Desolate Era

by RWX

  Rumble…

  First came the roaring gale.

  Next came all sorts of terrifying skywinds with astonishing power.

  Still…no matter how powerful the assaults were, the Nineleaf Snowlotus Protocosmic spirit-treasure was able to endure them all. Ning wasn’t even needed to use his sword-formations at all.

  “The final assault of the wind tribulation has come, the Celestial Immortal Wind.” Immortal Diancai and the other distant spectators all felt their hearts clench.

  The Celestial Immortal Wind was formless and invisible; no magic treasures or spells could block it.

  Whoosh!

  The Celestial Immortal Wind descended, effortlessly bypassing the defending Nineleaf Snowlotus. It passed through Ning’s skin, going straight into the Sole-Ki Pearl of Primalwater within Ning’s Primaltwin. Ordinary people usually had this wind entering through their head, but since Ning’s Primaltwin was created from this Sole-Ki Pearl of Primalwater. Still…in the face of the Celestial Immortal Wind, it seemed incredibly fragile.

  Celestial Immortal Wind would only ever appear during the Celestial Tribulation. It was a manifestation of the Dao that flowed through the Three Realms, and no power or magic treasure could oppose it. If one’s Dao-heart was not strong enough, the Celestial Immortal Wind would incinerate one’s body and reduce it to ash.

  Thus…one’s Dao-heart had to be firm.

  Ning had managed to overcome the karmic sinflames tribulation; how could his Dao-heart be weak? He could sense the Zifu region within his Sole-Ki Pearl of Primalwater begin to tremble, then transform. The pearl itself was being transformed. Once he truly became a Celestial Immortal…the pearl would completely vanish, and the true core of his Primaltwin would become a golden pellet, his Jindan.

  ……

  The wind tribulation ended. The fire tribulation came.

  The weather changed dramatically as an utterly enormous cloud of fire appeared in the skies, causing the temperature to skyrocket. However, Ning continued to simply sit there above the Nineleaf Snowlotus. Just by using a little bit of his elemental energy, he was able to activate a large amount of energy of the natural world to cause the temperature to cool once more. For a time, the world was divided between a blazing sky high above and a world of snow down below. Truly, this was a case where fire and snow could not coexist.

  “The fire tribulation has come. However…since that protective treasure Ning has was able to easily defend against the wind tribulation, I trust it won’t be too hard for it to resist the fire tribulation.” Immortal Diancai smiled.

  “The power of the wind tribulation is comparable to the power of the fire tribulation. Given how formidable junior apprentice-brother’s protective treasure is, he should be able to easily overcome it without using up too much energy.” Yu Wei said with concern, “What I’m worried about is the thunder tribulation.”

  Indeed.

  The power of the Protocosmic spirit-treasure, the Nineleaf Snowlotus, was truly astonishing. It didn’t require too much energy to be used up, but alas, Ning didn’t have a way to apply his heartforce through the Nineleaf Snowlotus. If he did, not even his swords might be as powerful as the Nineleaf Snowlotus. This was a Protocosmic spirit-treasure, after all; although Ning had many hundreds of Immortal swords, and although the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation] was incredibly powerful, they were still ‘merely’ top-grade Immortal swords. But of course…Ning had come up with a way to apply heartforce through his swords of the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation], and so at present the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation] far surpassed the Nineleaf Snowlotus in power.

  He had passed the wind tribulation!

  He now passed the fire tribulation as well! The Celestial Immortal Fire that came in the end resulted in the Sole-Ki Pearl of Primalwater evolving yet again.

  Finally…the time came for the thunder tribulation.

  ……

  There was a fairly long period of time that would pass between the end of the fire tribulation and the start of the thunder tribulation. The Celestial Tribulation gave the tribulant some time to restore their energy…but in truth, in this case Ning had primarily relied on the Nineleaf Snowlotus to defend against the elemental attacks, and had used his Dao-heart to endure the Celestial Immortal Wind and Celestial Immortal Fire. Thus, he had used up very little of his energy.

  “I wonder how many sets of thunder tribulation Master will face,” Little Qing said worriedly.

