Chapter 81: Demonic Energy and Its Nature

A little over a day later, An opened his eyes after another cultivation cycle.

'This heat... Does it emanate from that pillar of light?' Flying closer and closer to the huge pillar of light stretching into the sky, he noticed that the temperature was rising more and more.

Standing up, he leaned on the railing and looked down.

All he could see was dried and cracked earth. Bushes and grass had completely lost moisture and dried up. Even the trees couldn't withstand this scorching heat; their leaves were beginning to dry and fall off.

Looking from top to bottom, he found no traces of any beasts around, only a few corpses of small creatures that, perhaps miscalculating the scale of the tragedy, had died from thirst, 'Even fire-dominant spirit beasts are nowhere to be found.'

Raising his head, An began to look into the distance, at the base from which this pillar of light emanated.

'Looks like we've arrived... And we're not the first.' Looking closely, he saw, a few dozen kilometers away, slightly off from the pillar of light, a ship parked on the ground.

'Judging by the flags, it's the Primordial Purity Sect… Then where are the other Sects? And the Demonic Path Sects?' Understanding who the ship belonged to, he turned toward the cabins, feeling both Li Deng and Lua Mou already at the door.

Coming out of the doors, Li Deng pushed off the ground and rose into the air. Hovering about four meters above the deck, she looked around at everyone. "In just a few minutes, we will arrive at one of the temporary deployment sites of the Alliance of Four, specifically, our Heavenly Soul Sect and the Primordial Purity Sect."

The disciples standing at the railings had already seen the parked ship long ago. But the disciples standing closer to the middle of the ship, upon hearing her, were greatly surprised, not expecting that they had finally arrived.

"I'll get straight to the point. The Sacred Land has four different teleportation altars. Each side of the pillar of light is a teleportation entrance attached to a specific altar inside."

"In previous times, before the Alliance of Four expressed a desire to participate in the opening of the Sacred Land, the four Demonic Sects divided all four teleportation altars among themselves. Each altar was assigned to one Sect. But now everything has changed, and the Alliance of Four has taken two teleportation platforms."

Holding a pause, just a few dozen seconds, so the disciples could digest all the information, she continued.

"The northern and eastern altars now belong to us. The Primordial Purity Sect is waiting for us at the northern altar."

"Many of you have probably already understood. The Sect strongly recommends that you cooperate with the Primordial Purity Sect, as they are one of our closest allies." Starting to speak about alliances, Li Deng frowned slightly, unable to convince even herself of her own words. She and the core disciples understood that this was only said to calm the disciples.

….

Standing on the deck and looking up at Li Deng, Mo Fan recalled the words she had spoken at the meeting of all core disciples: "Our entry point is shared with the Primordial Purity Sect. Even though on the surface you will be allies, you must not forget that there are also disciples among their ranks who have received Devil Bo's inheritance. And at any moment, they could stab you in the back. So, my advice: as soon as you enter the central ring, do everything possible to separate from them. Even though conflict is inevitable, you must delay it as long as possible, preferably until the very last moment, when all eight Sects gather at the site of the true inheritance..."

Remembering her words, he couldn't help but look first at his friends and then at all the other disciples. Looking at their confident, determined gazes, he understood that they were ready, and involuntarily nodded with pride, seeing these burning eyes already tired of waiting for their moment.

Continuing to scan everyone, he suddenly noticed one disciple. Standing with his back to him, with disheveled hair, in slightly worn robes, leaning on the railing and looking into the distance, completely ignoring Li Deng's speech, an elder, the head of his Dragon's Breath Peak.

Mo Fan frowned, 'Time and again, you show disrespect. To your brothers and sisters of the Sect. To your elders in the Sect... How do you repay kindness! How you have hurt and insulted many of my friends! And all this only because you have talent in alchemy? So much arrogance just because of talent in a foolish craft. You'd better not cross my path inside the Sacred Land. Or I don't promise that I'll be able to control myself.'

Hearing Li Deng's voice out of the corner of his ear, he lost interest and turned back to her.

….

"Once you're inside, always stay together as a team with the Alliance Sects. Always be on guard, because at the same time, the four Demonic Path Sects will also be inside. Don't go alone, don't think it'll be safer for you. You're very wrong! The inner ring is completely occupied by spirit beasts, from first rank to the peak of second rank. There's also a chance of encountering demonic beasts that will want to devour you without hesitation."

"So once again! Only by being in a large group will you be safe, and at the same time, you'll have more opportunities to find something useful for yourselves! Techniques, manuals, spirit plants, pills, artifacts! All of this fills the entire Sacred Land, and the larger your group, the safer it will be for you to enter deeper places, where you will definitely be able to find something valuable..." Li Deng, not sparing her voice, gave a final brainwashing to the independent disciples so they wouldn't break away from the main group and wouldn't undermine the main plan conceived by the Sect itself.

….

An stared at the pillar of light, which was getting closer and closer. 'The closer we get to this pillar, the more clearly I can feel the demonic energy… It's literally seeping out of this pillar… It even leaves a foul taste in my mouth.'

'I need to get used to this disgusting energy... Even though it makes me sick, I'll have to coexist with it for... Wait, how long exactly will this last?'

"...The Sacred Land will be open for five months. During this time, you will easily be able to..."

In the background, he suddenly heard the answer to his question.

'Hmm, five months, that should be enough to try and break through to a new realm. But this demonic energy... I hope it won't interfere with me.' Opening his palm, An slowly began to gather demonic Qi into a small mass.

Having gathered enough, the size of a peanut, he slowly began to draw this Qi into himself, directing it into his dantian while simultaneously carefully watching how this energy would integrate with his own.

The moment the energy began to travel inside him, he shuddered from the disgust he felt from this energy. 'Why such a reaction? Do all cultivators feel this way toward demonic Qi?'

