Desolate Era

by RWX

  “Make your breakthroughs here. I’ll stand guard for you,” Ning said.

  “Yes, Master.” Both Pillsaint and Su Youji were rather excited and nervous. Although they were confident in their chances, breaking through to become a Daolord was an incredibly important event in the life of any cultivator.

  * * *

  Book 29, Chapter 4 - The Brothers of Vastheaven Palace

  Ji Ning stood before the railings of the Immortal estate on this chaos planet, staring off into the starry void.

  Boom!

  Suddenly, a roiling aura of power rocketed into the skies, an aura which was powerful, vast, and utterly exalted. This was not an aura which a World-level cultivator could produce. Even for Ning, only the azureflower mist energy in his body could compare to this aura in power.

  “A Daolord’s aura.” Ning smiled. “Pillsaint was the first to break through.”

  Breaking through from the World level to become a Daolord required the complete rebuilding of the body, which meant that there was naturally no way to keep one’s aura hidden during the process. It would erupt with abandon. But of course, Ning had long ago set wards on this planet to prevent the Daolord ripples from spreading out.

  Rumble…

  A dense whirlpool of chaos energy began to form in the void above the planet. The enormous vortex of chaos energy centered around the planet, gathering in large amounts of chaos energy and then continuously transmitting it directly into Pillsaint and letting him make use of it.

  A short while later, yet another Daolord aura erupted towards the heavens as the Flamefairy began to make her breakthrough as well. Soon, yet another vortex of chaos energy began to fill the void outside the world.

  ……

  The enormous chaos vortexes swirled around this chaos planet. As for Ning, he just quietly stood guard in front of the estate. A disruption in the flow of chaos energy alone generally wouldn’t attract the attention of major powers, because True Gods, True Immortals, Elder Gods, and Ancestral Immortals would cause similar phenomena when they made their breakthroughs. As a result, fluctuations in the flow of chaos energy was fairly common, and the ripples were also quite weak from a distance.

  The breakthrough process took more than an entire day.

  Swoosh. A chubby form suddenly rocketed into the skies, then landed before Ning. It was the chubby-face, white-teethed Pillsaint. Pillsaint’s aura was now more natural but also more majestic. Just judging from auras alone, one would believe that he was significantly more powerful than Ning. He had already reached the Daolord level.

  “Congratulations, Daolord Pillsaint.” Ning smiled.

  “I must thank you, Master. If it wasn’t for you, I truly do not know how long it would’ve taken for me to become a Daolord. Or perhaps I might’ve never reached this level.” Pillsaint was rather moved as well. He was far more talented in alchemy than he was in combat, but to become a true grandmaster alchemist was incredibly difficult. This time, thanks to Ning, he had been lucky enough to attract the attention of the Paragon of Pills in the alternate universe and be bestowed with her techniques, allowing him to find his own path.

  The Paragon of Pills had given him the first six chapters, which could guide one directly to becoming an Eternal Emperor. Not even the Brightshore Kingdom had a comparable alchemical technique.

  Only after being guided by an eminent master did Pillsaint know what path he should take. Without an eminent master, only a man of utterly dazzling talent, such as Ji Ning, Solewind, and the others, would be able to rely on his own thoughts and ideas to enter the Daolord level. But of course, this would still be much easier if you had many other legacies and techniques to learn from. If you were able to benefit from the wisdom and experience of your predecessors, you would be able to avoid some of their mistakes. If you wished to see far, you had to stand on the shoulders of giants.

  Swoosh. Moments later, yet another figured flew into the heavens, her form ephemeral and bewitchingly beautiful. Dressed in fiery red robes, it was indeed Su Youji, and her beauty and aura of seduction was only even more intoxicating than before.

  As someone who trained in the Dao of Charm and control, Su Youji’s natural grace and charm was becoming increasingly amazing. A single glance from her would be enough to drive most World-level cultivators insane with love, causing them to be willing to sacrifice themselves for her.