  “I underwent six nine-sets,” Immortal Diancai said with concern. “This disciple of mine had far more karmic luck than I did, and he also has karmic sinflames around him; his thunder tribulation shall undoubtedly be astonishing.”

  All of them were worried. What none of them realized…

  Was that in truth, Ji Ning had received supreme transmissions of the Dao from three Daofather-level figures; Patriarch Subhuti, Daoist Threelives, and Old Man Yuan. Of the three, Old Man Yuan and Patriarch Subhuti both stood at the very pinnacle of power amongst the Daofathers of the Three Realms. While Daoist Threelives had never been able to actually become a Daofather, remaining a True God of Primordial Chaos, the [Starseizing Hand] divine ability was awe-inspiringly powerful and one of the top ten divine abilities of the Three Realms.

  Ning had acquired so many legacies that even his Ki Refiner tribulation wouldn’t be weak…and he also had mastered heartforce and was covered in karmic sinflames.

  An hour passed.

  Rumble…

  The calm skies suddenly manifested a pair of enormous black clouds. These enormous black clouds covered nearly the entire sky, causing the world to turn pitch-black as they blocked out almost all light.

  “What just happened?”

  “The sky turned dark?”

  The Ji clansmen within Swallow Mountain, as well as the other clansmen and monsters present, all stared towards the sky in confusion.

  The entire sky had turned pitch-black. As for the dark clouds…they had now completely covered the entire Swallow Mountain area of nearly a hundred thousand kilometers!

  “How could this…” Yu Wei, Immortal Diancai, Mu Northson, Uncle White, Little Qing, and Autumn Leaf all raised their heads. They had changed looks on their faces, while Yu Wei’s face was completely bloodless.

  The two enormous dark clouds that had blotted out the skies above all of Swallow Mountain slowly began to move towards each other. Because of how enormous they were, these two massive clouds semed to fly at a very slow pace. But as they flew…crack! Crack! A series of cracking sounds could be heard from the skies as one enormous bolt of lightning after another began to snake out from within the two massive dark clouds.

  Ning, however, just watched calmly.

  He wasn’t surprised at all.

  Soon, an enormous vortex of lightning and clouds had formed within the skies. The size of this vortex still covered the entire Swallow Mountain region; from its size alone, one could tell how utterly astonishing its power was.

  BOOM!

  A streak of lightning lashed out from the lightning-cloud vortex, striking directly down like the sword of the heavens.

  Clang!

  Ning had already risen to his feet. Hundreds of Immortal swords hovered around him, while the Nineleaf Snowlotus was underneath him. Many hundreds of meters above Ning, an utterly enormous lotus had formed, generated from countless tiny snowlotus petals. The enormous lotus was a barrier to defend against the thunder tribulation. Ning still wanted to use this Protocosmic spirit-treasure; it consumed very little of his elemental ki, after all.

  BOOM! The first bolt of lightning wasn’t even able to cause the Protocosmic spirit-treasure to shake in the slightest.

  Bolts of lightning continued to crash down.

  Soon, they were at the fourth nine-set of thunderbolts.

  Thunderbolts continued to crash down.

  Five nine-sets. Six nine-sets…

  “This is the seventh nine-set.” Autumn Leaf couldn’t help but whisper these words. Bright
heart Island now had quite an extensive library of books, many of which Ning had acquired after killing other Immortals. Autumn Leaf had naturally perused them.

  “Master is almost at his limit.” Little Qing was worried as well.

  This was the sixty-first bolt of thunder.

  The enormous lotus flower formed from the Nineleaf Snowlotus was already beginning to collapse.

  “[Greater Thousand Swords Formation], go forth!” The black-robed Ning, standing atop the Nineleaf Snowlotus, pointed towards the skies. Instantly, a golden sword that had manifested in front of his chest streaked out into the heavens.

  BOOM!

  The enormous lotus above him had already vanished into thin air. However, a series of layers of lotus flowers appeared around the black-robed Ning.

  This strike of the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation] contained a hint of his heartforce, allowing him to effortlessly block the celestial thunder.

  “The eighth nine-set has arrived.”

