Chapter 220: Exploring the graveyard
The scene that laid bare before Cao Yun's eyes made him doubt whether he was alive or dead. Maybe he had fallen into the world of the dead, or he had died himself. It was possible that he had never dodged the final 'Shadow Heart Palm' of Can Mouye and he was just dead. The only thing making him sure that he was alive was the sensation that this place was related to Cleansed Asura. Despite the lack of Qi, this entire world gave him the same feeling he had had when he had met Cleansed Asura's soul.
Over Cao Yun's head, the sky was pitch-black. Here and there, it was crisscrossed by purple scars. They truly looked like scars in the fabric of reality itself. And they were what was giving off this ominous purple light that strangely colored the world in different shades of gray, numbing down any bright color. But that wasn't all there was up there. Besides those terrifying scars, there were eight structures floating high up in the sky. There was no celestial body of any kind besides those. Apart from stars or moons, there was not even a single cloud of any kind or size.
Floating in this sky of scarred darkness, those eight structures looked like heavenly palaces. But they were in a terrible state. They were way too far for Cao Yun to see them properly but he could see that they used to be glorious. Except that nowadays, they had lost all their glory. Several walls were broken and the wood seemed to be rotten.
Cao Yun could not understand where he was exactly. Could an array formation have transported him somewhere else? Could he be in Cleansed Asura's soul or sea of consciousness? As a matter of fact, he knew almost nothing about the God-Monarch realm, so he could hardly hazard a guess.
Right now, the most important thing was to get away from the place where he had come from. If Can Mouye was still after him, he may arrive in the same spot. Or he could find himself in a completely different spot. Or he could even die. Maybe Cao Yun had come here because of the Drop of Wrath, or he had survived thanks to it. As of now, Cao Yun had no certitude whatsoever. First, he would try to find a place to hide. Then, he would think about what to do next.
As such, Cao Yun decided to go in the direction where he had seen the most bones. It wasn't necessarily a place he wanted to visit, but that was the only spot where he could hide. From what he had seen, this black plain spread as far as his eyes could see from above. It was almost like a giant graveyard of a former world. Maybe there had been a great battle and many people had died here. Or maybe that was truly a graveyard. But that could be something else entirely.
While walking, Cao Yun tried to call to his memory anything about such a place. Nothing came to mind, despite all the books he had read. Most of their knowledge was now in his own mind thanks to the Chamber of Ultimate Truth. But there was nothing that could help him. He even tried to look through Cleansed Asura's memory once more. Maybe he could find an illustration or something, even if he could not read anything. Unfortunately, he found nothing useful either. Besides, it was more difficult to search through those memories. He could not understand this knowledge at all and it was worth several millenniums of reading. Even with his Chamber of Ultimate Truth, he could not easily absorb all of it. It wasn't even organized.
While he was walking, Cao Yun took great care to remember everything he was seeing. In his head, he was building a map of this place. Thankfully, the bones were perfect landmarks as they were all different. In fact, Cao Yun noticed that there were bones that did not belong to any kind of species he knew about. Of course, he did not know every single species in the Hongchen Kingdom. No one could boast such a feat. However, they were completely foreign to everything he had read about. Those things were not from the Piaolu planet, or maybe they were from a very long time ago.
In the black sand, Cao Yun saw a lot of rotten grass here and there. It was black and gray, and most of all, it was completely rotten. Over the grass, there were various mosses. And the grass itself seemed to have been waterlogged. It was completely swollen and crushed on the ground by its own weight. That thing was the only form of life in this place and it did not bode well. Here and there, there were also puddles of black water.
Cao Yun got close to one to see if he could salvage some water from it. As soon as he got close, he felt that this water was full of Evil Qi. In fact, that was so concentrated that the Evil Qi had turned liquid itself. It was almost on the level of a Qi Manifestation, like the rain manifested by Chan Weifeng during his final duel. Fearing that the Drop of Wrath would try to absorb it, Cao Yun walked away. This was not a good source of water. But if all the water in this world was like that, his gourd would be unable to replenish itself. There was an array formation to condense the water in the air into a liquid form. If the water was contaminated by Evil Qi, that was what Cao Yun would get in his gourd once it was empty. Food could wait, but securing water was essential to survive.
After walking almost an hour, Cao Yun found a tiny stream of the yellow water he had seen from above. This time, he got even more careful than with the black water. He closed the distance with utmost caution. Contrary to the black water, he felt nothing. Maybe this was because this yellow water had just less Evil Qi in it. As a Mortal, his ability to perceive Qi was limited in scope. Unless he got close to the puddles of black water, he could not feel anything strange emanating from them.
Still, he was not ready to trust anything in this dead world. As he got close to the yellow water, he first tried to send a piece of paper he had on him into it. The moment the paper touched the yellow water, it completely dissolved without even disturbing the surface of the water. Horrified, Cao Yun tried to throw some sand and a piece of bone. The bone was able to resist longer but it sank and very slowly dissolved anyway. On the other hand, the black sand sank like a hammer and stayed at the bottom of the yellow water. Of course, if this yellow water was able to dissolve this black sand, it couldn't form a stream in it...
Although he was curious, Cao Yun decided that finding out what this yellow water was would come later. But knowing how dangerous it was could still be useful. Any piece of knowledge would be useful in a world he knew nothing about. If he were to meet with Can Mouye again, he might be able to use his knowledge of this place against him, as long as he had any.