  “Master.” Su Youji smiled as she looked at Ning, but she felt a bit disappointed when she saw how Ning’s eyes still remained very calm and tranquil. She said with a hint of resignation, “I thought I’d be able to affect you a little bit. It seems your ability to resist mesmerization is extraordinarily powerful. As expected, given that you were able to go through the primessence chains.”

  “If you used your secret arts, I might be affected,” Ning said with a laugh.

  “I would never do that to you,” Su Youji said.

  In truth, Ning wasn’t sure if he would be able to withstand her. She was now a Daolord, after all. If she used her mesmerization secret arts with her Daolord-level energy… she might not be able to take control over him, but it was likely that she would be able to affect him. She wasn’t an ordinary Daolord, after all; she had trained in the legacy of Feixian the Exalted, a terrifyingly powerful Daolord. But of course, even if she was able to affect Ning, Ning would be able to summon his quadressence lightning and water with a thought, using them to easily extinguish Su Youji. The main problem was that the difference in power between them remained too vast!

  The Dao of Charm was not a Dao suited to close combat; it was meant to control and beguile foes.

  “Now that you are Daolords, everything has changed for you,” Ning said. “With each step they take, Samsara Daolords walk between life and death. You have only taken the first step on your path! In the future, you must be even more careful and meticulous in your cultivation. I won’t make any unreasonable requests of you, but I do expect the two of you to at least survive to reach the fourth step.”

  “Right.” Pillsaint nodded.

  “Failing in the Daomerge is one thing, but if I was to fail and die when breaking through to the second, third, or fourth steps… that would be a joke!” Su Youji was quite confident as well.

  For Samsara Daolords, every single step they took was akin to groping for a path through the darkness!

  Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals, as well as World-level cultivators, would be able to sense the prime essences of the universe. The prime essence of the Dao of the Sword, for example, would emanate an aura with extremely detailed information regarding the Dao which would allow cultivators to safely train all the way up to the master-class as a World-level cultivator.

  After that… you would be searching through the darkness. A single misplaced step would result in death.

  The Daomerge at the end would prove to be the greatest trial. If your Dao held even the slightest of imperfections, there was no way it could gain true eternity. The only result would be you dying and your Dao vanishing. Not even the likes of Su Youji, Pillsaint, or Ning were confident in being able to succeed in the Daomerge. Their goal was to first do their best to become Daolords of the Fourth Step. If they couldn’t even reach that level, they really would become the laughingstocks of the Brightshore Kingdom.

  As for the Daomerge? They’d worry about that after actually reaching the fourth step.

  ……

  Now that Su Youji and Pillsaint were Daolords, the journey before the trio would be even smoother sailing than before. Daolords were naturally a powerful deterrent to any would-be attackers, allowing them to easily travel for nearly three centuries in complete peace.

  Slumberlake Star was a place with a spacetime transfer array.

  Whoosh. The array suddenly lit up.

  “The array was activated just a short while ago. Why is it being activated again so soon?” The Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals who were responsible for overseeing this spacetime transfer array were all puzzled and mumbled to each oth
er.

  A short while later, three figures suddenly emerged from the spacetime transfer array. The trio consisted of Ji Ning, Pillsaint, and Su Youji.

  When the three of them appeared and the Daolord auras of the latter two wafted outwards, the Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals were so terrified that they didn’t dare say another word.

  By now, there was no way Ning would choose to waste time in order to save a bit of travel expenses. They naturally chose to independently activate the arrays each time!

  “We’re fairly close to Vastheaven Palace by now. We should arrive in about half a year,” Ning said with a laugh.

  “Congratulations, Master.” Su Youji smiled. “You’ve been waiting far too long for this day.”

  “Yes. It has been far too long.” Ning nodded slowly. The reason he cared so much about going to Vastheaven Palace… was because he truly missed his mother and father.

  Swoosh!

