Cao Yun began to go through the entire library. He found many texts he already knew, as well as bureaucratic documents and other items he didn't really care about. There were bodies of laws, of philosophy, of art. Even when it came to cultivation, martial arts, or other domains, Cao Yun wasn't too impressed. To be fair, he had the memories of Cleansed Asura and some bits and pieces from Axiu Qian's life.
Both Cleansed Asura and Axiu Qian had reached the eighth realm of cultivation. Despite his name, Cleansed Asura was human and thus had been a God-Monarch. On the other hand, Axiu Qian was an actual asura, so he had been a Conqueror. With those memories, Cao Yun had more information and knowledge than anyone else on the Piaolu planet, even including Demon God Da Mo. Moreover, he was currently able to read almost everything in them. However, he was missing everything related to actual history.
Unfortunately for Cao Yun, both Cleansed Asura and Axiu Qian came from different worlds. As such, their memories were pretty much useless when it came to understanding the history of the Piaolu planet.
For a very long time, Cao Yun went through many texts and many steles. Finally, he found personal records, including diaries and journals. There were also war reports containing very sensitive information. Reviewing them all, Cao Yun understood why they were not fully public. He had read bits and pieces of them in other history books, but they contained details he had never heard of.
Apparently, the Great War against the demons had been even harder and crueler than he had imagined. When Cao Yun saw the actual numbers, he felt shivers running down his spine. By the end of the war, more than three-quarters of all human slaves had been killed. Honestly, it was a miracle that mankind had survived at all. Emperor Nuwa's retaliation against the demons had been as brutal, if not more so. Even with Demon God Da Mo dead, she had kept on waging war to strengthen her Hongchen Kingdom. For a moment, mankind had almost driven the demons toward extinction. However, Emperor Nuwa and the Four Saints decided not to go all the way. Instead, they negotiated and crafted the Seven Treaties.
When he read the reports, he realized that Saint Xun Ke had been the biggest proponent of those treaties. He had opposed the idea of a war of extermination. In the end, Emperor Nuwa fully rallied behind him, in large part because he had sacrificed his Soul Embryo to save her. But as he read the various reports, Cao Yun realized how complex that period had been. Demons were literally working with the Hongchen Kingdom at the time. Things were much messier than anyone else suspected. Cao Yun could have imagined that already, but reading about it in great detail hit him differently. Maybe he could use some of what he just learned in the future. Knowing the history of both humans and demons was useful.
What truly interested Cao Yun, though, was everything related to Demon God Da Mo and the world in which he had hidden. Thus, he read Emperor Nuwa's journal from when she was still a mere slave of Demon God Da Mo, 'Record of the Last Great Crusade'.
Despite its title, the journal was dealing with much more than this Last Great Crusade. Indeed, it began as a diary kept by Nuwa as a slave. Very young, she had been chosen by Demon God Da Mo's lieutenant as a gift to him, because of her beauty. She was given to Da Mo as a mere object and was treated as such, no better than a pet, maybe even worse. Nuwa had only been nineteen at the time, and very inexperienced. Although she didn't detail everything Da Mo did to her, Cao Yun could imagine through her words and the pain and despair he could read behind them. Sadly, she thought about suicide several times. However, her entire family was Da Mo's lieutenant's hostage. After all, he didn't want his gift to his master to die.
For several years, Nuwa was used as a toy to satisfy Da Mo. For that end, she was trained in cultivation. Indeed, it would help her keep up physically but also stay healthy and beautiful. As a matter of fact, she grew even more beautiful. From this point forward, the journals turned into a form of daily report of her activities. Nuwa slowly but surely climbed up within Da Mo's harem until she became his favorite. There was almost no personal thought in the diary. However, she was talking about how much she admired Demon God Da Mo and how much she wanted to please him, even recording everything he loved. Despite how laudatory everything was, Cao Yun could tell that those were lies. Most likely, Nuwa was afraid that her journals might have been found out. And maybe they had been, Cao Yun didn't know. However, her plan worked.
