by RWX
The horned figure stared at the towering Chaosverse, now emanating an awesome aura of the Dao of the Sword. He felt a headache coming.
……
Ning had been able to easily bind the Quintessence of the Chaosverse without encountering any resistance at all. After becoming an Omega Autarch, Ning had restructured his mana in accordance with his Autarch Omega Sword Dao, while his soul had undergone a qualitative transformation. There had been a bit of pressure when he began to bind the Chaosverse, but Ning was able to endure that pressure with ease. After he completed the binding, the pressure disappeared.
The vast Chaosverse was now like his own body, with all of its Daos available for him to command. Everything within the Chaosverse was under his control, including all of space and time.
Ning turned to gaze off into the distance. His gaze pierced through space and time, allowing him to see every single creature who had ever lived within this Chaosverse, including recently-deceased figures like Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg and even long-dead figures like Autarch Awakener and Autarch Entropos. He also saw figures from the Three Realms like Lord Tathagata the Buddha, Daoist Three Purities, Shennong, Suiren, Fuxi, and also his beloved Yu Wei.
Some of their truesouls had been shattered, while others had even their truesoul fragments destroyed. Ning, however, was capable of reviving them all.
When he gazed into the past he was able to see their truesouls with clarity, even if their truesouls were shattered. He would be able to reform them from the void itself, recreating them.
“I’m even able to revive those whose truesoul fragments were destroyed?” Ning was absolutely delighted. “I’m virtually omnipotent in my own Chaosverse.”
Previously Ning and the others had all believed that those who had lost their truesoul could not be revived, but that was because none of them had any experience actually being a Lord of Chaos. They had no idea as to just how truly incredible a Chaoslord was.
Within their own Chaosverses, Lords of Chaos were able to connect past, present, and future together. There was almost nothing they could not do.
“Oh. I’m not truly omnipotent.” Ning suddenly came to this realization. “I still can’t see through Iyerre’s soul and truesoul.”
He was able to see through the souls and truesouls of all other living beings, which meant he was able to understand and replicate them… but Iyerre’s truesoul was constructed based on the Autarch Omega Light Dao. Ning didn’t understand the Autarch Omega Light Dao, and so he wouldn’t be able to create a soul based off of it. By the same principle, the Sithe Lord of Chaos was also incapable of recreating Iyerre’s truesoul.
“If I killed Iyerre… the Sithe Chaoslord wouldn’t be able to bring him back?” A cold, murderous look flashed through Ning’s eyes.
Whoosh! Ning took a step forwards, immediately appearing within Iyerre’s region.
……
Iyerre was still in the process of warping through spacetime at maximum speed, his heart burning with impatience.
“If I win, I’ll be the master of this Chaosverse.” Iyerre was filled with eagerness. Suddenly… “Eh? What’s going on? W-why can’t I warp through spacetime any longer?” Iyerre turned pale. Spacetime had suddenly turned incredibly stable around him, making it impossible for him to tear through it.
A white-robed youth with a black sheath on his back suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He said in a cold voice, “Iyerre!”
A terrifying aura of might descended, completely surrounding and freezing Iyerre in his tracks. Iyerre could no longer even move a finger. He stared at the distant Ning in horror: “Y-you already…”
“Yes. I’ve already bound my homeland to myself. From this day forward, I shall be the one to protect it,” Ning said coldly.
“Fellow Daoist!” A voice suddenly rang out from afar, traversing past spacetime and reaching out all the way to Ning’s Chaosverse.
Now that Ning had already bound this Chaosverse, he was able to sense this voice. He turned to stare off into the distance, the ‘membrane’ surrounding the Chaosverse no longer able to bar his gaze. He stared through spacetime and deep into the Infinite Void, following the reverberations of the voice to find its source. He saw a skinny, horned, azure-robed figure standing atop a giant boulder. The horned figure had a warm gaze and a smile on his face. “Fellow Daoist, please spare my disciple’s life.”
