Chapter 665: War in front of the white dome

Outside the Temple of the Lesser Blood King, Hongyu had been standing guard along with several 5 and 4-core demonic beasts. Among them was even the Blood Dirt Viper, the first demonic beast she had tamed. After sensing that her brother was attempting a breakthrough, she understood that he needed to be protected because his array formations wouldn't be as good as they usually were. Although she was a mere 6-core demonic beast, Hongyu had a very high level of intelligence. Obviously, she didn't understand much about the concepts behind the array formations or even the cultivation system Cao Yun was using. But she understood enough to have a rough estimate of how effective said array formations were and how dangerous a breakthrough could be, especially if Cao Yun was forced to do so in the middle of the territory of his enemies.

Having all that in mind, Hongyu mobilized as many demonic beasts as she could without endangering the plans Cao Yun had put in motion. She wanted to protect the temple where he was while trying to not give away his presence too soon. It was inevitable that someone would find out something was amiss but this shouldn't be too fast. Their best defense was the fact that their enemies didn't know about the situation. Without Cao Yun to help them, even this small army of demonic beasts couldn't do much against a real army of demons led by a powerful cultivator.

Days turned into weeks and then into months. Indeed, Cao Yun had lost all sense of time while he was breaking through. In his sea of consciousness, he couldn't tell whether a few hours or a few years had gone by. In truth, his breakthrough had lasted around four to five months. This was much longer than for any other cultivator before him, at least in the known records. Even in Cleansed Asura's memories, it had been a very long breakthrough. For most cultivators, awakening their Soul Embryo only lasted a few days, a week or two at most. And the process was less dangerous.

That being said, Cao Yun had used various methods that were unknown to most. And he had advanced his Qi cultivation even beyond the awakening of his Soul Embryo. Taking that into consideration, his breakthrough had been very short in fact. Usually, it took somewhere between thirty to a hundred years for average cultivators in order to go from the 2nd-grade Spirit Warrior stage to the 5th-grade Spirit Warrior stage. Cao Yun had achieved the same result in around two years. Obviously, this was beyond impressive. And most of it had been due to his double cultivation system, even triple if one counted the mind and soul cultivation of the Weaver of Souls.

His father Cao Guang had become a 1st-grade Spirit Warrior by the time he was forty-five. Cao Yun was barely in his thirties and he had already surpassed him. In fact, Cao Yun might reach the end of the Spirit Warrior realm at the age his father had entered it. The Cao family would impress the world and, above everything else, it would be avenged!

During the fourth months, a battalion of demons had appeared all around the Temple of the Lesser Blood King. Hongyu and her demonic beasts were ready for them. But they could feel a terrifying aura among those demons. Most of them were late Golden Blood Children but they were also accompanied by many early Accomplished Demons. Hongyu had never been faced with such a force.

Indeed, when Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng heard about the attack on a temple, she ordered General Meng Tian to crush their enemies with all his might. And General Meng Tian had absolutely no intention of disobeying a direct order from the Empyrean Asura Theocracy. Failing now would be akin to spitting in Empyrean Asura's face. In fact, it would be better for General Meng Tian to die on the battlefield than to come back in failure. First of all, he would be deemed a heretic and probably tortured to death for a very long time. But his entire lineage would be purged as well, on several generations. The reign of terror of the Empyrean Asura Theocracy was a very powerful incentive. At the moment, he couldn't shift the blame on any subordinate. He had to assume full responsibility.

That being said, he had obtained a few reinforcements from the Temple of Grace and Submission. And he had even obtained the divine Blood Gushing Holy Heart pill. In the entire Empyrean Asura Theocracy, it was said that only twelve of those pills remained. Usually they were reserved for the highest members of the military. The priests never consumed those pills as they were practicing the 'Burning Wheel of Expiation'. Besides the cultivation aspect of this technique, there was also a spiritual component meant to bring them closer to the Heavenly Demon God, Demon God Da Mo.

The Blood Gushing Holy Heart pill could produce results similar to decades of cultivating 'Burning Wheel of Expiation'. However, the results would be very unstable and could often lead to death. As such, this was the very last means one would use in despair. By simply receiving this pill, General Meng Tian had understood the meaning behind Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng's orders, 'succeed or die'. He had nowhere to run to. But he would do everything he could not to die. All of his men would die before he would! Hopefully though, his enemies would be the one dying.

When Meng Tian's forces arrived, he was nowhere to be seen. Indeed, he was watching from afar while giving out orders. First of all, he wanted to analyze the strength of his enemies. Clearly, demonic beasts were protecting the Temple of the Lesser Blood King. Thus, they had to breach their defenses and find out what was going on within. Many hypotheses went through General Meng Tian's mind. But the most likely one was that their leader was within the temple. Indeed, they weren't protecting a treasure since General Meng Tian knew exactly what was within the temple. Thus, they had to protect someone and it obviously wasn't a priest.

General Meng Tian's commanders led the assault on the Temple of the Lesser Blood while Hongyu was leading her demonic beasts. This turned into a war. Even the army was shaken by what they experienced. The demonic beasts were particularly well disciplined and obeyed Hongyu without any question. This wasn't just because she was powerful, but also thanks to Cao Yun. Indeed, with his alchemy he had helped the demonic beasts improve their cultivation by leaps and bounds. Obviously, they wanted to protect him and also to gain favors from him. The more powerful and pleased with them he was, the stronger they would become thanks to him. In fact, some demonic beasts were ecstatic at the idea of fighting this small army. Thanks to them they would be able to shine before Cao Yun. And they would even collect their blood and essence which Cao Yun could refine into pills.

