Desolate Era

by RWX

  It must be remembered that the Golden Bridges of Freedom were modeled off the Daoguard Towers. They were able to accumulate and make use of large amounts of the Chaosverse’s energies. Once they linked together, they were able to use even more!

  “WORLD STANCE!” Ning roared. This was the only domain-type stance he had created for the fusion sword-arts – the World stance!

  Rumble… Ning, Titanos, Bolin, Skyfeeder, Mogg, Stonerule, and Ekong began to simultaneously unleash their respective domains. Autarch Bolin actually unleashed two domains, one for the Claw Daobirth Essence and one for the Samsara Daobirth Essence.

  As for Ning, he was responsible for controlling and unleashing the Eternal Omega Sword Dao Domain!

  All eight domains came together, drawing upon the power of the Chaosverse as well as the power of the golden bridges themselves!

  Ning’s ‘Omega Sword Dao Domain’ was able to perfectly connect together all of these different domains, allowing the different types of power to merge together into dazzling streams of sword-light. The entire world became filled with countless streams of sword-light, each of which was formed from a different type of domain-energy. The power of this domain vastly surpassed Iyerre’s domain of light.

  “This is…” Iyerre and the warbeasts felt as though countless streams of sword-light had enveloped them and were pressing down on them, forcing them to resist it with every single movement they made.

  “These eight different types of domain-energy and the power from the Golden Bridges of Freedom have been perfectly joined together to form this domain – the World of Liberation.” Ning and the others were all excited. As soon as the ‘World of Liberation’ domain was released, Iyerre and the others were dramatically weakened. Even the nine violet-gold chains were weakened significantly, and as a result Ning and the others immediately gained the upper hand.

  “Join forces to kill Iyerre! Once Iyerre dies, those three indestructible warbeasts will begin to fall apart on their own,” Titanos sent mentally.

  “Kill Iyerre!” Bolin barked.

  “Attack!” Their eyes were filled with murder. The three warbeasts had been suppressed by their domain, reducing them to 70% of their normal power. Even if all of them joined forces against the Avatar Titan, it would still be able to defend against them using the Cavebright stance.

  As for the powerful Sword Titan, it had only one target: Iyerre!

  Book 45, Chapter 9 - Death Battle

  The Sword Titan charged incredibly fast towards Iyerre, whose face tightened. Even before the World of Liberation domain had started to suppress him, he wouldn’t have dared to fight the Sword Titan in sole combat. Now that he only had around 60% of his full power, he would probably be destroyed in just ten strikes if he tried to fight the thing head-on.

  “I can’t believe these natives have actually forced me to do this.” Iyerre immediately took a step forwards, vanishing into thin air.

  “Damn.” The Sword Titan’s greatsword chopped through where Iyerre had just been, hitting nothing but air. Ji Ning, Bolin, Titanos, and the others were secretly infuriated by this. However, even in the outside world Iyerre was able to disengage from battle as he pleased. Here in the Grassland World, it was even easier for him.

  “Since he’s fled, let’s first capture those three warbeasts then destroy the Grassland World’s core. Without the Grassland World and the three warbeasts, Iyerre won’t be able to cause much trouble.” Ning and the others all knew that Iyerre wasn’t able to summon much power due to the local Chaosverse suppressing him. He had to create and use powerful treasures in order to pose a threat to them.

  However… the more powerful the treasure, the greater the cost to make it. It had taken Iyerre aeons to construct the Grassland World and the Annihilation Hive. If they managed to destroy the Grassland World, it would be ages before Iyerre would be able to challenge them again. By then, the cultivators would have grown far more powerful than they were right now.

  Whoosh. The Sword Titan gripped the Northbow sword in both hands as it charged towards one of the warbeasts. Although they were indestructible, capturing them was still a possibility.

  “Gwaaaaar!” “Gwaaaaar!” “Gwaaaaar!”

  The three black warbeasts separated, moving in three different directions. Suddenly, all of them raised their heads, causing a strange black-white glyph to appear from their foreheads.

