by RWX
“What should we do?” Solewind, Ning, Greatjoy, Skyfire, and Firesurge traded glances.
“The power of this formation truly is incredible. He was telling the truth. Here in the Sacred Immortal Realm, not even Verge-level Daolords would be able to defeat him.” Prince Greatjoy sent mentally, “What should we do? I have a few trump cards, but they would at most be able to deal with Daolords of the Third Step. They wouldn’t even be enough to deal with that shieldbearer golem we just fought, much less this Daolord.”
“Right.” Firesurge had an ugly look on his face as well. As for Skyfire, he didn’t say a word. He really didn’t have any trump cards at all.
The black-robed Daolord sat there leisurely next to the Prismatic Kiloleaf Flower, the enormous black serpent continuing to coil around him. He said softly, “Tell me your choice. Do you choose life… or death?”
“LIFE!” A voice suddenly rang out.
The black-robed Daolord cracked a smile as he looked at the speaker.
As for Ning, him and three others also stared at the speaker in astonishment.
It was Heartlord Solewind.
Heartlord Solewind had just crushed an odd-looking jade pendant in his hands, causing an arcane surge of terrifying power to descend.
Whooosh.
It was formless. Colorless. Shapeless.
Ning and the others couldn’t see it or sense it at all; all they could sense was that something utterly terrifying had just appeared as a wave of something washed over them. The black-robed Daolord’s smile turned stiff, and a look of utter terror appeared in his eyes. He opened his mouth as though he was about to say something… but then, all traces of life fled from his body.
The only thing left was his seated corpse, and it no longer had any trace of life in it at all. As for the terrifying serpent that hd been created by the power of the formation? It completely dissipated into nothingness.
“He died?” Ning and the other three were boggled as they stared at Heartlord Solewind.
“Ugh. Just like that, I was forced to use up the life-saving Dao-seal the Heartforce Palace bestowed up on me.” Heartlord Solewind sighed softly. “Dao-seals like that aren’t available for sale anywhere. The power of each seal is incredibly great, equivalent to the Palace Lord himself striking with 30% of his maximum power. It could easily kill even a Verge-level Daolord.”
Ning and the others were speechless.
Good heavens. A Dao-seal comparable to a 30% maximum power strike from the Palace Lord of the Palace of the Heart? The Heartforce Palace truly had very few Daolords, but it was one of the most terrifying palaces of the Twelve Palaces precisely because each of them truly were incredibly powerful. As for the Palace Lord, if he was to personally intervene even Eternal Emperors would turn pale with fright and scamper off.
A strike which contained 30% of his full power… such a blow would threaten even Eternal Emperors to a certain extent, much less ordinary Daolords.
“That Dao-seal is… a bit ridiculous.” Prince Greatjoy was stunned.
“Are you sure you are the Imperial, not him?” Firesurge glanced at Skykfire Brightshore.
“That’s just…” Skyfire Brightshore mumbled…
“Our Heartforce Palace is different from your palaces. We have very vew members, and so we truly treat every member as we would family. I naturally was given a few protective measures for this adventure.” Heartlord Solewind smiled. “A pity. I only was given two Dao-seals of this level of power.”
“You have another one?!” All four of the others were starting to grow jealous. It seemed as though the old saying, ‘less is more’, really was true. The Heartforce Palace had very few members, which was why it was incredibly kind to those few members it had.
Prince Greatjoy glanced sideways at the seated, lifeless corpse of the black-robed Daolord. The black-robed Daolord had a look of utter terror on his face, and his mouth was open. Clearly, death had descended upon him with incredible speed. He had died while still gripped by astonishment.
* * *
Book 28, Chapter 15 - The Secret of the Sacred Immortal Realm
Heartlord Solewind stared at the black-robed Daolord’s corpse, then said, “This Daolord was quite extraordinary. He was most likely the second and final Daolord here in the Sacred Immortal Realm. Now that he’s dead, we’ll probably be able to leave this place soon! It is possible that his master, Emperor Trisilk, might have some unique methods which would alert him of his disiciple’s death. He might be heading towards this place right now. Once he arrives, we’ll truly be doomed. We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”
Ning and the others all nodded.
The Palace of the Heart might’ve given Solewind a powerful protective Dao-seal, but it wouldn’t be enough to kill an Eternal Emperor; at most, it would just tie him down for a period of time. Even if the Palace Lord was personally present, it would be quite difficult for him to actually slay an Eternal Emperor.
“I’ll collect the corpse for now. After we escape from the Sacred Immortal Realm, we can bind his storage treasures and split those things up,” Solewind said.
“No!” Prince Greatjoy immediately argued, “Solewind, you used a life-saving Dao-seal to kill him. All the treasures will naturally belong to you. You used up a Dao-seal that represented 30% of a maximum-power strike from the Palace Lord of the Heartforce Palace! I imagine we could sell off all of this Daolord’s items, and it still wouldn’t be worth as much as that Dao-seal was. Even if you took everything, you are still coming out behind.”
Solewind was speechless.
