Before attempting anything, Cao Yun decided to release all the seals around his Drop of Wrath. Now that he was certain that his 'Death Spiral of the Ten Thousand Souls' was working, he had no reason to hesitate. Indeed, if somehow the soul fragment of the Empyrean Asura had leaked, Cao Yun could have justified it. But if his own cultivation was exposed, it would be much harder, of course. Thus, he had tested his array formation with the black orb first.

While the Lacquer Abyss Nian Fish was savoring what part of the soul fragment it could devour, Cao Yun worked on releasing the seals. It took him more time than he had thought, but not too much either. Before fully focusing on the task, he was done in less than the time of five incense sticks, around half an hour. In an actual fight, if he had to somehow release his asura cultivation just to survive, this was a problem. Obviously, Cao Yun had to work on it, both improving the seals and his ability to release them. Unfortunately, he couldn't spend his time on too many things either. He was already chasing several rabbits at the same time, he couldn't afford to add more and more tasks to himself.

Finally, his Drop of Wrath was fully released. From his body, a powerful aura of vitality erupted. It suddenly clashed with the soul fragment of Demon God Da Mo. At that moment, Cao Yun realized that his own asura cultivation was not hindered by Nuwa's defenses in the slightest. As such, his own Po was stronger than that black orb. Cao Yun could easily crush it and force the soul back into the orb if he wanted to. Thus, he used this to control even more precisely the soul emanating from the black orb. If he was able to get the hang of it, he could totally use it to extract all of Da Mo's blood in him, but it would also take some time. Time truly was his main enemy at the moment.

Anyway, Cao Yun didn't let himself get distracted and focused on what he was trying to achieve. Just to be safe, he read the documents he had translated from Cleansed Asura's memory, not just the 'Cultivation of Wrath'. In fact, Cao Yun also read many treatises, in particular those written by Ran Wuzi, like 'Observing the Tides and Altering the Flow'. All those texts were extremely inspiring. Although he had them memorized, reading them again was very helpful to get more inspiration and even comprehend tiny details better. Then, he worked on 'Intimate Through Despair and Agony'. This was a technique imagined by Cleansed Asura himself by using the Drop of Wrath.

Since the goal of the 5th-grade Spirit Warrior stage was to make one's soul and one's Soul Embryo more intimate to the point where they would be able to merge fully in the later stages of the Spirit Warrior realm, Cleansed Asura had come up with an idea. People could get more intimate during dire circumstances, why should it have been any different for souls? Of course, the problem was that forcing one's soul, and even more so, one's Soul Embryo, in dire circumstances was extremely dangerous. By using his Drop of Wrath, Cleansed Asura had been able to control the process. Now, Cao Yun could perfectly control it too.

Ironically though, since he was controlling the process, he would unconsciously know that it wasn't dangerous, so his souls would also feel it. Moreover, he might unconsciously restrain himself so he wouldn't damage his souls. Both of those factors would reduce how useful 'Intimate Through Despair and Agony' was. For Cleansed Asura, this wasn't much of an issue. After all, he had obtained the Drop of Wrath later in his cultivation, so he didn't really need it all that much. He had simply theorized about this technique and had tried it out a little, just to prove that it could work.

Cao Yun decided to read other cultivation methods Cleansed Asura had used as models. There were so many documents that it was difficult for Cao Yun to find everything he wanted. From time to time, he would still discover things that he had overlooked. Besides, the documents were written in a strange mix of Antique Sixian and Nuhua. Thus, Cao Yun had to, not only translate them, but decipher them. Now that he mastered the Antique Sixian language, it was easier. However, it still created some issues here and there and made his understanding of the texts more difficult than it should have been. Moreover, his memories also had texts written in Moshenhua, from the demons whose memories he had swallowed, but also from the Weaver of Souls.

Instead of relying solely on Cleansed Asura's memories, Cao Yun looked at what few memories he had from the Weaver of Souls. After all, he had worked on souls all his life and had come up with the 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' method. Clearly, he knew what he was talking about.

