The entire white tower broke apart. Axiu Qian's fingers pressed into it and the ivory structure exploded into millions of tiny fragments flying all over the place. Most of them disappeared in the blood storm all around. Then, in the middle of Yu Xiangling's sea of consciousness there remained a small orb of pure darkness. It really looked similar to the black orb given to her by the Empyrean Asura. Axiu Qian didn't hesitate at all and simply swallowed it whole.
From his body, the six chains holding the Turbid Demons spread throughout the sea of consciousness. Then, with his six arms, he struck the void around him. Suddenly, the entire Upper Dantian of Yu Xiangling broke apart as though it were made out of crystal. Finally, Axiu Qian absorbed all the pieces. This was Cao Yun's 'Melting the Shattered Mirror'. All of Yu Xiangling's soul had been broken and devoured by Cao Yun. Then, the figure of Axiu Qian simply disappeared as her mind was destroyed.
As the part of his soul he had sent into her sea of consciousness returned to him, Cao Yun had already reached her physical body. There was no light in her eyes and her body fell to the ground. With no hesitation at all, Cao Yun sent his Black Heart Flame all around her and literally consumed her flesh. Not even ashes remained of her. After everything he had seen from her work, he didn't even need to look into her memories to know that she was absolutely deserving of a much worse fate. Killing this woman was one of the easiest decisions of his life.
In fact, killing Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng was an even easier decision. As evil as Yu Xiangling was, she wasn't torturing people for the sake of it, but for her goals. On the other hand, Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng didn't even have that excuse. She had tortured and killed many slaves and servants just for her enjoyment. Now that Yu Xiangling was dead and her soul and flesh completely extinguished, Cao Yun turned back to the bloody woman pinned to the wall. She was so pale that she already looked dead. Most of her blood was outside of her body.
Calmly, Cao Yun walked up to her. The leader of the Temple of Grace and Submission probably didn't even know what was happening around her. Her cultivation had been broken, her suicide attempt stopped by ripping off her arm, and her blood was mostly gone. For a demon, this was probably the worst part. Once again, Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng probably deserved an even worse fate. However, Cao Yun wasn't an arbiter of morality. Wrapping himself in righteousness to justify some form of sadism wasn't part of his beliefs. In fact, most of the times, he wasn't even sure if his own actions were justified. So when he was in such a situation, faced with such an evil woman, he felt glad. Sensing this emotion in him, Cao Yun felt weird as well. He did feel good that this woman was evil because he had already decided to kill her to steal her memories. Thus, her actions justified his.
Now that the hardest part was done, Cao Yun's tension had given way for him to think about his emotions. Observing them all was interesting and thinking about the morality of his actions was always something he was trying to do. In Axiu Qian's memories, he had seen what righteousness could make someone do. Axiu Qian had fallen into a frenzy and had ended up killing many innocent people. In the end, he had probably caused more harm than anything that had been inflicted upon him when he had been a slave. Cao Yun was well aware of that. Still, there was no doubt in his mind that Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng and Yu Xiangling didn't deserve any ounce of his mercy. At the moment, he was mostly worried about himself straying from a narrow path. He wasn't going to become a monk any time soon and he had no qualm killing people if need be. As it turned out, the need was right in front of him.
As the Black Heart Flame had just devoured Yu Xiangling's flesh, Cao Yun unleashed them against Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng. They first entered her sea of consciousness and devoured everything before burning down her body. She was so out of it that she didn't even react. And now Cao Yun had the memories of the two women. He would still need some time to process them, but this was a treasure trove, not only for him, but for the entire Hongchen Kingdom. The two women had been close to the Empyrean Asura and knew a lot about his theocracy.
Moreover, Cao Yun was literally in the room where they were working on the Burning Blood, the blood used by the Temple of Grace and Submission. In the blood, Cao Yun could feel the aura of Demon God Da Mo, the very same aura he could feel in the black orb on the ground.
Before turning his attention to those, Cao Yun first looked at all the corpses. He had just used the Death Energy emanating from those corpses and he felt soiled by that. In every corpse, Yu Xiangling had trapped the soul of her poor victims. Even now, Cao Yun could hear their screams of agony and confusion. Most of their memories had been consumed along with their identities. Now, only negative emotions remained. And Yu Xiangling had used them to create her abominations but also to maintain the Burning Blood. In fact, she had probably used them in the black orb as well, but Cao Yun wasn't too sure. He would need to study her memories before he could be sure.
Anyway, Cao Yun couldn't let them suffer like that. Many thoughts went through his mind at that moment.
"Boy, you should just..."
"No, I'll do it!"
Using a very soft voice, Dian Mo tried to stop Cao Yun because he knew what he was going to do. And this might haunt the young man. Cao Yun couldn't free those souls. Indeed, they had been tormented so much that they had been shaped into grotesque abominations. If those souls were released from the rotting corpses, they would not be able to leave in peace. They would either turn into inner demons or ghosts. After visiting their own torments on everyone around them, they would end up being destroyed by the environment around them. Honestly, some of the priests would deserve to be slaughtered by those souls, but there were also slaves in the temple. Cao Yun didn't want them to fall victim to that. Moreover, the souls might spill out of the temple and even cause pain and death to innocent people as well.
Since he couldn't free them from the corpses and since they couldn't leave in hope of reincarnation, there was only one solution. After thinking some time about it, Cao Yun came to the conclusion that there really was no other alternative. From his spatial ring, as many swords as there were corpses appeared. Around all of them, Cao Yun created various seals with his Qi, his spiritual senses and bits of his Black Heart Flame.
