Chapter 323: The Demon God's blood

Dian Mo adapted quickly to the situation. Cao Yun had come here to find the treasure he was guarding. Thus, he had leverage on him. Besides this blood appeared to not be fully under Cao Yun's control. Moreover, it was just raw power. There was no way this young demon could extract any kind of information from him through any mind or soul technique. After all, he was even too weak to contain him without this blood. Hence, Cao Yun would either need to torture him or get him to cooperate. And Dian Mo was quite resistant to torture. Even several centuries of pain did not frighten him too much after living several millenniums in isolation.

For now though, it was not the right time to act. The young demon was in control of the situation. Just like Cao Yun had done, Dian Mo would first try to lure him into a sense of security before striking back. Although Dian Mo had changed his prison, his life was not really different. In fact, it had even maybe gotten better. Because the young demon was not competent enough, Dian Mo was able to see through his senses. Right now, he could not feel everything Cao Yun could, but he was able to hear and see what was happening outside through his ears and eyes. In fact, he could probably go further than that but he didn't want to bring any unwarranted attention to him.

Finally, Cao Yun spoke again.

"Dian Mo, you're now my prisoner. I know that you're already thinking of ways to get out of this and get back at me. But although I do need to know everything you know, I will not hesitate to get rid of you if need be. And you know I'm not kidding!"

The chains constricted a little bit tighter as more blood and flames coursed through it. As a consequence, the pain increased. Although it was still bearable, Dian Mo made a great show of his suffering. He even made it look like he was trying to restrain himself because of some pride he had.

"Tell me. What is the treasure Da Mo left with you?"

Hearing the question, Dian Mo was perplexed. Didn't he know? Shouldn't he know? Could he be...? Finally, it clicked. Cao Yun had no more reason to hide what he was. For the first time, Dian Mo realized that this young demon was in fact human. Otherwise, he would have known what the treasure was. He could have felt it as soon as he had set foot in the Demon Palace even if he had not seen what it was beforehand. This was something that was in any demon's blood on the Piaolu planet.

If Cao Yun was human, this changed things quite a bit. He wasn't a demon passing off as a human through some strange technique. No, he was a human who had obtained a bloodline so powerful that he had rivaled the cultivation of demons. But he didn't know the first thing about blood cultivation. Right now, Dian Mo realized that he had even more leverage than he had originally thought. And much of what he could tell Cao Yun was not even sensitive information, just common knowledge unknown amongst humans. After all, the demons themselves didn't really care about human cultivation. They only cared about ways to use it against them, but they ignored most of what was related to practicing it. And the same was true for humans when it came to the cultivation of demons.

Paradoxically, finding out that Cao Yun was a human was a very good surprise. But he would need to think carefully before giving him any piece of information. For now, he didn't know how astute that human was. Lying right to his face was probably a bad idea. Besides, his mind would grow stronger and stronger. His mind cultivation was already very impressive for his age. However, there were ways to give half-truths. Those wouldn't be lies. Thus he could better hide his deceit.

Of course, right now was not the good moment to put together a long term strategy. But strangely enough, the idea that he was now going to be trapped in this place with an extremely powerful bloodline above him, relieved him of his anxiety. It was in fact a better outcome than leaving his Demon Palace. Dian Mo could understand that this fear of leaving had become a huge problem but he couldn't help it. And now he realized that he was in fact afraid of being free. The prospect of getting what he had thought he had always wanted had filled him with fright. And losing it had soothed him in a strange manner.

Before the human could speak again, something happened outside. Dian Mo had almost forgotten about the intruders.

Mo Zi and three other demonic cultivators were now standing in front of the burned body of Cao Yun. Right now, he was still covered in scar tissues and floating in the middle of the Demon Palace.

