by RWX
The four Silver Goldhorns were overwhelmingly powerful. Although the Paragon of Pills and the others had many tricks up their sleeves, their techniques were blown away in the very first exchange. The short and fat old man was the closest to the four and the first to die, while the other three scattered and fled.
The four Silver Goldhorns were about to pursue, but all of a sudden they gave up the pursuit and left. Ning narrowed his eyes. “As I thought. This Daoguard Tower has someone controlling it.”
The Dawn War had ended long ago, and the barrier sealing the Daoguard Tower had also been breached quite some time ago. Logically speaking, the powerful Sithe who owned this Daoguard Tower had probably slipped away long ago, and so Ning had harbored the faint hope that this Daoguard Tower was now unmanned! However, he knew that even if the Sithe who owned this tower had fled, he might’ve arranged for a servant or a golem to control it in his stead.
Ning knew that the chances of this Daoguard Tower being unmanned were slim… and now, his hopes were crushed entirely.
“I hope the controller of this Daoguard Tower is a wise man.” Ning shook his head slightly, then waved his hand and collected the armor and weapons lying on the ground.
“Master, where should we go next?” Azurefiend asked.
“That’s odd.” Ning suddenly frowned. “The Mistress and Annihilation clearly fled in two different directions. Why, then, are my karmic senses indicating that they are in the same region right now?”
“Follow me.” Ning trusted his karmic senses, and so led Azurefiend in a high-speed advance towards the Paragon’s location.
A short while later, Ning came to a sudden halt because a series of ripples had appeared in the air before him. The world around him was beginning to twist and contort as well.
“Master of the Daoguard Tower,” Ning said with a frown, his voice echoing within the world around him, “I am simply adventuring in this place and do not intend to enter the Daoguard Tower itself! There is no need for us to fight against each other.”
“Ehehehe…” A low, hoarse laugh rang out and echoed within the air around Ning. “What a formidable Daolord. I am truly rather mystified by you! But this is my territory. Now that you have dared to trespass here, your fate is under my control. Ehehehe… but let’s not be impatient! We have plenty of time. Let’s take it slow and have some fun together.”
“Is this about those two Silver Goldhorns? I can give them back to you,” Ning said.
“Hah! Once I capture you, they’ll become mine again regardless. All the treasures you carry shall be mine! Even you yourself, you diverting Daolord, shall become mine.” The voice was filled with a hint of wicked glee.
Ning’s face hardened slightly. He barked coldly, “So you are a madman. It seems you’ve been alone for so long you’ve gone insane.”
Daoguard Towers were used by powerful Sithe to protect their lairs. Generally speaking, so long as you didn’t try to attack the towers they similarly wouldn’t expend too much effort in attacking you! This was why Ning had tried to be fairly low-key and hadn’t caused too many problems. He had come here to rescue his friends, not to defeat the Daoguard Tower! He had thought that if he didn’t cause a fuss and didn’t infringe upon the Daoguard Tower itself and threaten its controller, the controller wouldn’t start a life-and-death fight against him. Clearly, he was wrong. The controller of this Daoguard Tower was a madman.
The madman by himself wasn’t that frightening, but the Daoguard Tower was!
“Eheheh… no one who has come here has ever been able to escape and survive. You won’t escape either.” As the voice fell silent, the surrounding dimensional ripples quickly began to reach out towards Ning.
“Master?” Azurefiend was a bit worried.
“I’m done playing nice!” Ning’s face hardened and a sharp look flashed through his eyes. “Sword Dao Domain!”
Rumble… countless blades of sword-light appeared throughout this entire planet. Clearly, Ning had just expanded his Sword Dao Domain to an incredible size, using it to cover the entire planet!
“Suppress!” Ning held nothing back at all. In the past, he had kept his Sword Dao Domain reigned in to cover a fairly small area because he didn’t wish to cause too much of a problem with the master of the Daoguard Tower… but since they were already at loggerheads, he wasn’t going to show any mercy at all.