  “Eh?” The Sword Titan and the Avatar Titan both turned to stare upwards at the figure which had just appeared above them. It was Iyerre, who had disappeared just moments ago. Iyerre’s forehead also had a black-white glyph emanating from it. Countless strands of black and white light reached out, piercing through the air and connecting Iyerre to all three of the warbeasts. Together, they formed an incredibly marvelous formation which transformed Iyerre and the three warbeasts into one being!

  The energy leaking out from the ignited quintessence core was being sucked up into this enormous formation, while the energies of the three warbeasts were also being rapidly consumed.

  Iyerre and the three black warbeasts began to glow with blurry black-white light, and their auras increased dramatically in power.

  “I can’t believe these natives have actually forced me to use my last trump card.” Iyerre gritted his teeth. In the end, this final battle had surpassed Iyerre’s expectations.

  Iyerre had believed that with the battle being held within the Grassland World, the combined forces of himself, the three warbeasts, and the violet-gold chains would be more than enough to gain victory! Alas, Ning had first created an even more powerful sword-art with an extra Daobirth Essence in it, then unleashed the suppressive power of the World of Liberation domain. All this had forced Iyerre to unveil his very last card! He had truly gone all-out now, with nothing held back.

  His master had been the one to create the black warbeasts! When they fought individually, they weren’t all that powerful, but when merged together into a single whole they were able to unleash their true power. This was why his master had also bestowed the Yin-Yang Formation upon him, allowing him to perfectly join together with those three beasts. However, this would cause the three warbeasts to run out of power even more quickly.

  “Die!” Iyerre was above them while the three warbeasts circled around them. The four all glowed with unearthly halos of black-white light, and countless strands linked them together as they charged towards the Sword Titan and the Avatar Titan.

  Boom! The Sword Titan and Iyerre exchanged blows. The result was that Iyerre was knocked flying backwards, but he quickly regrouped and charged forward once more.

  “He’s actually become so much more powerful!” Ning, Titanos, and the others were all shocked. The World of Liberation was suppressing Iyerre, but he had still skyrocketed in power to reach 70% of the Sword Titan’s might! Given his profound insights, he was now completely capable of sustained combat against the Sword Titan.

  “If even he has become so powerful, then what of those three warbeasts?” Ning and the others knew that the situation had just taken a turn for the worse.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The Avatar Titan was being surrounded and besieged. He used his sword-arts to defend and exclusively focused on using the most defensive stance, the Cavebright stance. He instantly used this stance fifteen times in a row, but he was already in an extremely dangerous situation. The Sword Titan immediately brandished his sword, moving to reinforce the Avatar Titan.

  “Haha! Native cultivators, you are doomed. All of you will die. None of you will escape!” Iyerre went forth to help destroy the Avatar Titan as well.

  ……

  The situation had instantly turned extremely grim. Even though the World of Liberation weighed down upon the Sithe, the Sithe had the unquestioned upper hand. Just two seconds later, the two titans were in an extremely disadvantageous situation despite working together.

  “We can’t let this continue. If we just defend, we’ll definitely lose. We probably won’t be able to last for ten more seconds befor
e the Avatar Titan is torn asunder. Once that happens, the Sword Titan will be swarmed and destroyed as well. We’ll lose this fight!” They all understood this, which was why they were all extremely anxious. However, they had already used everything they had. It was incredible that they had reached this current level of power!

  “There’s nothing we can do. Let’s go all-in.”

  “Go all-in.”

  “All-in.” Bolin, Mogg, Stonerule, Ekong, Skyfeeder, Titanos, and Ning all shared this exact same thought. Whoosh! Their bodies suddenly began to glow with light as a terrifying aura of power began to spread out.

