Desolate Era

by RWX

  “Mm.” Ning revealed a look of delight. “The Northbow swords are now both fierce and flexible, making them of great use to my defensive sword-arts. Both the Yin-Yang stance and the Soleheart stance have improved significantly; I imagine that both of them are five times as powerful as previously.”

  The Yin-Yang stance could be used to execute the Yin-Yang Sword Domain with all six swords, making it an excellent area defense.

  The Soleheart stance was focused on single-target defense.

  “If I was to fight against Winesage again, I could fight him head-on. My defensive sword-arts would be able to easily ablate and deflect his power. At least I wouldn’t be sent flying this time!” Ning revealed a look of delight. In a deadly situation, defensive sword-arts were even more important than offensive attacks. The power of your attacks would determine the fate of others, but the power of your defenses would determine the fate of yourself.

  “We’ll be reaching the Stone Hellephant Wall soon. By then they’ll be able to absorb plenty of the deepfire blackstone, and my Northbow swords should only grow even more powerful.” Ning grew increasingly eager to see what would happen.

  The growth of any lifeblood weapon would be tied to the treasures they devoured. The majority of supreme Daolords all used lifeblood weapons, but very few of them would be able to acquire as many treasures as this!

  Ning wasn’t a good example; neither the sea of golden sand nor the lake of frozen ninesong pith were things which ordinary supreme Daolords were capable of acquiring. However, Eternal Emperors had very long lives, with Hegemons possessing tremendous power; as a result, their lifeblood weapons were usually very powerful. Daolord Dreamlore’s bloodblade, for example, had once been a lifeblood weapon that had reached an incredible level of power. From a material level, it absolutely had the potential to become a Universe treasure… but alas, the Dao inside it was slightly lacking and thus it wasn’t able to reach this level.

  ……

  Hegemon Welkin’s flying vessel had long ago departed from the Flamedragon Realmverse and entered the endless Great Dark.

  The Great Dark… there were no stars here, no light… nothing at all. There was nothing but darkness! Darkness, enough of it to cause even Eternal Emperors to feel despair.

  In truth, the Great Dark did have some foreign objects floating about within it. Daolord Clevermind of the Ninedust Sect, for example, had seen those six great warhammers floating about within the Great Dark as he had travelled around its borders. This was why he had been lucky enough to acquire them. Thus, the Great Dark wasn’t truly devoid of all things.

  “Here we are.” Hegemon Welkin finally brought the flying vessel to a halt. It had indeed taken nine years.

  “The two of you can come out now.” Hegemon Welkin glanced at the two estate-treasures next to him. Ning and Ninedust had both secreted themselves into their estate-worlds. With a giant booming sound, an invisible spatial wave slammed straight into the two estate-treasures, causing the estate-worlds to tremble. Soon, Ning and Ninedust both emerged.

  “The two of you really do seize every moment,” Hegemon Welkin said with a laugh. “You’ve been furiously training for every day of the past nine years.”

  “I gained quite a bit from my visit to Crimsonwave Temple. I naturally had to seize this chance to train,” Ninedust said hurriedly. He then looked at Ning. “Darknorth, you traded for quite a few treasures from the Hegemons and Eternal Emperors. You’ve probably grown quite a bit stronger as well.”

  “I’m doing alright.” Ning nodded. He had only been able to train his body to make it comparable to a middle-grade Eternal treasure, primarily because the protective divine ability placed incredible demands and burdens on the body. He had to take it slow; if he did it too fast and tried to force things, his divine body would crumble and his truesoul would crumble with it. Thus, he had to train slowly even though he already had all the materials needed.

  “We’re not too far away from the Flamedragon Realmverse,” Hegemon Welkin said. “The two of you should still be able to sense it.”

  “We can.” Ning and Ninedust both nodded. Ning could sense exactly where his Primaltwin was.

  “Darknorth, my young friend, your sword-arts have transcended spacetime. I brought you here to the Stone Hellephant Wall, but I think you should be able to slowly return under your own abilities. Given your power, you should be able to return within a thousand years,” Hegemon Welkin said.

