Desolate Era

by RWX

  “Powerful Sithe weapons can only be found in undamaged places that were completely sealed off,” Hegemon Azurefiend said. “If you are careful enough, you might be able to avoid some of the dangers.”

  “Everyone’s putting all their faith on luck.” Ning shook his head. Some cultivators would succeed, true, but many would end up dying.

  “Let’s go inside.” Whoosh. Ning led Azurefiend in flying towards the planet of billowing black fog at high speeds. Hiss… the black mist was so highly corrosive that weaker Eternal Emperors would quickly be rotted away into a pile of noxious water. However, Ning’s Sword Dao Domain was able to easily hold the mist at bay.

  The two continued to fly together through the sea of black mist. They flew for over ten billion kilometers before finally passing through to the surface of the planet below. This was a desolate planet whose surface was filled with countless streams of freezing energy. As Ning and Azurefiend landed on the ground, they turned to stare at the world around them.

  “Master, where should we go?” Azurefiend asked. “I can feel a powerful sense of danger coming from this place, as though moving in any direction will result in annihilation.”

  “The Autarchs sealed away this place because they weren’t willing to spend their energies here, and also because this place can kill Hegemons with ease.” Ning shook his head. As he spoke, he continued to carefully scrutinize the world with his karmic senses.

  As soon as he descended upon this world, he was able to use his karma lines to sense and locate both Lord Annihilation and the Paragon of Pills. The karmic connection between Ning and the Paragon of Pills went without saying, while Lord Annihilation’s decision to beg Ning to rescue him had also established karmic ties between them.

  “They are both in that direction.” After carefully tracing his karmic ties, Ning was able to fix on their location and he turned to stare towards his left. “Both of them are over there.” This freezing wind howled through the entire area with such intensity that not even he was able to see to a great distance here.

  “Let’s go,” Ning said. He immediately headed off, with Azurefiend hurriedly following from behind.

  Whooooosh! Far away from them, a ghostly humanoid figure suddenly manifested out of thin air within a crevice in the ground. It stared towards Ning’s direction, followed by its body emanating excited ripples.

  “Outsiders! More outsiders! Sisters, more outsiders have arrived!” It didn’t speak at all, it simply used those strange ripples to communicate with its underground comrades.

  Soon, even more streams of energy began to surge from underground, each of them manifesting into ghostly humanoid figures within the crevice.

  “Two outsiders have come, sisters!”

  “Let’s eat them!”

  “Quick, let’s eat them all!” Dozens of the humanoid creatures had appeared. They all transformed into streams of energy once more, merging into a single awesome stream of energy that flew like the wind in Ning’s direction. The surface of this world was covered with so many gusts of cold wind that they weren’t particularly noticeable at all.

  Ning and Hegemon Azurefiend continued to advance via walking on the surface of this planet. Ning was extremely careful with each move he took. He too felt a sense of grave danger as soon as he stepped foot onto this planet, and he knew that rescuing the Paragon of Pills would be no easy task. He had to be very careful with this.

  “Eh?” Ning suddenly turned to glance towards the right, his gaze following upon a distant stream of energy. This stream of energy seemed to be identical with the other howling streams of wind energy that filled this place, but Ning was vaguely able to sense that it was filled with malevolence, greed, and murder.

  “What’s wrong, Master?” Hegemon Azurefiend didn’t feel anything yet.

  “Freeze!” Ning barked. His Sword Dao Domain suddenly expanded dramatically, instantly stretching out to encompass the area where the deadly stream of energy was.

  The power of his Sword Dao Domain was capable of unleashing a suppressive effect. The stream of energy instantly trembled, then transformed into a series of humanoid figures. These creatures weren’t even able to maintain their ghostly image and thus were forced to reveal their true appearances. These were fairly short creatures with grayish-black skin, and their features were fairly handsome… but the nails growing out of their fingers and toes were as sharp as knives.

  Trapped by the Sword Dao Domain, the grayish-black creatures all let out agonized shrieks. They struggled fiercely to break free, their claws dancing in the air as they tried to tear the power surrounding them apart.

