Revolt against the Heavens

Luduo Bu was still drowning in his sea of consciousness turned into a blood ocean. Everything that made him who he was was slowly being corroded as though he was digested by his own cultivation method. 'Blood Runes' was a terrifying method that used the blood of human cultivators to give incredible strength to its user. On the other hand, the blood runes formed contained lots of Evil Qi. This was part of the technique itself and could not be changed. That was the reason why human blood was so important for the technique and why demonic beasts just couldn't cut it when reaching a certain point.

When killing a human cultivator, their resentment would be turned into Evil Qi, strengthening the blood runes. But then, it meant that whoever was practicing this technique was flowing Evil Qi within their own bloodstream. This Evil Qi could easily either kill or turn insane anyone. Among others, it had the property of strengthening strong emotions and promoting the rise of inner demons. Unfortunately for Luduo Bu, he already had a deep inner demon.

Luduo Bu had used his emotions to strengthen his cultivation. But what he had failed to realize was that he was also feeding his inner demon. There was now nothing left of Luduo Bu but this inner demon. And it was even nourished by his own death. Becoming stronger and stronger with his resentment, Evil Qi condensed around the inner demon. Paradoxically, the inner demon even regained a bit of sanity by absorbing Luduo Bu's mind, especially his memories.

This was not Luduo Bu anymore, but a monstrous reflexion of all his obsessions. The strongest obsession was his deep desire to inflict pain and death on Cao Yun. As such, he used the bits of memory he had left in order to enter the Wubei Sect. First of all, he cleaned himself up considering he was covered in blood. As a matter of fact, he had slaughtered hundreds of people, cultivators and mere mortals alike. Fulao was now a mass grave, with disfigured corpses everywhere. Thanks to the inner demon running Luduo Bu's body, he wasn't completely a mindless murder machine, but he was very close to it.

In fact, as soon as he would kill Cao Yun, Luduo Bu's last obsession would disappear and his inner demon would be able to extinguish the very last bit of consciousness he had left. Right now, he acted solely on the memories he had absorbed from Luduo Bu. His real self was long gone, forever, but a sliver of tenacity was trying to stay afloat. Once Cao Yun was dead, it would disappear entirely and the inner demon would become his own entity.

Cleaned up, he used a very remote entrance to the Wubei Sect. The guards there were pretty weak. They were only Mortal cultivators. In fact, despite being guards, their role was mostly to just control who among the disciples was going in and out. The Wubei Sect was very powerful in the Hongchen kingdom. With its reputation, no one would dare try to harm the sect. And in the worst case scenario, they all had jade plates. These jade plates were inscribed with array formations. If they crushed it, a Spirit Warrior would immediately come there.

However, they still sensed something strange about Luduo Bu, without being able to determine what it was precisely. If they had been Mortal Warriors, they would have felt Evil Qi all around him, despite how much he was trying to hide it. They saluted him and got no response at all. This did not alarm them as they had already met with such arrogant disciples before. It only made them dislike him more. They were inner disciples and yet they had heard about this Luduo Bu because he had been condemned to the Devil's Jail. That was a really rare occurrence and the rumor spread even to the inner sect.

Luduo Bu kept walking. He had two destinations in mind. The first one was the spot where he knew Cao Yun was cultivating within his Seamless Qi Vortex array formation. And if he wasn't there, he would go to his residence. Even if he wasn't present, he could slaughter his servant and maybe some of his friends.

-

Cao Yun just left the Thousand Snakes Invade the Shell array formation. He was getting increasingly close to deriving the first move of the Root Star, but he was lacking a bit of actual combat experience. Tomorrow, he would go to the martial art pavilion to duel a real cultivator. The best would be to fight against a Mortal Warrior restraining his Qi Manifestation.

After his defense training, Cao Yun had made an appointment with Huang Cixi. He met with her in his room. First, she applied a bit of Contrived Shell Balm to some of his acupoints. With Chief Instructor Peng's help, 'The Turtle Swims Through the Canals' was advancing smoothly, nicely supported by Huang Cixi's massages. Cao Yun was also complementing it with the 'Dance of Slaughter'. He had altered it a bit to be more in accordance with the 'Coiling Turtle' method. In a month or two, his lesser meridians would be on the level of his standard meridians. Then, he could circulate his Qi twice as fast as before, anywhere in his body. And his physical strength would be enhanced as well, just like his cultivation speed.