  “A minor matter.” Ning nodded. A thousand years was a very short period of time for supreme Daolords; he wouldn’t force Hegemon Welkin to wait by his side for a trifling matter like sending him home.

  Whoosh. The flying vessel disappeared, causing the three of them to appear within the empty space of the Great Dark.

  “There really is nothing but darkness here.” Ning scanned the area, only to see absolute darkness all around him. There was no light at all; only by using godsense was he able to ‘see’ the surrounding area, and there really was nothing whatsoever around him.

  “Senior.” Ning couldn’t help but ask, “Factoring in my ability to transcend spacetime… if I were to go drifting through the Great Dark, would 100,000 chaos cycles be enough for me to reach the closest realmverse?”

  “The realmverse closest to the Flamedragon Realmverse is known as the Multilight Realmverse. Although your ability to transcend spacetime is impressive, it will still take roughly a million chaos cycles before you get there,” Hegemon Welkin said.

  Ning and Ninedust shared a glance. Yeah, forget that. Samsara Daolords could spend their entire lives travelling without making it to the Multilight Realmverse.

  “Let’s go to the Stone Hellephant Wall,” Ninedust said immediately.

  “The Stone Hellephant Wall is just up ahead. Follow me.” Hegemon Welkin emanated a bubble that encompassed both Ning and Ninedust, ‘carrying’ them with him as he flew forwards at high speed.

  Whoosh. Hegemon Welkin was simply too fast, so fast that Ning and Ninedust both felt their hearts tremble. They were starting to truly understand how terrifyingly strong Hegemons were. Their speed alone ensured that supreme Daolords wouldn’t even have a chance to react before dying.

  A few moments later, they had flown tens of billions of kilometers. “See that?” Hegemon Welkin pointed up ahead. “That right there is the Stone Hellephant Wall.”

  Ning looked towards the front. A colossal object was up ahead, hanging within the endless darkness. It emanated a natural but dim aura of light that was enough for supreme Daolords like Nine and Ninedust to make it out clearly.

  The thing up ahead was roughly a million kilometers long and shaped like a giant elephant. Only, it had what looked like an incredibly sharp horn coming from its ‘head’. The entire thing was black… or perhaps an incredibly deep red!

  “At first glance, it rather looks like a demonic elephant, doesn’t it?” Hegemon Welkin said, “But if you move closer, you’ll see that it is actually very, very thin.”

  “Oh?” Ning and Ninedust hurriedly moved closer. Indeed, although this enormous thing was over a million kilometers long, it was merely a thousand kilometers thick. The thickness was very even.

  “It… looks almost like a wall carving someone did,” Ninedust said.

  “Right. It looks like a detached wall carving of an enormous, hellish elephant,” Hegemon Welkin said. “That’s why I named it the Stone Hellephant Wall. This thing has been floating in the Great Dark for an extremely long period of time, and the entire thing is composed of deepfire blackstone. I was overjoyed when I saw it and wanted to take it with me, but it was just too big. Some sort of invisible power made it so that I just couldn’t take it away by force. Your lifeblood weapons wish to absorb deepfire blackstone, right? Go ahead and let them absorb as much as they want from this enormous wall of deepfire blackstone. Now… we agreed on a hundred coldfire cauldron fruits. Go ahead and give them to me.”

  * * *

  Book 34, Chapter 8 - Mining

  Ji Ni
ng glanced at the enormous Stone Hellephant Wall. “Senior, please let me first see if they can even absorb it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  One of the Northbow swords flew out from the sheath on Ning’s back and stabbed straight towards the Stone Hellephant Wall. Crack! The Northbow sword didn’t damage the wall in the slightest, but as it hung there with the sword tip touching the wall, everyone present could see that a small ‘crater’ was slowly beginning to appear and expand at the point of contact.

  “Master, this is deepfire blackstone. We can absorb it!” a child appeared on the surface of the Northbow sword and called out excitedly towards Ning.

  Ning couldn’t help but reveal a smile. He turned his head to look at Hegemon Welkin. “Thank you, senior. Here are your hundred coldflame cauldron fruits.” Ning sent out a jade bottle with a hundred fruits within it.

  Hegemon Welkin accepted it, scanned it with his godsense, then accepted it.