When she became his favorite, he didn't want to leave her behind. Indeed, Nuwa discovered his biggest secret. Demon God Da Mo was using the Piaolu planet for his experiments in order to recreate the Three Jade Saints, but this wasn't his main goal at the time. Most of his time was actually spent in another realm, which he was trying to conquer. Nuwa had no name for it, and even Demon God Da Mo didn't use any name for it. He wouldn't use its name until it was conquered by him. Until then, it was just a land to conquer, nothing more.
Nuwa was shocked because she spent only a few months in that realm the first time. But when she came back, she learned that her entire family had died. Indeed, several years had passed on the Piaolu planet. At the time, Nuwa was very close to the Spirit Warrior realm, so she knew very little about the Dao of Time or the Dao of Space. Obviously, it left a lasting impression on her. No matter how sad she was, she did everything she could to hide it from Demon God Da Mo. During this first expedition, she had learned several things. The most important thing was that Da Mo could be vanquished. In that other land, he wasn't all-mighty. In fact, he had actually been injured so badly that he had been forced to stop this campaign.
Throughout the centuries, he attempted several campaigns. Each time, Nuwa was brought with him to be his favorite concubine. At the same time, Nuwa was controlling his harem to keep her place with jealousy. Obviously, she had been plotting against him, almost from the beginning. As time passed, her journals showed more and more of her true feelings. Indeed, she was less and less afraid of being found as she grew stronger and the image of the indomitable Da Mo shattered more and more.
Soon, her reports talked about the Weaver of Souls and the plans they made together. Weaver of Souls was Demon God Da Mo's right-hand man. Unlike Da Mo, though, he grew closer to the humans and realized that the asura could learn from them. As he studied the soul and the mind, Weaver of Souls grew more compassionate. Nuwa and Weaver of Souls literally became friends. Finally, during the Last Great Crusade in that other land, they had a plan, and they executed it.
They tried to assassinate Demon God Da Mo. Unfortunately, it didn't work as planned. Weaver of Souls was able to protect Nuwa, who escaped from that land with her life. From this moment, the narrative is only concerned with Nuwa. She had survived but was lost. At that time, she was a 1st-grade Sage. Apparently, that wasn't much in that other land. Cao Yun read everything about her adventures there. She went through various lands and worlds. She encountered many secrets and even left behind vestiges of her presence. Honestly, it read like fantasy, and Cao Yun devoured it all. Even Dian Mo was reading it with gluttony. Slowly, Cao Yun began to form a map of this other land. Nuwa called this land the Withering Fusang Domains.
Afterward, Nuwa used everything she had learned there to come back and attack Demon God Da Mo. She led a terrifying campaign as a half-step Immortal. At the time, Da Mo had also failed to become an Immortal Demon. As such, they had the same cultivation. However, humans were weaker than demons. The war was difficult, but she was helped by the civil war that had already been disastrous between Weaver of Souls and Demon God Da Mo. In the end, of course, she had won, and humans had triumphed.
For a very long time, Cao Yun feared that Demon God Da Mo had survived and even sent search parties after him throughout the Piaolu planet and in the Withering Fusang Domains. In the end, nothing was found. After several centuries, she left the Piaolu planet and disappeared. Apparently, she wanted to find more about the human civilization of the past. Of course, Cao Yun was also fascinated. From what Emperor Nuwa had found out, the Piaolu planet had once been at the heart of a gigantic human empire spanning several worlds and even galaxies. During a cataclysmic war, most of this empire had died. Some had tried to hide on this Piaolu planet. Sadly, they had died out too. Some of their defenses had remained behind. Although they had been unable to fully protect them, they were able to hide weaker humans from prying eyes.
Demon God Da Mo had also fled from enemies and had found this planet. Since its defenses were good enough to conceal his presence, he had attacked it with some other asura and had killed the last powerful humans still alive and in hiding.