Within Ning’s Chaosverse. Ning turned his cold gaze back to Iyerre, his endless aura of might having completely suppressed the Omega Autarch. Iyerre wasn’t able to move so much as a finger. He couldn’t even blink or speak.
“Die,” Ning said coldly.
Whoosh! Iyerre was still staring fixedly at Ning, but his body began to completely break apart. Even his soul was completely disintegrated, transforming into pure energy which was absorbed by the Chaosverse. This surge of energy was so tremendous that it surpassed the combined energies of a hundred ordinary Autarchs. The entire Chaosverse’s aura strengthened noticeably.
Omega Autarch Iyerre. Dead!
“Fellow Daoist!” The distant horned man atop the giant boulder in the Infinite Void could sense his Chaosverse weakening dramatically. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh. “Was that really necessary? You are already a Lord of Chaos and can revive all those who died. Why did you have to…”
“You wanted to save him?” Ning remained within his Chaosverse, and his own voice echoed out into the Infinite Void and into the ears of the horned man. The horned man could sense the icy hostility in Ning’s voice.
“You wanted to save him? But if he had won, all living creatures in our entire civilization would have perished. Who would have come to save us?” Ning’s icy, hostile voice continued to echo within the horned man’s ears. “And, Sithe Chaoslord… are you going to tell me that you didn’t help him with his schemes? Don’t try to play innocent in front of me.”
Book 45, Chapter 17 - The End (2)
“Fellow Daoist Darknorth, I admit that I did act in a rather untoward fashion, but the path of cultivation is an inherently selfish path. We fight our way to the top, do we not? Your Chaosverse was the weakest of all Chaosverses, so my disciple naturally chose to try and make it his own. The war is now over, and he is dead. You are now a Lord of Chaos. Let us let bygones be bygones. What do you say?”
The horned, azure-robed man completely understood how Ji Ning was feeling right now, and so he continued to speak in a gentle and friendly voice, “You now stand at the very peak of civilization, after all. We each are in control of our respective Chaosverses, and neither of us can do anything to the other. What’s the point of holding grudges?”
Ning let out a cold snort, then retracted his gaze and broke the link. The horned man just chuckled, not angry in the slightest.
……
The white-robed Ning stood within the emptiness of space, staring at the treasures which the deceased Iyerre had left behind. He used his godsense to sweep through all of the treasures and inspect them. “Given that Iyerre dared to return, he probably had something he was counting on.”
“Oh. Was it this tablet?” Ning discovered the Stele of Mountains and Rivers. It looked quite ordinary, but when Ning gave it a closer inspection he was rather startled. The internal intricacies made him sigh in amazement. “This should have been created by the Sithe Lord of Chaos. Otherwise, Iyerre would’ve used it long ago. It truly is incredible. This Lord of Chaos is an absolute marvel when it comes to artificing, and this item is of some use to me.”
The black warbeasts had little meaning for Ning, but the Stele of Mountains and Rivers was of fairly significant use.
“This stele can allow me to instantly release an enormous amount of mana in a terrifying strike that vastly surpasses my normal maximums. Incredible. Although I cannot bind it, it’ll still be of great use to me in improving my own artificing skills.” Ning willed the six Northbow swords on his back to all enter his heartworld. By now, his vast heartworld was completely identical to the real world.
Within the heartworld, Ning could make anything ‘real’ with but a thought. He could even manufacture a hundred or more Northbow swords in the blink of an eye, but he would have to pay an enormous price in energy!
Rumble. The Northbow swords began to transform within the heartworld. Everything was as Ning willed it to be. He first transformed their quintessences into his Autarch Omega Sword Dao, then remade the physical properties of the swords as well, infusing some of the insights he had gained from the Stele of Mountains and Rivers into his Northbow swords. At critical moments, his swords would now be able to unleash incredible attacks that vastly surpassed their normal might. Although the difference wasn’t as ridiculous as that granted by the Stele of Mountains and Rivers, it still replicated 30% of the effect.
In that same instant, his avatar began to remake the Northmoon swords within its own heartworld. His avatar had been reinforced and nourished by the power of the entire Chaosverse and was thus at 80% of the true Ning’s power.
