Desolate Era

by RWX

  In raw power alone, Daolord Skyshatter’s secret arts were actually slightly stronger than even Ning’s nine novessence arts!

  “What? My secret arts were nullified?” Daolord Skyshatter was shocked.

  ……

  Ning and Ninedust ignored the three behind them. They were very experienced in fighting against these warriors, and were able to work together perfectly. Ninedust was responsible for tying down and slowing the warriors, while Ning was responsible for delivering the final blow that knocked them off the walkway.

  Time continued to flow on. Another year passed in the blink of an eye, with Ning’s team slowly advancing. The further they advanced, the more warriors assaulted them. Knocking the warriors off the dimensional walkway became increasingly difficult, as there was now a total of thirty-two warriors assaulting Ning’s team. This represented a force of thirty-two second-tier Daolords who were able to work together perfectly and who were invulnerable to all harm!

  Just beating them wasn’t enough. You had to knock them off the dimensional walkway. It was simply too difficult! By now, Ning’s team needed to spend five or six days in battle before defeating a ‘wave’..

  Whoosh! Ninedust transformed into a massive wave, but the upper half of his body was still visible. He continued to wield his longstaff, sending it smashing through the waves and knocking one enemy aside after another, doing his best to give Ning enough space to work in. As for Ning, he was even fiercer than he had been in the past, with each of his six Northbow swords containing astonishing amounts of power.

  “Haha, Darknorth, these warriors are becoming increasingly difficult to defeat, but this process has been quite beneficial to my staff-arts. I’ve come up with a supreme technique of my own!” The Ninedust Sectlord let out a loud laugh as he swept out with his longstaff. Whoosh! The water around him instantly formed into a whirlpool that was centered around his longstaff, causing layers of spatial illusions to appear around it.

  Crimsonwave Temple placed extremely tight restrictions on spacetime techniques, but Ninedust was still able to cause spatial illusions to appear. In the outside world, the power of this strike would’ve been inconceivable!

  BOOM! The staff smashed against an armored warrior, sending it flying away as if it was nothing more than a tiny little shrimp.

  “Come up with a few more ‘supreme techniques’ like that,” Ning said with a laugh. “Later on, you can let these other Daolords get a taste of them.”

  “Right. I’ll make sure they know that I’m not easy to deal with.” Ninedust had been intoxicated by this life of battle. These fights were helping him to discover many of his flaws and allowed him to perfect them. When he was able to reach a certain level of perfection, he was naturally able to come up with a new supreme technique.

  “The other supreme Daolords have either fused two Supreme Daos or three Supreme Daos…” Ning mused silently to himself, “But they still have room for improvement. They can gain new insights and thus come up with more and better supreme techniques. I, however, have already reached the apex! It’ll be very hard for me to improve in the near future.”

  “Mm. I suppose I should focus on the [Heartsword] for now.” Ning was beginning to realize how hard it would be for him to upgrade his Omega Sword Dao any further. None of his five stances had been able to reach the fourth stage, and so he immediately chose to work on the [Heartsword] sword-art instead.”

  “The [Heartsword]…” A complete copy of the full [Heartsword] sutra appeared within Ning’s mind. The golden-furred alien had given it to Ning’s avatar during his visit to Vastheaven Palace, and Ning’s avatar had immediately studied it.

  The [Heartsword] art was an incredibly marvelous and miraculous sword-art! In importance, it actually succeeded the legacies of Hegemons! Although it was ‘merely’ a sword-art, the Dao Alliance absolutely refused to transmit it to any other organizations. Even the Brightshore Kingdom was only able to procure the first ten stances after paying an utterly enormous price. If you wished to learn the full thing, you had to be a member of the Dao Alliance and pay an incredible price for it.

  Ning’s performance in the Waveshift Realm had been simply dazzling. He had risen to prominence by slaughtering Sectlord Timedream and the Kingfreak, and his power was second only to Winesage! The Dao Alliance was naturally going to invest its resources in him. Given that they also had a favor to ask of Ning, they chose to just go ahead and gift the entire [Heartsword] to Ning! But of course, Ning was not permitted to transmit this to any others.

