he had under his control, just to make sure that his seals were working well and to remind them of their actual status. He was in control of everything and they were just serving under him in secret. He also talked with High Mother Lisha. Thankfully, he realized how right he had been when he had chosen her. All the reforms she proposed were great, some even exceeded what Cao Yun could have imagined. After all, he was no leader and didn't know much about their religion. Although he read a lot, he had no actual experience. Besides, the theological texts often contradicted each other, so it was hard to know what was the actual situation of the Sisters of the Abyss and their religious order.
Since he now controlled the public face of the Sisters of the Abyss, he simply had to tell her what kind of result he wanted and she would do the heavy lifting for him. Moreover, he didn't want to change absolutely everything and neither did he care. What he wanted to change though, High Mother Lisha agreed. The Sisters of the Abyss would fight with more vigor against unlawful slavery. Slavery might still be used as a form of punishment or a way for someone to repay a debt. But the order would do everything to uphold the laws that already existed anyway. All things considered, it was good. Cao Yun was aware that there were other issues, but he couldn't single-handedly change an entire culture. And he couldn't know what was good or bad. Even good intentions could lead to disastrous consequences. He had learned that feeling good about something wasn't the same as actually doing good.
At last, he retired into his chambers. The entire Blood Abyss had been turned into his personal chambers. With Hongyu, they entered and she felt a proximity with the Blood Abyss, not as strong as with Cao Yun, but there was still a faint connection. There, she would be able to grow stronger a tiny bit faster. And this was also the place Cao Yun had chosen for his Lesser Tribulation.