  It must be remembered that their bodies were completely formed of mana. Consequently, their bodies contained absolutely astonishing stores of energy. Hegemons and Emperors who were gripped by despair would choose to self-detonate, precisely because the sudden release of such an enormous amount of energy would generate an absolutely incredible explosion. Back during the Endwar of the Three Realms, many Immortals and Fiendgods had sacrificed themselves via self-detonation to deal Old Man Yuan a fatal blow.

  Ning was an Omega Emperor, while the other six were Autarchs. They wouldn’t choose to self-detonate, as self-detonation might not even be enough to kill someone like Iyerre, who was extremely skilled at staying alive. If the seven of them died while Iyerre survived, they would have lost this war!

  Just as importantly, at their current level of insight these seven had exquisitely perfect control over their bodies. Self-detonation would simply result in the explosion scattering energy out haphazardly. It was a fairly foolish choice, and they had chosen something else: to transform a portion of their bodies into raw power!

  Ning and the Autarchs had chosen to sacrifice parts of their flesh and blood! Their bodies began to glow with light as a terrifying amount of power began to burst forth from them! In normal battle, it was easy for them to unleash ten thousand strikes because they were able to replenish as much energy as they used. Now, however, all of them suffered severe self-inflicted wounds because they had used up more than half of the energy which had been stored in their bodies.

  This was an absolute maximum. If they burned away even more energy, their damaged truesouls would no longer be able to maintain perfect control over this level of power. Every single speck of mana was infused with their souls and truesouls, after all! If they lost too much, their truesouls would weaken to the point where they could no longer maintain control. Only by maintaining perfect control would they be able to unleash truly awesome levels of power.

  This was the most ideal, suitable time for taking such a risk… but they could only do so a single time! This was because they would all be so heavily wounded after this strike that they would have merely 40% of their strength remaining. There was no way they could duplicate this attack, and so it truly was their final, last-gasp attack.

  “We have to win.”

  “Kill!” Autarch Bolin’s entire body glowed with light as his severed flesh and blood transformed into raw power. He was able to maintain control over it, causing it to swirl around him instead of exploding.

  “Prepare to die,” Autarch Ekong roared, his body surrounded by the awesome energies of the Destruction Daobirth Essence.

  Skyfeeder, Mogg, Stonerule, Titanos, and the others all controlled their own energies as well. As for Ning, he drew upon the incredible power of his Sword Dao.

  “All of you, DIE!” The Sword Titan’s aura suddenly skyrocketed in might, causing the entire Grassland World to quiver. The amount of energy generated by seven Autarchs sacrificing more than half of their bodies was simply too enormous. They only guided a tiny portion of it into the World of Liberation, but the domain’s power instantly skyrocketed! Boom! Boom! Boom! Countless rays of sword-light came pressing down, crushing the clouds below them into dust and even crushing the grasslands at the very bottom.

  Boom! The Grassland World had been so completely suppressed by the sword-light, it was like a giant invisible hand had just caved it in by a layer.

  This was nothing more than a tiny, tiny amount of the energy the seven had just unleashed. They were keeping control over the rest of the power and preparing to use it to unleash a truly terrifying blow. This was the absolute maximum amount of power their damaged truesouls could control perfectly.

  Iyerre could feel that death was coming for him. When he saw how terrifying this explosive aura before him was, he didn’t even think about trying to defend against it head-on. “This is probably the final desperation strike these cultivators have up their sleeves. There’s no way they would be able to launch a second such attack. If I can avoid this one, I’ll have won.”

  “Withdraw!” Iyerre commanded. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Iyerre and the three warbeasts retreated simultaneously, vanishing within the void.

  “Foolish cultivators, this is the Grassland World. This is our chosen battlefield!” Iyerre’s voice rang out within the world.

  “You are the fools!”

  “Imbeciles!” Ning and Ekong let out furious retorts in succession, their voices echoing within the heavens.

  Boom! Boom! The Avatar Titan and the Sword Titan charged downwards simultaneously, smashing into the grasslands. As soon as they did, they instantly blinked deep within its depths.

