by RWX
“You aren’t able to kill me! You aren’t able to kill me!” The flaming creature let out a low growl. “Come out! All of you, come out!”
Rumble…
As the flaming creature roared, a strange ripple of power quickly spread out. Just one second later, two more flaming creatures came flying out from behind the turn of the stone corridor.
“Not good.” The faces of the two cultivators turned grim.
Two creatures. Three creatures. Four creatures… one flaming creature after another began to fly out from behind the turn of the corridor.
“Not just there. There’s more coming from this side as well.” The Ninedust Sectlord turned to look at the other side of the corridor. Flaming, humanoid creatures were flooding in from both ends of the corridor.
“Let’s leave, immediately!” Ning roared.
“Let’s go!” The Ninedust Sectlord didn’t dare to hesitate either.
“Kill.”
“Kill them all.”
“Eat them.”
A total of twelve of flaming humanoids had already appeared at the two ends of the corridor, and their numbers were only growing. They began to launch a furious charge towards the two cultivators, who chose one direction and began to fight their way that way.
After Ning had developed the second level of his Omega Sword Dao, his speed had increased from ten times the speed of light to thirty times the speed of light. As for the Ninedust Sectlord, he was a bit faster than Ning. The two quickly beat aside the attacking creatures as they fled for their lives, not daring to tarry whatsoever.
……
Attack! Attack! Attack!
The flaming creatures were completely unkillable; even if you wiped them out, they would be reborn out of thin air. Their ability to draw from the omnipresent flames of this place gave them almost limitless amounts of strength. No one would be able to beat them in a battle of attrition.
“I knew the ancestral lands wouldn’t be so easily traversed. Shit, shit, shit!” The Ninedust Sectlord was starting to worry.
“There’s just too many of them. Why are these flaming creatures everywhere?” Ning was worried as well. The two of them had been fleeing for a full hour by now, and they had thrown off many different packs of the creatures while scurrying through the various stone passageways… and yet, every single stone passageway seemed to contain these creatures, and all of them were filled with the desire to kill the two of them.
There were differences in strength amongst the flaming creatures, with some being very close to Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord in power.
“The two of us need to work together,” the Ninedust Sectlord sent mentally. “We can’t keep such a wary watch on each other; we’ll only have a shot if we truly work together as one. Otherwise, both of us will probably die here.”
“I concur. Let’s swear a lifeblood oath,” Ning immediately agreed.
* * *
Book 30, Chapter 15 - Ancient Cultivators
The stone passageways branched out like a spiderweb’s web, with some being merely a few hundred kilometers wide and others being tens of thousands of kilometers wide. The widest were as much as a million kilometers wide.
They were in one of the widest stone passageways right now. Flames were blazing everywhere, and there were many of those flaming creatures living in this area. Ji Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord were able to sense from afar that these creatures would pose a lethal danger to them. They didn’t even dare to move close to them, instead choosing to fly into a more narrower passageway.
Swoosh.
A flying black vessel was advancing at high speed through the air, throwing behind the fiery creatures behind them. Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord stood at the very prow of the ship, and neither of them dared to relax at all as they vigilantly scanned the horizons.
“They’re coming.” The Ninedust Sectlord gripped his longstaff, readying himself for the assault. As for Ning, he was in his three-headed, six-armed form and wielded all six Northbow swords in his hands. The two stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring towards the front.
Roughly ten million kilometers up ahead, more than six flaming creatures were waiting for them at the turn of the stone passageway. Their numbers were continuing to grow. Clearly, these flaming creatures had some method of communicating to each other, and they knew that if they didn’t gather in sufficient numbers there would be no way for them to stop these two invaders.
“Kill!”
Boom!
Although they were ten million kilometers away, the flying black vessel moved at a hundred times the speed of light and so passed through that distance in an instant.