Even Mo Zi could not recognize Cao Yun but he didn't care. His master had engraved in his mind that his only concern should be the treasure, the key to his plan, the key to open the Devil's Jail. Thus, he completely disregarded the floating corpse who seemed dead anyway. From his spatial ring, he took out a small bottle of porcelain. When he opened it, a thick odor of blood spread throughout the entire Demon Palace. The torches burned with even more intensity. And on an altar in the back of the Demon Palace, a tiny drop of black blood shined with a crimson glint.

Even in his sea of consciousness, Cao Yun sensed what had happened outside. He was not in any condition to recover from his injuries straight away. But from this blood he sensed something so ominous and powerful, it was almost on par with the Drop of Wrath he had received from Cleansed Asura. Besides, he immediately recognized Mo Zi as well as the technique he was using. The blood runes were still floating around the group. However, he realized that they were different. Now that they had formed all of them, the blood runes formed a way more powerful set compared to those Luduo Bu had. Even with his current Drop of Wrath, he would not be able to absorb them without weakening the demonic cultivators first. Indeed, there was a very strong connection between the runes now. Furthermore, he still wasn't sure how much of the Drop of Wrath he could divert without setting Dian Mo free. And he wasn't even sure his body was in any condition to fight right now. Luckily, they had completely ignored him to go straight for the drop of blood.

"Stop them! This blood is sacred! No human should touch it!"

"This blood... this is Da Mo's blood, right?"

"Demon God Da Mo, human!"

"Even if I could stop them, then I'd be the one who would take this blood. Would you be okay with that?"

"... At least I could stay close to it. Keeping guard over this blood is my duty."

"I see... You wanted to take it for yourself once you had my body, right?"

Hearing such an accusation, Dian Mo did not retort. The truth was that he had indeed planned this. In fact, this was the reason why he had strengthened Cao Yun's body before taking him over.

Before Dian Mo could say anything, Cao Yun had sensed three familiar presences. Sun Liao, Mei Hua and Ren Chao had followed the group. Using the very array formation activated by Mo Zi, Sun Liao had been able to find a path into the Demon Palace. Thankfully, Ren Chao had been as fast as Sun Liao had calculated and they had crossed through the void following the trail of the blood needle. However, they were now faced with four demonic cultivators. Although they were exhausted, they were all powerful Mortal Warriors. Sun Liao was very close to being an early Mortal Warrior, Mei Hua had recently become one and Ren Chao was rather far from it, but he had an exceptional physique.

That plan wasn't really good. Sun Liao had mostly improvised, hoping for the best. But the lives of all the other disciples were in the balance. After all, if he didn't act, they had a high risk of dying anyway with the collapse of the unstable realm they were in right now. However, if he could get to the Palace of Supreme Wisdom, he might find a way to activate the Supreme emblems and get everyone out. This was very far-fetched but he had nothing else. To be perfectly honest, he was desperate right now.

Among the group of three, the first one to react was Mei Hua. As she was a Mortal Warrior, her senses were now way better and she could feel the Qi all around her. Besides, the Qi she felt belonged to someone she was very close with, it was Cao Yun's. Even before laying eyes on Cao Yun's body, she had realized how hurt he had been. His life seemed to be hanging by a thread and all of his skin had been burned off. She was ready to run forward when she sensed something else.

Cao Yun had also sensed Mei Hua's presence and he knew she was both a Mortal Warrior and an alchemist, she would know what to do. Using 'Ashen Feather Seal', he concealed a surge of Qi he sent into Mei Hua. Unfortunately, Cao Yun could not send his thoughts, but this was enough to make her understand that he was still conscious and alive. Conveying messages in such a way was very difficult. Cao Yun knew there were techniques that could allow someone to vibrate the air with his Qi, thus producing sounds. With those techniques, one could speak to someone's ear at a distance. Unfortunately, he had never taken the time to learn them. To be fair, he had many things to work on at the same time. He had literally four sets of cultivation at once, body, Qi, mind and blood. And he was also working on martial arts, array formation, alchemy and also translating an unknown language. It was a miracle he had achieved such high degrees of proficiency in any of them.