After sifting through many documents, Cao Yun found two treatises that appealed to him. The first one was 'Dance of Love and Death'. This was the basis of Cleansed Asura's 'Intimate Through Despair and Agony'. In this text, the author explained how to make one's soul and one's Soul Embryo suffer together so they would get closer and closer. There were many techniques, but they all revolved around mobilizing one's memories, chanting mantras to induce certain mental states, except for one verse. There was one verse that talked about using one's spiritual senses to create these very circumstances into someone else's sea of consciousness. Obviously, this verse was mostly made of warnings as this was extremely dangerous. But a master could help their disciple merge their soul and their Soul Embryo by pressuring the two of them together. Since this was an outside help, the master might misjudge the situation and cause extreme damage without realizing it. So this verse urged the reader not to use it, unless there were extreme circumstances.

Finally, the second treatise was 'Hell Creates Heaven, Heaven Falls Into Hell'. It truly piqued Cao Yun's interest. Apparently, Cleansed Asura had ignored its existence, but the Weaver of Souls had found it in some ancient ruins. Unfortunately, Cao Yun had not all of Cleansed Asura's memories, just bits and pieces. Moreover, the treatise itself was incomplete. Still, Cao Yun could read enough of it to understand the general concept. The idea was to use one's Po to cultivate one's Hun and then one's Hun to cultivate one's Po.

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Obviously, such an idea interested Cao Yun. His current problem was that his Po had grown much faster than his Hun. Indeed, Cao Yun had made his Drop of Wrath his Po. And now, he was hoping of turning his Soul Embryo into his Hun, which in a sense was always the case. Demons were imbalanced in favor of their Po, explaining their strong emotions and powerful wills. On the other hand, humans were much more balanced. But in the Spirit Warrior realm, humans shifted most of their concerns toward their Hun which oftentimes resulted in their Hun being imbalanced in their Soul Embryo. This led to many humans disregarding their body and flesh and focusing too much on their mind and soul.

Cao Yun wanted to achieve balance between his Drop of Wrath turned Po and his Soul Embryo which would be his Hun. Indeed, he hoped to merge them together too. Maybe he might achieve something similar to the legendary Hun Po, the Perfect Soul of the Three Jade Saints.

Anyway, 'Hell Creates Heaven, Heaven Falls Into Hell' explained how to use one's Po to pressure one's Hun and how to then do the opposite. Thankfully, the method was based on having a strong Po first. And to be fair, it was always easier since the Po was the Corporeal Soul, related to one's body. It was obviously easier to train one's body than one's ethereal soul. The point was to use the Turbid Demons, in some sense, to put pressure on one's Hun. Those Turbid Demons could act independently from the will of the cultivator so they could act as an outside threat of sorts. Faced with this pain and agony, this hell, the cultivator would try to push their Hun toward more ethereal desires.

One's Hun was made of three souls. Tai Guang, the Great Light, was aspiring to a connection with a higher purpose, to enlightenment. Shuang Ling, the Bright Spirit, was aspiring to understanding, to knowing the world and others. You Jing, the Dark Essence, was aspiring to social connections, both with the living and the ancestors, to a sense of belonging. By assaulting those souls with pain and suffering, 'Hell Creates Heaven, Heaven Falls Into Hell' was trying to force them to go further from the corporeal reality to the ethereal. Since the body was in so much pain, the soul would try to find something greater to compensate. In a sense, it was not very different than practicing asceticism.

In turn, one's Hun could encompass one's Po. The Hun would pressure the Po toward forgetting the body completely, not just its desires but even its needs. Indeed, if that something greater was so important, there was no reason to care for one's body at all as it was miserable and corrupted. Then, the Po would have to resist those urges, spreading its roots deeper and deeper into the body and the physical realm. The point was to create an opposite reaction in one's Po. The Po would fight to survive under the pressure of this extreme asceticism.