“Right, Solewind.” Skyfire Brightshore said the same thing. “We’re certainly not going to take advantage of you like this. We can split up the treasures we earned from killing that weak Daolord of the First Step, but that golem and this black-robed Daolord’s treasures shall belong to Darknorth and yourself, respectively. You used up an extremely powerful Dao-seal, while brother Darknorth had to use up that favor from his helper.”
“These two affairs aren’t comparable. Brother Darknorth captured that golem, but there’s no way we could possibly split it up. The Daolord’s treasures, however, are useful for everyone,” Solewind argued.
“Unnecessary.”
“Stop quibbling.”
“We’re not taking it, and there’s nothing you can do to convince us otherwise.”
Ning and the others all laughed as they rejected Solewind’s suggestions. They had known each other for thousands of years by now, and all of them were quite friendly with each other. Of the find, Solewind was the most logical and the most trustworthy.
Solewind shook his head, then said with resignation, “Fine, then. I’ll be shameless and accept it all. Oh, right. This Prismatic Kiloleaf Flower is pretty much at full maturity as well. Let’s harvest it. I’ll take all of the black-robed Daolord’s treasures, but we can split up the value of the flower later.”
“Agreed.”
“Harvest it first.”
Waterlord Firesurge waved his hand. Instantly, a stream of water surged out and formed a giant hand that gently cupped the distant, beautiful flower, then plucked it all at once.
“Come, let us keep on exploring,” Prince Greatjoy said. “We still have yet to find the core of this formation.”
“We have to breach the formation. Only then will we be able to leave this Sacred Immortal Realm.”
Ning and the other five quickly began to advance once more. There would be plenty of time for them to split up the treasures later. Right now, every extra second they spent in this Sacred Immortal Realm was another second of danger for them! Who knew when Emperor Trisilk would come back? Although logically speaking the Sacred Immortal Realm had that enormous formation which completely separated it from the outside world, which meant Emperor Trisilk shouldn’t be aware of the black-robed Daolord’s death, in the end it was the Eternal Emperor himself who had set up this formation. He might’ve put in certain mechanisms that would let him know about what was happe
ning in the Sacred Immortal Realm.
He was an Eternal Emperor. Even if he was very far away, it probably wouldn’t take him that long to hasten to the Sacred Immortal Realm. If the five of them were caught here, they really would be finished.
“Hurry up.”
“Let’s move.”
There were no further barriers in front of them. The planting grounds for the flower had essentially been the most important place in the entire estate, after all. They pushed open the enormous stone door in front of them, only to see a circular hallway behind it. The hallway was filled with complicated formations made from divine runes, and Immortal energy flowed through the runes with incredible power. More than ten thousand strange types of stones were present as well.
Some of the stones were jewel-like, some were white and slick, some were dark and gloomy, while some emanated auras of incredible cold. All sorts of different, strange stones were scattered throughout this place.
“We’re rich!” Prince Greatjoy’s eyes bulged out.
“So many treasures?!” Solewind swept the room with his gaze.
“All combined, these stones have to be worth at least ten million cubes!” Ning was shocked by the implications of this.
Good heavens. Ten million cubes? This was an absolutely enormous sum of money, even for a Verge-level Daolord… but these stones were merely being used to power this formation.
“We’ll split up these treasures into five portions. Each of us will get a portion,” Solewind said.
“Ahaha, alright! We’ll be shameless enough to accept that suggestion.”
“Right, right.”
Greatjoy and Ji Ning didn’t decline either.
In truth, all of them felt rather puzzled and suspicious. From what the black-robed Daolord had said, this formation was personally set up by that Eternal Emperor, who had ordered the black-robed Daolord to protect this place! What secrets did this place hold, for the Eternal Emperor to order such a powerful Daolord to stay here permanently? Why did he pay such an enormous price and personally set up such a complicated formation here?
“No one is in command of the formation, and the formation’s core is the weakest part of any formation. It’ll be easy to break it apart. Don’t move, everyone. Let me deal with it,” Solewind said.
Although no one was in command of the formation, it still took someone at the Daolord level of power to break it.
Solewind carefully picked up one precious stone after another. After carefully picking up a total of twelve stones, the power of the formation began to fade. Solewind grinned. “Next… you can do whatever you like. This formation is no longer able to fight back against us.”
“Right.”
“Let’s do this.”
Ning and the others all worked in concert, each of them collecting roughly a fifth of the total number of treasures present. With the treasures all collected, the formation naturally broke apart.
“The formation is done for. We can leave now.” Prince Greatjoy revealed a look of delight. “However… we still haven’t discovered what secrets this place is holding, for an Eternal Emperor to set both formations and guards over this place.”
“There are no other passageways from this estate,” Solewind said. “The mysteries don’t matter. Let’s leave first.”
“Agreed.”
There really were no other passageways for them to take. They had gone as deep as they could into the estate, and they had already discovered the core of formation at the bottommost layer of the estate.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Ning and the others moved incredibly fast. In just a single breath’s worth of time, they flew out of the estate. There were no longer any barriers here to slow them down.
