Desolate Era

by RWX

  “Go out, go out! All of you, go out! Use every Sithe weapon you have to assault this Daolord!” the Hegemon in charge commanded. “We have to stop him and prevent him from getting close to the castle. If he gets close to us, we’re finished!”

  “Everyone, head out!”

  “All Hegemons and Emperors on standby must head out immediately.”

  “If you can disrupt his tempo even slightly, we’ll be able to land an attack on him. One attack will lead to another, and he might even die by our hands.”

  “Let’s do this!” In truth, the Hegemons and Emperors inside were beginning to panic as well. Alas, most of them were needed to control the castle. Even though they had avatars, in the end the castle was only able to send out a total of three Emperors. These Emperors each had two or three powerful Sithe weapons. They stood on the surface of the castle, staring at the distant storm-shaped Ning. Gritting their teeth, they began to attack and attempt to knock Ning off his rhythm.

  Swish. A chain flew out towards Ning, seeking to wrap itself around him. Alas, before it even reached Ning it was struck by a semi-translucent ray of light and sent tumbling to the ground.

  Clearly, the rays of light could not differentiate between friend and foe. The castle was using many different types of attacks to assault Ning, and these attacks were harmonized with each other to a tremendous agree, ensuring that they wouldn’t cancel each other out. Unfortunately, it was hard for these three Emperors to fully avoid the semi-translucent attacks from the castle.

  “Damnit!” The three Emperors were being driven mad with rage.

  Alas, their rage was of no use. Ning continued to advance at high speed as he gained more and more familiarity with mixing his Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao together. None of the attacks were able to land on him at all. The three Emperors did their absolute utmost to disturb Ning’s movements, but although an occasional attack managed to get close to Ning, none of them were able to actually threaten Ning at all.

  One billion kilometers… nine hundred million kilometers… eight hundred million kilometers… Ning moved closer and closer to the castle, and as he did so a full-blown panic began to erupt amongst the Hegemons and Emperors inside. They all knew that once Ning reached the tower, they would die.

  “Let’s run!” When Ning reached a distance of two hundred million kilometers from the tower, the Emperors inside began to break down. None of them harbored any further hopes of being able to stop Ning.

  Boom! The entire castle transformed into a streak of light that hurriedly began to fly away. At the same time, the castle deactivated its spacetime suppression field as it begin to teleport away.

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to escape?” As soon as the castle began to flee, the semi-translucent rays of light all completely vanished. Now completely unimpeded, Ning instantly appeared in front of the castle. He reached out with one hand, touching the castle’s exterior.

  “Blink.” Ning used just a tiny amount of Immortal energy to command the Dao to envelop him, instantly blinking him inside. The tough external shell of the castle seemed to have transformed into a gentle curtain of water which Ning easily passed through, arriving inside.

  The Hegemons and Emperors inside all revealed looks of despair.

  Slash! A streak of sword-light howled outwards, slaying two of the Emperors on the spot.

  “Put down all of your treasures and accept capture. I’m willing to spare your lives for now,” Ning said.

  “Huh? Spare our lives?” The Hegemons and Emperors were all rather shocked. Ning had pursued them with such ferocity and had instantly slain two Emperors upon entering the castle. This had truly scared them out of their minds.

  Ning frowned. “It seems you would rather die than live, then?”

  “No, we want to live! Live!”

  “All of us want to live!” The Hegemons and Emperors immediately divested themselves of all their treasures and Sithe weapons, then obediently lined up in front of Ning.

  Ning waved his hand, pulling them all into his estate-world. He then waved his hand a second time, pulling the treasures into a different estate-world.

  “These so-called ‘Sithe progeny’ are still members of our own Chaosverse. I hope that they aren’t absolutely loyal to the Sithe,” Ning mused. When Ning had first arrived at Purgatory, his goal was to weaken the enemy as much as possible; there was naturally no way he would show mercy. But now that he already gained victory and entered the castle? Ning wasn’t going to just murder these people unless necessary.