Carefully following this mass, he was ready to destroy it at any moment.

Reaching his dantian, the energy stopped in place. Gathering back into one clump, it began to move chaotically inside its contained form, 'Is it trying to divide? To separate impurities from itself?'

Watching the clump, he noticed that the demonic energy was beginning to divide into three new small masses. The largest, about two-thirds of the total mass after division, became neutral Qi. The second largest, about one-third, became separated waste that, in its concentrated state, resembled the very essence of demonic energy, which evoked such strong disgust that An could barely hold himself back from destroying it prematurely. And the third part, the smallest, was black Qi, very familiar to An, the sight of which evoked not only surprise but also joy.

'Heh, so by cultivating in a place with demonic Qi, I can not only raise my cultivation without tainting it but also increase, and maybe even push toward evolution, my Dao of Death.' Giving a command, the large mass with neutral Qi began to divide, destroying all elements inside itself except the Wood element, losing about half of its total Qi volume in the process. This mass, after complete filtration, easily penetrated his dantian and merged with his Qi.

'Excellent. Now for the Death Qi.' Giving a command to the small mass, it began to rush toward his head and immediately dissolved, appearing inside his inner world.

Flying up to the cloud of the Dao of Death, this small mass began the process of filtration and merging with it.

After watching the process and confirming everything was fine several times, he finally turned his attention to the remaining, most disgusting mass of energy.

'Even though it's mixed with impurities, the concentration of energy itself is roughly equal to the part I absorbed into my dantian.' Bringing this mass out, An stopped it in the air before himself, involuntarily blocking it from Li Deng and Lua Mou.

'Now I understand why cultivators of the Demonic Path cultivate much faster than the righteous... But when cultivating such energy, a very large amount of impurities settles in the dantian and reduces the chances of advancement in subsequent realms...' Having examined this mass and studied everything possible, he destroyed it.

'But if demonic cultivators choose this path because of speed... Aren't they contradicting themselves?' He couldn't understand why cultivators would choose the Demonic Path. After all, demonic energy was considered rare, and to find it, you again needed to make an effort.

'Although, perhaps I'm misunderstanding this energy. If we take the three parts into which the decomposition occurred, Death Qi plays a large role in it, even though it only makes up a small part. It is the catalyst that helps modify neutral Qi from the environment into demonic Qi... Or am I still missing something?' Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the demonic energy around him, which was seeping from the pillar of light. Analyzing this energy and constantly referring to the previous decomposition, he finally managed to arrive at an answer.

'Perhaps my understanding isn't one hundred percent, but I think it's very close to the truth. A cultivator takes neutral Qi, merges it with Death Qi, using a suitable Qi cultivation technique. After that, the resulting energy is sent to their dantian. Due to the merger, the volume of energy they manage to absorb per cycle is greater than that of righteous cultivators... But the sediment and impurities? Perhaps they act as a catalyst through which this merger occurs.'

'Because this demonic energy, more precisely, its two components, are not signature and do not belong to the so-called first layer of Qi itself, cultivators who begin to cultivate these demonic techniques do not understand exactly what they are drawing into their bodies...'

Having muttered all of this inside his head in one breath, he opened the palm of his hand, resting it on the railing. He activated his Wood Qi and gathered it into a small mass. Immediately, black energy, Death Qi, began to gather nearby.

Holding both energies side by side, An slowly began to draw them toward each other, rotating them on his palm clockwise. He decided to apply the concept of the Mixing technique, which he used in alchemy when refining pills.

Having accelerated both energies to enormous speed, he began to slowly reduce the distance between them, allowing the particles to collide with each other, creating conflicts.

Constantly adjusting the speed of the particle flows, he continued to reduce the distance. Sometimes slowing the rotation, sometimes accelerating, all to find the right pattern to start the process of merging particles of two different Dao Qi.

Shoosh! Shoosh!

Here, he felt the ship begin to vibrate and slow down. Realizing they were landing on the ground, An exhaled in disappointment and destroyed both energy flows on his palm.

….

"Listen up, everyone! As soon as we land on the ground and the barrier deactivates, without delay, follow Elder Lua and obey her commands!" Li Deng, together with Lua Mou, slowly descended to the deck.

Li Deng, without delay, headed toward the installation at the ship's bow, which was responsible for the formation.

"Everyone, gather at the starboard side. As soon as we land, we need to orient ourselves quickly... Because of the unexpected encounter with the beast, we've already been delayed significantly." At the same time, Lua Mou headed toward the starboard side, gathering the disciples behind her.

Standing by the stern railing, An threw one last glance downward, where at the very base of the pillar of light, a huge crowd of cultivators in white robes with a bluish tint was standing. In the center of this crowd, several disciples stood inside it but at the same time, as if separate, they were the core disciples of the Primordial Purity Sect, in white robes with blue stripes.

'There are more than two hundred of them? Compared to us, there are many more...' Counting the number of heads on the ground, An cast a glance at the disciples slowly gathering at the starboard side.

'On the ship, there are only a little over one hundred forty people... So initially, there were about one hundred seventy of us.' Recalling the number of corpses he had seen after the sound attack of the giant whale, he sighed.

Such a difference between groups, at first glance, was insignificant, if teleportation worked individually, that is, each person would end up alone. But in this Sacred Land, teleportation was group-based. And this difference of forty people could play a significant role if the two groups met and clashed. A group that was a quarter larger, even if it couldn't completely destroy the opposing group, could easily destroy a large part of it.

'Even if we don't talk about conflicts with demonic groups, what about leadership within the group? As soon as both groups are inside, the Primordial Purity Sect group will do everything to take leadership for themselves, and they will easily be able to achieve that...' Shaking his head, An released the railing and slowly walked after the others, keeping a slight distance.