The first part of the plan was simple. First, sacrificing the Core Formation blood essence he had gotten from the golden owl, using it to create a hiding barrier around Zi Moyan. This barrier, while efficient, would not be able to stand either violent shocks nor thorough inspection from a Qi Building level divine sense. Thus, it was Baotian's duty to distract the cultivators that would get close in the meantime.
'Happily, the other cultivators shouldn't arrive for at least a dozen more minutes, and I should be able to distract the Wu Leihao and his goon for the time being'
Then, once Zi Moyan had finished preparing the tribulation, he would go back and do his utmost to ensure she wasn't distracted while facing it. That was their plan.
However, it seemed that fate wasn't on their side that day:
"Finally, we are inside!"
"Wu Leihao, it seems he finally saw Mount Tai and helped us enter too!"
"Quick, gather the remaining treasures!"
…
Uh?
"Uh?"
Why were they already there? Baotian was dumbfounded for an instant, and then his eyes were injected with blood as he understood:
"Wu Leihao, fuck you and your nine generations!" he swore in anger.
This bastard, now that he had harvested enough treasures, decided to invite other people here, precisely to catch them off guard!
Even more concerned, as Baotian looked in the horizon, he could vaguely see figures resembling Leihao and his guard meeting with another person, likely his second guard, and yet they didn't seem particularly eager to leave.
'There is no way this dog is actually that spiteful!'
That… was about as bad as their plan could start, really.
'No, maybe he's just inviting them in advance to regain their favor and create good relationships' Baotian thought, calming himself. 'It would make sense he's just staying there to try extending his influence'
But nothing was sure and, no matter what, there wasn't much he could do against them. Therefore, it was very simple to decide what to do:
'I must not let them reach the center of the hurricane!'
It would've been okay if they arrived in the middle of the tribulation, but what made the situation so critical was that they arrived precisely when Zi Moyan was accumulating spiritual energy to form the tribulation. If they got too close, furtive barrier or not, they would immediately discover something!
On the other hand, if Baotian got there and defended this spot, not only Wu Leihao would notice him and might antagonize him, but the others might think he was defending a treasure and want to go there.
'Alright, then in this case…'
Baotian created another hiding barrier, using the blood essence from the two Qi Building spirit beasts they had slew, and then flew away. More precisely, he flew until he reached the remains of what had been a large mortal construction, just in the range of where Zi Moyan was, and prepared his bow. After preparing a blood arrow, he patiently waited for a target to enter the area around Zi Moyan. During this period, as time passed, he found himself having hope that the tribulation would begin without any incident.
But after fifteen minutes, a cultivator approached. He seemed to be a slightly below-average mid stage Qi Building and, coincidentally, part of the Xiao clan.
'It's probably not Hanchen's senior brother' he thought.
Even then, he still strung the Golden Owl Bow, charging it with spiritual power, before releasing.
Before the Xiao clan cultivator could realize what had happened, he fell to the ground, dead. Immediately, the ones around him became tense, putting their guard and looking all around in hope to find the shooter. Unfortunately for one of them, while looking around, he started backing up toward the center of the Void Hurricane, where Zi Moyan was. This resulted in his head getting pierced by another blood projectile.
At this point, the others realized they were attacked by a demonic cultivator, and combined their forces to create a defensive spell around them:
"Everyone, be on your guard! One of these filthy demonic cultivators is hiding nearby, shamelessly attacking us from afar, so let us keep our gazes attentives to find this coward and grant his death wish!"
Hearing him shouting, Baotian scoffed, but didn't bother shooting him to make him stop, simply changing his hidden spot. In the next few moments, he also made sure to only shoot those that were approaching the center of the Void Hurricane, so much that the righteous cultivators quickly realized there was something strange with it:
"Everyone, this filthy demon is only targeting those who approach the center of the hurricane, there must be treasures hidden there! Quick, go with me!"
Immediately, two others rushed along the one who had talked, rushing directly in this direction. Baotian managed to stop one by piercing his leg with a blood arrow, and another by sending him flying with a rougher projectile, but the third managed to reach the first disguising blood barrier that was hiding Zi Moyan, immediately sensing that something was wrong from the flow of spiritual energy.
And yet, he never had the opportunity to warn anyone about it because, the next instant, the barrier closed on him like a bear trap and exploded, killing him on the spot. Seeing this, Baotian got up, revealed his presence and laughed out loud:
"Hahaha! Would you look at these brats from the righteous path, falling like flies at the slightest complication! Hehehe, I bet you wanted to know who put this trap in place, right? Well it was me, the great Meng Kai of the demonic path! Hehe, what were you thinking, that anyone would be stupid enough to leave any form of treasure behind after spending a whole hour searching all over this place? Stupid dogs, I spent almost half my time in here, putting dozens of traps in place so I could watch the dumbfounded expression of dullards like you before your death, hehe hahaha! I was sure you would fall for it if I kept shooting those getting closer, and it didn't miss!"