Rumble… the terrifying Sword Dao Domain instantly crashed down, bringing a terrifying amount of power against everything within this planet.
“Damnit!” The short creature within the Daoguard Tower instantly turned pale, and his eyes became filled with both terror and excitement. His body began to quiver. “This is the domain of an Eternal Omega Sword Dao! Ahaha, it’s actually an Eternal Omega Sword Dao! All my defenses have to hold!”
A series of membrane-like barriers appeared across the surface of this entire planet, each of which covered part of the planet in an interlocking way. Thus, when the membranes rose together, they were able to block off all of the sword-light.
“The Daoguard Tower’s energies are being depleted at an incredible rate.” The short creature was rather nervous. Defending against this much sword-light was consuming power from the Daoguard Tower at a shocking rate, but Ning’s Sword Dao Domain drew energy from the power of the Dao itself; in other words, it drew from the power of the Chaosverse! Its energies were limitless.
……
In a different part of this planet, where space and time were both distorted. The Paragon of Pills, dressed in black gauze, was seated in the lotus position within a field of light. Ever since she had been trapped here, she assumed the lotus position and didn’t move around.
“I still haven’t been able to see through the secrets hidden behind this place. The more I move about, the closer I will be to death.” The Paragon of Pills weighed the area around her with her gaze. She had traversed many places in the Sithelands and had quite a bit of experience in this regard. She was also extremely patient and had reached extremely high levels in the Dao of Karma, the Dao of Formations, and the Dao of Spacetime. Thus, in most places she was usually able to discover the mysteries behind the various traps and then escape.
The reason why she had reached such high levels of skill in these Daos was because she knew she would have to rely on them and herself to revive her departed brothers. She had invested enormous amounts of effort into studying spacetime and karma, and they had become her secret weapons in ensuring that she was able to survive her trips into the Sithelands. Otherwise, she would’ve died long ago in one of her crazy expeditions here.
Boom! Suddenly, the entire field of light around her shook violently.
“Eh?” The Paragon of Pills lifted her head to stare into the skies. She could sense that outside the field of blurry light, there were two enormous surges of power that were clashing against each other. Both powers were so vast as to cause her to feel shocked.
“Could it be Darknorth?” The Paragon of Pills had a rather complicated look on her face. Her avatar was alongside Lord Annihilation’s avatar, and so she knew that Lord Annihilation had gone against her will and asked Ning to come save them.
……
“Either we stop now, or we continue until you are gone.” Ning’s voice was cold, and it rang out throughout the entire world. The walls of rippling spacetime around him blocked out his senses, but he knew that the Daoguard Tower had to be using up an enormous amount of power.
“Stop now? Ahahaha! Go ahead and try to attack the Daoguard Tower. Just try to kill me! Hah! If you can’t, you’ll be the one to die! Did you really think you are able to contend against me, puny cultivator? Besides, if I can take out someone who is in control of the Eternal Omega Sword Dao, my death would have been worth it!” The short creature had never felt this berserk before, because everyone in his own Chaosverse who was in control of an Eternal Omega Dao would have an extremely high status that was far superior to that of the Autarchs.
This was because Emperors
who mastered an Eternal Omega Dao were on par with ordinary Autarchs in might, but the Autarchs had reached the end of the road; there was no way for them to become any more powerful. Omega Emperors, however, still had a chance to take one more step and become Omega Autarchs.
This local Chaosverse was a weak one, and its cultivators were barbaric… which meant that for them, a cultivator who mastered an Eternal Omega Dao would only be even more important!
“If you were a true Emperor, I would probably stand no chance at all. However, your truesoul is crumbling, which means I have a chance to kill you.” The short creature had gone completely berserk, because he knew that if he managed to kill an Eternal Omega Sword Dao wielder, he would have rendered incredible merits to his side. Even if he died, his truesoul would return to his homeland, at which point he would almost certainly be revived and brought back to life for his efforts.