  “So these are the legendary ‘vilefiends’, the most commonly seen creatures within the Sithelands?” Azurefiend was rather excited.

  “Yes. They aren’t all that powerful and are the easiest creatures to deal with here, but for this many to attack at once would still be rather problematic to deal with.” Ning glanced at the dozens of contorting vilefiends, then unleashed the power of his Sword Dao Domain with but a thought. The vilefiends let out ear-piercing screams before their bodies shattered apart and disappeared.

  Vilefiends were quite unique. They were only able to survive within the Sithelands; even if you managed to capture one, they would instantly dissipate once you took them outside of this area!

  Cultivators had noticed something special about these creatures. Generally speaking, the more of them there were in a place, the more dangerous that place was. Ning had immediately encountered dozens of them as soon as he had descended upon this sealed planet; this meant there was an abnormally high concentration of them here.

  “I hope the situation isn’t as bad as it looks.” Ning felt even more nervous. The five Autarchs had given Ning extremely detailed maps and notes pertaining to the Sithelands, and Ning couldn’t help but feel increasingly worried for the Paragon of Pills.

  “Let’s move fast.” Ning led Azurefiend in advancing towards the other end of his karma lines at high speeds.

  * * *

  Book 41, Chapter 4 - Daoguard Tower

  Shortly after Ji Ning’s group walked past this region, the surface of the ground suddenly became liquid, almost watery. A pair of four-hooved creatures appeared from underneath the ground. Each creature had a golden horn atop its head, while their entire bodies was silver in color. Each was over thirty meters large and extremely muscular. As for their eyes, they were gray and looked as cold and desolate as death itself.

  “Outsiders have passed through the territory we control. They are headed in that direction over there.” The two four-hooved creatures stared towards the distant Ning and Azurefiend.

  “All invaders must die.”

  “Kill them!”

  Boom! Boom! The two four-hooved creatures charged through the air at terrifying speeds, moving towards Ning and Azurefiend. They moved far more quickly than the vast majority of Hegemons, with only the most powerful Hegemons who reached Hegemony via the Dao of Lightning or the Dao of Light being able to match up to them in speed. They didn’t try to disguise themselves at all as they galloped towards Ning’s group at maximum speed.

  Ning and Azurefiend both instantly were able to sense the furious power which had erupted behind them, and they hurriedly turned to look at the two streaks of light that had almost reached them.

  “Those things?” Ning turned pale. “Silver Goldhorns? Not good!”

  “DIE!” The two galloping beasts charged straight towards Ning and Azurefiend, their eyes filled with the cold remorselessness of death.

  Azurefiend instantly felt a chill go down his spine. These two creatures were definitely capable of killing him!

  Ning expanded his Sword Dao Domain, using it to suppress and weaken the two Silver Goldhorns, but the two were able to continue to charge forwards while growling angrily. Moments later, streaks of sword-light began to appear and assault the hooves of those two silver beasts.

  How could these two creatures possibly comprehend or defend against the marvelousness
of Ning’s sword-arts?

  Thud! Thud! The two Silver Goldhorns stumbled to the ground after their hooves came under assault, but they quickly clambered back up. This time, they chose to fly through the air. Although this resulted in them being slowed down, they were still able to fly through the suppressive effects of the Sword Dao Domain.

  “Azurefiend.” Ning waved his hand, tossing out six long black chains. “Hurry up and bind them. Use these weapons and wait for my signal.”

  “Yes, Master,” Azurefiend acknowledged. He recognized that these six black chains were the chains that had previously been used to bind Flamewing. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel secretly shocked that these creatures were actually able to force his Master to use these chains.

  In truth, Ning was capable of easily defeating these creatures if he himself attacked, but that would require him to use up some of his own energy, which meant using up his own lifespan. Thus, unless absolutely necessary, Ning wanted to avoid using any of his power.

