Desolate Era

by RWX

  If Ning for example became an Omega Autarch, it would be through the Omega Sword Dao. His specialty would still be the sword! The same was true for Iyerre, who was skilled in the Dao of Light.

  “You won’t be able to escape.” Iyerre gritted his teeth, unleashing one of his ultimate attacks.

  Anywhere else, he could use any techniques as often as he pleased. Here in this Chaosverse, however, he had to consider how much energy these techniques would take up. His energy consumption was commensurate to his vast insights, and replenishing energy was extremely difficult for him.

  “Omnipresent Light!” Iyerre’s body suddenly began to release a vast amount of light. Countless rays of light soared out in every single direction, illuminating every part of the vast void around them. The rays of light illuminated even Autarch Mogg himself, and when they shone upon him he felt them pressing down upon him with terrifying power, trying to force him to kneel down. This tremendous pressure caused him to slow down dramatically.

  This was the most powerful domain-type technique which Iyerre had created after becoming an Omega Autarch. Wherever his light reached, all had to submit to him!

  In the outside world, his light alone could actually kill ordinary Autarchs. Here in this Chaosverse, it was dramatically weakened and so only served to generate a suppressive effect.

  “How could there be such a powerful binding effect? It’s far stronger than any of my domains!” Autarch Mogg was shocked. The suppress effective was so powerful that his speed had been nearly cut in half.

  Whoosh! Iyerre flew towards Autarch Mogg, his entire body glowing with boundless light and a sympathetic smile on his face. “Why must you fight this, Autarch Mogg? You must be tired.”

  “Truly impressive, Iyerre. You should be an Omega Autarch of the Sithe race. I’m thoroughly impressed. Even without being able to use one whit of the power of the Dao, you still possess incredible power.” Autarch Mogg smiled coldly. “But this is our homeland. Do you really think you can kill me? Hmph!”

  Boom! An enormous golden bridge that was a million kilometers long suddenly appeared behind Autarch Mogg. The bridge even had a refined, three-story tower next to it, and Autarch Mogg was standing right at the entrance to the tower. He smiled coldly as he stared at the distant Iyerre: “Iyerre, dare you step onto my bridge?”

  “What is this?” Iyerre’s face turned grim. He could clearly sense that this vast golden bridge was emanating an aura of terrifying power, power which came from the prime essences of this Chaosverse.

  “You Sithe have your trump cards, but so do we! Did you think we had none? Did you think we spent all these countless aeons just waiting for death like fools?” Autarch Mogg stood there atop his bridge at the entrance to the tower: “This should be the final, last-gasp attempt by you Sithe to take over our Chaosverse. We had been planning to reveal the Golden Bridge of Freedom during the final battle, but you unexpectedly drove me to the brink of death and forced me to reveal it now.”

  “Golden Bridge of Freedom? It uses the power of the prime essences of this Chaosverse…” Iyerre had an ugly look on his face.

  “Yes. As you suspect, it is modeled after your Daoguard Towers!” Autarch Mogg smiled coldly. “We’ve been analyzing your Daoguard Towers for countless aeons now. Although the Golden Bridge of Freedom isn’t quite as marvelous as your Daoguard Towers, it is still able to make use of some of the power of the Quintessence.”

  The cultivator leaders had known for many years that calamity could spring upon them anew, and so they had been laboring without pause to prepare for this day. A Golden Bridge of Freedom had some of the effects of a Daoguard Tower. While one was standing atop the bridge, one would be virtually invincible. This was one of the trump cards the Autarchs had been preparing for this war.

  Book 44, Chapter 19 - Victory

  Only the power of the Chaosverse itself was truly boundless and without limit. When Ji Ning had visited the essence wellspring of the Blazesun Domain, he had discovered that its energies vastly surpassed that of any Autarch’s! And that was just the tip of the iceberg when compared to the Chaosverse as a whole. The Chaosverse was so powerful that just attempting to bind it, even without it fighting back, would result in death to Ning and the other Autarchs. Trying to force something like this would result in the collapse of the truesoul!

