Chapter 231: The phoenix without wings

Thus Huang Liyue was able to get out of the encirclement by the flying crowned spine. Still, her priority had not changed at all. Right now, she did not want to fight against an unknown enemy. Instead, she was focused on trying to flee as fast and as far as possible.

'Dance to the Burning World'.

The True Fiery Drop she had manifested outside of her heart grew in size and slowly got big enough to contain her entire body. Just like with 'Ironclad Wheel', it melded with the ball of fire and the four wings manifested around Huang Liyue. Using both her Qi Manifestation and her blood cultivation, she was able to sustain her incredible speed once again. And on the ground, Cao Yun was able to hear her exceed the speed of sound with a deafening boom.

Unfortunately, her fight had made her worst fears true. From the eight other celestial palaces, almost identical creatures appeared. Their structures were similar and their sizes were almost the same as well. To be more precise, some were larger than others, but they were so titanic to begin with that the difference was only marginal. The largest and longest of them all was a bit more than one li long. No matter how much Cao Yun was trying to think of one, there was no demonic beast that could be as big as that creature above his head. If such a thing were to attack Yinmen City, the entire city would be razed to the ground in an instant.

And that large nightmarish spine had not six but eight horns on its head. In fact there was even a ninth one being formed. On the other hand, the smallest creature only had five horns on its skull, one less than the original monster Huang Liyue had been fighting against.

With those reinforcements, running would become an issue. From the ground, Cao Yun could still not fully make out who the human cultivator was, but he was now absolutely sure that the fighter was indeed human. He had recognized her attacks as Qi Manifestations. That person could maybe help him get out of this place, but she had to survive herself first.

Surrounded by eight things that were almost all as powerful as her, if not even more powerful, Huang Liyue was in a terrible situation. But she did not despair or panic. As a 6th-grade Spirit Warrior, she had a lot of experience. Although she had never been in such a desperate situation before, she had already fought against demonic beasts and even demons stronger than her. The Huang family was not to be looked down upon.

Without batting an eye, she fully activated 'Nine Chambers of Life Fire'. The four other True Fiery Drops left her chest as well and joined the fifth one outside. All of them had the shape of a True Fiery Fenghuang.

'Dance to the Burning World'.

They danced around Huang Liyue with an exquisite aerial choreography. The air around the woman began to become blurry because of the heat, but she was not affected in the slightest.

'Wheel of Searing Beauty'.

Suddenly, the True Fiery Drops doubled in size. With them, the blurry area also increased. Right now, Huang Liyue looked like a small star surrounded by a halo of blazing steam. Even Cao Yun was able to feel the heat on the ground, although she was way too high up for him to see her clearly. However, he felt something coming from the egg. Apparently it was reacting to the show that was above their head.

This change in the egg made Cao Yun realize something. With the heat, the steam and the blazing birds around her, he could not even distinguish any color. But for an instant he thought he saw pure white hair. Those hair were not white because of age. Now that the egg had reacted, Cao Yun was almost certain of his guess. That woman was from the Huang family. It made sense. After all, the main branch of the Huang family was living in Baziyun City. And although Cao Yun had suffered injustice from the hands of Huang Lixin who had tried to murder him, he had still a very good impression of the main branch.

When he was alive, his great grand-father had always admired Matriarch Huang Yufeng. And as a child, Cao Yun had heard a lot about her prowesses. Given the strength of that woman up there, she was clearly from the main branch of the Huang family. She was literally a light in the darkness. With her help, he may find a way out and he could warn his friends about Zeng Minghe and the demonic cultivators. However, she was in a very bad position right now. Hopefully, she would be strong enough to at least run away. But then, Cao Yun would have no way to find her again. And even if he could get her attention right now, which he couldn't at all, it would put her and him in even more danger.

From the steam around Huang Liyue's body, a sphere with many patterns appeared, traced with flames of various colors melting together. The five True Fiery Drops were at crucial junctions at the surface of this sphere. And from them, giant wings spread.

'Peacock Displays a Firestorm'!

Finally, the form of a True Fiery Fenghuang appeared around Huang Liyue with the sphere she was in as its core. The burning bird was just a hundred chi long. Of course, it was giant, as big as the tallest bone abomination Cao Yun had seen on the ground. But compared with the Bone Kings around Huang Liyue, it was nearly ten times smaller.

As soon as it got formed, the Qi Manifestation of this True Fiery Fenghuang let out a screech so powerful that the shock wave was visible with the naked eye. All the Bone Kings got shaken by this intense shockwave mixing air pressure and heat. Even the nearest celestial palace's walls shook a little bit. They were in such a sorry state that they got almost blown away.

This was almost the most powerful technique of the 'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheel' martial art, a full manifestation of a True Fiery Fenghuang. Moreover, Huang Liyue had used five True Fiery Drops to generate it and to give it more life. This Qi Manifestation had some traces of the real thing's bloodline. With this, Huang Liyue could fight against 7th-grade Spirit Warriors and even resist some moves from an 8th-grade Spirit Warrior.

The grades of the Spirit Warrior realm were not like those of the Mortal realm. With each realm, the disparity between every small grade became higher and higher. A 6th-grade Spirit Warrior fighting equally against a 7th-grade Spirit Warrior was akin to crossing not one but at least four or even five grades of the Mortal realm. Paradoxically, it was easier to do so for a Spirit Warrior because they had many more tools available to them. For example, Cao Yun was unable to perform even the most basic of Qi Manifestation or Qi Manipulation. Until now, he had mimicked Zhi Yin and infused some Qi in his techniques but this was nothing like the real deal.

