Desolate Era

by RWX

  “We have to reach the nexus and destroy the black tower if we wish to break the hive apart, but a hundred layers of astral clouds? It’s too hard.”

  The Autarchs pondered continuously. Every so often one of them would voice a suggestion, but the others would quickly point out the flaws!

  Time passed, one day after another. The Autarchs spent more than three years painstakingly analyzing the problem. Thankfully, the 500x temporal acceleration meant that only two days went past in the outside world.

  “What a marvelously constructed weapon.” Autarch Titanos stared at the illusory images in front of him. An illusory black tower took form, followed by a vortex which took control over spacetime to generate an even more powerful sucking effect. This effect resonated across the entire behemoth hive, giving birth to that terrifying force which was devouring everything around the hive.

  “I’m far from being a match for the person who was able to create this weapon.” Autarch Titanos shook his head slightly, then murmured: “But if all I have to do is cause some damage, I should be able to do it.”

  “Eh?” The other five immediately turned to look at him.

  “Titanos, do you have an idea?”

  “What did you come up with?” All of them grew excited.

  Autarch Titanos had been alive for an extremely long period of time, and he had spent much of it analyzing Sithe weapons. The other five Autarchs held great faith in his abilities in this regard.

  “I’m fairly confident in my idea,” Autarch Titanos said, “But I need to enter the hive first and inspect it personally before I can be sure if it would work or not.”

  “Titanos, take the route which Darknorth and I used. The two of us will be there to welcome you,” Autarch Mogg said.

  ……

  Rumble…

  The bald Autarch Titanos was staring at the Annihilation Hive from afar, watching as it swallowed and destroyed everything in an extremely wide area around it. Time quickly began to accelerate around him until it reached 100x the rate of normal time. He then waved his finger, causing a black cauldron which was 300 meters long to appear next to him. He then tossed many precious ingredients into the black cauldron.

  Just six days later, a streak of light shot out from inside the black cauldron. It was a white-robed avatar of Autarch Titanos.

  “Go on.” This freshly created avatar of Autarch Titanos had just 20% of his true body’s strength. It quickly flew towards the distant Annihilation Hive.

  For now, he was just going to use this weak new avatar for exploring the Annihilation Hive. As for his first avatar in the Sithelands, it would begin to weaken now that Autarch Titanos was focusing his energies on maintaining the second avatar, but the weakening was a gradual process. If he didn’t spend too much time maintaining the second avatar and quickly abandoned it to turn his efforts back to his first avatar, the first avatar would quickly reach peak power once more.

  The white-robed Titanos dove into the tunnel which Ning and Mogg had entered, flying into the hive. The tunnel was unfathomably dark and deep.

  “Titanos.” Two figures hailed him from afar.

  “Darknorth. Mogg.” The white-robed Titanos revealed a smile.

  “This new avatar of yours is really puny,” Mogg’s avatar said teasingly. “You’d probably get wiped out in an instant if you got into a fight with those Autarch-class void dwellers.”

  “It’s just a temporary body. We’re in a rush for time, so I just used a quick and dirty method to get this thing up and running,” the white-robed Titanos said.

  The three continued to fly forwards as they chatted together. Ning led the way, warping through spacetime and moving them towards the vortex of astral clouds.

  “How beautiful.” Autarch Titanos stared at the astral clouds from afar, an amazed look on his face. He then turned to look at the countless spacetime bubbles off in the distance. “Impressive. Truly impressive. Now that I had the chance to witness these things operating in person, I feel even more admiration towards the Sithe who set this all up. It had to have been the Sithe Lord of Chaos who personally created this thing. This place’s creator is far more talented than I am.”

  The more accomplished one was in understanding how complicated artifacts and weapons were fashioned, the more one would understand just how incredible this Annihilation Hive was.

  “Do you have any ideas?” Ning asked.

  “Creation is hard, but destruction is much easier.” The white-robed Titanos smiled. “I came up with an idea after quite a long period of pondering, and I’m sure it’ll be effective.”