“I’m a Lord of Chaos, but I have yet to really explore the outside world. I can only relax after fully understanding this universe.” Ning was a bit nervous from the repeated invasions, and so he was filled with wariness and vigilance towards the outside world.
He would send his avatar out, rather than his true body. The Sithe Lord of Chaos only had an avatar in the outside world as well. Their avatars had roughly 80% of their full power, and once they died they could swiftly be remade. They were perfect for sending out and exploring.
“Let’s take a look and see what mysteries the Infinite Void holds within it.” The sword-bearing golden-robed Ning exited his Chaosverse.
The golden-robed Ning began to wander through the endlessly dazzling Infinite Void. This place was filled with distorted spacetime and many enormous celestial objects, as well as countless strange beings. When they encountered the golden-robed Ning, they were filled with utter terror. This was merely Ning’s avatar, but it carried with it the mighty aura of an entire Chaosverse. This was why Lords of Chaos were so terrifying and why Iyerre was so desperate to become one. A single glance from them was enough to suppress and kill an Omega Autarch. The difference in power was simply too great.
“There are a total of nine Chaosverses, and they are the largest of celestial objects here. The others are all much smaller. Countless celestial objects, scattered throughout the Infinite Void… and spacetime here is completely chaotic.” The golden-robed Ning began to understand. “It’s just too large, and every single spacetime continuum is different. I could spend ten million chaos cycles exploring without being able to fully investigate the entire Infinite Void. The Infinite Void is also changing constantly; there’s no point in even trying.”
“My homeland and the enormous Chaosverses… where did they come from?” If he wasn’t able to investigate the entire Infinite Void, he wanted to at least understand his own past and the source of the Chaosverses.
Whoosh. Ning stared off into the distance. The enormous Chaosverse that was his home was within his field of vision, as was another vast Chaosverse. Chaosverses were so enormous that they loomed large from even incredible distances.
“Reverse.” Ning willed time to flow backwards. Rumble… time quickly came to a halt and began to reverse, displaying the countless scenes that had occurred in the past. This sort of ‘temporal inversion’ technique generally required very little energy. In the Three Realms, even weak Immortals and Fiendgods were capable of using such a technique. However, he was applying the technique to an absolutely enormous region which covered two Chaosverses, resulting in a similarly tremendous expenditure of energy. His own energies were rapidly depleted, but the prime energies of his Chaosverse sent more and more to him.
This was another reason why Chaoslords were so incredible. They could unleash as much power as they wanted! So long as they didn’t unleash more power than their Chaosverses’ would naturally regenerate, they essentially had access to truly unlimited energy. Their Chaosverses would also draw upon energy from the Infinite Void at an incredible rate.
“Faster, faster! I want to see more!” The golden-robed Ning stared towards the two Chaosverses as time continued to reverse.
Boom! Suddenly, Ning saw those two distant Chaosverses explode. “Eh?!” Ning immediately halted the temporal inversion.
It wasn’t an actual explosion. Time continued to slowly flow forwards, allowing Ning to view everything clearly. The actual scene… was of countless different streams of matter and energy slowly coming together to form an enormous Chaosverse!
“So the Chaosverses were actually formed by countless amounts of matter and energy coming together?” Ning nodded. This made sense. He continued the temporal inversion.
“Eh?” Suddenly, Ning noticed something special. The matter and energy which had ‘exploded’ outwards came together to form many celestial objects of various size, with the nine Chaosverses being the largest. “So all matter actually came from that direction over there?” Ning immediately turned his gaze to the location where all this matter had come from.
Time inverted at the point where he focused his gaze, staring at the place where all this matter had come from.
Once, long ago, a single absolutely enormous landmass had existed across an incredibly wide area within the Infinite Void. This landmass was absolutely, inconceivably sized. It vastly surpassed any Chaosverse.
“What an enormous landmass! Is this where everything came from?” the golden-robed Ning immediately began to move closer to that region.
