The Desolate Era

“Eh?” True Immortal Winterpeak, hiding under the bowl-shaped treasure, discovered to his astonishment that Ji Ning had halted his attacks.

“He stopped?” With but a thought, Winterpeak dismissed his bowl-shaped treasure. The mere act of keeping a treasure active required him to use up Immortal energy. There were many prisoners here who wouldn’t even use their energy on maintaining their clothes, causing them to corrode and decay over the course of time. Although it was very hard for magic treasures to be damaged, if enough chaos cycles passed, they would still end up destroyed.

Winterpeak raised his head, staring at the white-robed youth in the skies. He smirked. “I urge you to give up. A puny True Immortal like you must be forced to consume an enormous amount of energy to release sword-light of such power. Soon, your energy will be used up, and you’ll have to leave the prisonworld to replenish it, which will take time. It will take a very, very long amount of time for you to wipe out my energy using such a method.”

“Are you afraid?” Ning suddenly asked.

Winterpeak twitched. “Hmph.” After a cold snort, he fell silent.

It was true. He had no way to replenish his Immortal energy, while the Overseer was able to constantly regain it. With enough time, his Immortal energy would be used up in the end.

“Let’s see just how patient you are,” Winterpeak mused to himself.

......

Ning had placed the Eight Fires Qiankun World within the Starseizing Manor. He had just sent one of his clones to leave the stone stele and bring it back. Because there was a bit of distance to travel, it took him a full day of flying before he returned.

“Eh?” Winterpeak frowned. He could see yet another white-robed figure flying towards him from afar. “[Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods]?” He instantly was able to guess at the technique.

“Do you really think it’ll take me a lot of energy to attack you?” The white-robed youth waved his hand, and a lotus of fire quickly soared into the skies, moving to a location that was directly above Winterpeak. The flaming lotus faced the ground and began to swivel. At the same time, it quickly expanded to become a thousand kilometers in size as all the petals of the lotus flower began to open.

A total of eight lotus petals completely unfurled, and streams of truefire began to surge towards the ground.

“SHIT!” Winterpeak’s face instantly changed, and the bowl-shaped magic treasure once more appeared around him.

As the sea of flames surged towards him, every single inch of the bowl-shaped treasure was bathed in fire. The ground around him was charred into ash. Winterpeak just stood there in midair, protected by that giant bowl as eight different types of truefire frantically assaulted him from every direction.

“Hmph. This is much easier.” Ning just stood there in midair, watching. The Eight Fires Qiankun World created an independent world of its own, filling it with flame to assault its foes. However, it wasn’t invincible; once the enemy fled outside the world created by the treasure, the enemy would no longer have to fear the assaults of those eight streams of truefire. But alas, these prisoners were completely unable to leave the region they were in.

All they could do was endure the eight punishing streams of truefire.

This was a treasure that had been personally forged by Zhurong, Elder God of Fire. The combined power of these eight types of truefire was truly astonishing. However...since the treasure itself contained and nourished these eight types of truefire, the only attack it really had was truefire. All Ning had to do was to keep the treasure active, then occasionally replenish a little bit of energy.

“Shit, shit, SHIT!” Winterpeak was truly beginning to panic. “This blazing treasure relies on internal flames to attack. It won’t use up much of his energy; he can keep it active indefinitely. I, however, have to continuously use my treasure to defend against it. If this continues...”

“...Where the hell did he find a treasure like this?!”

Winterpeak was both furious and frantic.

The Eight Fires Qiankun World held eight types of truefire in it. This treasure, by itself, was worth more than a hundred top-grade Pure Yang treasures. Although Ning had killed three Celestial Immortals and Empyrean Gods within the prisonworld, he hadn’t acquired a treasure like this from them.

......

Within the Starseizing Manor.

A stone stele was placed within a hall.

Swoosh.

Ning appeared out of nowhere. He glanced at the stone stele, then willed it to transform into a streak of light that flew into Ning’s forehead.

“Come out.” Ning glanced sideways, then fifteen more figures appeared out of nowhere. All of them had the auras of Celestial Immortals, and they all had different appearances. These fifteen were fifteen of the eighteen bodies Ning now had, transformed using the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art].

“When they are using the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] to disguise themselves, not even True Gods or Daofathers will be able to see through them, unless those Daofathers see them in person and use special ocular techniques to test them. Not even the major powers who have the ability to view the entire Three Realms and see into Protocosmic spirit-treasures like the Starseizing Manor should be able to tell from far away that these fifteen are all my clones,” Ning mused to himself.

It was very difficult to infiltrate Protocosmic spirit-treasures and see inside of them. The number of people in the Three Realms who could do such a thing could be counted on two hands. After activating the Ninth Cycle of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] and transforming...there was definitely no way someone would be able to see through the technique when it was used within the Starseizing Manor.

“Only when no one knows how many clones I have will the clones be safe and effective,” Ning mused to himself.

Ning emerged from the Starseizing Manor, going back to his little thatched cottage. He dispersed the minor clone he had left there, then raised his head and looked towards the Five Treasured Peaks. “Ninefangs,” Ning sent mentally.

Instantly, a streak of light shot towards him. The bald old man, Empyrean God Ninefangs, immediately said respectfully, “Manorlord.”

“Return to the Starseizer world for now. There’s something I need to do,” Ning said.

“Acknowledged,” Ninefangs said.