  “What’s the method?” Both Ning and Mogg were excited.

  “Don’t rush me! I need to make some further improvements.” The white-robed Titanos stared intently at the vortex of astral clouds, scrutinizing how it functioned while pondering how to improve his technique further. Of course, it was Autarch Titanos’ true body in the outside world which was doing most of the real work.

  Six hours went past. Ning and Mogg had been waiting this entire time, and finally they saw a smile appear on the white-robed Titanos’ face. “I’ve finally completed it. Darknorth, I’ll teach you the technique. You use it.”

  “Why don’t you teach me instead?” Autarch Mogg’s avatar teased.

  “You are too weak when it comes to the Dao of Formations. You wouldn’t be able to learn it even if I tried to teach you.” The white-robed Titanos glanced sideways at Mogg, then looked at Ning: “Darknorth, you are every bit my equal when it comes to formations. The only reason why you weren’t able to come up with this idea is because you aren’t very experienced in the creation of weapons and artifacts.”

  “Take a look at this.” The white-robed Titanos gently waved a finger, causing an illusion of the black tower to appear before him. “This black tower is the nexus of the entire hive, right?”

  Ning and Mogg both nodded. This much, they both knew.

  “It is also the energy wellspring for the entire hive,” the white-robed Titanos said. “But merely providing power doesn’t mean that much; its real value lies in how it applies that power! This is why the black tower is covered with countless runes. The energy wellspring uses those runes to form the hundred-layered vortex, causing the swallowing power to be increased dramatically.”

  Ning understood this principle. It was akin to using ten percent of your full power to achieve a hundred percent of the effect you desired!

  “The vortex, in turn, links with those countless spacetime bubbles to form an enormous formation of even greater power. This formation resonates throughout the entire hive, generating that tremendous sucking power towards the outside world around it,” the white-robed Titanos said.

  “In other words, the vortex is an amplifier. The formation employing all those spacetime bubbles is a second amplifier. The way in which the formation resonates with the entire hive is the third amplifier!

  “These three amplifiers are the real reason why the black tower’s power has been increased to such an inconceivable level that it can rip away energy from the Chaosverse itself,” the white-robed Titanos said. “If we can disrupt any of the three amplifiers, the hive won’t be able to function properly. Destroying the hive’s structure would accomplish this, as would destroying the black tower or all the spacetime bubbles inside this place.”

  Autarch Mogg immediately said, “But we can’t! This hive is a weapon of terrifying power; we aren’t able to even scratch the thing. As for the spacetime bubbles, we were able to destroy some, but new ones would almost instantly be created. As for the vortex, its composed of countless specks of light. There’s nothing to destroy.”

  “Hah! You dummy.” The white-robed Titanos glanced at Mogg, then chortled, “It actually isn’t too hard to deal with the hundred-layered vortex. All we need to do is set up an even larger vortex formation around it, one which spins in reverse. My reverse-vortex formation simply needs to weaken the power of the astral clouds vortex. In doing so, it’ll dramatically weaken t
he effect the hive has on the outside world. Once this happens, it probably won’t be strong enough to plunder energy from the Chaosverse by force.

  “A reverse-vortex formation?” Ning began to understand.

  “This is the reverse-vortex formation I came up with. Take a look, Darknorth.” The white-robed Titanos waved a finger, causing an illusory reverse-vortex to suddenly appear around the illusory astral vortex in front of him. This was an inwards-focused formation that pushed back against the astral vortex, weakening its power.

  “The vortex of astral clouds is an outwards formation which uses the black tower as its energy source.” Ning smiled. “Our reverse-vortex formation will be an inwards formation which uses me as its energy source. My power comes from the Chaosverse itself and is virtually limitless! I don’t need to completely stop the astral vortex; all I need to do is weaken it by 30%, and it’ll most likely be rendered ineffective.”