Although the text was not complete, Cao Yun could understand the problems with such a technique. One part of his soul could completely crush the other. For example, if the Po eclipsed his Hun, he would become a beast, only trying to feed his desires. But if his Hun eclipsed his Po, he would let his body decay and die while meditating in order to find ever greater truths.

All that being said, this technique was too interesting for Cao Yun not to at least try it out. He made some adjustments to it, using everything he knew. In the end, he came up with the basis for a new cultivation method that could probably take him all the way to the 8th-grade Spirit Warrior stage when his soul and Soul Embryo were completely merged together as one. Although he planned on improving this technique as he went along, he gave it a name already, 'Asura Strengthens Deva, Deva Enlightens Asura'. In it, there were many techniques he had altered, some required his Drop of Wrath but not all of them.

In fact, Cao Yun was unknowingly creating a completely new cultivation method, one piece at a time. Although he had not taken the time to sit down and really write it all out, it was there somewhere in his memories.

At last, Cao Yun began to cultivate. In his newly formed 'Asura Strengthens Deva, Deva Enlightens Asura', the first step he had to take was to send his Turbid Demons to assault his Soul Embryo surrounded by his own soul and mind. Each assault would push his soul closer and closer against his Soul Embryo. Making his soul vulnerable would make it easier for it to mix with his Soul Embryo. For now, he still wasn't able to fully send his soul into his Soul Embryo, but it would come with time. At his current cultivation stage, he had to spread his emotions and personality into the Soul Embryo and pressuring his soul would have that effect.

From his Drop of Wrath, his seven Turbid Demons emerged. There were chains connecting them to his Po, but also to his Nine Soul Peaks. Indeed, from the Nine Soul Peaks, chains made of roots were also entering the bodies of those Turbid Demons. These were the roots of the world tree seed Cao Yun had taken from Cleansed Asura's collapsed sea of consciousness.

Mobilizing his Five Aspects and his Nine Soul Peaks to the limit, all of Cao Yun's mind and Upper Dantian were energized as much as he could. Physically speaking, a huge amount of Qi was sent toward Cao Yun's head and his Upper Dantian. Faint golden light appeared around and behind his head. It was only visible because the entire cave was made of pure darkness. In daylight, it would have been mostly invisible, if visible at all.

Cao Yun focused all of his soul toward his Soul Embryo. Then, the assault began. At first, he only let loose one of his Turbid Demons, the Flying Poison. He let go of its chains and simply commanded his Turbid Demon to attack as his Soul Embryo was in the very center of his Nine Soul Peaks. Dian Mo was observing, worried. He was monitoring the situation. If Cao Yun went too far, Dian Mo was ready to step in and interrupt his cultivation even against his will. However, Cao Yun wasn't reckless at all.

The Flying Poison struck toward the Soul Embryo with all of its rage and strength. His strikes seemed to hit the void, as though an invisible membrane was protecting the Soul Embryo. But each strike created waves and undulations in that membrane. This was a physical manifestation of Cao Yun's very soul. Those strikes were inducing pain, but not physical pain. It was a much deeper kind of pain. Besides, each strike caused memories to manifest in Cao Yun's mind. Memories of battlefields, of pain and agony. Cao Yun was seeing people being enslaved, being tortured, being killed, men, women, children. Unfortunately, those were all scenes he had lived through in real life. Each one of those scenes was making Cao Yun angrier and angrier.

At some point, he even had a hard time differentiating his current reality from those memories. It was as if those scenes were happening right now. Worse than that, Cao Yun knew for a fact that very similar scenes were happening right now, all over the world, not just on his Piaolu planet. His rage was growing and growing. And he could feel his soul trying to escape this reality by mobilizing happier times.

Slowly but surely, his soul was sending surges of itself into his Soul Embryo. Cao Yun could feel it moving as his soul was trying to escape this torment.

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