Desolate Era

by RWX

  “Wait a bit.” The butcher was a pudgy, white-robed grandpa who was extremely muscular-looking. He picked up his saber, then began to hack through the pig bones and carve apart the meat.

  When Xuhu saw this, his eyes began to lit up. “Rose, you can go home first,” Xuhu instructed. The girl did just that with those two pounds of meat.

  “Sir, please teach me your saber-arts.” Xuhu immediately fell down to his knees.

  “Ahaha! I don’t know any ‘saber-arts’! All I know is how to kill pigs and butcher them,” the elderly butcher said with a loud laugh.

  “Then I want to learn how to kill pigs and butcher meat,” Xuhu said hurriedly.

  “I’m not gonna pay you a salary.” The old man looked at him.

  “I don’t need one,” Xuhu replied.

  From that day forth, the old butcher gained an apprentice. Half a year later, the old butcher suddenly vanished. No matter how Xuhu searched for him, he couldn’t find the old man. He had no choice but to bring the girl back to his homeland.

  “Ahahaha… I’ve cultivated for many years, but I’ve never been a pig-sticking butcher before. That really was a first.” The old butcher had transformed back into the white-robed Ning and was standing at the peak of a mountain, watching as Xuhu led his wife away.

  ……

  After learning that set of saber-arts, Xuhu began to develop at an unstoppable pace as his level of insight grew deeper and deeper. When he went back home, he slew those bandits with ease. As his insight increased even further, he actually stepped into the ‘grandmaster’ stage. When the emperor of his nation heard the news, the emperor personally sent someone over to confer the title of ‘general’ upon him!

  He had established his reputation, bringing glory to clan and ancestors alike. He became one of the pillars of the entire nation, commanding over three hundred thousand soldiers to guard the borderlands. He spent more than eight hundred years serving in this capacity.

  He had a total of three sons and one daughter, and a plethora of grandchildren.

  ……

  Finally, the internal situation of the nation took a turn for the worse as they lost battle after battle. Xuhu did his best to hold on, leading his army in an orderly retreat, but the overall situation had already been set in stone. There was simply no way for Xuhu to reverse it. He was ambushed and surrounded by eight enemy grandmasters, causing him to suffer severe injuries. In the end, he didn’t die on the battlefield but was about to perish in bed due to the wounds suffered during that assassination attempt.

  Xuhu lay there in bed, surrounded by the aura of death. Within the room stood the emperor, the senior ministers, and Xuhu’s children and grandchildren.

  “Your Majesty, your old servant is about to depart.” Xuhu’s voice was hoarse and his face was ashen.

  “Old general… my beloved old general… you can’t just go like this!” The young emperor was completely terrified. The old general had been his final source of support, and it was thanks to him that their nation had been able to resist for over two hundred years despite the situation being so grim. Once the old general died, everything really would come to an end. Their enemy nations were quite vicious; they had been willing to sacrifice eight grandmasters, sending them into the capital to engage in an assassination attempt.

  “Flowers bloom, then shrivel; the grass grows verdant, then shrivels. This is the cycle of life.” Xuhu turned to look at his sobbing, kneeling children and grandchildren. He was quite relaxed, feeling as though he was on the verge of release.

  Suddenly, a white-robed youth appeared in front of the emperor before the bed. The white-robed youth looked at him.

  “You are…” Xuhu looked at the white-robed youth. Suddenly, he turned stiff – he couldn’t help but think of the red-clothed child who had given him a kick so many years ago and caused him to enter a three-day fever. That child had exactly the same eyes as the youth before him.

  He then thought of his teacher, that old, grandfatherly butcher who had taught him saber-arts. His teacher had the same eyes and the same look on his face.

  “Life is a cycle, and your cycle has come to an end.” Ning smiled. “I have been by your side for nearly a thousand years. It can be said that the ties of destiny linked us together. I shall ensure that you keep your memories and allow you to be reborn into the cycle of reincarnation… but our karmic ties shall have to come to an end. From this day forth, everything shall be up to you.”

  “Master… Master…” Xuhu called out, but his aura grew weaker and weaker.