“Freeze.” Ning’s nine novessence arts were already activated, and nine enormous dragons of power were surging through the area around him. They transformed into a domain of sword-intent, suppressing and binding the flaming creatures around them. It must be understood that these flaming creatures were extremely tough; the Ninedust Sectlord had been unable to shatter the first one with a half-power blow, and Ning’s nine novessence arts were similarly unable to wipe them out.
Still, the nine novessence arts definitely caused the flaming creatures to slow down substantially.
“Die!” The Ninedust Sectlord let out a low growl as he swept out from left to right with his longstaff, striking with the force of a thunderbolt. Boom! Boom! Boom! One flaming creature after another was blown up.
Slash! Slash! Slash! Silently and soundless, six of the flaming creatures were chopped through in quick succession as the tips of Ning’s Northbow swords were suddenly revealed.
Omega Sword Dao – Shadowless!
“Darknorth, flee immediately! We have to escape this stone passageway as soon as we can,” the Ninedust Sectlord sent mentally. “We can’t afford to waste any more time here. We’ll be in serious trouble if we do!”
“Alright.” Ning agreed with his assessment. After so many battles, they both knew some of the habits these flaming creatures had. They generally kept to the specific passageway they were in, and they had a special way of communicating with each other within the passageway! If they spent too much time in any specific passageway, more and more of the creatures would accumulate until finally, a veritable army of them would be on the attack.
The most disastrous battle they had been in involved more than three hundred of the flaming creatures surrounding and attacking them, three of which were nearly as powerful as the two of them. Ning had been forced to rely on the power of his nine novessence arts and the perfection of his Omega Sword Dao to just barely fend them off. The Ninedust Sectlord’s staff-arts weren’t as defensively powerful as Ning’s sword-arts, and so he had to rely on his forbidden technique instead.
The two had escaped by the skin of their teeth.
……
The two of them grew increasingly crafty as time went on. They’d rely on Ning’s Shadowless evasion technique to avoid discovery for as long as possible, and they’d end or escape any battles they found themselves trapped in immediately, not wasting any time. And yet, they would still occasionally run into some trouble. These flaming creatures truly seemed to be immortal; no matter how hard they hit the creatures, they just wouldn’t die.
“There’s a tunnel over there. Hide inside it.” They flew into a new, untouched stone passageway via the flying vessel and Ning’s Shadowless evasion technique, then quickly dove into a cave opening on the stone walls.
“We can rest here for a short while.” Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord both relaxed slightly. They had been lucky enough to find a cave right after they had fled into a new passageway but before any of the flaming creatures had discovered them. This meant they could rest for a time! Still, they could only spend a few hours, as there would be flaming creatures patrolling the entire area.
“It’s been fifteen days. Fifteen full days of nonstop running.” The Ninedust Sectlord shook his head. “These stone passageways are without end. They seem to be limitless! Every single one of them is filled wi
th countless flaming creatures, and every single one of them is completely unkillable. The weakest ones are still comparable to Daolords of the Fourth Step! Considering how many stone passageways we’ve gone through, the number of flaming creatures we’ve fought is simply ridiculous. Why are there so many of them? Logically speaking, there should be very few creatures which have the power of Daolords of the Fourth Step.”
Ning shook his head. “They probably aren’t actual living creatures.”
“Right.” The Ninedust Sectlord nodded. “I was about to say the same thing. They seem to be part of the omnipresent flames of this regioin, as well as the stone walls of the various stone passageways.”
“Right.” Ning nodded as well.
They had once personally witnessed the flaming creatures disappear into the stone walls like water flowing into a desert, leaving behind no trace of its passing. It must be understood that neither Ning nor the Ninedust Sectlord were able to damage the walls at all despite launching repeated full-strength attacks against them.
“Darknorth, do you have any Thousand Origins pills or other similar types of spirit-pills?” The Ninedust Sectlord looked at Ning. “If you do, sell them to me. Judging from the way you fight and how stable you are, it doesn’t look like you are relying on some sort of forbidden technique or divine ability that explosively increases your power for brief periods of time.”