  “How marvelous.” The more Ning learned regarding the [Heartsword] art, the more stunned he felt. The [Heartsword] art was a supreme sword-art that represented the perfect combination of Ki Refining principles, Fiendgod Refining principles, and Heartforce Cultivation principles.

  Emperor Heartsword’s sword-arts, on a stand-alone basis, were merely on the same level as Emperor Mirrorsnow’s! However, this perfect combination of all three paths of cultivation made it so that his rather unremarkable sword-arts were able to unleash astonishing levels of power that surpassed even the likes of the eight lords of the Sacred Cities, putting him incredibly close to the Hegemon level! He was known as the Emperor who was closest to the Hegemons in power! How terrifying a concept was this?

  “My current sword-arts have already transcended both space and time, putting me on par with Emperor Mirrorsnow’s level,” Ning mused. “If I can master the fifteenth stance of the [Heartsword], I’ll have eclipsed the eight lords of the Sacred Cities and be very close to the Hegemons as well.”

  Moments later, Ning chuckled. That was nothing more than a fantasy. Ever since Emperor Heartsword had departed, there had never been a second cultivator capable of mastering the fifteenth stance of the [Heartsword]! This was because this sword-art was simply too arcane and abstruse.

  The first stance was known as the ‘Heartsword’ stance. The second stance, the ‘Killsword’ stance. The third stance, the ‘Great Firmament’ stance. The fourth stance, the ‘Horizon’s Edge’ stance. The fifth stance, the ‘Silent World’ stance. The sixth stance, the ‘Unicorn’s Heart’ stance. The seventh stance, the ‘Cosmic Heart’ stance.

  The first six stances were at least understandable. Starting from the seventh stance, however, the technique became increasingly abstruse. Thankfully, Ning was incredibly talented in sword-arts and thus he mastered the seventh stance in the Sword Palace of the Brightshore Kingdom. It could be said that he had gained an elementary level of mastery in the [Heartsword].

  However, this was still nothing more than an elementary level of mastery. The later stances were even more difficult to comprehend!

  The eighth stance was named ‘Ineffable’.

  The ninth stance was named ‘Blissheart’.

  The tenth stance was named ‘Killheart’.

  The eleventh stance was named ‘Teardrop’.

  The twelfth stance was named ‘Swordtide’.

  The thirteenth stance was named ‘Snowland Blood’.

  The fourteenth stance was named ‘Remorseless Unto Death’.

  The fifteenth stance was named ‘One Sword, One World’.

  These stances were all incredibly abstruse, but they could be divided into several different tiers. The eighth stance to the tenth stance represented the first ‘tier’! Most cultivators skilled in the [Heartsword] were stuck here in the first tier, unable to advance any further.

  The eleventh and twelfth stances represented the second tier. Supposedly, cultivators who reached this level would see the power of the [Heartsword] technique skyrocket, but in every generation the number of cultivators who could reach this level could be counted on one hand.

  The thirteenth and fourteenth stances represented the third tier. According to the records, only a single major power aside from Emperor Mirrorsnow had ever reached this level, but his name was a mystery! The records stated that at this level, one’s level of power would skyrocket by such a level that using the [Heartsword] art provided an even greater boos
t in power than using a Universe treasure!

  The fifteenth and final stance! Only Emperor Heartsword, the creator of this technique, had ever reached this level! By relying on this stance, he had been able to unleash quasi-Hegemon levels of power from his fairly mundane sword-arts.

  “If I can even reach the third tier, I might be able to give Hegemons a good fight once I become a Daolord of the Fourth Step,” Ning mused. This truly was an unearthly, incredible set of sword-arts, but it was also the hardest of all sword-arts to train in. The actual movements to each stance were not that important; what really mattered was the ‘heart’.

  “Time to begin.”

