Revolt against the Heavens

After hearing the stories told by Patriarch Liang Lisheng, Cao Yun had many doubts. At the end, he tried to embellish Chieftain Sha Chai Ren's death as much as possible. He described a frenzy wolf as terrifying as the moonlit sandstorms of the nightly desert. In his wake, he left sorrow and death, misery and destruction. His 'King's Claws' was shining with a wicked light while before slick with fresh and poisoned blood. All around him, the fur of the Blood Wolf was tainted by the traitorous blood of those accursed demons who had rejected any dignity.

At the same time, Patriarch Liang tried to downplay his own achievements until the end. He cowered in front of the poison and ordered his men to be careful to a fault. Because of his indecisiveness, Chieftain Sha Chai Ren could not be saved and a few poisoned demons went through their defense. In their treachery, they brought the disgusting tainted blood flowing in their veins to the doorsteps of the settlement. Still, the chieftains united were able to exterminate them all and made them suffer many torments before impaling them with their cultivation mostly stripped away.

Breaking the cultivation of a demon was much more difficult than for a human. To cripple a human cultivator, it was often enough to destroy their Lower Dantian. Sometimes, it was necessary to also break their Middle Dantian. As it was the location of the heart, it was more difficult to do without killing, but surges of Qi could break apart the walls of the Middle Dantian while leaving the heart mostly intact. The damages were still enough to kill a man, but it could take years or even decades if done correctly. Finally, destroying the Upper Dantian was the most difficult thing to do, without killing the victim of course. As such, apart from using poisons, runes, or other mystical means, crippling the cultivation of a late Spirit Warrior was so much more complicated than just killing them, it was rarely done. However, some array formations could prevent them from using said cultivation by trapping their soul and Qi within their body, or making moving them around almost impossible.

For demons, their cultivation was in their blood, their flesh and even the marrow of their bones. Breaking apart some of those bones to extract the Golden Blood was one way of doing so. The process was incredibly painful of course. Other ways were to use Blood Runes. Just like what City Lord Sihe had done to Xixue, it was possible to engrave runes directly into the bones of a demon. Cao Yun had even duplicated the concept in order to speed up his own cultivation. Instead of engraving runes in his bone, he had drawn them in blood and marrow both within and without.

Anyway, this explained most of the wounds Cao Yun had sensed on the corpses. They had suffered several days without their cultivation and had ultimately died. Those who had lasted the longest simply died of thirst while under terrible agony. They probably wished they had died of suffocation of bleeding like others.

"Patriarch Liang, from what I hear, your tribe is full of great warriors. And you are used to dealing with poison from demonic beasts..."

"Enough! You try to shift the blame on our Patriarch! Wretched impostor!"

"We trusted you! Chieftain Sha Chai Ren believed in you! And now he died the worst death possible!"

Indeed, Chieftain Sha Chai Ren had not only been killed, he had been poisoned to death. For demons, this was akin to having his soul burned away. His blood had been tainted. All of his ancestors had been insulted and desecrated. Chieftain Sha Chai Ren's spirit would never find peace and would be tormented for many of his reincarnations. Only by praying the Weaver of Souls could they hope to alleviate his torments. Cao Yun had now a good grasp of the beliefs of demons. Although they too believed in the reincarnation of the soul, they were convinced that the blood was the vessel of the soul. Thus, the separation between flesh and soul invented by humans was much more tenuous, or even completely nonexistent for some.

Before he could add anything, Cao Yun's voice was silenced by a chorus of hatred and condemnations. As much as they worshiped him as Tie Po, they were now hating him as Mo Yun. All those feelings of admiration and gratitude had turned sour. An extreme had led to another. Although humans could also be extreme, demons were above that. Since his arrival, Cao Yun had seen a few instances of that, but now it was in plain view. Demons had stronger emotions in general. This allowed them to create incredible art, but it could also lead to situations like that. Even if a large proportion of them were not any worse than humans, there were enough demons with uncontrollable emotions to sway the entire crowd.

