Desolate Era

by RWX

  “No need to try and persuade me. I’ve already made up my mind,” Ning said.

  “Then I won’t force things.” Winesage transformed into a streak of light and flew towards Dawnstar’s direction at high speed. He was a supreme Daolord; a single Voidsea Jadeseal would only allow him to partially simulate the Daomerge. He naturally felt that the more seals he had, the better!

  In the eyes of Daolords, although the local fruit was valuable it was of no use to the Daomerge. None of those things truly mattered. The Daomerge was what supreme Daolords like Winesage cared about the most, and so they paid much less attention to the third world.

  “Let’s go.” Ning looked at Ninedust.

  “Are we really not going to take part? Darknorth, if we go we’ll at least have a chance,” Ninedust said. Now that he had acquired a Voidsea Jadeseal for himself, he naturally wanted to help Ning fight for one as well.

  “More and more supreme Daolords are arriving. What they can’t have, they won’t let others have either,” Ning said. “The fight over the last Voidsea Jadeseal will be a furious one; our chances are less than one in ten.”

  Ninedust argued, “But even if our chances are slim, we should still give it a shot.”

  “We can do that later. Push comes to shove, we can take it from the person who wins it.” Ning walked straight towards the throne. Ninedust nodded then followed him as well.

  Boom! A surge of power spread out from the throne and encompassed both Ning and Ninedust. Swoosh! The two of them vanished without a trace.

  ……

  There were a number of reasons as to why Ning had opted not to take part.

  First of all, there were simply too many supreme Daolords present. Even if they weren’t able to beat Ning, they’d be able to obstruct him.

  Second, Ning belonged to the Brightshore Kingdom. Brightshore Kingdom members had all sworn oaths not to fight against other members of the kingdom! Ninestone, Palace Lord Cloudwalker, Palace Lord Dawnstar… Ning wasn’t even able to battle against them! In a wild group melee like this, it would be like him fighting with a handicap. This further lowered his chances of winning a Voidsea Jadeseal.

  Third, the Voidsea Jadeseals were of very limited use to Ning. Once he became a Daolord of the Fourth Step, the power of his Omega Sword Dao would reach an incredibly terrifying level; most likely, the Voidsea Jadeseal would only be able to simulate a tiny, tiny portion of the Daomerge for his Omega Sword Dao. Other supreme Daolords would be able to simulate half of the Daomerge, which would be of invaluable assistance, but for Ning the benefit would be fairly minimal.

  Fourth, Ning cared more about reviving his wife Yu Wei. If he could reunite his family again, he’d be satisfied with merely living 108,000 chaos cycles! The Daomerge wasn’t something others could help him with, but saving Yu Wei was. He needed to acquire enough treasure so that he could ask some truly mighty figures to assist him! Given that even the Hegemons and the Dao Alliance had gone crazy over the fruits of Crimsonwave Temple, he naturally had to harvest as much as he could.

  Whoosh! Ning felt a cold breeze stir past him. He hurriedly inspected his surroundings.

  He stood atop a cold, ancient-looking stone island, and in front of him was an unfathomably deep abyss. A long, icy set of seven-colored chains stretched off into the distance, where it connected to another distant and levitating stone island. That second stone island had a gold-black octahedral command talisman levitating above it, with some strange runes right above it. Ning immediately recognized the runes as symbolizing the word ‘three’.

  Behind that stone island was yet another deep abyss. A tri-colored set of chains stretched out from the stone island and across the abyss to a sacrificial altar that had another command talisman at the bottom. This one had runes symbolizing the word ‘five’ hovering right above it. The altar had a series of steps leading up to it, and at the very top of the altar there lay a command talisman that had strange runes symbolizing the word ‘eight’ above it.

  “Three, five, and eight?” Ning was intrigued.

  “Darknorth, the Grovekeeper said that there are nine command talismans in total. The ninth one is the most valuable, with the second most valuable being the sixth, seventh, and eighth talismans. Next in value come the third, fourth, and fifth talismans, while the first and second ones are the least valuable,” Ninedust said. Ning nodded.