  Its power was simply unimaginable. Compared to the Chaosverse as a whole, the power over the Dao which Ning or the Autarchs could wield was like a drop of water in a vast sea.

  The Daoguard Tower was something which could allow powerful experts to make use of a greater amount of the Chaosverse’s power! Daoguard Towers were exquisitely designed. After the Autarchs had acquired several Daoguard Towers from the Dawn War, they had spent many years analyzing them before finally creating similar treasures known as Golden Bridges of Freedom which had 30% of a Daoguard Tower’s power.

  The native cultivators already had the advantage of fighting on home turf. Now that they had Golden Bridges of Freedom, their defensive prowess was dramatically strengthened.

  “Come on, Iyerre, oh mighty Omega Autarch! Come and do your worst. Show me just how tough you are! I am in my own homeland and standing atop my Golden Bridge. If you can still kill me, I’ll gladly admit defeat!” Autarch Mogg stood at the entrance to the tower, glaring daggers at the distant Iyerre.

  “A Golden Bridge of Freedom which is based on our Daoguard Towers, eh?” Iyerre quickly regained his usual equanimity. He smiled coldly: “Fine. Let’s just see how powerful you are when standing on your Golden Bridge!”

  Boom! Iyerre put his palms together as though in prayer, causing an utterly dazzling streak of light to appear between them. The light slowly grew brighter and brighter, as though it was the very essence of all light itself! As for his palms, they had become the sole source of light in the entire area and was far more dazzling than the Solar Star of the Three Realms had ever been.

  Iyerre simply stood there calmly in space, his palms folded in prayer while emanating increasingly brilliant levels of light.

  “He’s building up power!” Autarch Mogg’s heart was pounding as he stared from atop the Golden Bridge. This strike was clearly going to be far more powerful than the previous one.

  This strike could be described as the most powerful strike which Iyerre was capable of. However, it did have a flaw. It wasn’t very agile and could only be used as a devastating frontal assault! Even worse, in this foreign Chaosverse it took him a bit of time to build up power even when he was simply drawing upon his own energy reserves. If he had tried to do this earlier when he had ambushed Mogg, the power build up alone would’ve startled Mogg and sent him fleeing. As for during his pursuit of Mogg, the two were flying far too fast and there was no way he could build up the energies necessary for this technique.

  “Damn.” Autarch Mogg frowned. “In the end, the Golden Bridge of Freedom remains a pale shadow of a true Daoguard Tower. Its only advantage is that it is mobile while Daoguard Towers are completely immobile, but even so it moves very slowly.”

  The vast golden bridges were slow and not very agile. They were primarily used to keep their occupants alive, which meant that Autarch Mogg’s only choice was to watch as Iyerre built up strength and wait for the attack.

  As for putting away the Golden Bridge and then fleeing once more? Without it, he would die even more quickly!

  “Exterminate!” Iyerre suddenly roared. His left hand drew backwards while his right hand struck outwards. Instantly, all of the power from those two incomparably dazzling hands of light became concentrated in his right palm, causing it to glow even more brightly than before! The mighty presence and aura of this attack alone was enough to render Autarch Mogg speechless. If he tried to take this attack head-on by himself, he would definitely be crushed to death by it.

  The empty void of space itself seemed to shudder and moan in fear as that giant right palm of incandescent light reached out towards Mogg.

  “Not happening!” Autarch Mogg
immediately summoned his Golden Bridge, sending it flying upwards to block for him. Alas, while the giant palm wasn’t very agile it was still far more agile than the enormous golden bridge. It was easily able to dodge past the blocking bridge and smashed straight past it. The golden bridge had an awesome aura of the Dao protecting it, but the giant palm smashed straight through the barrier like it was nothing and continued straight for Autarch Mogg.

  “Golden Bridge!” Autarch Mogg roared loudly. The tower behind him had six corners and six highly noticeable windows. The tower suddenly emitted six rays of prismatic light filled with the entire bridge’s boundless power and Dao, using them to push back at the giant golden palm.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The six ribbons of light did their best to push the palm back, but they were unable to do so. In the end, all they could do was to bind themselves around the giant palm like chains. The giant palm continued to press onwards, but it was clearly much slower than before.

