Chapter 515: Honor and respect in the desert
Cao Yun was having a real trouble breathing. Of course, this wouldn't kill him easily. With his current cultivation, he could control his Golden Blood and his Qi so well that he could spend several hours without any supply of oxygen while keeping his flesh alive. However, the tails were not just cutting off his air supply. They were truly constricting him with incredible strength. Any Mortal or Blood Child would have been crushed into paste in a very short time. Even if Cao Yun could resist longer, he was still feeling his body screaming under such a pressure. He had literally walked on the depths of a dark ocean before, but this pressure was stronger than that.
At the moment, he could barely move even though he was mustering all of his blood cultivation. In fact, the only way he had to free himself would be to use his 'Dragon's Heart', but he didn't want to resort to his spearmanship in this duel. That being said, the Silver Six-Tailed Fox wasn't in a better situation either. Cao Yun's sword was still piercing through his belly. Although he had saved his heart, this meant that Cao Yun could literally assault his innards with his own Qi. Since the Silver Six-Tailed Fox's Wei Qi had been physically breached, he would have a hard time protecting his organs from within.
Indeed, demonic beasts had only an intuitive knowledge of the Qi flowing with their blood. Thus, they couldn't willfully wield it. Even the Qi Manifestation and the strange phenomenons they were conjuring up were all intuitive. Only humans and other intelligent species like demons, asura or deva, could look at their powers and derive entire martial arts from them. Although demonic beasts were intelligent, they lacked the capacity for abstraction that had made other intelligent species so successful. Without this ability, they had no way of ever touching the Dao.
Right now, the two fighters were in a dead-end. However, Cao Yun had enough cards to get out of it. For example, he had obviously his spear art, but he also had spiritual senses, mental attacks and he even had Hongyu waiting on the side. With any one of those, he would be able to kill the Silver Six-Tailed Fox easily since he wasn't expecting them, apart from Hongyu's intervention of course. In fact, the Silver Six-Tailed Fox was clearly afraid of her at the moment. Cao Yun was so close to his face that he could tell everything he was feeling. That Silver Six-Tailed Fox truly regretted his decision.
Until now, he had survived because he was cunning enough to chose his battles well. But today, Cao Yun's blood had been so attractive he had misjudged the risks. Outweighing them with the rewards, they had seemed worth it. But now that he was contemplating his death, they were not. After all, once dead, no reward would be worth it...
There was something the Silver Six-Tailed Fox absolutely didn't expect. Cao Yun retrieved his sword in his spatial ring. Then, he looked the demonic beast straight in the eyes. After a few breaths, the Silver Six-Tailed Fox understood and began to loosen his grip on the young human. Very slowly, the two of them got away from each other.
"You fought well. Since there's no sense killing each other, I suggest that we part ways for this day. I bid you well."
Even though the Silver Six-Tailed Fox didn't understand human speech as well as Hongyu, he was still able to get the general meaning. When Cao Yun bowed, the Silver Six-Tailed Fox also did the same. Thankfully, the sword had not caused too much damage to the demonic beast. It would only take a few days to heal completely with his bloodline. However, the psychological effect of that encounter would stay with him for decades if not centuries. For sure, he would not attack a prey so recklessly again. But he had also developed new considerations. That human had showed him respect and horror and that intrigued him quite a lot as he was slowly advancing his cultivation.
According to the ancient texts, demonic beasts who had developed nine demonic cores could then hope to become immortal beasts. Such beasts were as intelligent as humans with deep abstract thoughts. In fact, most of them were even capable of speech. As they were getting closer to that stage, many beasts began to develop a real form of complex personality, sometimes even with moral dilemmas they had never envisioned before. In a sense, it was truly like a child growing up to be an adult. And a new world had just opened today for that Silver Six-Tailed Fox.
When it was far enough from Cao Yun, the fox suddenly ran away with grace. Watching his figure disappear between the dunes, Cao Yun was admiring his elegance. Then he turned to Hongyu. It was time to leave now. He had worked on his sword art for quite some time and there were matters to attend to in Ruohe. By that time, Lady Gu Xue should have already tried to contact him. But since the situation was apparently so bad for him, it wasn't unexpected that he would take some time to respond to her requests. Anyway, he was convinced of his victory.
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While he was flying back to town, Dian Mo talked with Cao Yun.
"Boy, I've looked at the body of this Xixue. You were mostly right but you've also missed something big."
Since Dian Mo was an expert when it came to seals, Cao Yun was certain of his analysis. And because those seals engraved in her bones could help her cultivation, he was also very interested in understanding them better. Besides, they might have other effects he had not yet imagined. Unfortunately, he wasn't such an expert in seals that he could tell just by looking at them. Indeed, Cao Yun had mostly trained his ability to unravel seals and to forge very specific ones. Thus, when it came to analyzing them, he was mostly relying on his knowledge of array formations.
As a first approach it wasn't too bad as there were similarities. But seals were often much more linked with their direct environment. In this case, this was Xixue's own body. As such, Cao Yun couldn't understand everything. He might need Dian Mo to teach him more about seals. Gaining a more detailed understanding of them was necessary now as he was among demons. Even though he had been curious before, Cao Yun was forced to focus on what seemed truly important for him in the immediate future. Unfortunately, he was lacking time and his current routine was already hardly fitting in a single day.