“Eh?” Ning and the others raised their heads to stare at the skies. Their faces all turned pale. “Not good.” All of them felt shocked.
The formation-barrier covering the entire Sacred Immortal Realm had already broken down, revealing the world beyond. Outside the Sacred Immortal Realm was an endless sea of blazing, roiling energy. There were also enormous blazing stones that was flying through the skies. In short, it was an absolutely apocalyptic hell of fire.
The barrier had completely blocked off the outside world, but it had also protected the Sacred Immortal Realm. Now that the formation had been cancelled out, the borders of the Sacred Immortal Realm actually began to collapse as the blazing flames of the inferno surrounding it descended.
“The Sacred Immortal Realm is about to break apart.”
“Let us give those mortals a hand.”
Ning and the others could immediately tell that there was no way they could save the Sacred Immortal Realm. They immediately began to teleport to the places where the cultivators were gathered.
Just a short while ago, the cultivators had been released from their nightmare and regained their freedom. They were planning out how to establish a home for themselves when all of a sudden, something terrifying had appeared in the skies. Endless, flowing streams of blazing energy began to sweep downwards towards them. All of them knew that they were going to die.
They could only watch as the fires of hell began to descend towards them. There was no way they could fight back at all.
“Get in here.” Ning appeared out of nowhere, then waved his hand and caused more than ten million cultivators to be drawn into his estate-treasure.
“Come here.” Heartlord Solewind appeared in another part of the world, rescuing the utterly terrified and despairing cultivators.
In just two breath’s worth of time, all of the cultivators in the entire continent had been rescued by Ning’s group of five.
Rumble…
The blazing streams of fire and the flaming boulders came crashing downwards. Each time they struck against the Sacred Immortal Realm, the entire continent would tremble and shake. The entire continent began to break and crumble apart into multiple pieces. It was completely disintegrating.
Ning and the others were all extraordinarily powerful. The power of the apocalyptic flames was enough to ruin this realm, but it wasn’t enough to harm them.
They just stood there in the air, surrounded by the Yin-Yang Sword Domain which stretched off ten thousand kilometers. The blazing streams of energy and the flaming bouldesr were immediately destroyed once they moved close to the group.
“The continent is finished.” After rescuing the mortal cultivators, Ning and the others just watched and sighed.
“Quick, over there!” Prince Greatjoy’s face changed as he pointed towards part of the Daolord’s estate. Now that the entire continent had broken apart, they were able to see something which had been hidden at the very bottom of the continent. There, they could see an enormous levitating mountain that was formed out of fiery rocks. The peak of the mountain was roughly a million kilometers in size, and there were strange spatial ripples covering it.
“An entire mountain of darkspace flamestone?” Ning and the others were completely stunned.
* * *
Book 28, Chapter 16 - Emperor Trisilk
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Ji Ning and the rest of the five all immediately teleported closer towards that fiery-red mountain.
The entire place was filled with blazing streams of energy, but they weren’t nearly as dangerous to Ning and the others as the spatial tempests around the Mortal Realm had been. Despite the harsh environment, Ning and the others were actually able to engage in spatial teleportation here.
“Am I seeing this? Is this actually an entire mountain of darkspace flamestone?” Prince Greatjoy raised his head to stare at the towering mountain, unable to maintain his usual calm. A stunned look was on his face. “Am I asleep? Am I dreaming…?”
“An entire freaking mountain? Completely comprised of darkspace flamestone?” Solewind was dazed as well.
“By my calculations… every ten thousand kilograms of that mountain can be refined into one kilogram of pure darkspace flames
tone.” Ning mumbled to himself, “The entire mountain stretches out to cover more than a million kilometers. How much darkspace flamestone is that? How much is it worth? I can’t… I can’t even calculate…”
“Insane. Absolutely insane!” Firesurge and Skyfire were both stunned as well.
This was an incalculably valuable treasury, one which Eternal Emperors go berserk over!
Darkspace flamestone was an extremely valuable type of mineral which could be used in many different ways. It could be used to forge golems and magic treasures, and there were even certain secret arts and divine abilities that made use of it. Generally speaking, it could be discovered in certain unique environments, but it was generally discovered in meter-sized amounts or even less.
An entire mountain that was over a million kilometers in size? This was a veritable quarry of darkspace flamestone! In fact, Ning and the others suspected this of being the largest deposit of darkspace flamestone in this entire alternate universe!
But of course, the primordial chaos often gave birth to many types of unique treasures. In the Endless Territories, the Brightshore Kingdom had taken sole ownership over Hydragon Mountain. Although the quality of ore was inferior to the darkspace flamestone here, the total amount of ore it possessed was a million times greater, making Hydragon Mountain far more valuable than this one.
Still… no matter what, this was an enormous mountain with more than a million kilometers of darkspace flamestone. Most likely, only Hegemon-level figures would be qualified to own such a place without fearing that others would seek to seize it. Generally speaking, Eternal Emperors who discovered such a fortune would mine in secret. They simply weren’t strong enough to openly claim sole ownership over such a fortune.