……
“Ah. He’s discovered it?” The thin, horned man atop that levitating boulder watched from afar. When Ning began to move towards the location where that landmass had been, the horned man’s heart clenched. He then immediately began to warp over there as well.
……
When Ning arrived at the location of the vast landmass, time began to reverse once more. The scenes of what had once occurred within that vast landmass began to replay in front of Ning. This world had been far vaster than any Chaosverse, and it also held far more living beings within it, including countless living beings and countless races.
“How lively.” Ning watched the lives of those countless beings being replayed before him.
BOOM! Suddenly, the vast landmass began to crack apart.
“You traitors! TRAITORS!” A towering, black-robed emperor who emanated an aura of incredible power was surrounded by over a hundred figures of tremendous might. These figures all had different appearances, including both humans and beasts, and their blows were filled with incredible strength.
“Traitors? You enslaved us! Should all of our hard work been meant for nothing save to serve as your eternal slaves?”
“Haha… you thought that the seal you placed on our truesouls would enable you to control us unto our deaths. You fool! In the end, you are nothing more than this continent’s will incarnate. You are no true cultivator! You have no idea how formidable Omega Autarchs are. We escaped your control long ago. We simply put on an act and bided our time!”
“We’ve been waiting for so long, while brother Heavencloud poured all his effort into creating this Grand Armageddon Formation to deal with you!”
Although Ning didn’t understand what the experts of this era were saying, through watching the battle he was able to tell what level the hundred-plus experts were at, as well as the black-robed emperor’s level.
“What?!” Ning was shocked by the battle occurring before him. “The attackers are all Omega Autarchs!”
There were a total of 129 experts attacking the black-robed emperor, and all of them were Omega Autarchs. They had joined together into an incredibly complex formation. Even though Ning was also an Omega Autarch, he felt that he was incapable of truly understanding it. He had the vague feeling that it had probably been created by someone who had reached Omega Autarchy via the Dao of Formations. This was why the formation was able to allow over a hundred Omega Autarchs to fuse their energies together
perfectly.
“How can there be this many Omega Autarchs?” Ning was rather stunned. “Although each blow from that black-robed emperor is filled with awesome power, he’s actually at a lower level of insight than them. He doesn’t seem to be an Omega Autarch. He’s at a lower level, yet can contend with 129 of them by himself?”
Whoosh. A second figure warped through spacetime and appeared next to Ning. It was the horned, azure-robed man.
“You?” Ning glanced at him.
“This is our first time actually meeting, I believe.” The horned man smiled. “I am Alphan of the Sithe Chaosverse.”
Ning blinked. He suddenly realized that his Chaosverse didn’t have a name yet. There were nine of them, after all; it wouldn’t be appropriate to keep calling his ‘the Chaosverse’. What name should he choose for it?
Ning thought back to his homeland, of the many living beings who had struggled within the Chaosverse to clamber upwards on the path of cultivation. So many forerunners had helped clear the way, cutting their way through thistles and thorns as they blazed a path through the wilderness. Their efforts had finally culminated in Ning’s success, allowing their Chaosverse to enter a new stage of development.
“Desolate Chaosverse, Ji Ning.” Ning looked at the horned man.
“Desolate… Ji Ning?” the horned man murmured softly.
“Why have you come here?” Ning felt nothing but ill-will towards this horned man, and so he came straight to the point.
The horned man pointed at the scene of the great battle which had occurred in the past. “In this era, the vast landmass before us ended up being destroyed by the battle we are now watching. After breaking apart, its energy and its matter ended up forming many celestial objects within the Infinite Void, with the largest being our nine Chaosverses.”
Ning simply listened.
“That black-robed emperor was the continent’s will incarnate. Its Quintessence was far more powerful than those in our Chaosverses, and as a result it reached a level of such power that it actually gained true sentience,” the horned man said. “The will of the landmass governed itself and all of the living beings with it. Once a cultivator succeeded in the Daomerge and broke through to become an Eternal Emperor, it would set down a seal upon that cultivator’s truesoul which allowed it to take full control over that cultivator’s life and death.