  “Here are the insights I used to create this formation. Take a close look, Darknorth.” The white-robed Titanos immediately began to explain the finer details regarding the reverse-vortex formation to Ning, who listened attentively. Mogg listened as well, but a mystified look was on his face. In the end, he wasn’t even close to being Ning or Titanos’ equal when it came to formations.

  Book 43, Chapter 24 - Gaining Entry

  The reverse-vortex formation was unspeakably complicated and profound. Ji Ning’s true body in the Three Realms had to spend quite a bit of accelerated time in meditation before truly understanding it.

  “Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous!” Ning couldn’t stop praising it.

  “Haha!” The white-robed Titanos let out a proud laugh. “I wouldn’t dare boast about other things, but I’m quite confident in myself when it comes to artifacts. Darknorth, are you now able to set the formation up?”

  “I am indeed.” Ning nodded.

  Mogg’s avatar just chuckled to himself. He had also tried to learn it, but had made very little headway.

  The white-robed Titanos said, “Then hurry up and use it!”

  “Alright.” Ning immediately flew over, warping through space to appear in the ‘skies’ above the vortex of astral clouds.

  “Arise!” Ning’s face was solemn, and an endless wave of mana energy began to flow out from his body. He was using mana to guide the power of the Dao into creating those formations! Waves of energy rippled through the area above the astral vortex as countless streams of sword-light manifested. It was like a vast world of the sword had appeared, and it quickly began to spread outwards to encompass and cover the entire astral vortex.

  The white-robed Titanos and Mogg both watched nervously.

  “Now what are they up to?” The dragon turtle raised its head, staring puzzledly from its position on the fiftieth level.

  “What are these cultivator Autarchs playing at now? Hmph. Do they think saturating the area with an attack will be enough to disrupt my vortex? How laughable! The Annihilation Hive is almighty Iyerre’s proudest creation, and it took him untold years to create it.” The black-white haired Exalt Anitya was responsible for watching over the entire hive from the dark room he was in. He muttered confidently to himself, but he still continued to watch intently.

  ……

  The vast world of sword-light covered the entire astral vortex, with Ning using an enormous amount of mana to keep it under control.

  “Time for the reverse-vortex formation!” Ning immediately willed the countless streaks of sword-light to become grains of ‘sand’ that began to revolve around him. They first took shape at the outer perimeter, then began to spin inwards! The power of the astral vortex was weakest at the outside, and it was also easiest for the grains of sword-light to infiltrate the outer perimeter. As the enormous vortex of sword-light continued to spin, more grains of sword-light began to take form and seep inwards.

  They reached the tenth level… the twentieth level… the thirtieth level…

  “Right. That’s the way to do it, to just seep straight through it.” A smile was playing at the corner of Ning’s lips. The reverse-vortex formation didn’t try to overpower the astral vortex; rather, it was overwriting it and disrupting it!

  The spokes of a wheel in motion possessed tremendous power, but if you threw a bunch of rubbish into the axel you could gum up the works. The astral vortex seemed to be formless and thus hard to disrupt, but the reverse-vortex formation was similarly formless and simply focused on disruption.

  “Success.” Autarch Mogg watched from afar. He could sense how the awesome suctioning power around him was beginning to slowly weaken, and he couldn’t help but smile: “We succeeded.”

  “It’s too early to celebrate just yet!” The white-robed Autarch Titanos smiled. “Thus far, the influence is negligible. The behemoth hive is continuing to swallow energy away from our Chaosverse.”

  Meanwhile, the dragon turtle stared in amazement at the sight above it. “What in the world?” The vortex of sword-light was continuously expanding in size, spreading out in concentric circles that continuously overlapped the astral clouds. By now, they had nearly penetrated all the way to the fiftieth level.

  Rumble…

  The sword-light continued to gently reach deeper and deeper into the astral clouds, moving past the sixtieth level… the seventieth level…

  The grains of sword-light were incorporeal. The power of the astral clouds continually ground away at them and destroyed them, but the reverse-vortex formation created even more! Ning’s mana energy was truly boundless, and he continued to pour it all into the formation. As more and more grains of sword-light poured into the vortex, it caused the power of the vortex to grow weaker and weaker.