  Book 45, Chapter 10 - Tit For Tat

  When they entered the depths of the Grassland World, they quickly saw a spiderweb of countless passageways.

  BOOM! An awesome domain filled every single passageway with countless streams of sword-light. The World of Liberation’s power blew through every single formation like rotting wood, crushing all barriers in its path! It must be remembered that even before Ji Ning and the others had gone all-out, they had been able to reduce Iyerre and the others by 30% to 40% of their maximum power. Now that the Autarchs had gone all-out, the World of Liberation was so incredibly powerful that it was able to almost instantly crush ordinary Autarchs to death!

  Even the nine layers of clouds were completely unable to block this intensity of energy, much less the barrier formations deep inside the grasslands.

  “I’ve found it. The quintessence core for this world lies in that palace over there.” Thanks to the World of Liberation, Ning and the others were able to sense a completely sealed castle located at the very bottom of the Grassland World. The castle was roughly ten thousand kilometers in size, and all of the energy emanating from the Grassland World actually stemmed from this castle. They could clearly sense how the deep, dense azure aura covering the castle was constantly being dispersed in every direction.

  “If we can destroy the quintessence core, Iyerre and the others will be dramatically weakened! Those three warbeasts won’t be able to escape us.” They immediately transformed into a streak of light, bursting through the chaotic passageways and moving closer-and-closer to the castle.

  Iyerre was able to dodge with ease because of his high level of insight, but the three warbeasts were only able to dodge because of the power of the Grassland World. The Sithe in charge of the black warbeasts had insights which were merely on par with Ning’s. In Ning’s Chaosverse, their escape techniques were far inferior to Ning’s! So long as the Autarchs could destroy the Grassland World, they would then be able to defeat and capture the three warbeasts one by one.

  Once Iyerre was the only one left, he’d be much easier to deal with! But of course… all this was only possible if they destroyed the Grassland World!

  “Dammit!” When Iyerre sensed the Sword Titan and the Avatar Titan moving at high speed towards the quintessence, he immediately grew anxious. “How are they able to stay in control of all that power and prevent it from exploding?”

  If someone was filled with too much power, there would be no way to maintain control of it. They would have to immediately release it in the form of an attack. However, Ning and the others had already thought of this problem. They only discarded 60% of their bodies, rather than 90% as they originally envisioned. The resulting levels of energy were just barely within the
realms of what they could control; they could release it or retract it at will. Although it was much weaker than the pure destructive power which would be generated by sacrificing more in a one-shot attack, it allowed for an attack that they could aim and control. In the end, the latter was much more dangerous.

  “Iyerre, what should we do? Are we going to just watch as they destroy the Grassland World’s quintessence? Once they do, we probably won’t be able to beat them,” the red-robed man sent mentally. They had a huge advantage right now, but this was in large part due to the strengthening effect of the ignited quintessence core. The formation they were using also required them to draw upon the energies of the ignited quintessence.

  “Go go go go go! Go stop them!” Iyerre roared. “Stop them at any cost!” The core of the Annihilation Hive was the sphere of annihilation, which contained the mysteries of total destruction. It was extremely hard to destroy. The core of the Grassland World, however, was just a normal quintessence which would be much easier to annihilate.

  Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Iyerre and the three warbeasts easily warped over to the outsides of the core castle.

  “They are about to arrive!” Iyerre and the others stared at the dark passageways before them. A terrifying aura was beginning to approach those dark passageways. The area had long ago been filled with the power of countless streams of sword-light, but the sword-light wasn’t strong enough to claim their lives.

  “This is way too much power. Way too much!”

  “Can we possibly stop them?” The silver-robed woman, her two colleagues, and the many Sithe Exalts all felt their hearts tremble.

  “You can and you must. If we lose, the cultivators will not spare you. All of you will die!” Iyerre gritted his teeth, his eyes savage. The most critical moments had arrived. “And these three warbeasts were personally fashioned by my master. Not even I have the power to destroy them, much less these cultivators.”