Chapter 255: Death Verses
Cao Yun could not see what was going on outside of this world, but he could surmise it. Since this entire planet had appeared through the sea of consciousness of Cleansed Asura, it was obvious what this world was. This 'Inner World' was quite literally within his master. Just like the six stars of 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' that Cao Yun had in his very mind, or the Five Agents as well, it was a physical representation of Cleansed Asura's achievements.
And this place had evolved with him and his cultivation. So of course, this purple wounds in the sky had been caused either by a mistake during his cultivation or an attack. Considering Cleansed Asura's strength, Cao Yun had a hard time believing he could have made such a terrible mistake. Thus, this wound had most likely been inflicted on him by someone else.
Although he could not see what was going on outside of Cleansed Asura, Cao Yun was able to feel a very faint presence in this wound. For a split second, he even saw two pupils looking through his soul. But they disappeared as fast as they had come, just like the presence itself. Cleansed Asura's Inner World was suffering a lot because of the terrifying shockwave caused by the main palace's fall. In addition, more and more wounds were inflicted in the sky. None were as terrible as the first one and no other palace fell from the sky. However, they all suffered some degree of destruction nonetheless.
Without understanding what had actually happened, the young witness could guess that a terrible battle had broken out between his master and another expert. He probably was as powerful as Cleansed Asura to inflict such wounds. Thus, it was likely that he was a God-Monarch as well.
Inside Cleansed Asura's Inner World, much destruction occurred. Paradoxically, most of the destruction had been caused by the chaos within, due to the fall of the first palace. None of the other attacks had been powerful enough to really shake the world. That meant that Cleansed Asura's enemy was surely weaker than him but had used the element of surprise to strike a decisive blow.
After that, Cleansed Asura had probably fled and that was when he had reached the Piaolu planet. Hence, those events had happened more than 50,000 years ago. It was even before the enslavement of humans by the demons. Everything Cao Yun had just witnessed had happened during the Legendary Era, the period in which the Piaolu planet was still ruled by humans.
As time was passing by, the images Cao Yun was seeing were becoming more and more blurry and enigmatic. Until now, he had been able to see everything with clear eyes, but the weakness of his master was starting to alter the visions. As such, everything sped up. Although he had no real sense of time, Cao Yun felt as though thousands of years were passing. The world became more and more somber as life was slowly slipping through Cleansed Asura's fingers. His body had definitely died. But his Po was kept trapped in his own Inner World. Cleansed Asura had tried to hang on life as much as possible. As such, his soul had survived but parts of it, namely his Po, had started to decay with his body.
Little by little, the clear water became black with Death Energy. However, there was no trace of Evil Qi at all yet. Indeed, Cleansed Asura had been able to preserve his rationality and his Hun. So Cao Yun was left with the question of how this Evil Qi had been generated. And the only answer he had in mind was this fake Cleansed Asura Can Mouye had mentioned. Indeed, there was now no doubt in his mind. A fake Cleansed Asura was usurping his name.
The very moment this idea popped up in his mind, the scenery changed. He was now over the black mountains and descended into their depths. There, hidden under the rocks, the main palace that had fallen during the attack was rotting away. Unfortunately the image was very unclear but Cao Yun saw a face clad in darkness. Once more, he was watching at the face of his master. But unlike the vision he had had of him, this face was deformed by madness. Besides, the symbol between his eyebrows was now different. Even then, Cao Yun could not understand its meaning, but it almost looked like a third eye. Moreover, this simple symbol was seething with evil intents.
That was when Cao Yun noticed that the darkness around him was Evil Qi. Maybe that fake Cleansed Asura was an inner demon. Still, the young man could not believe that someone as powerful as a God-Monarch could easily develop an inner demon. Of course, there were possible explanations. It was possible that Cleansed Asura had formed this inner demon early on but had been able to keep him in check until his lethal wound. In fact, it was even possible that giving his Drop of Wrath away had lessened his ability to control this inner demon. However, it could also be something slightly different than an inner demon.
Unfortunately, Cleansed Asura, the only one who could dispel those doubts, could not really talk with Cao Yun anymore.
Finally, the vision completely disappeared and Cao Yun was back in the obscure sea of consciousness where he was still kneeling in front of the red dot that was Cleansed Asura's soul. Compared with some instants ago, the red dot was even tinier and dimmer. Just sending those visions had considerably weakened it. Immediately, Cao Yun tried to push his Drop of Wrath to the limit of what he could do. In his own sea of consciousness, the form of a giant red demon appeared once more. And even in the dark sea of consciousness, Cao Yun's skin began to turn red as well. However, the red dot barely got better. It did. But it was so insignificant that it was obvious nothing could be done to try and help him.
Cao Yun had come all the way here in the hope of saving Huang Liyue. And now he was faced with yet another expert who had sacrificed his life to help him. Why did anyone who tried to help him had to die? His master could have probably lived for hundreds of years but he had given his Drop of Wrath to him. And now, before Cao Yun could repay him, he had once more shortened his lifespan just to show him some images. Despite his troubled emotions, Cao Yun committed every detail he had seen to memory. Those images were a mix of reality and imagery. Since Cleansed Asura could not speak in Nuhua anymore, he had engineered those visions.
But those visions were not enough. Now, Cao Yun had a vague idea of what was going on, but he had no way of leaving this world. Even if he had that knowledge, he would be too weak to use it anyway. Without at least a Spirit Warrior, there was no way for him to survive this Yellow Death World, as Huang Liyue had named it. Now, this wasn't Cleansed Asura's Inner World. Apart from this pagoda, this place was even hostile to Cleansed Asura. And he could not leave this tree anymore.