  Ning had been able to immediately recognize two of the Emperors as true Sithe. They were being ignored and suppressed by the prime essences of the Chaosverse, which was proof of their identity! The others, however, were actually ‘Sithe descendants’! They were creatures of this Chaosverse who had been born and bred here.

  ……

  Ning put away the entire castle, then collected the thirty-six stone pillars as well. He was in a superb mood. “I defeated those Hegemons and Emperors, broke into the castle, and managed to avoid using too much power.”

  Ning was feeling absolutely wonderful. During this battle, the only thing he had done was use his wind sword-light and lightning sword-light to dodge and evade. Evasion-arts consumed much less of his energy than full-force blows; all that flying which Ning had engaged in was perhaps at most on par with what would be consumed by a single sword-blow. Blinking into the castle used up very little energy as well.

  He had been able to achieve his goals with a minimum amount of effort. How could he NOT be happy? He began to warp through space, arriving at somewhere else where the other Hegemons and Emperors were gathered.

  “Eh?” Ning stared forwards, rather puzzled. There were a series of palaces off in the distance, with the central palace being the largest one. It was surrounded by a scattering of smaller palaces, and they were all connected into an enormous palace complex. Ning could vaguely sense the auras of many Hegemons and Emperors within the palace complex; there had to be more than twenty of them scattered throughout that place.

  “I have the feeling that this palace complex is even more dangerous than the castle.” For some inexplicable reason, Ning shivered. He knew that this was his subconscious warning him of the danger. “Judging from how the palaces have been laid out, this should be some sort of enormous formation.”

  Ning couldn’t help but feel a bit of wariness when faced with such a formation.

  “There’s no rush.” Ning sat down in the lotus position. “Let me first spend some time meditating on my Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao.” When he had been flying forwards at high speed earlier, he suddenly had the feeling that he could merge his Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao on a deeper level.

  It was similar to how Ning was planning to perfectly join his Space Sword Dao and Time Sword Dao into a Spacetime Sword Dao. Ning now felt certain that he could also perfectly join his Lightning Sword Dao and his Wind Sword Dao together into a ‘Storm’ Sword Dao.

  “Perhaps I might find an unexpected surprise from this.” Ning immediately closed his eyes, allowing his awesome Sword Dao Domain to spread out around him as he began to meditate.

  * * *

  Book 41, Chapter 23 - Dire Straits

  Ji Ning remained seated in the lotus position. Gusts of wind howled past him, occasionally coming together into a mighty storm which was filled with flickers of lightning.

  Time passed, one year after the other. The Emperors and Hegemons in the palace complex were all beginning to grow rather anxious and impatient.

  “Why hasn’t the Daolord attacked yet?”

  “I can’t believe he’s actually in the mood to train.” The Hegemons and Emperors were all panicking. The calmer Ning was, the more panicked they felt. It wasn’t that their Dao-hearts were weak, it was that Ning’s performance in battle had been absolutely terrifying.

  “Gentlemen, will our formations be capable of stopping this Daolord? The castle was also Apocalypse-class, b
ut the Daolord managed to defeat it with ease. Although these formations seem quite profound and powerful to us, this Daolord might be able to solve them with ease. If that happens, we’ll be in serious trouble.” Many Emperors were worried.

  “Relax. The Exalt himself bestowed it upon us. I imagine he did so for a very good reason.”

  “But the Exalt bestowed the Apocalypse-class castle as well, right?”

  “Enough, enough. It’s far too late for worrying about things like this. Either we’ll win or we’ll die in battle. There are no other options! Besides, as all of you are aware, the castle was something meant for head-on battles, while we are relying on profound formations. If he can’t solve the formations, he’ll be trapped and perish.”

  “You aren’t him. Who knows what tricks he might have up his sleeve?”

  “Even if he DOES manage to solve the formations, it isn’t as though you have better ones that can be used! Remember, we’re exiles! This might be extremely dangerous, but it is also our only hope of survival.”