  “Gwaaaaaar!” “Kill!” The two Silver Goldhorns continued to charge towards Ning, who continued to unleash the power of his Sword Dao Domain against them. Streaks of sword-light shot out in accordance with Ning’s marvelous sword-arts, allowing him to easily toy with them and force them to stumble, stagger, and even be knocked backwards. There was no way for them to approach Ning at all.

  The sword-light from Ning’s Sword Dao Domain was capable of slaying even Hegemons with ease; these were blows comparable to full-strength strikes from Otherverse Lords. Even though he wasn’t able to kill the Silver Goldhorns, he was still able to make things incredibly difficult for them.

  “They are strengthened by the Daoguard Tower. Although they are strong, in the end they are nothing more than golems. They have a low level of insight, making it easy for me to toy with them.” Ning commanded, “Get ready for my signal to use your chains to trap them and then pull them away.”

  “I’ve already bound the chains to myself,” Azurefiend said immediately. His avatar manifested a total of six arms, each of which held onto one of the black chains.

  “NOW! Catch the one on the left!” Ning ordered.

  Right at this moment, the Silver Goldhorn on the left was knocked down as multiple streams of sword-light converged upon it. Azurefiend immediately hurled out his black chains, sending them flying through the air towards the beast. The Silver Goldhorn hurriedly moved to dodge, but four of the six chains still managed to coil around it and bind it tightly. It struggled to fight back, but was completely incapable of breaking free. Soon, it turned limp and stopped resisting.

  “These chains have a powerful sealing and draining effect. Flamewing has an almost limitless amount of energy and so the draining meant very little to it, but the Silver Goldhorns draw their power from the Dao Protector Hall. There’s a limit to how much energy they can use.” Ning shook his head.

  “Get in here!” Azurefiend immediately drew the bound Silver Goldhorn into one of his top-grade Eternal estate-treasures. A short while later, he retrieved the black chains.

  “Huh. Master, why is it that the Silver Goldhorn seems to be extremely weak within my estate-world?” Azurefiend was surprised.

  “Because it can no longer sense the Daoguard Tower.” Ning instructed, “Hurry up and catch the other one.”

  A short while later, the tag-team of Ning and Azurefiend captured the second Silver Goldhorn and drew it into the estate-world as well.

  “What’s a Daoguard Tower?” Azurefiend asked. “Why have I never heard of it before?”

  “The Daoguard Tower…” Ning had a rather ugly look on his face. “It is literally the most dangerous type of location the Sithelands has.”

  As soon as Ning saw the Silver Goldhorn, his heart had turned cold. He knew that the situation was even worse than he had thought. Golems like the Silver Goldhorns were extremely powerful, and they were only possessed by Daoguard Towers! Now that he knew that this world was where a Daoguard Tower was located, he knew just how difficult this journey would be.

  The Daoguard Tower… as the name implied, it was meant to guard a certain area. Even beings as powerful as the Sithe needed to train and cultivate, and so the most powerful Sithe would generally pay absolutely enormous prices to construct extremely safe, secure, and stable places where they would live and train. These places were known as Daoguard Towers! The powerful Sithe would use everything available to them to reinforce the Daoguard Tower, using it to fight back against foes.

  Even the most powerful of foes would generally find it very hard to breach the defenses of a Daoguard Tower, but they did have a weakness – they were completely immobile!

  In the Sithe Chaosverse, Daoguard Towers were able to draw upon the natural energies of that Chaosverse. In Ning’s Chaosverse, the Sithe were unable to do the same, and so they had to first pay an absolutely enormous price to set up this place, the ‘Sithelands’! This was a place which held an enormous energy generator within it.

  For the Sithe, the ‘Sithelands’ actually served as a ‘miniature’ Chaosverse in many ways. They were able to make use of the energy generator and then build Daoguard Towers throughout the area. Once they were built, they could no longer be moved; this was their main weakness. However, they were tremendously powerful and were perfect for protecting important locations!