  “Go on. Go.” Ning nodded.

  That day, Ning personally escorted Xuhu into the cycle of reincarnation, ensuring that he was reborn into the belly of a woman who lived in a village located within a secluded mountain paradise.

  “It is time for me to go find the next person I am destined to meet.” Ning smiled and took a step forwards, leaving the general’s estate. He once more transformed into a middle-aged man who bore a flag with the words ‘fortune teller’ on it, then began to amble through the streets.

  “Buns for sale! Steamed buns for sale!” The street he was on was filled with meat bun stalls, and there was a child hunched over the ground playing a game.

  The flag-bearing Ning walked over to the child. “Hey kid!” Ning called out.

  “Huh?” Puzzled, the kid lifted his head up to look at Ning.

  “You and I are linked by destiny,” Ning said.

  “You swindler, do you think to deceive my child?” A burly woman immediately charged out from behind the meat bun stall with a dough-roller in her hands. The flag-bearing Ning was frightened into a hasty retreat, but as he fled he called out loudly, “No, we really are linked by destiny!”

  ……

  Fortune teller. Innhouse keeper. Coffin maker. Brothel owner. An old deathsworn soldier who lived his life out on the battlefield…

  Ning took on one form after another, watching from up close as countless mortals struggled through life. Their lives… their deaths… their rises… their falls.

  Time flowed on. The seven warring states ended up as a war between three states, and in the end it was the Qian state which unified the world. However, the Qian dynasty then broke apart in a civil war, with the Southern Qian and the Northern Qian battling against each other.

  Eventually, the Qian dynasty fell and another arose.

  Ning lived through each and every dynasty, continuing to search for the secrets of life and death. Given his wisdom and intelligence, he slowly began to gain more and more of the insights he sought.

  “This… this should be the secret for my Omega Sword Dao to make its next breakthrough.” By now, he had lived in this realm for over 130 million years. On this day, Ning was standing at the peak of a towering mountain, gazing down at the world with a feeling of joy in his heart and a smile on his lips.

  Whoosh. Ning transformed into a boulder that was many meters tall. The boulder landed upon the mountain peak, looking quite unremarkable. He just sat there, allowing the wind to blow against him and the sun to bake him. There was even an occasional passerby who would write a few words on him.

  After transforming into the boulder, Ning just sat there and quietly stared at the vast world as well as the countless living beings who were born and reborn within it. In his heart, his five major sword stances began to merge. Blood Drop, Yin-Yang, Soleheart, Heavenbreaker, Shadowless… they slowly began to become one.

  * * *

  Book 36, Chapter 4 - Omega Sword Dao, Stage Four

  Millions of years went by after Ji Ning transformed into that boulder atop the mountain peak. One day, a thick mist suddenly arose around the great mountain. The mist was so thick as to block out the skies and the sun. It covered an area of tens of thousands of kilometers, including every single part of the great mountain.

  “What a massive fog.”

  “What’s going on? Why am I walking in circles? I keep on ending up here.”

  Some of the ordinary mortals who pass
ed through this place quickly discovered how bizarre the mist was. Word quickly spread and some experts began to arrive and explore the mist. Alas, anyone who entered the mist, no matter how powerful, would quickly end up walking out of the mist just a short while later. At first, everyone was quite startled, but after more time passed everyone grew accustomed to it.

  ……

  Within the thick mist. Thousands of streams of sword-light were roving about in the air above the boulder at the peak of the mountain, fluctuating and vanishing in an unpredictable manner while being as dominating and exalted as the heavens themselves. At other times, the sword-light transformed into endlessly vast black holes which ground through everything nearby.

  The boulder suddenly transformed into human form. A white-robed youth appeared at the peak of the mountain. He raised his head to look into the skies.

  “My Dao has been completed.” Ning said in a soft voice.

  BOOM! The towering Dao-tree within his body began to grow, rumbling and trembling as its branches and trunk stretched outwards. The branches coiled like the bodies of sinuous dragons, while the trunk grew even thicker. The countless leaves on the tree were all trembling. This towering Dao-tree was unfathomably stronger than the Dao-trees of ordinary Daolords of the Fourth Step. Clearly, Ning’s foundation was far, far more stable than theirs.