  ……

  This was absolute torture for the Hegemons and Emperors, and the Sithe Exalt in the Sacred Realm wasn’t feeling much better. Ning, however, focused all of his efforts on his training. This time, he meditated for an extremely long period of time. Over half a chaos cycle went past before he finished.

  BOOM!

  One day, the anxiously waiting Hegemons and Emperors suddenly heard a loud, rumbling sound appear in the area around the seated white-robed youth. Lightning howled like wind through the skies, while the wind itself flickered with crackling electricity. This awesome storm of lightning and wind possessed incredible momentum and ferocity.

  Under the watchful gazes of the nervous Hegemons and Emperors, the white-robed youth finally opened his eyes.

  “The Storm Sword Dao.” Ning nodded in understanding. It had been easier than he had expected to master his Storm Sword Dao, even easier than it had been to simply master the individual Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao. “Perhaps they are innately meant to be used together,” Ning mused.

  The Dao of Space and the Dao of Time were naturally meant to be together. When used simultaneously, they would easily and naturally come together to form the Dao of Spacetime. This was because time and space were indelibly linked together like two spokes on a wheel that fit together perfectly.

  The Dao of Lightning, the Dao of Metal, the Dao of Water, the Dao of Space, and Ning’s Eternal Omega Sword Dao were all completely irrelevant to each other. There wasn’t really a good way to link them together, making it extremely difficult to join them together.

  However, the Five Elements, the Storm, and Spacetime were all ‘sets’ that contained highly compatible Daos.

  “It is time.” Ning rose to his feet and stared at the distant palace complex. The entire palace complex was absolutely teeming with formations that were both complex and abstruse, but Ning held no fear of them.

  Clink! He reached out to draw a Northbow sword from the sheath on his back, then began to walk towards the distant palace complex.

  “He’s coming!”

  “He’s headed straight for us.”

  “That white-robed Daolord is coming. Quick! Everyone, make your preparations! When he’s trapped in our formations, we need to immediately launch all of our attacks against him and hold nothing back. If we give him enough time to breach our formations, we’ll be finished.”

  “It’ll definitely take him some time to defeat this formation. We need to do our best to kill him.” The Hegemons and Emperors all stared at the white-robed Daolord walking towards them, sword in hand. It was as though they were looking at an absolutely terrifying monster. The only thing giving them some confidence was the fact that they were protected by an ancient and powerful Apocalypse-class formation.

  Ning slowly sauntered forwards, the power of his Sword Dao Domain on full display as he used it to cover the region before him. It quickly spread out to cover the entire palace complex, which was hardened into a single entity. Ning’s Sword Dao Domain alone wouldn’t be enough to shake it in the slightest. The smaller palaces remained quietly rooted in place, not releasing any of their power at all.

  “I want to see just how powerful they are.” Ning suddenly moved, transforming into an illusory shadow that shot towards a pathway which he felt was critical.

  BOOM! As soon as Ning stepped into the palace complex, the earth began to shake beneath his feet while the skies began to change. The awesome might of the complex was fully unleashed, and the scenery in front of him completely transformed into a field of blurry light.

  Ning was the only person flying through the region of blurry light. Whoosh! He instantly accelerated to fly ten billion kilometers through the light, but found himself still trapped within it.

  “Hm. I feel as though I’m flying in place, as though I haven’t actually moved at all.” Ning unleashed his Sword Dao Domain, sending out countless streaks of sword-light but was only able to extend them to a distance of a million kilometers. Beyond this distance, there was no way for them to advance any further!

  “What an incredible formation. It actually created its own spacetime continuum.” Ning began to ponder on his next step. Given his mastery over the Space Sword Dao, he was able to see some traces of how spacetime worked here but wasn’t even close to actually being able to solve it.

  This place was already a spacetime continuum unto itself, and he was trapped inside it, unable to leave. “So they plan to simply trap me here?” Ning shook his head and chuckled. “If the Sithe truly wished to just trap me, they would’ve kept me locked within the dimensional realm-seam. There would’ve been no way for me to escape on my own.”