  A flying vessel appeared out of nowhere. Ning and the others entered the vessel, which then speedily departed. They needed to fly for roughly half a month, then go through a natural spatial vortex to reach a more distant location. This was how travelling through the primordial chaos was. In truth, very little of the time was spent going through spacetime transfer arrays; the vast majority of the time was spent going through some rather problematic locations.

  Rumble…

  There was a chaos planet located within a region of primordial chaos that was fairly close to Slumberlake Star. A fierce fight was going on upon the surface of the planet, causing quite a significant disturbance.

  “Eh?” Ning suddenly had a strange feeling. At his level of power, these feelings were generally quite accurate. “Stop!” Ning immediately brought his flying vessel to a halt and put it away.

  “Master?” Pillsaint and Su Youji were both puzzled. Why had they suddenly come to a halt?

  “Let’s take a look up ahead,” Ning said. “A battle seems to be occurring upon that chaos planet.”

  Pillsaint and Su Youji were both puzzled. A battle? So what? What was the point of watching? Still, neither would go against Ning’s wishes. They immediately followed Ning in flying over.

  Three World-level cultivators and a number of Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals were watching this battle from afar. This place was fairly close to Slumberlake Star, a spacetime transfer array, and so quite a few cultivators had come over to watch.

  “Gentlemen, what is happening on that planet?” Ning walked over to them.

  The watching cultivators all turned their heads, puzzled, towards Ning’s group. They saw the white-robed youth, then saw the two figures behind him.

  Daolords?!?!

  “Greetings, Daolords.” The three World-level cultivators were badly shocked. They hastily bowed.

  “Daolords.” The Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals were quivering with fear.

  Ning instructed, “Tell me about the battle going on upon that chaos planet.” For him to feel an affinity for it meant there had to be some sort of a connection to himself.

  One of the World-level cultivators, an elderly man, immediately said, “Right away, senior.” He didn’t dare act negligently towards this white-robed youth. The youth looked like a World-level cultivator, but the two Daolords were standing behind him. Clearly, this youth’s background was extraordinary.

  “That planet has a total of six World-level cultivators who are split up into two groups,” the old man said.

  “I can tell that there are two sides.” Ning frowned. He was able to see from ten billion kilometers away that atop that chaos planet, there was a single World-level cultivator who was being assaulted by five others. He was just barely able to hold his own.

  “On one side is the Clearwind Temple. The five of them are working together to kill a common foe, a World-level cultivator of their mortal enemy, ‘Vastheaven Palace’.” The old man hurriedly sped up his explanation.

  Ning’s face tightened. Vastheaven Palace? No wonder he sensed a connection!

  “Hmph.” Ning took a step forward, transforming into a streak of sword-light that tore through space. Through the Blood Drop evasion skill, he entered a different dimensional continuum as he charged towards that chaos planet at maximum speed. If one of the brothers of Vastheaven Palace ended up being bullied by others before his very eyes, what a joke that would be!

  “Senior, t-that’s Clearwind Temple!” The old man cried out in alarm. He could sense the killing intent radiating off Ning. Clearwind Temple was a force every bit the equal of Vastheaven Palace. For World-level cultivators, such organizations were unfathomably vast and powerful.

  “Master!” Su Youji transformed into a streak of light as well. The nearby cultivators were all dazed when they heard her address him as ‘Master’. What was going on? Why would a Daolord address a World-level cultivator as ‘master’?

  “So what if they belong to Clearwind Temple? Our master belongs to Vastheaven Palace!” Pillsaint emanated a killing aura as well as he too transformed into a streak of light.

  The old man and the nearby World-level cultivators, Elder Gods, and Ancestral Immortals were all completely stunned.

  * * *

  Book 29, Chapter 5 - Darknorth of Vastheaven Palace

  By the time Ji Ning emerged from the different dimensional continuum, he had already emerged directly outside that chaos planet.

  The five World-level cultivators of Clearwind Temple who were surrounding and attacking that lone figure on the surface of the chaos planet immediately noticed the intruder. Their leader, a muscular and tall World-level cultivator, immediately barked out, “Clearwind Temple is in pursuit of a thief. Fellow Daoist, leave immediately!”