  “You can just take your time absorbing the deepfire blackstone. I’m off.” Hegemon Welkin’s gaze turned towards the Northbow sword that had slowly plunged deep into the Stone Hellephant Wall; by now, quite a bit of the deepfire blackstone had disappeared from around it. “Even I am not able to take away this enormous chunk of deepfire blackstone, but your swords are able to absorb it… haha. Still, upgrading lifeblood weapons is an incredibly difficult process. Even if you can let them absorb an enormous amount of materials and upgrade them to their material limit, if you wish to transform them into Universe treasures then they will need quintessence cores that are at a similarly incredible level. I’ve reared lifeblood weapons of my own, but alas I haven’t been able to create any Universe treasures.”

  Ning nodded upon hearing this. Creating a Universe treasure was no easy feat.

  “To me, searching for an ownerless Universe treasure is a better use of my time,” Hegemon Welkin said. “There are still some who would be willing to acknowledge me as their master.”

  “That, senior, is because you are a Hegemon!” The nearby Ninedust interjected, “It is normal for Universe treasures to be willing to submit themselves to Hegemons. Daolords like us though? Unless we stumble into some truly incredible luck, it’s almost impossible for us to be able to make Universe treasures submit to us.”

  Ninedust was a good example. He was an exalted member of the Ancients and was a master in staff-arts who had studied the legacy of that ancestor Hegemon of the Ancient race, but the ancestor’s Universe longstaff had refused to follow him.

  “Universe treasures possess infinite lifespans, while Daolords only live for 108,000 chaos cycles.” Hegemon Welkin sighed. “If they follow a Daolord and that Daolord fails the Daomerge, they would have to bear the pain of eventually parting with him. This is why Universe treasures generally only choose Eternal Emperors, unless a particular Daolord is extremely intriguing to them.”

  “Right.” Ning and Ninedust both nodded. Final farewells were indeed painful to make. The relationships between lifeblood weapons and their masters were almost familial in nature, and the same was true for the relationship between Universe treasures and their masters. This was why so many Universe treasures longed for their original deceased masters despite the passage of many, many chaos cycles. In fact, they would often choose to follow new masters based on similarities between their new master and the old one. They had to have similar personalities, characteristics, and even Daos!

  “Alright. You two youngsters should train hard. I hope that in the distant future I’ll be able to meet the two of you again,” Hegemon Welkin said with a laugh. He then waved his hand, causing that flying vessel to appear once more. He entered his vessel, then tore through spacetime and immediately disappeared.

  Ning and Ninedust watched as Hegemon Welkin left with mixed feelings. They understood that the chances of them meeting him again were very, very low.

  “Hegemon… I absolute must succeed in my Daomerge and become a Hegemon.” Ninedust ground his teeth.

  “Succeed in the Daomerge!” Ning’s eyes were filled with resolution and desire as well.

  Neither Ning nor Ninedust were confident in their chances at the Daomerge. Anyone who had mastered a fused Supreme Dao would become a Hegemon upon completing the Daomerge… but alas, this was simply too difficult. As for Ning? His Omega Sword Dao was far more difficult than even that!

  Although they didn’t feel confident, they still felt desire and eagerness. The Daomerge was the ultimate goal for any and every Daolord. But of course, in Ning’s heart what mattered the most was still reviving his wife Yu Wei. His cultivation goals and the Daomerge were second to that.

  ……

  Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

  Ning stood there within the empty darkness. He waved a finger, causing the other five Northbow swords to fly out from the sheath on his back towards the great Stone Hellephant Wall in front of him. They joined with the first Northbow sword to form a circular pattern that was roughly a thousand kilometers in diameter.

  “Children, do your best to ‘eat’ your way around this area and dig out thousand-kilometer spheres of deepfire blackstone,” Ning called out with a smile.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Haha, our master is so clever! He wants us to help him dig out the deepfire blackstone ore!”

  “Leave it to us.”

  The children atop the six Northbow swords immediately let out excited calls.

  Ninedust was standing next to Ning within the darkness. He said in amazement, “D-Darknorth, are you planning on…?”