Hearing his words, the cultivator's eyes quickly became injected with blood. One of them, getting closer to the center with endless carefulness, examined the surrounding with his spiritual sense and quickly back down:
"This bastard… I feel two aggressive changes in the surrounding spiritual energy, and they are both around the Core Formation level! There's really more deadly traps there!"
Hearing that, over a dozen righteous cultivators, five the early stage, six at the mid stage and three at the late stage, rushed at him:
"You dog-like demon, how dare you!"
"Courting death!"
"I'll have your head as my new room decoration"
Baotian, seeing that he managed fully deceive everyone, quickly created a new projectile, attached it to himself, and fired it in the other direction, escaping at the speed of a grand perfection stage:
"Hehe, then you'd better accelerate a bit!"
While navigating inside a Void Hurricane, the one chased would usually be disadvantaged, having to find a way to stay away from their pursuers with limited area. That said, Baotian had something that much compensated for this: a very nice projectile that cleared the path in front of him and helped him go fast enough not to be taken in the middle of a battle for resources. In comparison, his pursuers were regularly struck by passing attacks.
As he heard them slur at him like crazy, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow:
'Aren't they supposed to be righteous cultivators? I don't really hear the virtue of their tongue right now'
He chuckled to himself for a while…
… before realizing he had been backed against the strong winds of the Void Hurricane, which were ready to suck him in and shred him to pieces if he got any closer.
"Oh fuck" he said out loud, not really caring for his language anymore.
Baotian realized how bad his situation was: he had barely ten liters of blood essence left, ten enemies of similar or superior cultivations that chased him with intense fury, and couldn't escape anymore.
'Yeah… I'm completely fucked'
He couldn't help but silently curse Zi Moyan as well:
'Being too focused on surviving the immediate situation and not the long-term one… Of course I got used to focusing on the present with all these dogshit situations threatening my life at any moment!'
Clenching his teeth, he turned away from his pursuers, created a long ribbon made of half the blood essence that remained and began dancing, the crimson ribbon becoming longer, fiercer and more whip-like with every movement he performed as it absorbed the luminous shards made of spiritual light that were floating around:
"Crazed Demonic Blood Burial Mantra: Red Dancing Ribbon Cannon!"
Using the same technique that had granted them the victory against the Spirit Beasts, Baotian quickly modified it in real time: instead of turning its entirety into a projectile, he only turned the point into one, tying the other end to himself so he could be dragged along by it. He then used the Golden Owl Bow to fire the projectile, making up for its lacking power and propulsing himself forward…
… directly toward the hurricane's external winds that separated the inside from the outside.
"That… that madman! Is he trying to kill himself!?"
Not even listening to him while he was dragged by the projectile through the ribbon, Baotian rolled himself in the latter, like a cocoon. He then used a basic earth spell to create an additional mud shell around him and, finally, combined it with the ribbon through his Blood Net Assimilation technique, forming a powerful protecting shield around him.
With this, though he had exhausted nearly all his remaining spiritual power, Baotian had not only created a powerful protective armor around himself, but one that was also moving at great speed, with great power. That was his new, original move: Shooting Blood Dancing Armor!
'At its peak, the strong winds of a Void Hurricane are strong enough to kill even late stage Core Formation cultivators defying it but now, it has actually calmed enough for breaches to appear, so I have a chance!'
That was who Baotian was: someone who arrived in this world with a general sense of thinking surpassing the common of cultivators, one he had taken with him from the modern world, and who had then worked tirelessly worked day and night to comprehend the intricacy of the cultivation world, and of cultivation itself, before combining both understandings to find way to advance in this life.
The definition of a genius was someone using talent to surpass others, and so he wasn't one. The definition of a prodigy was someone using their logic, experience, and the skills they had acquired to surpass others.
Baotian was a prodigy. A man who created his own talent to compensate for the one Heaven and Earth refused to give him, a man who created his own moves to bypass walls that were too high, not with talent as a base, but instead based on everything he had accumulated before!
'I'm sorry senior sister, I truly did everything possible and conceivable to help you' he thought. 'Now, your death or success will only depend on you'
With this thought, Baotian finally managed to exit through the other side of the Hurricane, his Shooting Blood Dancing Armor disintegrating only a few minutes later. Without losing a single second, he put all his remaining spiritual energy to work, escaping as fast as he could, even exhausting most of his remaining blood essence stocks to accelerate.
Fortunately, no cultivator from outside stopped him, and the fourteen or so cultivators that were chasing after him could only grit their teeth, not brave enough to try to replicate his feat and forcefully exit the hurricane.
And so, as Baotian's escape succeeded in the most brilliant way, Zi Moyan finally finished to condense energy. With that, she swallowed her Core Formation pill and began her confrontation with the tribulation, ready to give it everything she had to advance to the Core Formation realm.
And in the end, after countless efforts, she succeeded. And yet, even after a day passed, she had not exited the Void Hurricane.