Ning chuckled. Thousand Origins pills were used to replenish Immortal energy and divine power. Using extremely powerful divine abilities or forbidden arts in battle consumed divine power a hundred times faster than normal; if the battle went on for too long, one would have to rely on spirit-pills to replenish one’s energy. The rate at which one absorbed energy from chaos jewels was simply too slow, and while chaos nectar was quite fast, using it in this matter was extremely wasteful.
Ning was primarily relying on the azureflower mist energy in battle; at most, he would also use the [Three Heads, Six Arms] divine ability, and so very little of his divine ability was used up. As for the azureflower mist energy, it was also consumed very slowly, allowing him to replenish it with chaos jewels alone. As a result, he didn’t need to rely on using spirit-pills to replenish his energy.
But of course, when the Ninedust Sectlord unleashed his full power he remained a bit stronger than Ning. There was nothing Ning could do about this; the azureflower mist energy simply couldn’t be used to execute divine abilities.
“Are you jealous of my Sword Dao?” Ning smirked.
“Your Sword Dao is indeed formidable; it can be all but described as flawless and perfect. We encountered several dangerous situations earlier, but you were able to perfectly defend against all of them. I, however, was forced to rely on my divine abilities and forbidden arts.” The Ninedust Sectlord looked at Ning. For once, he was willing to give up a bit of his face. “I imagine you’ve used up very few of your spirit-pills. Sell some to me. Il’l pay double the normal price.”
Ning shook his head.
“Five times the normal price!” The Ninedust Sectlord said hurriedly.
Ning just looked at him.
“Ten times!” The Ninedust Sectlord gritted his teeth. “Darknorth, don’t go too far.”
“Ah, forget it. I’ll sell it to you for ten times the normal price them. I was planning to wait until you were really panicking, then sell them to you at a hundred times the normal price.” Ning let out a teasing smile. To sell a spirit-pill at a hundred times the normal price when the buyer was in mortal danger was quite common.
Ning actually had more than ten thousand Thousand Origins pills and Chaos Spirit pills. He had acquired all of them from the deceased Daolord Kongsan, as Ning himself had never used them before.
The Thousand Origins pills were somewhat cheap; each of them were normally worth around a thousand cubes of chaos nectar. As for Chaos Spirit pills, they were worth ten times as much.
The two completed their trade. The Ninedust Sectlord spent thirty million cubes of chaos nectar to buy some of Ning’s spirit-pills. Finally, he let out a sigh of relief. With these spirit-pills on him, he would be able to use his powerful divine abilities without fear. In truth, he still had a good number of spirit-pills on him, but who knew how long they would be stuck in this place for? These flaming creatures really did seem to be all but endless, and he was forced to use his forbidden arts whenever they ran into a bit of trouble. Otherwise, they’d be swarmed and overwhelmed by the things.
Ning was different. Although he couldn’t use any divine abilities, the unscrutableness of his Omega Sword Dao allowed him to easily escape his foes, and the Soleheart stance of his Omega Sword Dao ensured that the creatures found it nearly impossible to actually reach Ning.
“Oh, right. Ninedust, you haven’t told anything me about yourself yet,” Ning said. “All I know is that you are the sectlord of the Ninedust Sect, and a new one at that. But what did you do before becoming the Ninedust Sectlord? I’ve never heard of you before. It’s odd that such a powerful Daolord as you suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and you don’t exactly seem to be the low-key type.”
“You want to know more about me?” The Ninedust Sectlord glanced sideways at Ning, then said smugly, “I’ll tell you the truth. I’m actually just a Daolord of the Third Step.”
“A Daolord of the Third Step?” Ning was surprised. How could a Daolord of the Third Step be this strong? Didn’t that mean that it was all but guaranteed he would be the equal of Daolord Dawnstar once he reached the fourth step?
“But your divine body…?” Ning frowned. The Ninedust Sectlord’s divine body had an aura of tremendous power, and it was far stronger than the bodies of most Daolords of the Fourth Step. It was highly unusual for a Daolord of the Third Step to have a divine body with such a powerful aura. “Are you some sort of Aberrant, or…?”