  “Without the bridge, I might not be able to withstand you… but standing atop it, you can do nothing to me!” Autarch Mogg manifested a total of six arms, each wielding a long saber, then used all of his power to attack. Countless dimensional ripples filled the air around him, merging together to form a single giant dimensional blade that smashed against the giant golden hand head-on.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Explosions rang out unabated. The giant golden palm quickly dimmed, then retracted backwards.

  Autarch Mogg was smashed backwards against the tower. He vomited out a mouthful of blood, but a crazed smile was on his face: “Haha, Iyerre, you aren’t strong enough!” Although he was injuried, he was able to recover before finishing his words.

  As for the distant Iyerre, he felt a sense of pity in his heart. He had consumed an enormous amount of power to unleash his most powerful attack. Still, it had been worth it. Now he knew exactly how strong the Golden Bridges of Freedom were.

  “Not bad.” Iyerre smiled. Whoosh! He retreated backwards, then disappeared without a trace.

  Autarch Mogg finally let out a sigh of relief. Iyerre had put him under a tremendous amount of pressure.

  ……

  Ning and the others were all anxiously awaiting news from Autarch Mogg. All of them were worried about him.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine!” Autarch Mogg quickly sent word back to them. Only then did they let out sighs of relief.

  “That Iyerre fellow really was powerful. Even though I had the Golden Bridge of Freedom, he was still able to overwhelm me! However, he wasn’t able to actually kill me. When he saw this, he chose to leave instead of continuing the fight,” Autarch Mogg said.

  “Tell us a bit about the fight against Iyerre,” Autarch Titanos said.

  “Very well.” Autarch Mogg began to narrate the battle in detail. Ning and the others listened attentively, working together to analyze what had happened. In truth, it had been a fairly simple battle. Iyerre had only struck a few times in an effort to conserve energy.

  “I can’t believe Omega Autarchs are still this powerful when they are being suppressed and unable to use any of the power of the Dao.” Autarch Titanos let out an amazed sigh. “So the Sithe invaders are definitely led by an Omega Autarch. This is terrible news… and judging from how Iyerre simply left, it’s clear that he has other tricks up his sleeve and hasn’t been driven to the brink just yet.”

  “We can’t let our guard down until we win the final battle,” Autarch Ekong said.

  “I’m sorry, friends. I had no choice but to reveal the Golden Bridge of Freedom. Now he knows our most powerful defensive technique,” Autarch Mogg said.

  They had prepared some trump cards of their own for the final war, but the Golden Bridge of Freedom was their strongest defensive trump card. If even it had been unable to withstand Iyerre’s power, they would’ve been in serious trouble.

  In a war, using unexpected trump cards at a critical moment to catch an opponent offguard could produce some truly incredible results! Thus, trump cards generally were saved for the very end. When Ning and Ekong had been trapped within their respective temples, they had faced several dangerous situations but hadn’t been driven to the point of revealing their Golden Bridges of Freedom.

  In addition, those bridges had a weakness – they could only be used for defensive purposes! Using them within the temples wouldn’t have helped Ning or Ekong actually escape!

  “Mogg, if you didn’t use the Golden Bridge you would’ve died. Our side would’ve lost two Autarch-class combatants! That would’ve been a far greater loss,” Autarch Skyfeeder said.

  “Be careful, everyone. Iyerre has failed in his first attempt, but he’ll probably prepare something even more deadly next time.”

  “So long as we keep the bridges active, they probably won’t be able to do anything to us.”

  ……

  Within the darkness of space. Iyerre stood there in the void by himself, his body covered with a layer of ripples which blocked the Chaosverse from detecting him.

  Whoosh. A blurry pillar of light appeared before him which slowly resolved into a trio of figures. These were the three powerful subordinates he had sent out earlier.

  “Iyerre, why have you contacted us?” The two men and the woman looked at Iyerre.

  “Have you fought against any of the cultivator leaders yet?” Iyerre asked.