The Blood Dirt Viper was the most zealous of the demonic beasts. He was leading a force of half a dozen snake demonic beasts with five demonic cores and more than thirty 4-core demonic beasts. Their strategy was simple but efficient. They used the Moon Sheltering Adansonia from Cao Yun's 'Dome of White Lightning' in order to hide. And randomly they would attack a small group of soldiers before hiding again. This permanent harassment was accompanied by more traditional attacks by other demonic beasts.

Hongyu was fighting the more powerful demons. In a matter of days, the entire area around the Temple of the Lesser Blood King had been burned to a crisp. With her relentless assaults, everything was burning or burned already. And she was still fighting like a fury.

Three 4th-grade Accomplished Demons had taken to the air to kill her. Each one was wearing a large metallic armor with sculptures of demons and wailing souls all over the place. Those were the reinforcements sent by the Temple of Grace and Submission to General Meng Tian. Those three demons were known as the Supplicant Tyrants. No one was allowed to see their faces and they were always wearing those armors as a form of penance or religious sacrifice. Honestly, even General Meng Tian wasn't too sure about this. For him, those three were just zealous nut-jobs. As long as they served his purposes he was happy about their presence. But he still didn't want to be close to them for too long. Simply being in their presence was frightening as though they could crush anyone for heresy at any given moment.

Although Hongyu was faster and stronger than the three of them put together, their battle formation was exceptional. Those three demons were perfectly synchronized in their movements and harmonized in their very cultivation. As such, they could probably kill a 7th-grade Spirit Warrior or higher, depending on the circumstances. General Meng Tian himself knew that they could crush him without much problems. Only the use of the Gushing Blood Holy Heart pill could save his life if he was to face their battle formation.

To General Meng Tian's surprise, Hongyu was holding her own against their onslaught. At first, she tried to attack them directly. Behind her, Hongyu had her three long tails made out of fiery feathers. In fact, one could literally see tails made of living flames. From those tails, several feathers flew toward the Supplicant Tyrants. They exploded with bright and dark colors at the same time. Hongyu had not hesitated one instant and had directly used Evil Qi in her very first attack. Unfortunately, it didn't hurt the armors at all. In fact, Evil Qi seemed to literally be absorbed within the armors. Hongyu couldn't even see scorched marks on the metal while her flames could metal most metals she had encountered.

Their battle formation was creating a powerful Wei Qi around the three of them. Thanks to that, it was incredibly difficult to damage those armors. If Cao Yun had been there, he would have felt something truly sinister from those very armors. The metal they were made of would have reminded him of his own 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar'. But Hongyu was not knowledge enough to even notice it. She simply instinctively felt that something was too strange and decided to avoid those opponents.

Thankfully, her speed was much higher than theirs. The three cold armors were all wielding scythes. Unlike most weapons used by demons, the blades were not serrated at all. In fact, they were shining with bright lights and seemed sharp beyond reason. As soon as the other demons saw those weapons, they felt as though they could slice through their very souls. And most likely they could.

When the three Supplicant Tyrants finally struck toward Hongyu, the howling and wailing of dead souls could be heard. From the very metallic armors encasing those three paladins, the shapes of ghosts emerged and flew toward Hongyu. The Sky Tyrant Fenghuang surrounded herself in infernal flames as she was flying around the scythes trying to slice her in several pieces. With their battle formation, the Supplicant Tyrants were incredibly fast. Hongyu was surprised when one of the ghosts turned into one of the armors. Apparently, they could simply appear whenever those ghosts were.

Obviously, Hongyu was fast enough to avoid its weapon. As she dodged the attack, Hongyu struck the armor with her claws. She felt a powerful shock in her legs and barely scratched the armor in front of her. At the same time, she felt a cold sensation go through her limb. It was very close to the Evil Qi in her body. Since she was used to this sensation, ti didn't affect much, but it amplified the fear she was feeling. Thinking about her brother down below, Hongyu let go of this fear. At the very least, she had to stall those three Supplicant Tyrants. She trusted the other demonic beasts on the battlefield to protect the Temple of the Lesser Blood King.

Since she couldn't beat those three Supplicant Tyrants when they were together, she tried to fly all over the place in order to separate them. But their battle formation was simply too good. They never let her separate them far enough.

The fight kept on going for days. On the group, demonic beasts and demons were slaughtering each other. There were dozens of bodies all over the place with large pools of blood. A few demonic beasts had been torn apart with their demonic cores exposed while demons had been bled to death or poisoned by the snake demonic beasts. Even the Blood Dirt Viper was exhausted. Some demons had reached the 'Dome of White Lightning'. Despite their best efforts, cutting through the image of the Moon Sheltering Adansonia was much harder than they had imagined. They were lucky because the Moon Sheltering Adansonia could only attack within the boundaries of the 'Dome of White Lightning'. But as soon as they would enter, the demons would feel how terrifying it could be. Ironically, they were pending great efforts in order to enter a killing array formation. But to them, it only looked like a defensive wall at the moment.

Hongyu was also exhausted but the Supplicant Tyrants didn't seem to tire at all. She had attacked them many times and the armors finally showed signs of damage, but they were very superficial. Here and there, some scorched marks were visible as well as scratches, some shallower, some deeper. At last, she decided to try and use her brother's array formation to her advantage. She had avoided it because she was afraid to weaken it. But if she didn't get rid of those Supplicant Tyrants, she wouldn't be able to defend her brother anyway.

With all her speed, Hongyu flew down into the branches of the Moon Sheltering Adansonia. Behind her, the ghosts sent by the Supplicant Tyrants followed. A ghost appeared right in front of her and was instantly replaced by an armor. Hongyu avoided by flying even lower. Suddenly, the 'Dome of White Lightning' was triggered.