  Even the tallest of buildings have to start from the ground floor. Ning held all six Northbow swords as he fought, occasionally injecting some of the ‘Cosmic Heart’ elements into his stances. At other times, he’d attempt to replicate the eighth stance, ‘Ineffable’. The [Heartsword] art focused on the heart, not on the actual stances, and so it was incredibly difficult to train in. Ning was incredibly talented in heartforce and had the largest heartworld of all the supreme Daolords in the Endless Territories, but he still found training in this technique to be extremely laborious. Despite that, he was still able to at least generate part of the ‘feeling’ of the eighth ‘Ineffable’ stance.

  The ‘Ineffable’ stance couldn’t be manufactured intentionally. One had to follow one’s own heart and completely infuse it into one’s sword-arts. Everything had to follow the natural flow… and when you were able to sense it, it would have been completed.

  The eighth stance actually wasn’t that bad. The later ones were even more abstruse and more difficult to study.

  * * *

  Book 33, Chapter 8 - Ineffable, Blissheart

  “Ineffable.” When this sword-stance struck out, an invisible current of heartforce would naturally merge into it; there was no need to ‘force’ it or do it on purpose.

  A layer of thin, invisible, mist-like heartforce appeared on the surface of the sword, causing the power of the attack to immediately increase and even speed up.

  “What a strange feeling.” Ji Ning’s six Northbow swords howled forth, knocking down all of the warriors before him. Some were sent flying backwards, others were bowled over. “This is the first time I’ve felt something like this. When I use this sword-art, I feel as though I’ve transformed into a sword. What a wonderful, enjoyable feeling. I feel as though the power of my sword-arts has risen by 20%.”

  Mastering the seventh stance, ‘Cosmic Heart’, merely represented gaining a basic grasp of the [Heartsword]; it was of negligible benefit to him. The eighth stance, ‘Ineffable’, already allowed him to increase the power of his sword-arts by 20%! It must be remembered that Ning trained in the Omega Sword Dao; improving upon the power of his sword-arts was extremely difficult.

  “Darknorth, you found a way to enhance the strength of your swords?” Ninedust had been working alongside Ning, and he immediately sensed Ning’s transformation.

  “Haha, you’ve found ways to improve yourself. Why can’t I?” Ning was in a delightful mood. After just five years of researching the [Heartsword] art, he had become proficient in the eighth stance. This was actually much faster than he had predicted. According to the records he had reviewed, the [Heartsword] was supposed to be extremely difficult to train in.

  Ning had forgotten, however, that his sword-arts were derived from the third-stage Omega Sword Dao, while his heartforce made him the strongest Heartforce Cultivator in all the Endless Territories.

  “After entering Crimsonwave Temple, I’ve developed two consummate techniques,” Ninedust said smugly. “I’ve grown much more than you have.”

  “You won’t be smug for much longer.” Ning began to work on the ninth stance, the ‘Blissheart’ stance.

  “This feeling truly is absolutely marvelous.” Ning actually closed his eyes as he continued to execute his sword-arts, but he maintained in complete control of himself and his surroundings. “I understand. This sword-art really can throw the wielder into a state of utter contentment and bliss.”

  He immersed himself in this feeling. Just six short months later…

  “Blissheart.” Ning’s sword-light transformed once more. In the past, every strike had been covered with a mist-like layer of heartforce. Now, the mist was clearly much denser than before, and with each strike it was like a fog drifted in alongside it.

  Whoooosh. No sword-shadows could be seen around Ning; the only thing visible was a series of mist-streaks.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Ning’s power increased dramatically, allowing him to blow through the warriors like rotted wood. The warriors, however, gathered themselves and continued their furious attacks.

  “Darknorth, y-you… you grew stronger yet again?” Ninedust was flabbergasted.

  “Haha…” Ning laughed loudly. “I told you a while ago that you won’t be smug for much longer. Now do you know how badass I am?” He had mastered the ‘Blissheart’ stance, and his sword-arts increased 50% in power!

  ……

  “What’s going on?”

  “Impossible.”

  “How can they be advancing this quickly?”