Finally, the young man reached the giant bones he had seen during his fall. They truly looked like titanic rib cages reaching up to the sky. Some were smaller while others were gigantic. Even the small ribs were almost as long as Cao Yun's 'Nine Chi Dragon Spear'. Since they were curved, they only were as tall as Cao Yun himself. And the biggest rib Cao Yun could see was towering two times higher than his own spear, more than six meters high. If that bone was really a rib cage, which seemed very likely, then its owner would have been more than ten times bigger than any human. Even compared with Ren Chao or Yun Ping, it was incredibly large. Moreover, the ribs were not just tall, they were also large.
Under those biggest ribs, Cao Yun could literally lay down and still be in their shadows. Clearly, this was a great spot to hide himself. And he did, after observing the environment some more.
Unlike the rest of the black plain he had walked through, this place, covered in bones, seemed to be devoid of any water. The black sand was cracked everywhere, forming strange patterns. Even the bones seemed to be dried up and some tiny cracks were visible on the smaller ones. Beneath those cracks, Cao Yun saw some traces of faint yellow substance also very dry. For an instant, Cao Yun thought about the yellow water he had come across. But if it was the same water, the bones would have probably been slowly dissolved. Still, it was possible that those huge bones were different in some aspect.
Anyway, this natural graveyard seemed to have suffered from an extreme drought for several years, if not decades. That created a stark contrast with the black plains where that rotten grass had been crushed by too much water. One place had suffered from a downpour while another had been destroyed by a drought. And there was no real boundary between those two places. Nothing made sense in this world.
But now that Cao Yun had some respite, he was going to use it. Since he had first ran with Huang'er, he had exhausted his legs. Despite his high stamina, he still needed to get some rest. Thus, he sat down under the shadow of one of the biggest ribs. However, he decided not to touch the bone itself, just to be safe. If there really was that yellow water in it, it could potentially be extremely dangerous.
Finally, he took out the egg and made sure that it was perfectly safe. Putting his hand on it, he felt that the chick inside was still moving around. Cao Yun had no way to actually know how long ago this egg had been laid. Hence, he had no idea of how long it would take to hatch. However, considering its activity, it should have been more than three years old. That meant that it could hatch in a range from a few months to more two years. And it was probably forming its demonic core right now. However, there was not an ounce of Qi in this place, so it would disrupt its development.
Unfortunately, Cao Yun had no way to help the egg. The only thing he could do was make sure that it was safe. But he had no material and this place was lacking in almost everything.
Now that he was somewhat reassured about the safety of the egg, Cao Yun decided to meditate. Up until now, he had opened more than half of his acupoints, nearly two hundred out of the 361 ones that were on the human body. Moreover, by following Chief Instructor Peng's advice, he had begun by the hardest acupoints first. And he only used the easy ones when he wanted to try out some of his understandings.
Cao Yun used his mind and the intent from both his Yi and the Drop of Wrath to go over every acupoint in his body. After absorbing some Evil Qi, he wanted to make sure that everything was alright in his body. The acupoints were literally the doors by which Qi could enter and exit the body. After carefully examining his own body, Cao Yun heaved a sigh of relief. There was no damage of any kind. Since this place was lacking in Qi, Cao Yun decided not to cultivate. To open his acupoints, he would need to use his own Qi and he had no way of replenishing it for now. Every ounce of it was to be preserved. Just like water, this was another form of resource he had to be mindful of.
After that, Cao Yun decided to focus on his mind cultivation. This did not require any Qi at all, just his mental strength. After his recent experience, he had finished forming another Five Echoes Pearl. Moreover, he had some more dealings with Evil Qi. But Cao Yun had had a plan for some time now.
The last chamber of his Upper Dantian he had energized had been the Chamber of Moving Pearls. It had stabilized his emotions. Of course, it had great consequences on Cao Yun's mind overall. But it had also been a choice in order to gain more control over the Drop of Wrath. And it could also help him resist Evil Qi even more. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough alone. But Cao Yun had thought about another chamber that would be very useful.
Recently, he had been hesitant because other chambers would have a greater impact on his fighting strength. For example, the Chamber of Heavenly Court would increase his reaction speed and his ability to make decisions overall. In a fight, this was obviously a key element to have an edge over his enemies. Among the six chambers left to energize, only one had a specific order, the final chamber. All the other chambers could be energized at any moment. So it fell upon Cao Yun to decide which one was truly useful to him.
Gaining more reaction speed against a middle Mortal Warrior would be useless to be honest. But being able to resist Evil Qi could not only help him resist his attacks more and maybe even survive in this place, it could also help him get more control over the Drop of Wrath. Right now, the only threat from the Drop of Wrath was not itself, but Cao Yun's inability to control it, except for its intent. He had to quickly be able to prevent it from absorbing Evil Qi. Yes, it had given him great benefits as his blood had become richer and richer in Qi. But if he were to absorb too much Evil Qi at once, his body would collapse. And the Drop of Wrath, acting on instinct, did not care at all. It did not even know Cao Yun existed.
So the decision was clear. Cao Yun would energize his Chamber of Medicine Field. This chamber would help him promote positive emotions and reduce negative ones. In a more practical approach, he would be able to gain some control on the regrets and resentment both in Evil Qi and in the Drop of Wrath itself. Hopefully, if he was right, he could be able to finally send his intent deeper into the Drop of Wrath to draw his Po character. And he might even be able to repel some amount of Evil Qi. This chamber was in the very center of the brain, just under the Chamber of Ultimate Truth. And its element was the Earth element.
Now that he was decided, Cao Yun began to focus on the Five Echoes Pearl, ready to plunge it into the ocean below and finally energize his chamber. With his usual calm, Cao Yun had now a good experience and was able to perform this without any problem. Just as the Five Echoes Pearl was about to touch the surface of the ocean below, a cracking sound echoed throughout the graveyard Cao Yun was in.