For example, if a standard cultivator needed a year to break through a level, with this method complete, he would only need ten months. But in later stages, this advantage would lessen more and more. However, breaking through a bit before everyone else in the early stages could give him an edge, for getting resources for example, but also to have more vitality when reaching the higher stages.

After Huang Cixi's little massage, they both went to the spot where Cao Yun was used to setting up his Seamless Qi Vortex array formation. As of lately, he shared his array formation with his servant as a way to repay her. As a 6th-grade Mortal, he only had to accumulate Qi in his Lower Dantian in order to break through to the next level. But this Qi had to be condensed as much as possible to optimize the quantity. And in the same time, he had to balance out all five elements within, Water being the dominant one in the Lower Dantian.

In theory, any Qi would have been good enough, but to maximize his chances of success in higher realms, a Qi with a dominant Water element was the best. On the other hand, the Qi in the Middle Dantian was dominant in Fire element. In the Mortal Warrior realm, both these Water and Fire Qi would be used together. So instead of purifying the Qi in his Lower Dantian later, he could do so right now and gain some time.

In the 7th-grade Mortal, all the Qi he had accumulated in the previous grade would then be used to temper his vessels and meridians so that they could become strong enough to resist higher pressures. These vessels and meridians had been perfectly opened, but they still needed to be strengthened. Finally, the last two grades both consisted in opening first the acupoints and then all the skin pores to absorb Qi from the environment. This would allow the cultivator to absorb phenomenal quantities of Qi compared to the early grades. As such, the vessels and meridians had to be able to resist the pressure.

Cao Yun had tampered a bit with his Seamless Qi Vortex array formation. He had thought about it for some time and altered it a little to increase the Water element in the Qi inside. This had allowed him to work on his understanding of the principles of both alchemy and array formation. Studying them together was really interesting. Of course, it also limited his speed in both disciplines but he did not want to become a grand master in either of them.

Nonetheless, he understood more and more that these disciplines would also help him have a better and faster cultivation. Some principles that were hard to grasp became easy because they were similar in these occupations.

When he was done with his training, he asked Huang Cixi to take his stead and went to meditate a bit farther.

-

Luduo Bu was walking toward the spot. When he got near, he saw Cao Yun sitting cross-legged on the ground. His mere sight plunged the inner demon into a frenzy. Tightening his grip on 'Red Frenzy', Luduo Bu sent all of his eight blood runes toward the unsuspecting Cao Yun.

Cao Yun was not cultivating, only meditating on his knowledge. Indeed, he was serious in standing guard for Huang Cixi. Without neither spiritual senses nor Qi perception, he only heard the attack when the blood runes whistled through the air. They were extremely fast. Fortunately, Cao Yun had trained in the Thousand Snakes Invade the Shell array formation.

Despite achieving the third layer of 'Blood Runes' and forcefully opening his acupoints, Luduo Bu was still inferior to a real 1st-grade Mortal Warrior. And Cao Yun was able to block attacks similar to a 2nd-grade Mortal Warrior. Even though eight blood runes went for him, his defense was tight enough to block all of them. However, no matter how many times he blocked the runes, they always came back.

Obviously, he immediately recognized the technique Luduo Bu had used against him during the challenge. During the fight, Cao Yun quickly regained his composure thanks to his mind cultivation. All his characters circulated in his sea of consciousness and he diverted a bit of his focus to find the attacker. Luduo Bu had done no effort whatsoever to hide and Cao Yun found him instantly.

However, he saw something strange in his eyes. Cao Yun had heard from the demonic cultivator who visited Lu Meihan that he would only be killed next year. Apparently, Luduo Bu was not patient enough. But to dare attack him within the sect, he most likely had lost his mind.