  Every single Daoguard Tower was extremely difficult to deal with, with the best Daoguard Towers capable of claiming the lives of even the Autarchs! This was why the Autarchs hadn’t fought their way inside. Every single Daoguard Tower represented extreme danger! But of course, they also had a correspondingly great amount of treasure inside of them. It could be said that Daoguard Towers were literally built out of a giant mound of treasures.

  “Silver Goldhorns generally are used to patrol the area outside a Daoguard Tower and locate enemy intruders,” Ning said. “As soon as we ran into those Silver Goldhorns, the master of this Daoguard Tower was probably alerted to our presence as well.”

  “Alerted?” Azurefiend was worried.

  “Yes. In other words, we are now in a great deal of danger.” Ning smiled. “I might not be able to protect you, in which case your avatar will be finished.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Master. I would at most lose the materials needed for an avatar,” Azurefiend said.

  “Let’s continue.” Ning didn’t waste any more time on words as he led Azurefiend towards the other end of the karmic lies tying him to Lord Annihilation and the Paragon of Pills.

  ……

  Deep within the heart of this planet, there was indeed a tower that was protected by many layers of traps and barriers. This tower had a total of eight levels to it.

  A short creature that was merely one meter tall was seated on an altar inside the tower. He was a true Sithe, but he merely had the power of an ordinary Eternal Emperor.

  The short creature opened his eyes, staring at the images which had begun to appear in front of him. The images displayed two Silver Goldhorns battling against Ning and Azurefiend. In the end, the two Silver Goldhorns were captured and taken away.

  “Cultivators?” The short creature frowned when he saw this. “How odd. Both of these cultivators are odd. One is a Hegemon, but the white-robed cultivator with that black sheath… he looks to be a Daolord. In addition, his truesoul is actually crumbling away, which makes him a Daolord who has failed the Daomerge. What’s going on? From the looks of it, the Hegemon is actually subservient to him.”

  “And what’s with that odd domain? It was able to defeat those Silver Goldhorns with ease.” The short creature had the feeling that something was off.

  “Ugh. Ever since the barriers were breached, Master slipped away and ordered me to stand guard over the Daoguard Tower.” The short creature gritted his teeth, rather unhappy. He had originally been a mere retainer of this Daoguard Tower’s owner. Once the barrier had been opened, it was guaranteed that this tower would eventually be conquered by the cultivators, and so the master of this t
ower had fled, leaving him behind to stand guard.

  “Given how easily they dealt with the Silver Goldhorns, I have to be careful with them. Hm… yes, I’ll put them in the ‘secondary dimension’.” The short creature immediately began to activate the power of the Daoguard Tower.

  * * *

  Book 41, Chapter 5 - Hope of Release

  The short creature was unable to disguise the excitement in its eyes. Each time he took control of the Daoguard Tower and used it to deal with powerful figures, he felt extremely happy.

  This was because if he truly engaged in a ‘fair fight’ against those powerful cultivators, he would probably be annihilated with ease. But with the Daoguard Tower at his disposal, he was able to toy with them instead! By now, this was the only bright spot in his life, the reason for him to keep living. The Sithe had been defeated, after all, and his master’s orders meant he had to stay here forever. His life was one of solitude and despair. If he didn’t have the occasional bit of entertainment, how could he have possibly been able to stay alive? His Dao-heart probably would’ve crumbled long ago, resulting in suicide.

  “Those two are the most powerful cultivators I’ve ever encountered. I have to be careful. They won’t be beaten as easily as other cultivators.” The short creature took control over the Daoguard Tower’s powers, watching the scenes of Ji Ning and Azurefiend advancing at high speed.

  ……

  After dealing with the Silver Goldhorns, Ning and Azurefiend continued to advance at nearly maximum speed.

  “What’s that?” Ning soon saw some scattered weapons and armor.

  “Master, is this connected to the Paragon of Pills’ team?” Azurefiend asked.

  “This belonged to their slain comrade.” Ning scanned the area, his gaze causing time to flow backwards. Soon, Ning was able to see the scene of the Paragon of Pills, Lord Annihilation, a short, fat old man, and a silvery-haired woman fight against a total of four Silver Goldhorns.