  “Hmph.” Ning let out a cold snort, immediately transforming into a streak of sword-light. He moved at four times the speed of light as he charged over at maximum speed.

  As soon as Ning began to move, the World-level cultivators on the chaos planet were all shocked. Four times the speed of light? It must be understood that most World-level cultivators weren’t even able to move at twice the speed of light, unless they specialized in certain speed-based secret arts. Daolords of the First Step could generally move at double the speed of light, Daolords of the Second Step could move at triple the speed of light, Daolords of the Third Step could move at quadruple the speed of light, and Daolords of the Fourth Step could move at quintuple the speed of light.

  Of course, this was just the ‘normal’ speed. If you were skilled in evasive techniques or had a good evasion-type treasure, things would be completely different. Both, however, were extremely rare.

  “How can a World-level cultivator move that fast? He must specialize in a movement art.” The five World-level cultivators of Clearwind Temple immediately came to this conclusion.

  “I am Darknorth of Vastheaven Palace!” Ning’s cold, baleful voice instantly rang out within the air above the chaos planet, and it struck against the hearts of those five World-level cultivators like thunder, causing their faces to turn pale.

  Vastheaven Palace? Not good!

  “Is that brother Darknorth?” The belabored and surrounded azure-robed figure immediately called out loudly, “Careful, brother Darknorth! The five of them are not easy to deal with.” He had heard of Darknorth before. Daolord Solesky’s incarnation in Vastheaven Palace had told everyone of Darknorth, letting them know that they had gained a new brother whose name was Darknorth and who was just an Elder God.

  “According to what big brother Solesky said, Darknorth is just an Elder God. But that doesn’t seem to be right,” the azure-robed man mused to himself.

  ……

  “Stop him!”

  “He belongs to Vastheaven Palace? Capture him as well and imprison them both into Blackwind Prison!”

  “Attack!”

  The five cultivators of Clearwind Temple, upon realizing that Ning was from Vastheaven Palace, immediately launched their attacks against him as well. Two of them continued their assaults on the azure-ro
bed figure while the other three began to charge towards Ning.

  “Hmph.” Ning flew forwards like a streak of sword-light, not even drawing his black swords. He just gave them a cold look.

  Boom!

  It was as though the heavens themselves were collapsing! A terrifying, awesome sword-intent suddenly appeared on the surface of the chaos planet, crystallizing into streaks of sword-light. Countless streaks of sword-light descended upon the world as the five World-level cultivators stared upwards in terror. In the face of this boundless rain of sword-intent, the five were like nothing more than ants.

  “How can he be this strong?”

  “Impossible.”

  “This sword-intent…” The five World-level cultivators were completely stunned. For the sword-intent alone to be this strong… this man could wipe them out as easily as if they were ants. Utterly terrified, the five all produced white jade seals in their hands, then crushed them to beg for rescue. They didn’t even think about fighting back; all they wanted to do was beg for aid.

  Whoosh. The endless sword-intent crashed upon them like a wave, smothering and drowning all five of the World-level cultivators. The sword-intent was as soft as cotton, quickly wrapping around all five World-level cultivators. Ning then took out a gourd and opened it, allowing its opening to exert a tremendous sucking power. Swoosh! All five cultivators were instantly drawn inside.

  With but a thought, Ning dismissed the sword-intent from the skies.

  As far as Ning was concerned, these five World-level cultivators truly were like ants. The difference in power between him and them was simply enormous. Ning, however, didn’t wish to be rash. He’d first capture them, then decide later whether or not to kill them.

  “Brother Darknorth?” The azure-robed man stared blankly at Ning. He was rather dazed right now.

  Big brother Solesky, didn’t you say that brother Darknorth was just an Elder God? For him to have reached the World level was one thing. How did he become this powerful?! He didn’t even have to attack; his sword-intent alone was enough to capture all five of those World-level cultivators. Two of them were supreme World Gods!