As an alchemist, he had the same references as Mei Hua though. And by manipulating his Qi in the right way, sending it to her toward the right acupoints, he was able to get some ideas across. Although the demonic cultivators were four, they were all exhausted. Some were very wounded and would probably be unable to fight even against a late Mortal. With Ren Chao's physique, he could get rid of one of them easily while Sun Liao could take out another. Although Cao Yun was in a critical condition, he hoped that Mei Hua might have something to help him.

Thankfully, she had been provident enough to take a spatial ring with her. It had been gifted to her by her master. Knowing that she would certainly break through while inside the Palace of Supreme Wisdom, she had taken pills with her both outside of the spatial ring as well as within. Her master had put many other artifacts and pills inside of it too. After she had finally become a Mortal Warrior, Mei Hua had put all the pills and artifacts inside her spatial ring.

Among those pills, there were some who could help Cao Yun recover. Even with his own pills, Cao Yun would never be able to recover in less than a week. But with hers, there was a way. The prize of her current collection was the Divine Lotus Ointment pill. Once ingested, most wounds would be healed. But it also exhausted the patient. Cao Yun would recover but he would operate with a fraction of his strength. The Gushing Argent Well pill was probably the only pill Mei Hua could think of that could counter it, but this was even rarer as it was a 4-star Heaven pill. And unfortunately, she had none on her.

Cao Yun had no way of knowing what she had on her. However, he was clearly asking her to help him recover quickly. And this was an emergency.

Without much time to think about it, Mei Hua whispered to her brothers to explain what was going on. Immediately after that, she took a pill out of her spatial ring and sent it directly into Cao Yun's mouth. At that moment, the demonic cultivators finally discovered the intruders. They had been so exhausted that they had not even sensed them yet.

Wang Jinhua tried to intercept the pill but she was the weakest of the group. Although Mo Zi had not drained her, she was in no condition to fight at all. Seeing that, Neng Lue leapt toward Cao Yun to make sure he was dead before the pill could take effect. At the same moment, Ren Chao ran inside the Demon Palace while Sun Liao was summoning his 'Heavenly Mirror Longbow' and Mei Hua also took out a new weapon. She had not obtained it inside the Palace of Supreme Wisdom but from her master.

Until now she had used a rope dart. However, this wasn't her favorite weapon. She had been forced to this choice because she was a Mortal. But now that she was a Mortal Warrior, she could finally use the weapon she preferred, a guqin, some kind of zither, like her master.

While Sun Liao shot arrows toward the demonic cultivators, Mei Hua began to play some soothing music. She had warned her brothers. Right now, she was not taking part in the fight. Instead, she was trying to help Cao Yun. As soon as the music got to him, he felt the vibrations all around his body. They literally traversed through his flesh. And he felt that they were acting in harmony with the Divine Lotus Ointment pill. It was improving the effects while reducing the amount of strength it was draining from him. This pill could not make flesh appear out of nowhere. To heal the wounds, it was drawing energy from the patient's body. In fact, if he was too weak, the pill could kill the patient. Thankfully, Cao Yun had conserved a lot of his energy to play dead in front of Dian Mo.

Ren Chao and Neng Lue were evenly matched and the burly woman was incredulous. She was a late Mortal Warrior, close to the prized Spirit Warrior realm. She had all the blood runes. And yet a junior who was still a Mortal could best her.

Facing her, Ren Chao cracked his knuckles and thunder resounded. Besides his Golden Silk Body, the blacksmith had obtained something in the Palace of Supreme Wisdom which he was dying to test out right now. A huge surge of energy traveled through all of his bones. The sound of a hammer hitting against heated metal resounded through the entire Demon Palace. Ren Chao had attacked with his bare fists before, but he was now holding his 'Lion's Roar'. He pounced toward the woman facing him.

When it came to protecting his friends, Ren Chao showed no sign of hesitation. Even now, he was the one with the strongest will. It was maybe due to his special physique, or to his innate nature.

'Earth Crushing Charge'!