  Soon, it was time for the eighth nine-set. Immortal Diancai and the other spectators all felt nervous; how was it that a Ki Refiner actually caused an eighth nine-set to appear? Even though Ning had taken on a Daofather as his master, his tribulation shouldn’t be this terrifying, right?

  * * *

  Book 17, Chapter 25 - A New Life

  The seventieth bolt of thunder.

  A violet streak of lightning crashed down with ice-cold callousness. The black-robed Ji Ning beneath it pointed with his finger, causing the golden sword of the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation] to once more soar into the skies.

  Rumble…

  It once more blocked the assault.

  “I hope it is merely eight nine-sets. If it grows much stronger…it may put too much stress on my heartforce.” Ning was a bit worried as well. Third-level heartforce was very powerful, and it would be easy to use it against eight nine-sets, but if it became the full nine nine-sets…the power of the thunder would skyrocket to a new level. By then, each blow would most likely require Ning to use up quite a bit of his heartforce. Once it was used up, he would definitely perish.

  Ning had never imagined that he would have failed during the thunder tribulation of the Celestial Tribulation, but he was now beginning to worry. The power of the eighth nine-set was already a bit beyond what he had expected.

  Boom!

  Boom!

  The divine thunder grew increasingly powerful. After these two consecutive blows of divine thunder…everyone, be it Ning or the distant group of spectators including Immortal Diancai and Yu Wei, stared upwards nervously.

  “This is merely junior apprentice-brother’s Primaltwin. Eight nine-sets should be enough; there shouldn’t be nine nine-sets, right?”

  “The legendary nine nine-sets…generally speaking, only Void-level Fiendgods will encounter them.”

  They all watched nervously.

  Thousands of kilometers away, an old man in Daoist robes was watching from atop a distant mountain peak. When he saw that the tribulation clouds in the sky did not disperse, and instead began to gather an even more terrifying amount of power, his face changed. He murmured softly to himself, “My disciple’s Primaltwin has actually encountered the ninth nine-set?”

  “It’s just a Primaltwin. In terms of fortuitous encounters, it probably isn’t even up to Lu Dongbin’s standard…can this be due to the karmic sinflames?” Subhuti began to worry.

  Ning was a monster, but that was with regards to his true body.

  His Primaltwin, by comparison…although it had control over heartforce, it was far inferior in all other aspects to the Void-level Lu Dongbin of countless years ago. Although heartforce was powerful, it had a glaring weakness: It could only be used to fight for a short period of time. Once one’s heartforce was used up, one’s power would drop dramatically.

  For Ning’s Primaltwin to encounter nine nine-sets of thunder tribulation…Subhuti felt that this was too excessive, even though Ning did have karmic sinflames covering him.

  “If this is the case…then my disciple’s true body…?” Subhuti began to worry.

  If even the Primaltwin had to undergo nine nine-sets, then the Empyrean Tribulation of the true body would be…

  “Once he becomes an Empyrean God, he will quickly reach the pinnacle of power amongst Empyrean Gods. In fact, after he undergoes a bit more tempering, he’ll be like Houyi was, capable of rivaling the Daofathers despite merely being at the Empyrean God level.” Subhuti let out a soft sigh. “It seems not even the heavens are willing to casually permit such a monstrous genius like this to exist. The heavens will insist on unleashing a terrifying tribulation…”

  From the era of Pangu’s World to the modern day, countless monsters had their souls shattered by their tribulations!

  “Forget about the Empyrean Tribulation; even this Celestial Tribulation…” Subhuti stared off into the distance, a frown on his face.

  “Nine nine-sets!”

  “There’s more?!”

  “How can this be?!”

  Immortal Diancai, Mu Northson, Autumn Leaf, Uncle White, Little Qing, and Yu Wei all revealed frantic looks on their faces. There was no way they could help Ning; during the Celestial Tribulation, a person could only rely on himself.

  “Junior apprentice-brother, you have to succeed.” Yu Wei gently stroked her belly, her eyes filled with hope.

  “Ji Ning.”

  “Young master.”

