Chapter 401: Reminiscing in the pond

Now that most of the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish's soul was within Cao Yun's sea of consciousness, it was easy for him to extract the Heart Reversing Tormentor. Indeed, although he was a Mortal Warrior, Cao Yun's soul and mind cultivation was at the level of a Spirit Warrior. Besides, he had the help of the Drop of Wrath and the very seal he had engraved into the soul of the 7-core demonic beast.

Before doing anything, Cao Yun had made sure that there was no way for Gu Song to feel what he was doing. Thankfully, he had neglected to put a seal in the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish. Most likely, it had seemed superfluous to him. And since doing so would have required a lot of stamina considering the demonic beast's proficiency when it came to soul attacks, he had probably relied on his alchemy instead. But he had still used array formations. Maybe someone else had set them up. However, there were array formations all around the underground lake made with spirit stones.

Apparently, the demonic cultivators had failed to discover the mines Huang Si had found further down the tunnels. After all, this wasn't their goal and even Huang Si had been alerted by chance of those. In the maps Cao Yun had gotten from the stolen documents, the lake he was facing didn't exist. But to be fair, the tunnels were extremely complex, and there was nothing to indicate that the vein of spirit stones continued all the way here. In fact, it didn't. The demonic cultivators had found some to use for their array formations but that was it.

At first, Cao Yun wasn't too sure what those array formations were. Thanks to Dian Mo's help though, he quickly understood. Some were used to conceal the presence of the demonic beast, others were there to prevent it from leaving without orders. There were also some to detect intruders but Cao Yun had already avoided them as they were near the entrance. And finally, there were array formations to monitor the demonic beast. With Dian Mo's guidance, Cao Yun knew how to alter them in order to send fake information. That way, he could do whatever he wanted with the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish. But first, he wanted information. This was the most important thing for him.

Sensing that the human, its new master, could really deliver it from the poison, the fish decided to obey him. As most of its soul was within Cao Yun's mind, the beast could directly show him its memories. Thus, Cao Yun saw what had happened.

The Soul Obsidian Nian Fish had been caught in a completely different province. Although it shared its memories, the demonic beast didn't show anything that had happened prior to its capture. Cao Yun could imagine that it had killed many cultivators and demonic beasts to get to its current strength. But right now, it didn't matter. Dealing with the threat of the demonic cultivators was way more important than meting out justice to a demonic beast.

The Soul Obsidian Nian Fish had only been a 5-core demonic beast at that time. But the demonic cultivators did many experiments on it and even fed it with souls. Furthermore, they tried to directly feed it Evil Qi, Death Energy and Ghost Energy. Most of the times, the demonic beast was literally being tortured by those energies. Thanks to its tenacity and its will, it survived and grew year after year. In a record time, it formed two more cores and fully became a Soul Obsidian Nian Fish. It had developed a taste for human souls.

Cao Yun was interested because he discovered that the two last demonic cores of that beast were somewhat similar to the evil core of Hongyu. They weren't made of Evil Qi but they contained small traces of it as well as traces of Qi corrupted by Death Energy and Ghost Energy. By studying them closer, he might be able to understand how to help Hongyu control her evil core. Unfortunately, the fish didn't know how it had done so. It had just survived the experiments and instinctively learned to do so. The beasts who weren't able to adapt simply died or were horribly mutated.

Behind all of these cruelties was Xiong Nixie, the master of Can Mouye who had been responsible for the death of Hongyu's parents. After the demonic beasts stampede, a punitive expedition had taken care of Xiong Nixie. But they hadn't been able to discover all of his secrets. In particular, they hadn't located all of the demonic beast he had trained. This Soul Obsidian Nian Fish was one of them.

After his time in Xiong Nixie's hands, it was decided that the Soul-Sucking Catfish would be given to Gu Song. For the first time ever, Cao Yun saw Gu Song's face. He had already received a description by Xiao Xuefeng as he was a traitor from her Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. But through the memories, it was as though he was seeing him in real life. He was a 4th-grade Spirit Warrior. It meant that his Upper Dantian had been strengthened and his Soul Embryo was fully awake. As a 4th-grade Spirit Warrior, he was slowly sending his Soul Embryo from the Huang Ting between the Lower Dantian and the Middle Dantian to the Upper Dantian.

Of course Gu Song didn't appear with his robe of the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. However, he had his 4-star Heaven alchemist emblem. Gu Song had gray hair and a thick beard, yet his face was full of vigor. Only the color of his hair and the light in his eyes were betraying his old age. Of course, it was almost impossible to guess the actual age of a cultivator. But the institute knew that Gu Song was around a thousand years old. And he had been stuck as a 4th-grade Spirit Warrior and a 4-star Heaven alchemist for several centuries now. Apparently, his Soul Embryo had suffered during its awakening and he was having a hard time sending it into his Upper Dantian without causing any more damage.

It seemed obvious that it had been the main reason why he had joined the ranks of the demonic cultivators. Although he had studied and experimented for such a long time, he had failed to find a way to progress any further. Unfortunately, the pills that could have helped him were impossible to refine during the current Forsaken Dao Era.

In a matter of minutes, Cao Yun lived through several years of the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish's life. Unfortunately, he didn't learn anything about his family. But he discovered what Gu Song had been ordering the demonic beast to do. Apparently, it was the only beast he had under his control which was a good thing. And he wasn't using it very often recently. Since the failure of Mo Tian, he had tried to keep a low profile. But he had still required the services of the Soul-Sucking Catfish.