  The Dao-tree continued to grow taller as well before finally topping out at 540,000 meters. The Dao-tree had finally reached its true, absolute limit in size! The next step would be the Daomerge, which would result in the Dao-tree giving birth to a flower of eternity.

  Rumble… the giant pile of chaos jewels continued to crumble apart and shatter as a veritable ocean of energy surged into Ning. His divine body and Immortal energy began to transform and evolve, while his heartworld began its final expansion…

  The reason why he completely separated this place off from the rest of the world and elected to absorb energy from chaos jewels rather than from the primordial chaos of the outside world was to prevent anything unexpected from happening! The disturbance which would be caused by Ning drawing upon chaos energy from the outside world in making his breakthrough to the fourth step would definitely shock everyone. News would quickly spread! Moreover, absorbing chaos energy from the primordial chaos was extremely slow. Archon Silksnow or the Aeonians might be able to make it here and attack Ning before he finished his breakthrough!

  Archon Silksnow and the Aeonians had been searching for Ning this entire time. At first, Archon Silksnow wasn’t sure if Ning was dead or not, but he quickly received word that Ning was actually alive! In truth, this was quite easy to discern; Ning’s heartlamp within the Sword Palace of the Twelve Palaces of Brightshore remained lit. This meant that Ning wasn’t dead yet! Given how strong Archon Silksnow was, it was very easy for him to befriend a few Daolords of the Brightshore Kingdom and have them help him examine Ning’s heartlamp.

  Although the Daolords of the Brightshore Kingdom were forbidden from engaging in fratricide, something as minor as inspecting a heartlamp was nothing more than sending a bit of information forward. It didn’t count.

  “Whew.” Ning stood at the peak of a mountain, a smile on his face. It had only been a short period of time, but the chaos jewels had allowed his divine power and Immortal energy to complete their transformations. He now truly was a Daolord of the Fourth Step in every way, shape, and form! He was now simply accumulating energy from the chaos jewels in order to generate more of the azureflower mist energy and expand his heartworld.

  “A short while from now, I’ll have completely transformed. Archon Silksnow and the Aeonians will no longer pose any threat to me.” Ning could sense how his body had changed. With his Omega Sword Dao having reached the fourth stage, his Dao had broken through to a brand new level. Ning himself had been catapaulted into a higher level of power.

  Ning glanced downwards, his gaze piercing through the mist as he stared at the vast land beneath him. The land was filled with countless ordinary mortals, and Ning was able to see the tiny threads of fate which connected those ordinary mortals together.

  “Karma?” Ning nodded slowly. Although he had never trained specifically in the Dao of Karma, anyone who reached a sufficiently high level of insight in any Dao would be able to engage in karmic scrying. Given Ning’s current level of enlightenment, there were now many ‘hidden’ places in the vast universe which could no longer hide from his gaze! If he wished to slay a foe, he could use his sword to follow the threads of karma to slay all of his his foe’s clones and Primaltwin!

  In truth Archon Silksnow was able to do this as well, but the problem was that he wasn’t able to rely on his own power to kill Ning; he had to rely on a powerful treasure he had acquired in the Terror Starsea. The power of the treasure was tremendous… but since it didn’t truly belong to him, he could at most control the direction in which the power was released. There was no way he could control it to follow Ning’s karmic threads and kill Ning’s other bodies.

  Whoosh. Ning’s body began to move. Whoooooosh. Countless Nings appeared above the mountain peak. He was moving at such an incomprehensible level of speed that ordinary matter wasn’t able to impede him in the slightest; in fact, not even spacetime was able to impede him! In terms of speed, Ning was definitely superior to the likes of Archon Silksnow by now. He truly had reached an incomprehensible level.

  Boom! Ning’s body suddenly blasted apart, dissolving into countless motes of light. The light then reformed into a glowing humanoid figure. The glowing humanoid figure then blasted apart, transforming into an endless black fog which drifted away… then suddenly transformed into a stream of water. A while later, the stream of water vanished and a towering inferno replaced it.