He had thought that his only choice was to await death, that there was no longer any hope in his life… that toying with impudent trespassing cultivators was the only thing left. But now? Now he saw hope, hope of release!
“Die! Dimensional Separator!” The short creature no longer chose to be as cautious as he was at the start. His eyes filled with madness, he immediately used a vicious technique that had a serious backlash effect.
Whoosh!
Ning suddenly felt as though this entire planet had suddenly been split apart like a watermelon. It was separated into two parts, which was then separated into hundreds of different parts! The area he was in was just one ‘shard’ of the watermelon, a shard that was in a completely different dimensional continuum that had been completely locked away, trapping himself and Azurefiend within.
* * *
Book 41, Chapter 6 - They Meet
“Since I’ve chosen to fight, I’m going to use everything I have and give him no chance at all.” The short creature’s eyes were filled with madness. He knew just how terrifying someone who controlled an Eternal Omega Dao could be! Even his master, the original owner of this Daoguard Tower, was far from being a match for Ji Ning. In their own Chaosverse, this short creature would probably never even be given the chance to meet such an august personage.
And precisely because he knew just how fearsome Ning could be, he immediately attacked with all his power!
“In the end, he’s someone who has failed his Daomerge. Sands of Time, arise!” The short creature held nothing back at all, immediately using yet another one of the Daoguard Tower’s killer techniques.
Spots of sparkling, sand-like grains of light instantly flew out of the Daoguard Tower, falling under the spacetime dominion of the tower which synchronized it with and sent it into the sealed dimension which Ning and Azurefiend were trapped in.
“Now for the killing blow. Charge to the maximum power!” The short creature gritted his teeth, and the very tip of the Daoguard Tower suddenly began to light up as a large amount of energy began to gather together there.
……
By now, this entire planet had been separated into hundreds of sealed dimensional pockets, with Ning and Azurefiend being trapped in one of them. Azurefiend was starting to panic a bit, because he could sense an enormous amount of danger, as though he could die at any moment.
“Azurefiend, go into my estate-world for now.” Ning waved his hand, pulling Azurefiend into his estate. He then scanned his surroundings. “What a vicious technique… he’s actually willing to destroy his own territory for the sake of killing me! What the hell? Why does he hate me so much? This is the first time we’ve ever met.” Ning couldn’t help but feel puzzled at how viciously his opponent was behaving. His opponent’s very first act was to destroy the very world which the Daoguard Tower had been created to protect. The world itself had also served as an additional defensive layer for the Daoguard Tower. Now the world was gone; the only thing left was the tower itself.
This was clearly a technique which was dangerous to both the user and the target. Generally speaking, most people wouldn’t use such a powerful, double-edged technique until things truly grew desperate. Still, the technique was indeed powerful; not even Ning’s Sword Dao Domain was capable of breaking through a completely sealed dimension like this.
Clink. Ning drew a Northbow sword from the sheath on his back.
Whooooosh! Just as Ning was about to use his sword to chop apart this cage of sealed spacetime, the entire region suddenly rippled with rainbow light that twisted time wherever the light appeared. In some places, time sped up a million times over; in other places, it froze completely.
Ning’s face hardened. “The Sands of Time?” The Sands of Time was yet another type of treasure the Sithe had access to, and it was described in great detail in the records which the Autarchs had given Ning. This type of treasure was extremely dangerous when used against most cultivators, but against Ning it was absolutely lethal!
When activated, it was possible that time would be frozen for the upper half of your body, while time would be accelerated a trillionfold for the lower half of your body. This sort of temporal twisting would cause ordinary Emperors and Hegemons incredible discomfort during battle, lessening their combat prowess… but Ning wasn’t an Emperor, he was a Daolord whose truesoul was breaking apart. His truesoul could very well collapse and die from this!
“He first destroyed his own territory, then used the Sands of Time… just to kill me?” Ning had no time to think. He immediately sent a serious, horizontal chop towards the space in front of him.