In the current situation, Cao Yun knew that it was pointless to try and explain himself. Patriarch Liang's story didn't make too much sense at the end. Despite Chieftain Sha Chai Ren's cultivation and his full use of 'Wolf King's Scarlet Dance', too many enemies had breached their defenses and gotten to the settlement. It wasn't impossible of course. Maybe the old man had been weaker than Cao Yun thought. Or maybe the poison, or some old wound, had caused him to falter. Or maybe, just maybe, someone had helped.

Hoping for a lifeline, the young man on Hongyu's back looked at Sha Chai Gan's eyes. She was clearly one of the demons with stronger emotions. In her pupils, Cao Yun could see a seething rage and resentment. He wasn't entirely sure it was directed to him for sure, but it was there. Unable to calm down the crowd, and without any ally ready to confront such a vehement mob, he knew that things were going to get ugly soon.

Thankfully, those demons were still under the impression that Cao Yun was a powerful 2nd-grade Accomplished Demon. Otherwise, Patriarch Liang Lisheng would have probably attacked him right away. In fact, they wouldn't even have talked with him and they would have subjected him to the Seven Punishments of the Weaver of Souls. Before anyone could assault him, Cao Yun decided to fly away with Hongyu. Her speed was so great that no one could follow her. After all, there was no Accomplished Demon so they couldn't even fly. However, Cao Yun still decided to recover Xixue's letter.

Once Hongyu was far enough, he simply jumped down, used his 'Ashen Feather Seal'. With no one able to sense him, not even Chieftain Feng Tian of the Whispering Hare Tribe, he got into Chieftain Sha Chai Ren's tent.

There, he saw and heard Sha Chai Gan crying. Her face was smoldered into the newly appointed Marshal Sha Lang Hu. The man was clumsily trying to console her. Her words were mostly incoherent and difficult to hear. However, Cao Yun was able to perceive several curses toward both him and Sha Chai Ren himself. She seemed to resent her own father just as much as she despised Cao Yun for being away during his death. Because Sha Chai Ren had trusted Cao Yun so much, she hated the young man for that death. But she also blamed her father for walking toward said death knowingly. There were many things Cao Yun couldn't decipher.

Ironically, Sha Chai Gan's deep emotions helped him take the letter away without any problem. First of all, his stealth was just too good for them to see through it. But even if it hadn't been, they weren't paying too much attention to the letter. A large part of the tent was in complete disarray, as though someone had trashed the place. And for all he knew, Sha Chai Gan had done precisely so. Under a small pile of documents and draperies, Cao Yun found the letter and disappeared from the settlement.

With Hongyu carrying him, the young man returned to the small cave he had built while away training in the desert. On the way, he was being careful, focusing his senses to avoid any unnecessary risk. Although they had flown there already, the winds were a bit different so they were forced to take another path. Besides, the desert was always changing and carelessness often meant death. Even with his current strength and with Hongyu's help, they wouldn't survive an encounter with a powerful demonic beast. Thankfully, they had never come near a 9-core demonic beast. Such a creature would tear them apart rather quickly. Even Hongyu might not be able to fly away from such a monstrosity.

At last, they were safe. The cave Cao Yun had dug in the sand was still there. Thus, Cao Yun went inside and finally opened the letter. On the back of the folded letter had been Cao Yun's name, and it was unmistakably Xixue's handwriting. That was why he knew from the start that the letter was for him. The young girl had even added a small drop of blood to the ink so his senses could pick it up with more ease. It was a good thing she had been so thoughtful. Otherwise, he really might have simply flown away after sensing that Xixue was not in the settlement. After all, the tribesmen had been out for blood and Cao Yun was meant to be the sacrificial lamb.

The letter was extremely shot and went straight to the point. Examining it in depth, Cao Yun could confirm that it was both her handwriting and her style. Since she had taken care of the Blazing Swallow a lot, he knew exactly how she wrote. And in no way could this have been a fabrication. In fact, it was also unlikely for someone else to force her. Otherwise, she could have altered her handwriting slightly or even used different characters or words.