  “I am the world. The world is me.” In the end, the inferno transformed into countless specks of flying sand which reformed into Ning’s figure. Ning murmured softly to himself, “Shadowless and traceless, I manifest and disappear as I please. So when the Omega Sword Dao – Shadowless reaches the fourth stage, it can actually produce a terrifying invulnerable form…”

  Ning had always envied the other cultivators for their various invulnerable forms. Upon gaining an invulnerable form, it would be difficult for foes to slay you unless the gap in power between you and them was ridiculously large.

  For example, Archon Silksnow’s invulnerable form made it so that even Hegemon Brightshore would find him difficult to kill. But of course, ‘difficult’ didn’t mean ‘impossible’; if Hegemon Brightshore was willing to pay any price, he would still be able to accomplish it. The price, however, would be huge.

  “My invulnerable form should be even more perfect than Archon Silksnow’s.” Ning laughed. His Omega Sword Dao was truly perfect and without flaw. In the past, he didn’t have an invulnerable form primarily because he hadn’t reached the proper stage of cultivation yet. Not that he had, it was naturally unlocked for him.

  Archon Silksnow’s Dao of the Saber was offense oriented, and so there was no way he could use his Saber Dao to generate an invulnerable form for himself. This was why he had spent so much time and energy training in the Dao of Snow. The Dao of Snow, the Dao of Light, and other similar Daos were Daos which could be used to generate invulnerable forms with (relative) ease. Archon Silksnow had used this method to cover up this particular flaw, lowering his overall weaknesses.

  ……

  Boom! Ning’s heartworld finally expanded to a completely new level as well, causing his massive reserve of heartforce to become even more powerful.

  Ning smiled slightly. When his Omega Sword Dao had been at the third stage, his insights into the Dao were already comparable to the insights of ‘ordinary’ supreme Daolords. The difference was, he was extremely well-rounded and flawless in every aspect, which was why he ranked at the very top of the supreme Daolord ranking.

  Now, his Omega Sword Dao had broken through to the fourth stage. In terms of insight, he was at the Archon level… and a highly ranked one at that! This was especi
ally true now that his [Heartsword] art had reached the twelfth stance, which meant that Ning’s sword-arts were now six times stronger when using the [Heartsword] art! During his fight against Archon Silksnow, he had only mastered the eleventh stance, but since the eleventh and twelfth stances belonged to the same ‘stage’, it was very easy to break through from the former to the latter. Ning had already spent 130 million years wandering this mortal world; he naturally was able to break through to a new level during this period of time.

  “Given my current Omega Sword Dao and my twelfth stance of the [Heartsword] art… there might be Archons capable of defeating me, but they can probably be counted on one hand.” Ning smiled. “Even the three mighty Hegemons… they are worthy of my respect, but I no longer need to live in terror of them.”

  Ning’s protective abilities were far superior to Archon Silksnow’s. He had already mastered his own invulnerable form, the Shadowless form. It allowed him to become one with the world and for the world to become one with him. Injuring him would be very, very difficult.

  “With this level of power… I now have a chance at acquiring treasures which are valuable enough to persuade an Autarch to help me out.” Ning was in high spirits. After countless years of cultivation, he had finally reached this new height.

  ……

  After becoming a Daolord of the Fourth Step, Ning continued to sit by himself at the peak of the mountain, calmly and quietly training in the secret art known as the [Grand Diffraction Sword]. This was a secret art left behind by the Sword Hegemon, and was a Hegemon-level secret art! Even the current Ning was merely able to master two of the three stages of this art, as he was still at a somewhat lower level of insight than that of a Hegemon. For now, he was unable to master the third stage… and in truth, the third stage required so many treasures that not even a Hegemon would necessarily be able to scrounge up all the items necessary.

  Hegemon Welkin, for the sake of training in a Hegemonic secret art, had wandered many realmverses and otherverses in search of the materials he needed… but to this very day, he was still lacking a few items. As a result, Hegemon Welkin had only mastered part of his Hegemonic secret arts!