  Whoosh! Rainbow light coalesced next to them, resolving into the form of a white-robed man. It was Realmsoul Polo, and he smiled at Ning and Ninedust. “The two of you moved quite quickly. You came straight to the third world! The battle in the second world is still proceeding quite fiercely; given your power, the two of you might stand a chance.”

  “We’ve decided to try and acquire as much fruit as we can instead,” Ning said.

  “Alright.” Realmsoul Polo explained, “The rules in the third world are a bit different. Each Daolord can only choose a single corridor to proceed through.” As he spoke, he waved his hand and caused the mist at the horizons to vanish, revealing two other places. Once again they saw floating islands, abysses, and altars.

  “The third world has three passageways,” Realmsoul Polo said. “Once you enter one of the passageways, you cannot enter any of the other ones. This is a mechanism to prevent any single Daolord from acquiring too many of the command talismans.”

  Ning and Ninedust nodded slightly.

  “But can we take them from others by force?” Ning suddenly asked.

  “Haha. If you are strong enough to seize command talismans from other Daolords, go for it. I won’t mind even if you manage to acquire all of them,” Realmsoul Polo said. “The command talismans for these three passageways are of varying values, but on the whole the difference between the three passageways isn’t that great. Go ahead and choose one of the passageways. Oh! As the first to reach the third world, I’ll give you one piece of advice; the ninth command talisman is extremely, extremely valuable.” After speaking, the realmsoul let out a chuckle and vanished.

  “Darknorth?” Ninedust looked at Ning.

  “Let’s go take a look at the other passageways to take a look,” Ning said.

  “Let’s go.” Ninedust and Ning immediately transformed into streaks of light that flew towards one of the other passageways. Soon, they had passed through the other two regions and reached their destination.

  Ning and Ninedust possessed astounding ocularity clarity and were thus able to see the three command seals within this passageway right away. They were the first, the fourth, and the ninth.

  “The ninth talisman is here.” Ning said solemnly, “Then that means the final passageway holds the second, the sixth, and the seventh talismans.”

  The three passageways were separated thusly:

  The first passageway held the first, fourth, and ninth command talismans.

  The second passageway held the second, sixth, and seventh command talismans.

  The third passageway held the third, fifth, and eighth command talismans.

  “The total value in each of three passageways is roughly the same, but since the fruits harvested by the ninth command talisman ripen once every 100,000 chaos cycles, they are more valuable than all other fruits. The rarer a fruit is, the more irreplaceable it is,” Ning said. “I choose this passageway. I have to get the ninth command talisman.”

  After studying the [Seven Leafpill Chapters], Ning knew a great deal regarding the Dao of Alchemy. Some alchemical materials were interchangeable with others, with just the price being changed slightly. The rarer an item was, however, the more important it generally was as a principal ingredient.

  The ninth command talisman allowed the harvesting of the only fruits which ripened every 100,000 chaos cycles. Most likely, it was of the most interest to Eternal Emperors! They might be able to pay several times more than the ‘market’ rate for it. Ning’s hopes of reviving Yu Wei rested on this fruit.

  “Then I’ll choose the other tunnel, the one with the second, sixth, and seventh co
mmand talismans,” Ninedust said.

  “If we move separately, then…” Ning was a bit hesitant.

  “Don’t worry.” Ninedust smiled. “I have my invulnerable aquaform; no one can kill me! And every single Daolord can only choose a single passageway; if you choose this one, that means the two of us can at most acquire three of those talismans. If we move separately, we can perhaps acquire a total of six! Haha. So long as I acquire any of them, they’ll all belong to you, Darknorth! You helped me acquire the Voidsea Jadeseal; now, it is my time to help you acquire the command talismans. Although these things aren’t nearly as valuable as Voidsea Jadeseals to us Daolords, I really don’t have anything better to offer you. There’s no way I’m handing out the seal I acquired to anyone, you included.”