All of a sudden, the swords stabbed into every corpse. Then, the Black Heart Flame erupted and devoured the soul trapped in the body. Following the strands of Death Energy, Cao Yun's Black Heart Flame purified all of the Death Energy, Evil Qi and even Ghost Energy. None of those souls were powerful. Many of them were even from mere mortals. They couldn't resist at all before the might of Cao Yun's power. And in a matter of minutes, he had consumed most if not all of the tainted energy in the room.
As all of that was happening, Cao Yun's face was dark and he didn't even look at what was going on. He hated every second of it, but he didn't feel like there was any better solution.
"Boy, you shouldn't burden yourself with the fates of others. You have nothing to do with their torment. Don't give your enemies the satisfaction of your pain."
"I know... Still, I made that choice."
"Would it have been better for them if you hadn't? No!"
"..."
Dian Mo stayed silent for some time as Cao Yun was composing himself. Among the corpses had been children. Dian Mo knew that even today, the face of his younger sister being ripped away from him still tormented Cao Yun. When it came to children, especially young girls or siblings, Cao Yun was always more affected than usual. But his mind cultivation allowed him to compose himself easily.
"I should leave as soon as possible."
"Yes, you should, but..."
"This orb and the blood... I have to know more about them."
Once again, Dian Mo stayed silent. He wanted to ask Cao Yun to leave before anyone could find him out. But at the same time, he wanted to figure out what the Burning Blood and the black orb truly were. From them, the two could feel the presence of Demon God Da Mo. Considering that Dian Mo had been created by Demon God Da Mo, he obviously wanted to get to the bottom of things. Besides, the answer was right in Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng and Yu Xiangling's memories. But studying them right now would take some time.
The array formations Cao Yun had set up over the room, and the very materials of the room, were concealing him for now. But they were also concealing from him what was going on outside. That being said, finding out more about the 'Embrace of the Loving God' from Yu Xiangling's memories wasn't a bad idea either. With that knowledge he might even be able to control the array formations of the Temple of Grace and Submission, which would be of great help. Hell, he might know more about all the array formations of the Empyrean Asura Theocracy. Such knowledge was so important that Empyrean Asura had protected Yu Xiangling himself with this orb.
In the room, Cao Yun could still feel the pressure from the black orb. Without Yu Xiangling touching it, it wasn't as condensed or dangerous, but it was certainly there. Using his own spiritual senses, Cao Yun pushed against it and created a small space where he was at peace. Sitting down cross-legged, Cao Yun asked for Dian Mo's help.
"If we work together, we should be able to extract the information we need much faster."
"Fine."
Dian Mo helped without any problem. In fact, Cao Yun could tell that he was looking forward to it. Dian Mo was incredibly curious. Right now Cao Yun didn't want to explore all the memories. He simply wanted to find what he needed. Later, he would take the time to go in depth into those memories though.
It took them some time but Dian Mo and Cao Yun found the information they needed. They had to go through some very disturbing memories of both Yu Xiangling experimenting on demons and even a few humans who had been captured as well as the entertainment of Holy Cardinal Ling Weisheng. Clearly those women had not suffered enough compared to everything they had inflicted upon others. But now that they were gone and extinguished, it didn't matter anymore. Unfortunately, none of their victims had endured either.
At last, Dian Mo and Cao Yun discovered how to operate the 'Embrace of the Loving God' array formation. It was extremely close to being a 1-star Spirit array formation. But Yu Xiangling had been forced to have other late Accomplished Demons set it up for her. As such, it had failed to reach the peak of its potential. The array formation had not come from someone else. No, Yu Xiangling had studied from the Holy Scriptures of the Heavenly Demon God Da Mo. From them, she had created this array formation herself. That woman, as immoral as she had been, was a genius without a doubt. And she had lied solely for her work and her faith.
Even Dian Mo was surprised by her comprehension. Yes, there were parts in which she was slightly lacking and even Cao Yun was better than her on a few aspects. But overall, she was a better array formation master than Cao Yun. To be fair, Cao Yun had many occupations and was spending his time on various subjects. Obviously he couldn't be as good as someone who only focused on one aspect. But even then, her achievements were impressive.
That wasn't the only thing Cao Yun wanted to know though. And Dian Mo found it first, maybe because he was even more curious than Cao Yun on the matter. Dian Mo found out about the origin of the black orb as well as the Burning Blood.
In Yu Xiangling's memories, they saw the image of a red demon. He truly looked like an asura. When they found his image, both Cao Yun and Dian Mo felt shivers through their entire beings. For an instant, it felt as though this red demon was also looking at them through the memories. Obviously he wasn't, but his presence was so eerie that it felt as though he was with them at the moment. This demon looked like a pure-blooded asura. But he wasn't large or even muscular. In fact, he looked very effeminate and delicate. His face was soft and his muscles barely visible, yet something in his gaze made it feel like he could tear apart the entire world. His flesh was just a disguise for an absolute monster.
At that moment, Dian Mo and Cao Yun both recognized the light in his eyes. Although they knew that this man was the Empyrean Asura, they also felt that he was Demon God Da Mo.
Moreover, both the black orb and the Burning Blood had come from him personally, he had given them to Yu Xiangling himself. He had cut apart a tiny part of his own soul and bled a few drops of his own blood to create both of them.
"Master...?"
Dian Mo didn't know how to process this vision. Although the body was completely different, he did feel like his old master had come back from the dead. Maybe he had never even died to begin with. Many possibilities went through both Dian Mo and Cao Yun's minds. But if this truly was Demon God Da Mo's soul into a new body, the situation was much worse than they had imagined. Cao Yun had to go back to the Hongchen Kingdom and give them all the information he had found.