  They were all filled with hope. Although the fame of the ninth nine-set was terrifying, Ning had overcome the previous eight nine-sets with utter ease, not seeming to be taxed by them at all. Thus…they were still filled with hope.

  Boom!

  The ninth nine-set of the thunder tribulation. The seventy-third bolt of thunder was a streak of violet lightning that was tinged with a white color. This hint of white caused the thunderbolt to become beautiful, a terrible beauty to behold. It was as though the lord of all creation had just taken a look at his universe with a gaze that of ineffable power. Weaker Void-level Earth Immortals probably wouldn’t even try to fight back against this thunderbolt…but of course, there was no way a weak Void-level Earth Immortal would even be able to make it this far, to the ninth nine-set of the thunder tribulation.

  In all the Three Realms, in all of history, every single person who had encountered nine nine-sets was an extraordinary figure. They wouldn’t easily admit defeat; even if they had to die, they would die standing.

  “Go.” Ning pointed into the distance, and the golden sword in front of his chest once more flew out. While flying out, Ning manifested yet another golden sword in front of himself.

  Clang!

  As the first golden sword flew out, it was struck head-on by the violet-white thunderbolt and broken apart.

  “It seems I have to use one-fiftieth of my total heartforce in order to completely block these attacks. The power of the divine thunder truly has risen significantly.” Ning hurriedly commanded his second golden sword to fly out, blocking the remaining power of the violet-white thunderbolt. “The power of these thunderbolts are greater than the full-strength blows of the likes of Celestial Immortal Infatuation. How could an ordinary Void-level Earth Immortal possibly withstand them?”

  Only by accurately predicting the power of each thunderbolt could Ning ensure that he wasn’t wasting too much of his heartforce with each blow.

  “He blocked the seventy-third thunderbolt.”

  “He blocked the first bolt of the ninth nine-set!” Immortal Diancai and the others revealed looks of excitement and nervousness in their eyes. There was a huge increasing in power between the last bolt of the eighth nine-set and the first bolt of the ninth nine-set; for him to be able to block this first bolt meant that there was hope for him to block the others.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

  One bolt of lightning after another came crashing down.

  All the thunderbolts were violet-white in color, but towards the end, the white grew more and more dom
inant, and the power grew increasingly greater. In turn, Ning was forced to use up more and more of his heartforce.

  The seventy-ninth bolt!

  The eightieth!

  “There’s one more left.”

  “The last one.”

  Yu Wei, Uncle White, and the others felt as though their hearts were hanging in the air. The legendary nine nine-sets of thunder tribulation…finally, the last blow of it was going to reveal its force. Not everyone was lucky enough to witness such a thing. However, their hearts were only filled with a dim, vague fear…because the very sight of the cloud-lightning vortex swirling above them was filling them with inexplicable terror.

  “Even if it was me…the current me, who has become a Celestial Immortal long ago…I would probably die beneath this below,” Immortal Diancai mused to himself.

  ……

  Ning stood there at the very peak of the mountain, like a sharp sword unfurled towards the heavens. Beneath his feet was the Nineleaf Snowlotus, and lotus flowers swirled and bloomed all around him. Hundreds of swords levitated around him, all pointed towards the heavens as Ning raised his head, staring at the tribulation clouds.

  The final thunderbolt.

  The final bolt of the ninth nine-set of the thunder tribulation.

  BOOM!!!!

  It was a thunderbolt of pure white, filled with holiness and sanctity. It didn’t have even the slightest hint of wildness or savagery; all it held was an exalted, noble aura within it as it came crushing down from the heavens. This was the true face of the very final thunderbolt of the ninth nine-set.

  “Go.” Ning pointed a finger.

  Swoosh!

  The golden sword-light flashed with incomparable brilliance, expanding to become an enormous sword that instantly shot into the heavens, striking towards that pure-white thunderbolt.

  “Go.” As fast as Ning could, Ning manifested and unleashed a second golden sword. By now, the first golden sword he had sent towards the white thunderbolt had already been completely blasted apart. The second golden sword quickly soared upwards. BOOM! The remnants of the pure-white thunderbolt trembled, and then completely dispersed.