This blow from his sword seemed to have enough power to completely sever apart everything in Heaven and Earth. The passage of the sword-light was followed by a tiny thread of water, but a heartbeat later the thread of water transformed into a raging river, and then into a titanic wave. Endless waves of sword-light crashed through the skies with absolutely terrifying power, completely overwhelming the onslaught of the Sands of Time and sweeping through all of the rainbow light!
The terrifying sword-intent had completely submerged and annihilated the Sands of Time. This was Ning’s Water Sword Dao!
After destroying the Sands of Time, the wave of sword-light was dramatically weakened as well, but it still continued to sweep forwards and crash against the dimensional membrane of this sealed space.
BOOM! The entire region shuddered violently, as a large amount of cracks began to appear at the margins of this space, both in the skies and deep underground. The cracks spread out like ripples, while Ning stood at the center of the region and watched carefully.
“I thought that strike would’ve been enough to annihilate both the Sands of Time and this pocket dimension I’m in. It seems I didn’t put enough power into that strike. This dimensional pocket is more stable than I thought,” Ning mused. He was extremely miserly with his energies right now, and would hold back power whenever necessary without overusing even the slightest amount.
“Go.” Ning stabbed out with his Northbow sword once more. This time, he himself transformed into a streak of sword-light that shot outwards. The tip of the sword-light was Ning’s Northbow sword, and it easily pierced through the crumbling dimensional seal and appeared outside.
In the instant that he broke through the dimensional membrane, Ning was able to see the hundreds of dimensional shards that hung in the air like lonely little islands. At the very center, there was a clearly visible eight-story tower that was sitting on a foundation of earth that was millions of kilometers in size. The ground was covered with countless runes and ley-lines, allowing it to serve as the foundation of this tower.
It must be remembered that Daoguard Towers were immobile and had to be anchored somewhere. Through the foundation it was anchored to, it was able to maintain contact with and draw power from the energy generator fueling the entire Sithelands.
“Is that…” Ning instantly saw the dazzling light building at the very tip of the Daoguard Tower.
“Die! DIE!” Spittle was flying out of the mouth of the short creature within the Daoguard Tower, and his eyes wer
e completely deranged. The Dimensional Separator and the Sands of Time were two of his killer weapons, capable of slaying even ordinary Otherverse Lords with ease. The Sands of Time in particular should’ve been a perfect counter for a Daolord whose truesoul was crumbling, but it had still ended up failing. He had never fought someone like this before, after all… but everything was as he had expected.
“DIIIIIIIE!” the short creature howled hoarsely.
BOOM! The light on the top of the Daoguard Tower suddenly shot out, moving at an absolutely terrifying speed. Ning was roughly a billion kilometers away from the Daoguard Tower; given the short distance and the incredible speed of the attack, not even Otherverse Lords would be able to dodge in time.
Swish. Ning suddenly transformed into a streak of electric light that moved with equally terrifying speed. He was able to dodge the attack with ease and then charged straight towards the tower. As for the attack, it shot past the location Nng had been in and then continued on to pass through the distant black fog behind him.
“He dodged it?!” The short creature was both angry and anxious. “He’s too fast. He’s too strong and he’s too fast!” He wanted to kill Ning and then be rewarded for it; this was his only chance of salvation! Alas… the only tool he had available to him was the Daoguard Tower.
“He’s too fast and his sword-arts are too furious. There’s no way I can kill him at long range,” the short creature mused. “I’ll wait for him to come inside. Once he actually enters the Daoguard tower, I’ll unleash all of the Daoguard Tower’s powers at the same time. He’s a Daolord who has failed the Daomerge. He HAS to die from that!”
The farther away two fighters were, the more difficult it would be for one to kill the other. Daoguard Towers were built with layers of defenses. They had roving patrols to keep invaders at a distance, ranged attacks to deal with those who made it past the patrols, and also self-destruct options meant to take out invaders who made it into close range.