Furthermore, a Spirit Warrior had more experience and more martial arts at his disposal. Huang Liyue had lived for almost eight hundred years. And across her long life, she had discovered many martial arts and special techniques, either from her own family or from the enemies she had fought. For example, from the assassins she had killed, she had retrieved many arts pertaining to stealth and perception. Later, they had become the basis of her personal techniques.

Even if she did not learn all of those techniques, she had still understood many concepts that she could combine with her family's martial art. This was like Cao Yun using the concept of vibration from 'Slaughtering the Enemy'. Recently, he had even used a tiny bit of 'Bladeless Eternity' to get a better feel for the Tail Star. Every martial art or technique had some concepts and truths in them that could help a cultivator better understand other arts. Instinctively, Cao Yun was able to feel that from Huang Liyue. Like him, she had a thing for collecting various manuals and arts. And she had a mind perceptive enough to extract the essence of those arts to use them.

Unfortunately, Huang Liyue knew that this wouldn't be enough. The pressure she felt from the biggest Bone King was equivalent to a weak 9th-grade Spirit Warrior. It was still incomparable to her matriarch's aura. But she knew that she could do nothing against such an enemy but resist one or two moves. Hopefully, this thing would not have a speed matching its power... If Huang Liyue had one more True Fiery Drop she was fairly certain that she could activate the real ultimate technique of 'Ten Thousands Fiery Wheel'.

She had mostly understood it, but she still lacked the purity of blood to really unleash it in a fight. However, that would have just made her able to resist ten more moves from that abomination. For an instant, Huang Liyue imagined what Matriarch Huang Yufeng would do. And she could picture it clearly. With a single slap she would obliterate the weakest Bone Kings and her flames would reduce even the strongest one to cinders. In what could be her final moments, Huang Liyue thought about her time with Matriarch Huang Yufeng and about how she had received her scar.

"I'm sorry, Mother."

For the first time for more than seven hundred years, Huang Liyue was almost certain that she would die. Her first words went to her mother she felt she had let down all those centuries ago. Although she was sincere, one could feel a lot of resentment hidden behind this apology. Then, she thought about the new hope of the Huang family. Huang Cixi would become a resplendent matriarch, she was sure of it.

"It's a pity I won't be able to see you mature, Young Mistress. Please, do not blame me for failing in my mission."

For a short instant, Huang Liyue looked at her spatial ring. There was something that could help her in there, but the consequences would be even more terrible than death. At least, even if her physical body died, she still had hopes for her Soul Embryo and her soul within. She would use this last means only if she had absolutely no other choice. Right now, she still had a tiny bit of hope that she could successfully flee.

'Fenghuang Soars From Kunlun'!

With a deafening roar, the True Fiery Fenghuang flew upward. Another shockwave shook the Bone Kings. But this time they were prepared and thousands of thousands of bone weapons of all kinds appeared all around them. The one with the eight horns had the most weapons. And they looked to come from the most horrendous of torture chambers. The mere fact that they were made of bones was disturbing but they also had terrifying shapes like no other human weapons.

The Bone Kings chased after the flaming bird and flew upward as well. Before they could attack however, the Qi Manifestation suddenly dived down, back toward them. And just as it reached them, it exploded into a ball of fires. There were all kinds of colors in the fire, black, white, red, yellow, green. For the first time ever, a sun seemed to shine on that grayish world. Cao Yun had the feeling that life was coming back in a dead world. But it only lasted for an instant.

A weak Bone King who was the closest to the blast got reduced to smithereens. All its ribs cracked and even its skull split. Some parts of its bones fell to the ground while others were immediately reduced to dust and then to ashes. It was the only casualty as all the others survived somehow. Among them, some had their spine crack while others lost either limbs or ribs. Even the most powerful of them suffered small cracks in its skull, but it endured and pushed through.

Before the flames were even extinguished, all the weapons from the Bone Kings flew into its center, trying to slaughter the human. Most of them were completely obliterated by the mere heat inside of the explosion. Huang Liyue retrieved more and more 'Myriad Inferno Feathers' from her spatial ring. There were almost as many iron fans as there were bone weapons coming for her. With all of her spiritual senses, she controlled her weapons to block the incoming threats. Unfortunately, she was not able to block all of them.

Her Wei Qi faltered and fresh blood spurted staining her torn robe. She felt an intense pain both cold and hot as Death Energy and Evil Qi were crawling into her body through the wound. The intense heat obliterated the weapon and even cauterized her wound, but the poison was in her system now. And after this first wound, she received many others. Although she tried to avoid most of it, she still got hurt significantly. More and more corrosive energies penetrated her body with each wound.

Cao Yun was obviously unable to make out anything that was happening within the ball of fire. However he felt the egg react to something and focused all of his senses on it.

From the ball of fire, he only caught a glimpse of it, but he saw a shape fly out of it. As soon as Cao Yun had seen it, it vanished. It wasn't that it had been too fast for him, it had just vanished in thin air. But thanks to the reaction of the Mountain Fenghuang egg, Cao Yun had been able to determine the direction it had been flying toward. And he could determine that it was crashing down beyond the horizon.

Although it was only a feeling, the young man was convinced that it was the Huang expert who had been able to erase her presence at the very last moment to run away. And he had been right! Even this incredible attack was only a distraction for Huang Liyue to run from the battlefield. Since she had no hope of winning and no one to protect here, the best course of action was to run. As a bodyguard, it was strangely not too rare to run away because she had to protect her charge. Fighting while protecting someone was often more difficult than just running away.

But she had been terribly wounded in the process. She had already exhausted most of her energy and mental strength and now she had Evil Qi and Death Energy in her...

Before she could even touch the ground, she lost consciousness. On the other hand, the Bone Kings were lacking in spirituality. None were able to see through Huang Liyue's stealth technique and they all assumed that the human had been killed.