  * * *

  Book 33, Chapter 13 - Speechless

  “Haha, done.” Ji Ning understood what his friend was trying to do; Ninedust didn’t feel comfortable accepting the Voidsea Jadeseal without doing anything for Ning in return. At their level, Daolords were unwilling to do actions that went against their basic nature and caused them to feel guilty. They would strive to repay any favors that were owed.

  But of course, there were some truly vile Daolords whose Dao-hearts were as vile as they were. Backstabbing, betrayal, robbery, deceit… they could do anything, because this was the nature of their Dao-heart! As a result, these evil Daolords generally had few to no truly good friends. Timedream was a good example; he had relied on applying heartforce techniques to the Kingfreak when the later was young and weak, slowly guiding the Kingfreak into being utterly devoted to him.

  “We’ll probably spend quite a bit of time here in the third world,” Ning said. “You can spend a month using up the Voidsea Jadeseal first. That way, you can publicly swear a lifeblood oath that you’ve already used it and thus will no longer be pursued or attacked by the other Daolords.”

  “Right.” Ninedust nodded. “Understood. I’ll be leaving now.” Whoosh. Ninedust flew towards a different passageway, with Ning watching as he left.

  Ning then turned towards his own passageway. This was what mattered the most to him; he had to walk to the end of this passageway and acquire the ninth command talisman.

  “That stone pillar…?” Ning stared at a rhomboid-shaped pillar at the edges of the abyss. The pillar was covered with many dense runes. These runes didn’t seem nearly as profound as the Dreamdust script, the azureflower runes, or the ‘Crimson Wave Temple’ runes, but they were still unlike any script that Ning had ever seen before. Despite that, Ning immediately understood what they meant.

  “If I wish to pass through the first abyss, I must first learn the [Vitalis] technique…” Ning was dazed by what he read.

  All living creatures had their own, distinct life auras. These auras came from the distinctive characteristics of their souls and truesouls. No type of divine ability or transformation could truly disguise this. The likes of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] and other similar techniques could mask or simulate certain aura ‘leaks’, but the intrinsic life aura itself could not be changed! The aura each soul and truesoul had was the best way of verifying or attesting to who a person was.

  “B-b-b-but… this [Vitalis] technique can actually change a truesoul’s life aura?” Ning could hardly believe this. “If even a truesoul’s life aura can be changed… then they could use a casual disguise and I would be completely unable to recognize them!”

  Terrifying, utterly terrifying. For example, if someone transformed into Patriarch Subhuti and appeared in front of Ning, if even the truesoul life aura was imitated then Ning would be tricked. If caught off-guard in such a manner, Ning could very well fall for a sneak attack!

  “The Sithe were utterly terrifying. How could they have come up with a technique like this? I’ve never even heard of such techniques in the Endless Territories, but the Sithe put it within the third world. Clearly, many of their supreme Daolords must’ve known this technique.” Ning was secretly terrified. If even their Daolords were this terrifying, how deadly had their Eternal Emperors had been?

  No wonder the Sithe had once sought to conquer and enslave all other cultivators. Apparently, even the Terror Starsea was nothing more than one of many battlefields where the Dawn War had occurred.

  “Whew.” Ning quickly read and memorized the [Vitalis] technique. Only then did he let out a sigh of relief. The [Vitalis] technique wasn’t completely flawless; for example, close friends and loved ones could often tell what their counterparts were thinking from a single glance or gesture. If someone else had merely transformed and used the [Vitalis] technique, that person would be unable to duplicate that sort of tacit understanding. This was one of the most basic flaws.

  However, if one wasn’t aware of the [Vitalis] technique and also sensed that the truesoul life aura was that of a loved one’s, one generally wouldn’t think too much of it even if their counterpart was acting rather oddly. They’d think that their counterpart was probably worried or frustrated about something and thus was acting rather differently. This wasn’t that big of a flaw.

  The true, major flaw with the [Vitalis] technique was that of karma!

  Karma was a system of cause and effect that linked all things! This was one of the highest level and yet most understated webs that tied and bound all individuals. There were some who were so skilled in karma that when they slew a foe, they would be able to use their karmic senses to trace down that enemy’s Primaltwin and avatars and wipe them out as well!