  “Since the Northbow swords are able to devour the deepfire blackstone, I’m going to use them to harvest as much of the Stone Hellephant Wall as I can,” Ning said. “Not even the Hegemon was able to move this massive thing in its entirety, but if I can segment them into smaller pieces I might be able to do so. If I can, it’ll be worth a quite a pretty sum.”

  “True.” Ninedust revealed a look of delight. “All that deepfire blackstone… wow. That really would be a fortune! Haha, I think Hegemon Welkin never would’ve imagined that you could use the Northbow swords to segment the Stone Hellephant Wall. If he did, he wouldn’t have walked away like that.”

  “It’s not as much as you think.” Ning shook his head. “Deepfire blackstone doesn’t have that many usages. The reason why it is sold for a fairly high price in the Dao Alliance is because it is fairly rare; the Endless Territories only have three thousand meters of it. Even if I do successfully harvest the entire million-kilometer Stone Hellephant Wall, who am I supposed to sell so much deepfire blackstone to?”

  When supply was limited, prices would remain high. When the supply suddenly skyrocketed, the price would drastically crater. This was even more the case given how deepfire blackstone wasn’t very useful. If it was more useful, this wall would’ve been a true fortune! Hegemon Welkin probably would’ve paid any price necessary to invite other major powers to help him out and somehow take away the Stone Hellephant Wall.

  “To Hegemons, it isn’t all that valuable. To us, though, this is still a nice sum,” Ning said with a laugh.

  Crack, crack, crack. The six Northbow swords continuously devoured the deepfire blackstone ore, doing their best to carve out a sphere of ore from the Stone Hellephant Wall.

  It must be remembered that the six Northbow swords needed to absorb roughly a three hundred thousand meter mountain of ore, an astonishing amount. For them to merely carve out a thousand-kilometer globe of deepfire blackstone meant that they were basically just ‘eating’ a surface portion. It actually wasn’t much at all.

  A mere hour later.

  “Master.”

  “Master, we can’t harvest any more.”

  “There’s no way to dig any deeper.” The children atop the six Northbow swords all started to call out towards Ning.

  “No way to dig any deeper?” Ning was startled.

  “Why can’t they dig any deeper?” The nearby Ninedust also said, “Is there something inside that isn’t deepfire blackstone
?”

  “Right.”

  “It isn’t deepfire blackstone.”

  “It’s something else. We can’t absorb it,” the six children called out in unison.

  Ning and Ninedust traded a glance. They both had the feeling that the Stone Hellephant Wall perhaps held more secrets than they had expected. It must be remembered that it was over a million kilometers long but just a thousand kilometers wide, making it very ‘flat’. They had thought that it was completely composed of deepfire blackstone, but it seemed as though it held a core of something else.

  “Then carve out as much as you can within the thousand-kilometer radius,” Nin instructed.

  “Got it.”

  “Alright.” All six children called out in unison, working together to slowly move closer and closer to each other. A short while later, the children called out, “We’re finished!” “Master, we’re done carving!”

  “Oh?” Ning sent out his will, using his six Northbow swords to apply a bit of power. Boom! The large round chunk of deepfire blackstone was actually knocked free from the rest of the Stone Hellephant Wall. This chunk of ore was spheroid in shape. It was a thousand kilometers long but only two hundred kilometers ‘deep’.

  “Get in here.” Ning walked forwards and grabbed the large chunk of ore, trying to pull it into his estate-world. He immediately sensed how incredibly heavy it was, but he still gave it a try. Boom! The thousand-kilometer chunk of deepfire blackstone was pulled by Ning into his estate-world in its entirety.

  “Deepfire blackstone is a valuable natural material. At my current level of power, I’m only able to draw in thousand-kilometer chunks,” Ning said with a laugh. Experts like him were able to gauge their own abilities with a certain type of foresight. The reason he had instructed the Northbow swords to carve out thousand-kilometer chunks was precisely because he could sense that this was a size that would suit him. The entire Stone Hellephant Wall was a thousand times longer than the chunk he had just carved out and much thicker, making it easily a million times more massive. It also had other materials in its core. This was why not even Hegemons could draw it in through force.