  ……

  The outside world. The countless tunnels dotting the surface of the realmverse-sized hive were continuing to suck in the energy of the Chaosverse. The prime essences were doing their best to halt the process, but they were unable to do so. This was why that enormous vortex of silver ‘light’ had appeared in the area around it.

  But gradually, the sucking power of the hive began to weaken. The weakening continued until it reached the point where the prime essences of the Chaosverse were finally able to completely halt the process.

  The silver vortex outside the hive immediately began to dissipate. Everything went back to normal. The Annihilation Hive’s countless tunnels continued to strenuously ‘pull’ at the surrounding world, but it wasn’t able to swallow so much as a single scrap of energy no matter how hard it tried.

  ……

  Within the hive. Ning was continuing to maintain the reverse-vortex formation.

  Whoosh. Whoosh. The avatars of Titanos and Mogg flew to the area above the astral vortex, moving close to Ning.

  “Darknorth, the devouring process outside has come to a complete halt.” The white-robed Titanos was all smiles. “Although the astral vortex still has 60% of its full power, that’s not enough to overpower the prime essences of the Chaosverse. It isn’t able to take any more energy away.”

  “Haha…” Ning started to laugh. “After I’ve finished infiltrating the entire astral vortex, it’ll become even weaker.”

  Just a short while later, the reverse-vortex formation finally finished seeping through the final layer of the astral vortex. In fact, the grains of sword-light even brushed against the giant black tower. The entire astral vortex was still spinning, but it was now being heavily disrupted and had at most 50% of its original power. This wasn’t nearly enough power for it to continue absorbing energy from the outside world.

  Swoosh! Ning, Mogg, and Titanos all quickly flew downwards. Now that the power of the vortex had been so dramatically weakened, passage was much easier as well.

  “You actually solved the vortex.” The dragon turtle continued to wait on the fiftieth level, its booming voice filled with disbelief.

  “That’s the power of the Dao,” the white-robed Titanos said. “You do not train in the Dao. You would never understand.”

  Ning chuckled.
“We’ve already solved this vortex, which means the sucking power of the entire hive has just been dramatically weakened. I imagine it is no longer powerful enough to prevent you from leaving! I strongly recommend that you leave right away. We’ll send you outside our Chaosverse, at which point you can flee and find a hiding place far away from here. Don’t let yourself be caught by the Sithe again, and stay away from our war!”

  “Leave?” The dragon turtle was startled.

  Freedom? Release? Emancipation? It was filled with such joy that it was rather dazed. “Alright!” The dragon turtle finally let out yet another rumble: “And what of my two friends?”

  “They’ll stay with us for now. We’ll release them once this war is over,” Ning said. It was unlikely that these Autarch-class void dwellers would be caught a second time, but it wasn’t completely out of the question! The only reason why Ning was willing to let the dragon turtle leave their Chaosverse was because he really had no way of killing it. He wanted to reduce the number of variables which could affect the war.

  “Fair enough.” The dragon turtle made no further objections. In the end, gaining freedom for itself was already a blessing.

  “Once you leave, one of our fellows will come and guide you out,” Ning said.

  “Then I’m off.” The dragon turtle shot off eagerly. Now that the astral vortex was nearly 50% weaker than before its remaining amount of power, while still incredible, it was unable to steal more energy away from the Chaosverse. As for the dragon turtle, this time it was able to fight past the sucking power and continue to fly outwards.

  “I see it! I see it! That’s the exit!” The dragon turtle flew out of the exit, absolutely delighted. It then turned to look at the enormous hive which it had just exited, as well as the mighty cultivator leader who stood far away from it – Autarch Titanos.

  “Follow me. I’ll send you outside our Chaosverse,” Autarch Titanos said. Now that the vortex had been dealt with, the Annihilation Hive was no longer a threat and there was no need for him to continue watching over it.