Chapter 489: Exploring the desert
Cao Yun couldn't know for sure why space seemed to be completely broken around here. But the giant sandstorm in front of him was clearly the result of that. From where he was, it was difficult to say for sure but the sandstorm itself seemed to be as large as a small province of the Hongchen Kingdom. In other words, it was absolutely gigantic. With his current understanding of the Dao of Space, he really couldn't tell much. There were several possible scenarios. From what he could see, it didn't seem to be the fruit of any array formation. Either someone had deliberately broke space, or more likely, this was the result of some epic battle.
Although the sandstorm was perfectly contained, space itself wasn't normal around it. As a consequence, it was almost impossible to fly to the top of the sandstorm. Instead of wasting Hongyu's strength, Cao Yun decided to give up on that. However, they had still flown high enough to look at the land in front of them. The sandstorm was basically a wall behind them. Considering how vast it seemed, it would probably be way longer to try and circle it. Thus, Cao Yun looked more carefully in the opposite direction.
With his senses, he could see even farther than Hongyu herself, despite her new cultivation. Thanks to that, he was able to see a few intriguing scenes. There were many demonic beasts, but most of them were hiding in the desert. There was no doubt that this place was very hostile as he saw a lot of deaths in a few instants. Crossing this desert without any knowledge about his fauna or flora was incredibly dangerous. But of course, staying where he was would also be his doom. As such, he tried to take in as much information as he could while he was up there.
Several times Cao Yun tried to get in contact with Dian Mo but he was in a deep slumber. Apparently, he was slowly devouring the soul of Mo Wang. At the very least, from what Cao Yun could feel, the fight had already been won. It was just that the consequences had been very serious. Unfortunately, Cao Yun had little knowledge about how to heal a pure spirit. In the current era, no one knew how to craft a spirit considering that only a Sage could perform such a thing. For someone who couldn't perceive the Dao, such a feat was impossible. Hopefully, Dian Mo would be able to recover enough to tell Cao Yun how to help him. His help would be appreciated in the demon territories. Besides, Cao Yun liked his discussions with him.
Anyway, using his compass and what he had observed himself, Cao Yun decided on a direction. Within his spatial ring, he had enough resources to survive at least a couple of years along Hongyu. According to what he knew about the Piaolu planet, thanks to Emperor Nuwa's map of it, flying around the entire planet would take less than two years if he was able to fly in straight line. This was an estimate as there were array formations and other space anomalies all over the place from the Great War. In fact, if Hongyu could fly without any obstacle and with full abandon, she could probably circle the planet in a few hours really. This was quite frustrating.
In order to prevent flying cultivators and demonic beasts from attacking, many defenses had been created over the millenniums. Some had even been crafted by the very first humans, before the invasion by Demon God Da Mo. Since then, many more defenses had been added to the point that, in some area, flying wasn't that much faster than walking. Of course, flying was still a huge advantage as it would protect the person from many attacks on the ground.
Unfortunately, this place was not different. Space behind him was completely broken, but space in front of him was also riddled with defenses. Besides, Cao Yun would be forced to use his 'Ashen Feather Seal' not only on himself but also on Hongyu. As a consequence, they would be forced to slow down even more. But being slow was better than being dead. And to be honest, Cao Yun had no concrete idea where he was going. So he wasn't in a hurry. Along the way, he would have to glance at any possible clue to find some form of intelligent life. In other words, he was looking for some demon to help him get more information.
Although he was blocking his negative thoughts and horrible scenarios about his sister, Cao Yun was still thinking about her. He had to find out how much time had passed and how fast he could get back to the Hongchen Kingdom. It would also be a good opportunity to garner information on the demons themselves. To his knowledge, no human had ever been able to infiltrate them. On the other hand, demons had just been able to do precisely that in his own kingdom. Of course, Traitor Weide was his worst enemy. But that didn't mean that the demons were not a threat either.
As he was thinking about all that, he realized that he had not thought about Feng Yingyue once. His mind was completely filled with his younger sister. That was understandable of course, but he still felt a bit guilty about that. He truly liked her and their conversations, as well as their other, more intimate, activities together. But as he was growing older, away from her, his views on many things were changing. Romance was one of them. To be honest, he had no time in his life for that, at least, not now. As he was developing his mind cultivation, he was getting a better understanding of his own feelings, sensations, and emotions. But that didn't mean that he had a perfect understanding of them right now.
In fact, he would need to start working on Unclean Evil soon, the second part of his corporeal soul, his Po. With that, he would truly start to rebuild the Drop of Wrath. By subduing the Flying Poison, he had put it under his full authority. But it still required all six other Po in order to be complete. From now on, he will need to make it whole again, piece by piece.
Right now though, he had cultivated enough. And instead of waiting more, he decided to follow a specific direction with his compass. Hopefully, the killing intent in the air would change sufficiently for him to find the demons he was looking for. Until then, he would maintain his trajectory.
Using his stealth technique, he surrounded Hongyu and himself with several layers of ashes. Even a Spirit Warrior would have a hard time finding them if they stayed perfectly still. Of course, if they were right under his nose, that would be a different story. But to cross this desert, it should protect them from any demonic beast. With his observations, Cao Yun had found many unknown demonic beasts. Although he didn't know how many cores they had, it was clear to him that some were stronger than Hongyu and even himself. Since he could kill any Mortal Warrior, those demonic beasts had to have at least seven demonic cores. In other words, they were as strong as early Spirit Warriors, or early Accomplished Demons.