And then, Ning left by himself aboard the Voidboat, departing from Sword Immortal world.

......

The infinite, vast Void held many enormous stars within it. The most dazzling of all stars were the Solar Star and the Lunar Star. In terms of size, even Nuwa’s world or Suiren’s Kindlefire world were much smaller than the Solar Star and the Lunar Star. The light that emanated from these two supreme celestial bodies shone down upon the entire Three Realms.

These were stars that were formed from the primordial chaos as well.

When Pangu had established Heaven and Earth, he had used up an enormous amount of primordial chaos, so much so that a massive area around him became empty and devoid of all matter. This was where the seemingly-infinite Void came from. With all the primordial chaos sucked away, the stars that had been hidden within them now emerged.

Swoosh. A Voidboat was travelling at high speed through the Void, passing through one star after another. Soon, it reached the end of the Void. Although the Void was often described as ‘infinite’, there was an end to it...and at the end of the Void was the primordial chaos itself! The Voidboat plunged into the primordial chaos, continuing to fly forward.

“Eh?” Within a world of darkness. The Godking, seated upon his massive, levitating throne, mused pensively to himself, “Why has Ji Ning entered the primordial chaos?”

The Nuwa Alliance had yet to notice Ning’s abrupt departure from Sword Immortal world and entry into the primordial chaos, but the Seamless Gate had. This was because the Seamless Gate was worried that Ning was preparing to ambush them once more, and so they had people watching him at all times.

“What’s he doing in the primordial chaos?” The Godking was puzzled. “Unfortunately, there’s no way for us to investigate.”

The Godking possessed formidable divine abilities, and his invisible power could infiltrate and investigate even the Void itself; there was nothing in the Void that could block it, after all. But there was far too much energy and matter in the primordial chaos; there was no way for him to scan it at all.

......

The primordial chaos was vast and truly endless, filled with limitless amounts of gray fog that contained marvelous types of energy and power. If one was able to comprehend the Heavenly Dao of Primordial Chaos, one would be able to extract chaos energy from these chaos clouds. Ning, however, clearly was not capable of this. He was unable to replenish his energy from the primordial chaos, and so his only choice was to use up his spirit-pills to do so.

But of course, this was fine for a short journey into the primordial chaos. If he spent too much time within it, the end result would be that his energy would be depleted and he would die trapped.

“So many stars.”

He often encountered stars within the primordial chaos. The smallest were perhaps just a million kilometers in size, while the largest were far larger than even a major world.

Although these stars were located within the primordial chaos, they were so close to the Three Realms that the major powers of the Three Realms had already thoroughly searched and investigated them, marking them out in maps. Ning had acquired these maps from Mount Innerheart, and so he travelled the quickest route possible past the various stars.

“I’ll choose this star.”

The star which the Voidboat had reached was a star that was completely formed from unyielding ice. In terms of size, it was probably comparable to the Grand Xia. The entire star emanated an aura of absolute ice, and the surface of the star was dotted with enormous crevices that looked like gorges, as well as bulges that looked like mountain peaks. A wild wind blew through this star, but there were no living creatures on it at all.

Not even Fiendgods or Immortals would be willing to live within such an icy, harsh environment.

“Go.” Ning willed it, and the stone stele instantly flew out from his forehead. As it flew out, it flew straight towards the deep abyss located in front of Ning. Soon, the gusts of wind blew it deep into the bottom of the abyss. Ning used his coresense to watch as the stone stele landed at the bottom. Very soon, a layer of icy frost appeared atop it, causing it to completely freeze within the abyss.

Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to use coresense to locate it. Ning, however, was the master of the stone stele; he was naturally able to sense it, wherever it was.

“There is no way for anyone to locate the stone stele here,” Ning mused to himself. “Not even major powers should be able to scan and locate it from far away within the Void. Even if some of them are so incredibly powerful that they can reach this place with coresense...the stone stele is an incredibly mysterious object. Others have to see it with their actual eyes.”

Even if a major power knew that Ning had the stone stele and had hidden it within this star, the major power would have to visually and physically search through every single inch of the star.

To search through every inch of a star that was the size of the Grand Xia? Hah!

And of course, no one even knew that Ning had placed the stone stele here.

“This place shall be my base for a last stand. If I end up being destroyed, at least the two clones that I will keep within the stone stele will be able to continue to cultivate, eventually restoring all the other clones as well,” Ning mused to himself.

Swoosh.

The Voidboat then continued its journey forward, going past several of the other stars in the primordial chaos before Ning departed from it, returning to the great Void. At his current level of power, he only dared to voyage through the portions of primordial chaos that were very close to the Three Realms and had already been fully investigated by others. He didn’t dare to delve any deeper into the chaos.

No one knew that on this voyage into the primordial chaos, Ning had hidden a stone stele with two clones inside of a star. Those two clones would use the Eight Fires Qiankun World and other Pure Yang treasures that could unleash elemental attacks to assault the True Immortal and True God prisoners inside the prisonworld.

Ning returned to the Void, then passed through it to enter the Grand Xia.

Standing in midair, Ning produced a talisman in his hand, filling it with his energy.

“Disciple.” Subhuti’s voice rang out in Ning’s ears.

Ning said, “Your disciple wishes to return to the Crescent world. In addition...there’s something I need to speak to you regarding, Master.”

Whoosh.

Instantly, a whirlpool appeared in the air next to Ning. Ning stepped into it, then began to head towards the Crescent world.

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