"This will indeed help her improve her blood cultivation. Of course, this will cause it to be more and more unstable until she won't be able to progress at all. Besides, her bones will also become weaker and weaker over time. Even with a great cultivation, her health will end up suffering from this. But the most important part is elsewhere. First of all, I am forced to admit that this is a very smart and cunning use of seals. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have had this idea. From what you know, either this City Lord Sihe is incredibly talented or he found some ancient legacy. And to be honest, I do think he is incredibly talented. Those seals don't remind me of any old tradition. Clearly, they are quite modern with principles developed recently.
"At their core though, the principles always remain the same. Those seals can also act as a form of explosive. Xixue's very bones would detonate by using the Jing stored within. In other words, as soon as her cultivation reaches a certain point, she will literally blow up, killing anyone around her. My guess is thus that she wasn't meant to simply by Boss Gui's secretary. Boss Gui would have realized her worth and kept her closer and closer. After all, you're realizing yourself how helpful she is with your current situation. But at some point in the near future, she would have exploded and killed Boss Gui."
"But how could he time the moment precisely?"
"Well, that's the beauty of it... Hidden in the seals, there was also some trace of it in her Slavery Brand. Thankfully, you've kept a vivid image of it in your mind. There was a slight variation, a seal concealed behind another seal. By erasing her Slavery Brand, you've activated it. Now, if another Slavery Brand is used on her, this seal will coil around it and whoever has put that Slavery Brand on her will be the target. Her body won't explode unless her mind knows that she's close to her target and that her cultivation is high enough to kill her for sure."
It was a good thing Cao Yun had not used a Slavery Brand on her. But that didn't change the crux of the problem. At some point, her cultivation could literally cause her to explode even without the right target near her.
"In other words, City Lord Sihe was counting on Boss Gui putting her own Slavery Brand on Xixue... Of course! If Sihe is behind most Slavery Brands, she would use a different one on a slave she keeps close, just in case. This Sihe is truly cunning."
"Worse than that, he's probably better at seals than you are. Maybe when it comes to getting rid of them, you might be superior since I don't have any way of comparing that. But if we're only speaking about crafting seals, he's your superior, there is absolutely no comparison to be honest. Hopefully, he spent most of his time training on the art of sealing, not of unraveling seals. Then, you might have an edge in that domain, but you should still work under the assumption that his seals are way more advanced than you think."
"Do you have a way of preventing Xixue's demise?"
"Better than that boy. I know how to reproduce the effects of those seals with blood runes. Now that I've watched the principles behind them, it won't be difficult to imitate some of the effects. To say things more clearly, I can teach you how to use blood seals to speed up your blood cultivation a little. Hell, it might even help your Qi cultivation as well. And instead of engraving your bones and damaging your body, those will be blood runes and seals made of blood and Qi. All things you can discard anytime you want."
Honestly, Cao Yun wasn't too confident putting seals in his own body like that. But he was still intrigued by Dian Mo's proposition. Since his cultivation was already extremely fast, it wouldn't improve it by much. On the other hand, it might help him get a cultivation even more firm and stable without having to spend more time on each stage.
While he was coming back to his residence, Cao Yun carefully listened to Dian Mo as though he was his teacher. And in fact, he was his teacher. There was no denying it. As much as Cao Yun had still in mind the possibility that Dian Mo might steal his body one day, he had to admit that he trusted him to a large degree. Apparently, Dian Mo too had gotten attached to Cao Yun.
Getting rid of the seals endangering Xixue would be difficult for two main reasons. The first was obvious, the seals were literally engraved in her bones so altering them would require to also alter her bones. The other reason though was that the seals were extremely intricate. Because Dian Mo was still weakened, he couldn't work outside of Cao Yun's body. In fact, he might not even be able to do anything within Cao Yun's body for the moment. Anyway, Cao Yun would need to alter the seals himself while under Dian Mo's guidance. Before that, Cao Yun decided to repeat the procedure several times in his sea of consciousness since he literally had created a perfect copy of Xixue's body.
Finally, he got back to his residence under the secrecy of his 'Ashen Feather Seals'. As soon as he arrived, he went to his cultivation room where he had supposedly stayed for several days.
Without further delay, he left his room and found Xixue sitting cross-legged in front of his personal chambers. She had probably been waiting for some time already. Since their conversation and Cao Yun's admonishment, she seemed a bit different but he couldn't tell whether it was good or bad. As much as she didn't look at him with disdain, she seemed to be completely separate from her emotions, as though she was an automaton. The more he was staying with her in that state, the more she felt like a real slave and that was leaving a sour taste in Cao Yun's mouth. Maybe he had been wrong with his words.
In fact, Cao Yun had not been convinced at all by his own words. And this was a true problem, Cao Yun had never really thought about morality too much, he had mostly obeyed his parents and the laws of his Hongchen Kingdom. Until now, he had never even been confronted with another set of laws and morals. Thus, as much as he was developing his mind, he didn't have any grand idea about values, morality, legality and all of those philosophical or even esoteric things. But since he was closer to his feelings, he could tell without a doubt that slavery was appalling and he wanted it to stop. At the very least, hunting slaves had to stop. Cao Yun wasn't arrogant enough yet to think he could stop the entire practice. Even the nomad tribes had laws about slavery, but slaves had to sell themselves willfully or to be condemned for some crime to a certain period of slavery.
Anyway, he had not the time to think about those things. Right now, he was just thinking about his ultimate goal. He wanted to get stronger, to come back to his land and to set things right with Emperor Weide and his little sister. All of that stuff about morality was beyond him at this point. He didn't want to be some saint or some political leader. But if he could make things a bit better, he would. And ending this barbaric practice certainly felt like a step in the right direction.
As he was about to talk with Xixue, a loud explosion shook the residence.