  Anyone you had befriended or even so much as spoken to would be connected to you by karma. Ning, for example, was very tightly bound to his friends and loved ones by karmic threads. He was even connected by karma to the Brightshore Hegemon and Emperor Goldisle of the Dao Alliance, as he had met and spoken with both separately.

  If anyone dared to imitate Ning and appear before Hegemon Brightshore… given how strong Hegemon Brightshore was, he was probably able of karmic scrying! He would be able to instantly tell that there were no pre-existing karmic ties between him and the person in front of him and thus could be certain that it definitely was not Ji Ning.

  “There are almost no Daolords capable of sensing and scrying karma.” Ning shook his head. “Not even the majority of Eternal Emperors are capable of this. You have to be a specialist in karma or have reached an incredible level of power.”

  All Daos shared certain commonalities. Ning didn’t specifically study the Dao of Time or the Dao of Space, but he had reached such inconceivable heights in the Dao of the Sword that he was able to transcend both space and time. Similarly, the power within the Sword Hegemon’s Dao-seal was so great that it could freeze and suppress both spacetime as well as karmic scrying.

  “This [Vitalis] technique is still an incredible technique,” Ning mused to himself. If he managed to learn this technique, he could for example imitate someone else and go pay a visit to Hegemon Netherlily of the Ancient cultivators! Since Hegemon Netherlily had never seen him before and there were no karmic ties between them, Ning probably would be able to deceive her.

  Thus, this technique was a superb and terrifying technique for disguising one’s self and infiltrating other organizations.

  “The Sithe probably relied on this technique to arrange for many Daolord spies to be sent into the various cultivator organizations,” Ning mused. “However, the Sithe have already been destroyed. Even their techniques have fallen into the hands of us cultivators.”

  ……

  Each of the seven colors of the rainbow chains which stretched across the first abyss represented a type of truesoul life aura! One had to be able to transform one’s life aura to match those chains in order to safely traverse them. If the truesoul aura was not imitated perfectly, then one would be swept into that endless abyss and perish!

  The Sithe used very brutal methods to train their Daolords.

  “[Vitalis]…” After learning this technique, Ning felt more and more certain that the Sithe had reached truly inconceivable heights in c
ertain areas. For example, their mastery of truesoul-relaetd techniques clearly surpassed that of the Endless Territories by a significant amount. Otherwise, they would never have been able to create a technique such as this.

  What Ning didn’t know was that although the Sithe had been exterminated, the many treasures and techniques they had left behind were furiously fought over in countless places. Crimsonwave Temple was nothing more than one of the many relic sites left behind by the Sithe.

  “Focus.” Ning made use of his temporal acceleration treasure. Years passed inside although just half a month or so had gone by outside. He was now able to use a tiny amount of his truesoul and godsense to form a ‘lifecloak’ around him, with the lifecloak capable of simulating any truesoul aura Ning had met before.

  This amount of his truesoul and godsense was of neglible impact to Ning. He was a heartforce cultivator, after all, and a very high-level one at that. Learning this technique was thus quite easy for him.

  “Success.” Ning put away the spacetime cabin and turned to stare at the stone pillar. He sighed silently, “Their abilities were utterly unearthly, but their ambitions were simply too vast. In the end, they were wiped out!”

  Ning understood that the little he knew about the Sithe came from what Realmsoul Polo and the Grovekeeper had told him. He realized that this was nothing more than the tip of an iceberg, and that he still knew very little as to what the truth was.

  The Grovekeeper had merely been an artificial construct created by the Sithe race in order to take care of the trees here in Crimsonwave Temple. He had never been able to leave this place. As for Realmsoul Polo, he was nothing more than a servant of Emperor Waveshift’s.

  ……

  Ning stood there atop the seven-colored chains, every single colored chain containing a different truesoul aura. The different colors all stretched out across several meters, allowing the Daolords enough time to falsify their truesoul auras.