In any way, he had no intention of fighting them. To the contrary, he had prepared many ways for the both of them to escape based on the demonic beasts he had seen. Some were looking very similar to insects. Once again, he had seen a few spiders that didn't bring back happy memories. There were also feathered beasts, both flying and walking, as well as furry animals on the ground. From what he had seen, they were each predating on each other. Since there was almost no large vegetation around this desert, they were most likely surviving by killing other demonic beasts. Thus, they were probably more ferocious and dangerous than the demonic beasts Cao Yun had met, because they were more desperate. No demonic beast would pass on the meal Cao Yun and Hongyu were.
As they were flying around, the young man was focusing on two things only. While he was maintaining his 'Ashen Feather Seal' around the both of them, his senses were completely focused on his surroundings as well as his compass.
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For days, they flew straight forward. Several times, they were forced to stop. Thanks to his compass, Cao Yun was able to detect the presence of the stronger demonic beasts before they could detect them. To be fair, those demonic beasts were not used to a fenghuang and a human. They were used to hunting the demonic beasts living in that desert as well as demons. Thankfully, this allowed Cao Yun's stealth to be even more effective. However, they still had to hide in the sand now and then.
Finally, Cao Yun detected a small change in the killing intent around him. It was very faint, but there was clearly a trace of demon blood in the air, and it was fresh. Without too much haste, Cao Yun led Hongyu in that direction. In the distance, he heard something before he could see it as a giant dune was masking the scene. There was no doubt, some demons were fighting a big demonic beast.
In fact, the young man saw the demonic beast before he could see its opponents. That thing was very strange to his eyes. It was covered in plates that were shining under the sun and looked so hot that flesh would melt upon touching them. It had six legs with many hooks all over them. It head seemed to be crushed at the front of its body and Cao Yun couldn't get a good look at it. But the rest of its body was a single large ellipse with only a few separations in the plates covering it. The sand around the creature was almost turning to glass as it was standing on it.
The two most important features of that creature were the large horns on its narrow head and the stinger on its back. In fact, it really looked like a beetle with a scorpion stinger. The two horns were absolutely massive and prevented its opponents from getting to close to it by the front. Thankfully, they were not mobile. On the other hand, its stinger was extremely flexible and nimble, moving all other the place, trying to pierce through the demons facing it.
At one point, Cao Yun even saw its stinger release some kind of acid toward the demons fighting the demonic beast. The demon who was touched by it was an early Golden Blood Child, yet he died very quickly. The acid touched his chest and pierced through it in seconds. As he was screaming in agony, his comrades had no time to waste on him. Considering the strength of the demons and the resistance of the demonic beast, Cao Yun surmised that it had seven cores, bordering on the eight cores even. In other words, it was as strong as a 3rd or 4th-grade Spirit Warrior. Thankfully though, it didn't seem like it had any form of spiritual attacks.
At least a dozen demons were surrounding the demonic beast, using their techniques to put some distance between it and them. Not a single one of them had a cultivation higher than 6th-grade Golden Blood Child. However, they had great teamwork. All over the place, there were corpses. Originally, they had been thirty demons against that creature. But the many sacrifices had not been useless. It was obvious that the 7-core demonic beast was exhausted. On the other hand, the same was true of the surviving demons.
Cao Yun was now close enough to fully see the fight scene. The demons were going all out and they seemed to be directed by a man they were calling 'Brother Yaxue'. He had a scythe in hand. Although he was giving orders, he was also on the front line. His blood cultivation was on the verge of becoming a 7th-grade Golden Blood Child but he wasn't quite there yet.
Behind the demons, there were three caravans. Without any doubt, those were containing other demons, with lesser cultivation. In fact, there was no doubt in Cao Yun's mind that those demons were slaves as they were all in chains. Apparently, since they had no humans left to enslave, the demons had turned against each other. Watching the massacre, Cao Yun had absolutely no compassion for the demons. However, he needed them to survive in order to gather the information he required. That being said, he didn't need all of them to survive.
Instead of risking his life to save them right away, he decided to wait until the 7-core demonic beast was weak enough for him to dispose of it quickly and without any danger. In the meantime, he decided to observe their fight in order to prepare himself. If he needed to kill them at some point, it was a good idea to know about their techniques.
Most of them had long weapons like spears or halberds. Those were slightly different from the Eighteen Classical Weapons known in the Hongchen Kingdom. The blades were often serrated and had shapes made to cause as much damage as possible both when they entered and even more so when they exited the flesh. In fact, some might even think those were more instruments of torture than weapons of war. Those weapons' main goal was to cause a lot of bleeding. After all, demons were after blood more than anything else. A few of them also had whips with metal bits along them.
All around the giant beetle with a scorpion stinger, the sand had truly turned into glass. It was preventing it from burrowing underground, but even from moving at all. With its legs full of hook, it was trying to break the glass. But the demonic beast was surrounded by large red war flags covered. With a glance, Cao Yun could tell they were causing the intense heat around the demonic beast. Somehow, they were concentrating the heat from the sun, burning everything in the center of the circle they were set up in.
Right now, the most dangerous thing was the scorpion stinger. Not only could it release acid, it was extremely long and agile. Each flag was protected by several demons as the stinger was trying to destroy them. The demonic beast was smart enough to know what those flags were doing to its body even though it didn't understand how it worked.
Cao Yun was also a bit surprised as those flags didn't respect the principles of array formations he knew.