His soul was so weak that without the support of this world-tree, Cleansed Asura would collapse in a matter of minutes. Knowing that, the master wanted to give his disciple the means to survive and let his legacy prosper. Even though he had chosen this boy by a turn of luck, he had been satisfied with his character. And right now, he was also satisfied with his talent. Compared to the boy he had met, Cao Yun, in less than two years, had achieved way better results than he had thought possible.
And many were due to his mind cultivation. Even Cleansed Asura had been surprised by the potency of this mind cultivation. Behind it, he could see some mysteries and he had a vague idea of who had written it and why. But right now, it was not important at all. However, thinking about this mind cultivation, Cleansed Asura thought of a possibility. There was a way for Cao Yun who was still only a Mortal to turn this situation around. And the crux of the solution was Huang Liyue.
No matter how much Cleansed Asura thought about it, he first had to find a way to awaken that woman. Considering how weak he was, he could barely think straight. Yet, he searched for a solution and he found one. The feeling of frustration was unbearable. Even though he knew that this solution was suboptimal and that he had better ways to achieve the same results, and even better ones, Cleansed Asura could not think of them. They were there somewhere in his memory but he could not access them. Every time he touched upon them, they slipped from his mind.
Then, he had to resort to this inferior solution. Hopefully it would work out just fine. But his disciple had to understand what he wanted to say...
As Cao Yun was turning red, letting the Drop of Wrath run amok in order to try and restore some of his master's strength, new visions appeared in his mind. All of a sudden, he was back in the main palace that had fallen down. Hidden in the center of the destroyed palace, he saw a yellow rock oozing. From this rock, a tiny stream was penetrating the cavern below and was permeating through the mountains, creating an underground current. In this vision, Cao Yun's viewpoint crossed through the rocks and reached a small lake. This was from this lake that all the Yellow Sorrows Water he had seen had come from.
Then, he saw Huang Liyue's body besides the yellow water. And on the other shore, there were four characters etched into the rocky bank. Those four characters were written in Antique Sixian, not in Nuhua. And Cao Yun could only understand one of them because he had seen it several times in the documents found in the Merciful Deity Temples and the engravings discovered by Huang Liyue alike. This character meant 'Death'. Of course this word had been present a lot in the texts Cao Yun had seen because this entire place was brimming with Death Energy.
If his master was risking his last strength to show those characters to Cao Yun, there had to be a reason behind it. Immediately, Cao Yun tried to look within his memories for these exact four characters. Considering the amount of information he had received from his master, it took a lot of time, but he finally found something. There was a scripture written by Cleansed Asura himself and its name was precisely those four characters. Unfortunately, Cao Yun was unable to read the text, but there were some Insight Writings as well. Maybe he could use them to try and decipher the rest. Of course, he first had to get an understanding of the concepts behind those Insight Writings.
Just like with his 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks', it was necessary to get a bit of understanding of a concept in order to be able to read an Insight Writing based around this concept. Unlike any other language, Insight Writings were literally the very essence of a concept taken form. As such, anyone who could catch a glimpse of the concept could read those characters.
To his surprise, Cao Yun was able to understand a few characters. This text was talking about Death Energy and Po as well as the soul in general. Thanks to his achievements in his mind cultivation and his recent dealings with Death Energy, Cao Yun knew just enough to get a general sense of what was discussed in this text. Although he could not read its real title, Cao Yun decided to name it 'Death Verses'. Indeed, the text was separated into several verses. But Cao Yun could barely make out each one. Among the six verses Cao Yun could see, the last one was barely complete. It was clear that this text had been written by Cleansed Asura but he had never been able to conclude it.
In total, Cao Yun was able to understand the general meaning of the first three verses through the few Insight Writings in them.
They all heavily revolved around the concept of Death Energy. Apparently, the first verse explained how to increase one's perception of Death Energy. Thus, it was the one Cao Yun was able to understand the most. Then, the second one further explained how one could use this new perception to control and manipulate Death Energy as though it was Qi. Finally, the very last verse Cao Yun was able to understand a little seemed to refer to a way to produce Death Energy through one's own body, without dying of course. But this last verse was still way to complex and obscure for him. The young disciple had only been able to get the general goal of it.
But if his master had shown him this 'Death Verses', then it had to be important. And it even seemed to be related to the Yellow Sorrows Water and to a way of saving Huang Liyue. However, everything was still too unclear.
"Master, this unworthy disciple is still lacking. I did not understand enough. Is this a way to save Huang Liyue's life?"
As he said those words, he saw a vision of himself manipulating the yellow water and extracting a single drop of it. Then, he injected it within Huang Liyue's Soul Embryo. After that, a powerful light eclipsed everything else and Cao Yun found himself on the cliff in the woods between Baziyun City and Yinmen City.
Although he could not understand everything, the young man was intelligent enough to get a general idea of what his master wanted him to do. But this yellow water had been terrifying enough to chase away Bone Generals. Not only was he unsure of being able to control it, he could not imagine what effects it would have on Huang Liyue. Wouldn't it just kill her faster? But then again, if he did nothing, she would die anyway. Maybe he had to try that. Another problem was the fact that this yellow lake was right under the fallen palace. And according to what he had seen, the fake Cleansed Asura was in that palace. And so was Can Mouye, probably.
Moreover, Cao Yun had to find a way to get back there. He wasn't sure that the remnants of the 'Feng Soaring Junk' would be able to resist another crossing of the black ocean. All those problems flooded Cao Yun's mind. But suddenly, he felt something else. He got expelled from the obscure sea of consciousness and found himself in front of the seed in the real world.