Cao Yun wasn't sure if Cleansed Asura's presence had anything to do with Da Mo's presence. Most likely, it was just a coincidence. Indeed, if Da Mo had known about Cleansed Asura, he would have probably taken his body to examine it. Since Demon God Da Mo had not gotten the Drop of Wrath, it meant that he had never even known about Cleansed Asura.
From everything he had learned, Cao Yun tried to rebuild a complete timeline. It wasn't that easy. In fact, all the information he had ironically made it harder. After all, everything he knew came from various sources that were not necessarily telling the truth or that might be mistaken, and filling in the gaps without saying so. However, Cao Yun was able to mostly figure out what had happened.
A great war had destabilized almost the entire universe more than fifty thousand years ago. It was difficult to pinpoint the exact date, it might have been a hundred thousand years ago or sixty thousand years ago. The great human empire led by Empyrean Human Emperor had fallen or shattered. Cao Yun wasn't sure what remained of it today. Some of the humans had fled to the Piaolu planet to survive and had concealed their presence with array formations. Unfortunately, Demon God Da Mo had found them and slaughtered any powerful humans left, ending human civilization and enslaving everyone. Demon God Da Mo was running away from powerful enemies. Either he had targeted this planet because it had doors to the Withering Fusang Domains, for other reasons, or for no reason at all, but Da Mo found those doors. He tried to conquer these Withering Fusang Domains but always failed. Since time was different there, it allowed him to keep ruling the Piaolu planet for more than forty thousand years. Even with this time dilation, Demon God Da Mo was clearly reaching the end of his natural lifespan, though.
After the Great War, Demon God Da Mo had died. Emperor Nuwa failed to completely destroy his body, as Da Mo had been able to leave some blood behind. Demon King Mo Wang would later find it along with Da Mo's library and would devise a plan to revive his body and take it over. In the end, Chief Elder Luoming Tian did it but got sealed under the Empyrean Human Emperor Seal by Cao Yun himself, the Devil's Jail of the Wubei Sect. More than his blood, Demon God Da Mo had been able to preserve his Demon Soul. He had fled the Piaolu planet and entered the Withering Fusang Domains. Somehow, he had been able to survive and recover enough to find another door to the Piaolu planet. Emperor Nuwa had sealed or destroyed every door, but one, and it was under the Imperial City. In other words, even Demon God Da Mo couldn't use it. So he had found another way, somehow.
Emperor Weide had been warned of Demon God Da Mo's return and had begun to completely lose his mind. Even at the time, he had been working with demonic cultivators, thinking that by controlling them, he could keep them from becoming a real threat. It was better to know them and to keep them under his control than to let them roam free. Unfortunately, they escaped his control while he looked for ways to become powerful enough to destroy Demon God Da Mo. Emperor Weide had even thought about going into the Withering Fusang Domains. If he had done so, the time difference would probably have made him come back after the destruction of the Hongchen Kingdom by the Empyrean Asura Theocracy.
Cao Yun had a hard time reconciling everything he had heard or read. To be fair, some accounts were simply contradictory to one another. That being said, he had a broad understanding of the chain of events that had led him to this point. Thankfully, there wasn't anything that could completely destroy his plans. From now on, he could mostly go on as he had already imagined. The only alterations would be due to what would happen, not what had already happened.
After spending some more time trying to piece everything together to have the best understanding of history possible, Cao Yun made sure to memorize everything in this library, just in case. In particular, he was interested in all ancient texts from the previous human civilization, as well as any piece of information on these Withering Fusang Domains. From what he understood, although more than twenty thousand years had passed since Emperor Nuwa's last visit, only a thousand years or so had passed there. Honestly, it was hard to be absolutely sure. Indeed, the time difference wasn't linear at all. But he was more or less sure of his estimate of the duration because Demon God Da Mo's Demon Soul was still alive.