  Daolord Tigrone, Daolord Dreamlore, and Daolord Skyshatter were in the same dimensional walkway, and they were also fighting the endless hordes of warriors. They were stunned by what they saw. Given that the three of them were working together, they technically should’ve held the upper hand over Ning and Ninedust! A while ago, they had been slowly but steadily narrowing the gap between them and Ning’s team. Their initial calculations had indicated that they would be able to catch up in five or six years.

  Ning’s mastery of the ‘Ineffable’ stance didn’t have too much of an impact on their calculations… but now that Ning had mastered the ninth stance, ‘Blissheart’, the difference was apparent!

  “Daolord Darknorth is already incredibly strong. How could he have grown even stronger?” Daolord Skyshatter frowned.

  “Daolord Darknorth has been training for less than a full chaos cycle, but he’s already become a supreme Daolord.” Daolord Dreamlore said coldly, “He naturally has plenty of room to improve. I imagine he’s come up with a new supreme technique for himself.”

  The Radiant King, Palace Lord Dawnstar, and the others had all slowly developed their supreme techniques after becoming Daolords of the Fourth Step. The same was currently true of Ninedust as well. As Dreamlore saw it, Ning was most likely searching for the ultimate attack which would fit himself the most.

  “Daolord Darknorth truly is difficult to deal with,” Daolord Tigrone growled. “To beat the two of them and seize the Voidsea Jadeseal won’t be easy.”

  “There’s only two of them but three of us,” Daolord Dreamlore said coldly. “We aren’t idiots like Kingfreak and Timedream.”

  “Right. When we work together, only Winesage is a threat to us.” Daolord Skyshatter felt quite confident as well.

  Tigrone felt certain he possessed the strongest defensive abilities of all the supreme Daolords.

  Dreamlore felt certain he possessed the strongest attacks of all the supreme Daolords; he had actually beaten the Radiant King in a head-on fight!

  Daolord Skyshatter was equal to the other two in might.

  The deceased Timedream and Kingfreak were ranked well below the top ten in close combat power, while Timedream’s heartforce techniques were useless against Ning. The Tigrone-Skyshatter-Dreamlore alliance was completely different! The only one they worried about was Winesage; they didn’t care about any other Daolords at all!

  “Winesage has a Universe treasure, but I have to admit that Darknorth is a truly dazzling figure,” Daolord Dreamlore said coldly. “We have to fight with all our power. Otherwise, we’ll probably be defeated by the two of them.”

  “Right.” Tigrone and Skyshatter both nodded. Upon seeing how quickly Ning’s team was advancing, not even Dreamlore dared to underestimate them.

  ……

  The dimensional walkway o
f the first world. Ning’s group was currently battling against a final group of warriors. This time, there were thirty-nine warriors surrounding and attacking them. This meant they had to deal with thirty-nine second-tier Daolords at the same time!

  If Ning was fighting by himself, he would’ve been beaten long ago.

  Rumble… Ninedust transformed into a vast wave that swept across all thirty-nine warriors, his upper body still visible and wielding that longstaff as he furiously assaulted those around him. The warriors, however, were assembled into a war-formation and were valiantly charging towards the two.

  “Break!” Ning was fighting the armored warriors head-on. Streaks of mist flew out with his swords, and the warriors were knocked aside each time the mist connected with them. Even the slightest scrape would cause them to be sent flying backwards. Unfortunately, there were still thirty-nine of them; when some were pushed back, others would immediately charge forwards and take up their positions, allowing the ones who had been pushed back to regroup and then charge as well.

  They had to find a chance to create an opening!

  Ning and Ninedust had to battle furiously for more than a month before they were finally able to knock the thirty-nine warriors out of the dimensional walkway.

  “Aaaaaaaah.” Ninedust stared at the black throne, then lifted his head up and let loose a loud howl. “We finally beat’m!”

  “Whew.” Ning smiled as well, but he felt a bit of regret in his heart. He had spent neary ten years battling within the first world, but he still had yet to master the tenth stance of the [Heartsword], the ‘Killheart’ stance.

  “Keep having fun back there, the three of you.” Ninedust turned back to glance at Daolord Skyshatter, Daolord Dreamlore, and Daolord Tigrone. The three of them were surrounded by thirty-six armored warriors.