  “We’re still searching for them. The Chaosverse is simply too large; just finding them is a task in and of itself,” the silver-robed woman said.

  “I need to warn you that they have something akin to a Daoguard Tower they can use,” Iyerre said. “Trap them before attacking them.”

  “Alright.” The three were shocked by this news.

  Iyerre nodded then broke the connection.

  Book 44, Chapter 20 - Grasslands

  Atop a tall mountain located within a desolate, barren planet. At the peak of this mountain there was a stone house. In front of the stone house was a white-haired, dispirited-looking man who was seated by himself and drinking some wine.

  This was one of the most supreme leaders of this entire Chaosverse… Autarch Bolin.

  “Desolation… destruction…” The white-haired man stared at the vast world before him. He suddenly splashed the wine in his cup towards the world, sending it splattering outwards like a fine drizzle which moistened the earth before him. Slowly, plants began to grow out from the earth, including trees and grass which caused the planet to turn green with life.

  The white-haired man frowned slightly as he watched. “The color of life… can it be that an Autarch is only able to control a single Daobirth Essence?” He shook his head. “There should be at least a tiny chance of controlling two.”

  He felt certain that he had already reached an incredibly high level of insight into the cycle of life and death; in fact, it wasn’t too far off from his Claw Daobirth Essence in terms of profundity. And yet… no matter how he tried, he remained unable to form his Samsara Daobirth Essence.

  “Death and life. Life is absolutely marvelous and intoxicating in its grandeur.” Autarch Bolin watched as the planet transformed, smiling respectfully as he watched life rise in all its awesome grandeur. Suddenly, his face tightened and he turned to stare at the empty void beyond the planet.

  The space around the chaos planet had suddenly changed. An enormous being had just appeared within the empty space, and compared to it even the chaos planet was nothing more than the size of this creature’s fist. This creature looked like a giant gray bear, and it stared coldly at the planet and Autarch Bolin with its single cyclopean eye.

  “An Autarch-class void dweller?” Autarch Bolin murmured softly to himself. “And it seems spacetime has been sealed.”

  “Cultivator, you shall be the first person I kill within this Chaosverse!” the giant gray bear boomed loudly. It reached out with its giant paw to swat at Bolin. These void dwellers were born with tremendous natural gifts and they each had their own specialties. As for this giant bear, its specialty lay
in its terrifying raw strength. Of the various Autarch-class void dwellers Iyerre had caught in the Infinite Void, it was without a doubt the physically strongest.

  Riiiiip! The planet was surrounded and protected by many formations, but the giant bear paw caused them all to instantly crumble.

  Autarch Bolin stared at the incoming paw coldly, a giant golden bridge with a tower on it appearing before him. Autarch Bolin himself moved to stand in front of the tower.

  This was indeed the same type of protective treasure which Autarch Mogg had used, a Golden Bridge of Freedom. Since its existence had already been revealed, Autarch Bolin chose to use it right away as he could sense that this was a dangerous situation he was in.

  “Die!” The giant paw came crashing down upon the golden bridge, tearing through its aura of power.

  “Playing around with claws in front of me?” A hint of a cold smile flickered across Autarch Bolin face as he manifested six arms. All six of his hands arced into a claw and then tore at the giant furry bear paw slamming down towards him.

  These strikes were so ferocious as to cause even the frozen spacetime around them to twist. Autarch Bolin’s claws were filled with unfathomable power. They seemed very ordinary, but they also seemed to contain countless transformations within them.

  Boom! Autarch Bolin’s six claws clashed head-on against that giant bear’s paw.

  Autarch Bolin couldn’t help but take two steps backwards, while the gigantic Autarch-class void bear stumbled backwards as well. It stared at Autarch Bolin with some astonishment.

  “You aren’t too shabby, cultivator. Die!” The giant bear began to go berserk, roaring as it pounced at Bolin. It sent out consecutive blows with its two giant paws, which came crashing down like two vast celestial objects with so much pressure that even spacetime was completely flattened. This attack was so powerful that Autarch Bolin had no choice but to defend himself using the might of the Golden Bridge of Freedom.