“Hmph. Those Aberrant special lifeforms are nothing. I am an Ancient cultivator, the most perfect type of creature to ever exist,” the Ninedust Sectlord said.
Ning was surprised. Although the Ancient cultivators were one of the six major organizations in the Endless Territories, they were incredibly few and rare in number, on par with the Brightshore Imperials of the Brightshore Kingdom. He didn’t expect that the Ninedust Sectlord would turn out to be an Ancient cultivator.
“As you’ll find out soon enough, this is one of the ancestral sites left behind by the ancestors of my race.” The Ninedust Sectlord looked at Ning. “I’m afraid, Darknorth, that you won’t be able to gain anything at all from this place, given that it was left by my ancestors for members of my Ancient race.”
* * *
Book 30, Chapter 16 - Everything Has Its Bane
“An ancestral site of the Ancient cultivators?” Ji Ning was slightly startled for a moment, then smiled. “No wonder you insisted on attacking the Eastroad Sect, and were able to discover the Void Pathway right away.”
“Eh?” The Ninedust Sectlord glanced at Ning with surprise. “You don’t seem to be frightened at all. Since this place was left behind by my ancestors, any treasures or legacies here will probably fall into my hands. As for you? You might even die here.”
“What’s the point of being afraid?” Ning said casually. Since they had already come here and were unable to flee, the only choice they had was to face everything head-on.
“Besides. It’s too early to speculate as to which one of us will be the one to die. You were the one getting your rear kicked by those flaming beasts.” Ning looked quite relaxed.
The Ninedust Sectlord really was rather amazed at Ning’s calm aplomb. He hadn’t revealed the truth previously, but now that both sides had sworn a binding oath to enter into an alliance and to not attack each other or plot against each other, the Ninedust Sectlord was finally willing to divulge the secret of this being an ancestral site for him. As he saw it, towards the end Ning would still find out, so long as he survived.
“Right. Ninedust, did you just say that you Ancient cultivators were the most perfect creatures in the un
iverse? But based on what I’ve heard, the top-tier Aberrant lifeforms like the Brightshore Imperials are on par with you Ancient cultivators,” Ning said.
“Hmph.” The Ninedust Sectlord let out a snort. “Aberrants? They are nothing more than a random, motley collection of freaks which were born out of the primordial chaos. There’s far too many breeds of them, which is why they are just collectively known as the Aberrants. How could that motley collection of freaks be compared to us Ancient cultivators? Just mentioning us in the same breath is an insult to us! As for the Brightshore Imperials, they are a race of Chaos Godbeasts that have been around just as long as we have. I suppose they could just barely be considered our peers… but if we really were to compare our two races, they are still significantly inferior to us.”
“Chaos Godbeasts?” Ning was startled. Although he was a member of the Brightshore Kingdom, he knew very little regarding the Brightshore Imperials.
“It seems that you are unaware of many secrets, most likely because you haven’t been a Daolord for long.” The Ninedust Sectlord chuckled. “The Brightshore Imperials consider this information to be a source of humiliation; there’s naturally no way they would’ve told you about this. I, however, will.”
“Humiliation?” Ning was quite curious.
“Long, long ago, there were no such things as ‘cultivators’, and the various Aberrant lifeforms had yet to learn how to cultivate either! Back then, the endless primordial chaos gave birth to two types of perfect lifeforms. The first type was humanoid in shape and was truly flawless. They were born with transcendant talent and tremendous comprehension abilities… and they became known as the Ancients. As for the second type, they were shaped like beasts and so became known as Chaos Godbeasts.”
“The Ancients were the first to discover and invent cultivation techniques! As a result, we became incredibly powerful and ended up unifying the endless primordial chaos and becoming its master… and this is why we are known as the Ancient cultivators.” A look of pride was on the Ninedust Sectlord’s face.