Cao Yun had read a lot about demonic cultivators since they were his target. And he knew that most of them ended up insane, sometimes devoured by their own methods or by inner demons. Clearly, Luduo Bu was in this state right now. Reasoning with him would be impossible.

Luduo Bu did not even try to boast. As soon as Cao Yun saw him, he attacked with his halberd. Thin layers of blood went straight for Cao Yun. Now he had to fight off both the blood runes and the attacks from the halberd. Luckily, Luduo Bu had not seen Huang Cixi who was still in the array formation. Naturally, she had heard the commotion and understood that she would only be a burden to Cao Yun were she to come out.

Both to keep her safe and to end it quickly, Cao Yun charged toward Luduo Bu. He had the same idea as Fu Jiao. The closer he was to Luduo Bu, the safer he was.

He activated 'The Moon Grounds the Sun' and moved faster than Luduo Bu could follow with his eyes. However, the blood runes were not controlled by his eyes, they instinctively followed the blood of their prey. Luckily, Cao Yun was still faster than them. His speed had increased since their last fight.

He got in Luduo Bu's back and launched four 'Dragon's Twin Horns' before being attacked by the runes and moving again. Luduo Bu did not even try to block all of them. He blocked the three strongest and let the last one strike him in the shoulder. Nothing happened. With his forceful breakthrough, he had a layer of Qi all around him and attacks of this level could not pierce through. Cao Yun would have to strike tens or even hundreds of times to inflict damages to Luduo Bu.

Using only wind would not cut it. He would have to actually pierce him with his spear.

The fight was extremely fast-paced. Cao Yun was using his 'The Moon Grounds the Sun' to its limit in order to move around as fast as possible. He always kept in mind the position of Luduo Bu, each of the eight blood runes and even Huang Cixi. He had to try to get in Luduo Bu's blind spots while avoiding the blood runes always pursuing him and without exposing Huang Cixi.

Luduo Bu, even possessed by his inner demon, was not stupid and he quickly understood this strategy. As such, he attacked in his blind spot. Cao Yun got surprised and had no time to move so he instinctively activated 'Imperial Throne'. A great wall of wind blew away the attacks. But in this wall of wind, several blood runes managed to pass through as the others got swept away.

Three of them attacked Cao Yun. Chaining his different techniques was easier as he could more easily alter the flow of his Qi, but it wasn't simple either. Without enough time to activate his movement skill, he had to focus all his Qi in the spots attacked and his hands. With the spear, he blocked one blood rune and the Qi in his hand made sure that his grip did not falter. The other two runes both hit him in the flank and the leg. Thanks to his rudimentary understanding of the Root Star and 'Forging the Fort', the cuts were not very deep.

But soon enough, he felt some Evil Qi seeping through his body. Immediately, he circulated his Po character to control his Qi and try to chase it away. But all of a sudden, the Drop of Wrath got excited. It seemed to be attracted by this Evil Qi. Cao Yun got scared. For the first time ever, the Drop of Wrath's intent completely escaped the influence of the four characters. As soon as that happened, he had to distract a part of his focus to try and get it back.

The Drop of Wrath was physically in his heart but its intent was now trying to control the Evil Qi that had entered his body. Cao Yun had to split his focus in three: the biggest part on the fight, and two others on fighting off the Evil Qi and trying to get back the Drop of Wrath's intent under control.

Unable to divert too much of his focus from the fight, he was still visibly slower and Luduo Bu interpreted this as the effect of the Evil Qi. Technically, he wasn't wrong, but it was linked to the reaction of the Drop of Wrath to this Evil Qi.

Despite his slower movements, Cao Yun was still able to evade but he completely stopped attacking for the time being. He knew though that in a battle of attrition, he would lose in the end. During their previous duel, Luduo Bu's cultivation was higher than his and right now it seemed even higher than before.

Both outside and within, the battle was raging. Within, Cao Yun was trying to stop the intent of his Drop of Wrath. He felt that this intent was attracting the Evil Qi toward his heart. He had no idea of what would happen if the Drop of Wrath absorbed this Evil Qi. However, he was terrified by this idea. If the Drop of Wrath was to become stronger, he could lose his mind to it and end up just like Luduo Bu.