Contrary to what Cao Yun had thought, he wasn't working on fusing the blood of humans and demons like Mo Tian had been doing. No, Gu Song was working on the souls. Most likely, it was a way for him to try and heal his own Soul Embryo. As such, he had tasked the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish with the retrieval of human souls for his experiments. Instead of devouring the souls, the catfish was just swallowing them to then deliver them to its former master.

It was difficult to have a precise number given how many victims he had made. But there had to have been thousands of humans, men, women, elderly, children. Everyone was fair game. Even if their souls were not too useful, they were witnesses and had to be killed. In fact, Gu Song even gave some of the useless souls to the beast. Worse than that, Cao Yun saw many deformed souls being fed to the catfish. After Gu Song had failed some experiments on the souls, having them devoured by the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish was a good way to get rid of them as though they were garbage.

Obviously, Cao Yun was full of anger and rage when he thought about Gu Song. He had already planned to extract everything he could from his very soul. But now, he intended to make him pay for what he had done to the souls of those people. Besides the pain and cruelty he had visited upon them, there was something even worse. Most people in the Hongchen Kingdom believed in the cycle of reincarnation. By destroying one's soul, Gu Song had robbed them of any possibility of ever being reincarnated. To be honest, Cao Yun wasn't completely sure whether reincarnation was real or not, or even how it truly worked if it existed. But like almost everyone, he did believe in it.

Having one's soul tortured and destroyed was worse than dying without a corpse. Even turning into a ghost might not be as terrible a fate. Indeed, in that situation, a small part of the soul was at least remaining.

Unfortunately, Cao Yun didn't discover too much about Gu Song. Indeed, he was always visiting the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish far from any city as to stay hidden. However, Cao Yun had now a perfect vision of who Gu Song was. Besides his appearance, he had also heard his voice and even felt his Wei Qi. There was no way for him to hide from Cao Yun. More than that, Cao Yun had even felt a few weaknesses in his Wei Qi which had probably come from his damaged Soul Embryo. This would increase his chances of attacking his soul.

When he was done sifting through the memories, Cao Yun had already purified almost all the poison within the catfish. However, he decided not to extract the rest. Since he had already created a seal in the demonic beast's soul, he made another one. This new seal was now holding the rest of the Heart Reversing Tormentor. That way, the demonic beast was not being tortured by the poison anymore. At the same time though, Cao Yun could unleash it at a moment's notice. He had truly learned the meaning of carrot and stick.

Despite this looming threat, the giant fish was grateful to Cao Yun. Although he was its new master, serving under him seemed way more pleasant than being oppressed by the old man.

Finally, Cao Yun went to Yong Ke. The young woman was still meditating in order to fully recover from her fatigue and the poison. He had not realized before, but her clothes were revealing some of her skin here and there because of the fight. In fact, even her veil was a tiny bit ripped. Behind those clothes, Cao Yun didn't see what he was expecting. Everything he was looking, there were scar tissues. Some were almost healed, but clearly, this young woman had suffered a lot. He couldn't see her face, but he could see a part of her neck. There was a huge laceration on it with traces of burns around it.

Maybe she wasn't only hiding her identity, but her scars. Besides, if someone had caused such injuries, she might just be trying to hide from some pursuers. Because of her way of speaking, Cao Yun was convinced that she was somehow related to the Imperial City. Thus, he was very interested in her. After all, 'the Traitor' the demonic cultivators were referring to in the reports he had read was probably either the Emperor himself or someone close to him. Otherwise, he couldn't understand the role of the 5th Imperial Brocade Guards.

As much as they had fought side by side, and despite this strange feeling of familiarity, Cao Yun and Yong Ke were still strangers to one another. In fact, he was even hiding his real name from her. Even if he had shown her his true martial arts, he wasn't trusting her completely. And the opposite was true as well. But somehow, they both felt that the other would not betray their secret.

"Miss Yong, you should take care of your clothes."

Yong Ke wasn't flustered by Cao Yun's remark. Of course, her clothes were not revealing much. But she just wasn't scared that Cao Yun might talk about her condition. Like he had surmised, she was hiding both her identity and her injuries. Fortunately, she wasn't covered in scars, but she had suffered a few terrible injuries that were still marking her flesh. Even through the consumption of powerful pills, they had not disappeared completely. But she simply couldn't remember how she had suffered from them. Her past had been so traumatic that she had forgotten almost everything.

Since her family wouldn't let her risk herself, she had been forced to steal some things and run away from home. Just like Cao Yun, she was looking for answers and she was convinced that demonic cultivators were the right people to ask for those answers. Of course, asking nicely wouldn't do. But alone, she wasn't sure what she could do to extract the information she wanted.

Thankfully, she had met Cao Yun who had showed his proficiency in the soul arts. If she stayed by his side, she might be able to get exactly what she wanted. And the best thing was that she was certain that he wanted the same thing.

"Sir Guai..."

"Please, Miss Yong, let go of those formalities."

"Of course, then I'll ask Brother Guai to do the same. I might be presumption, but I suspect that we are after the same thing. If you had just been curious about what had happened to Luozhi, you wouldn't have risked your life to attack the demonic beast behind it. Besides, you wouldn't have tried to capture it alive. Although I can't feel it, I imagine that you put a seal in that creature."

"And aren't you afraid that I might be a demonic cultivator if I know how to use seals?"

"If you were, you had many opportunities to slay me. In themselves, seals are not evil. Binding a criminal is not the same thing as binding an innocent woman for example. Few demonic techniques are inherently evil. And I don't think you are. However, I do believe that you are looking for something. And if I may be presumptuous, I do believe I know who it is..."

"Sister Yong, you might be right. But then, what do you suggest?"

"We could form an alliance."