"Master Mo,

"I wanted to wait for your return, but there is no time. I warned Chieftain Sha Chai Ren of my departure, but I didn't tell him everything. The truth is that I was put in the position you've described to me recently. If you had to choose between the Desolate Sepulcher and your sister, you would surely choose my sister. Unfortunately, my answer is the same. My sister needs me. I will thus leave immediately. Chieftain Sha Chai Ren believes that I am going to the Sisters of the Abyss in secret so I can negotiate with them.

"Truth be told, I will try to negotiate. But my main goal is to meet my sister and help her out. Sister Lisha didn't tell me what was happening exactly. But there is no doubt in my mind that Yinlü really asked for me. Sister Lisha had some proof with her.

"Master, I hope we'll meet again.

"Your servant, Xixue."

There wasn't any date on the letter but Cao Yun could guess that it had not been long ago.

Obviously, he understood Xixue's desire to see her sister again. But he was almost certain that this was too good to be true. Apparently the same Sister Lisha he had met in Duma City was the one who had come to her. And she had something with her, or maybe some words from Yinlü, that convinced Xixue that her sister was really sending for her. Even the timing was odd. It had happened between two battles, and some time before the Sand Wolves Tribes was attacked with poison and a large part of the tribesmen contaminated.

There were several possibilities. But none of them were very reassuring. Besides, Cao Yun had had a strange feeling about Sister Lisha from the beginning. Like Spirit Master Xiao, he couldn't read her at all. And she also had some air around her making him feel like she would probably be able to escape even his senses. This was just a sensation of course, but he was quite confident about it.

As much as he thought about it, the Sisters of the Abyss had no reason to target Xixue. If she had had any particular bloodline, Cao Yun was certain he would have felt it. Thus, the only logical conclusion was that he was the one being targeted and they were using Xixue to get to him. Of course, it was still possible that somehow Yinlü had suddenly decided to meet her sister. Maybe the Sisters had simply been training her and she had no right to contact the outside world. However, Cao Yun doubted it. If something was too good to be true, it was probably a trap of some kind.

Unfortunately, his plans for the Desolate Dune Desert were mostly dead, gone with Chieftain Sha Chai Ren and Patriarch Liang's accusations. Turning the crowd in his favor again would be almost impossible. Besides, with Patriarch Liang controlling the narrative, they would probably focus their rage on Boss Gui instead of City Lord Sihe. So the first thing Cao Yun did was to write a letter explaining what had transpired. He needed to get it to Duma City as fast as possible. But he also intended to find Xixue.

Thinking about it, Cao Yun accepted to sacrifice some time. Although Duma City was a couple months away, Ruohe was closer. Helping Hongyu with a few pills, some demonic cores, and even a bit of flesh from slain demonic beasts, Cao Yun flew as fast as he could toward Ruohe. After giving the letter to Lady Gu Xue, he just inquired about general news before leaving right away. The letter was sealed so that no spiritual senses could read through it without destroying its content. Besides, once opened, it was impossible to reseal it. Finally, he had made sure to crypt the message. Only Boss Gui could understand the full meaning of this letter. Even though he had acted in haste, he had been as careful as possible.

Before thinking of a plan, Cao Yun had Hongyu fly in the general direction of the Oasis of Life and the Monastery of Bliss and Repose. Its location was known to all as many pilgrims went there all year long. There were periods in which pilgrims were more numerous, but there was bound to be some of them any day of the year.

Even with Hongyu, reaching the Oasis of Life would take three to four months. But it was long enough for Cao Yun to think of something. Moreover, Xixue would probably arrive around the same time. Even though Sister Lisha was an Accomplished Demon who knew the road, she wouldn't be as fast as Hongyu. With Cao Yun's little detour to Ruohe, the two women would probably arrive a few days or even a couple weeks earlier.