  Thus, there was no way the Sithe would simply leave him trapped here. If they wanted to do that, they had plenty of other tools at their disposal.

  “Eh?” Ning turned his gaze to one side. He could sense that spacetime was changing a bit there.

  Boom! A streak of dense and dark astral light shot out, filled with malice and wickedness. It was as though endless amounts of sin had been concentrated in this attack, and it was flying towards Ning at terrifying speeds. Ning could sense that this dark astral light posed a threat to him. If he wanted to actually block it, he would have to use his sword.

  The black astral light was simply too fast. Ning’s form suddenly flickered, emitting a thunderous boom as a wild storm was created behind him which almost instantly pushed him out of the trajectory of the dark astral light aside. The astral light flew past Ning, burying itself deep into the edge of this spacetime continuum and then completely disappearing.

  Swoosh. Ning immediately charged towards the place where the black astral light had come from, which was also the place he had sensed spacetime changing.

  “Spacetime was temporarily parted there.” Ning charged towards that area with his Northbow sword at the ready, but halfway there he came to a halt because spacetime had gone back to normal. No further fluctuations could be seen.

  Just one heartbeat later… riiiiip! Another spacetime ripple appeared somewhere else, followed by yet another attack. This time, the attack was an extremely gentle-looking alabaster finger that shot straight towards Ning, almost instantly appearing right in front of him. Ning once more used his Storm Sword Dao to evade the attack, moving with almost ghostly speed.

  “Damn!” Ning’s face paled slightly. He knew what his opponents were intending. He was trapped within this tiny spacetime continuum and unable to escape, while his Sithe opponents were able to use their many powerful weapons to assault him time and time again at extremely close range. His only choice was to use his divine power to execute evasion-arts to dodge these attacks! Thankfully, he had just mastered the Storm Sword Dao, which specialized in speed and agility. As a result, he was able to dodge while using just a tiny amount of energy… but it would still add up.

  If this continued, his energy supply would continuously deplete while his truesoul began to crumble apart at an increasingly fast
rate. Each time he used any of his power, the cracks across his truesoul would widen and his lifespan would grow shorter!

  “How should I handle this? What’s the best way to break through this continuum?” Ning was beginning to grow anxious. He scanned the area around him, but it remained a blur of light. There were no flaws or openings at all for this spacetime continuum. An opening might appear when an attack was launched from the outside world, but that opening would quickly close up and be sealed away. Each time, just a single attack was launched, and so the opening was extremely small in size. The Hegemons and Emperors in the outside world could simply wait for the right moment to attack, giving Ning no chance to flee through the openings at all.

  All sorts of attacks began to fly at Ning from within this spacetime continuum, and each time they launched from far away. Ning was forced to repeatedly use his evasion-arts to dodge. This was the most conservative use of his energy possible.

  His power continued to deplete. Ning couldn’t help but feel a sense of urgency as he pondered over the solution for breaking apart this formation. He never would’ve imagined that Purgatory would be enough to force him into such dire straits.

  Just like that, Ning was actually in mortal danger.

  “Ahahaha! He has no answer for our formation! He can’t solve it!”

  “If he can’t solve it, he’s doomed.” The exiles were overjoyed, all their earlier concerns having vanished like the wind. Apocalypse-class formations truly were incredible. The white-robed Daolord was completely unable to overcome this formation, which meant that killing him would be simplicity itself.

  * * *

  Book 41, Chapter 24 - Struggle

  “Is the very first master of an Eternal Omega Dao their Chaosverse has given birth to going to die by my hands today?” The blue-haired Exalt watching the battle from the Sacred Realm felt excited as well. “Both of the Apocalypse-class treasures I gave those exiles in Purgatory are aimed squarely at that Daolord’s weaknesses. The castle had area attacks which that Daolord should’ve been unable to dodge; by all rights, it should’ve exhausted him to death! Who would’ve thought that he would possess such incredible speed. Now that we’ve trapped him within our spacetime formation, I refuse to believe he’ll be able to break free.”