The Desolate Era

“He’s about to join together with Kuafu’s squad?” The alien Outsider drummed on the throne’s armrest with his fingers, then smiled as he looked at Celestial Immortal Blackheaven. “Blackheaven, Ji Ning truly is the undisputed number one Sword Immortal of the Three Realms. This sword-art alone ensures that there’s no way those useless minions of mine can deal with him. Even by himself, he’s very hard to deal with. Once he joins together with Kuafu, it’ll be even harder to deal with him. There’s nothing I can do. If the Seamless Gate wishes to stop him, I suggest you hurry.”

Blackheaven said hurriedly, “The strategy we agreed upon with you, Godfiend, was that we would make use of the inhospital environment of the Primordial Ruinworld to kill as many of the True Gods and Daofathers of the Three Realms as possible. It isn’t time for the Seamless Gate to attack yet. Once we do, the Endwar shall immediately begin.”

“Hmph. Then we are out of options,” the alien Outsider said calmly.

......

The Three Realms. Within a palace in the Allfiend world.

Sixteen True Gods and Daofathers were here, including the Lord of All Fiends, Keeper Everwood, Daomother Devilhand, the black-robed Godking, Daofather Netherjade, and others. Some had sent their true bodies, with others manifesting incarnations. The weakest figure present was still an elite Daofather.

“Master.” A voice rang out from outside.

“Blackheaven. Come in,” the Lord of All Fiends said.

Celestial Immortal Blackheaven entered, then said respectfully, “We just received a new intelligence report from the Primordial Ruinworlds.”

The seated True Gods and Daofathers all looked towards Blackheaven. The Lord of All Fiends said, “Speak.”

“Master, please take a look.” Celestial Immortal Blackheaven pointed towards an empty space nearby. Instantly, scenes of a battle began to be displayed. It was the battle between Ji Ning and those nine bugbeasts. After watching the scene, Blackheaven was naturally able to reproduce it for the benefit of others.

“Ji Ning?”

“Ji Ning’s fighting against nine bugbeasts. From the looks of them, those bugbeasts should be quite powerful, at the level of True Gods.”

The major powers were paying close to attention to this fight. When they saw Ning easily slay a bugbeast with just a single sword-strike, they simply frowned. But when ‘Sword Peacock’ was displayed, all the major powers in the hall were stunned. In fact, looks of absolute rapture could be seen in the eyes of Daomother Devilhand and a few other Daofathers as she saw the beautiful technique.

“What a beautiful sword-art.” Daomother Devilhand let out a soft sigh. “It really is beautiful.”

“What a terrifying sword-art.” Keeper Everwood nodded as well.

“This is just a area-of-effect sword-art Ji Ning uses to attack a host of weaker foes. His close-combat skills are undoubtedly even more terrifying. He was able to easily kill that bugbeast without even using his rainbow swordforce; this means that strike just revealed a tiny portion of his true power.” The Lord of All Fiend became even more solemn. “Sword Immortal Darknorth of the Nuwa Alliance has now become one of our major foes. He’s no weaker than Daofather Fuju was!”

“He’s trained for a shorter period of time than Daofather Fuju had,” Keeper Everwood said. “He’s trained for less than a thousand years, but has reached such a level of power.”

“The efforts of our ‘Godking’ really were quite indispensable in helping Ji Ning to train so quickly,” Daomother Devilhand said mockingly as she glanced sideways at the ashen-faced Godking.

The black-robed Godking was filled with sullen resentment. When he saw that lovely sword-strike, even he felt uncontrollably mesmerized by it. It was simply too beautiful.

The next moment, however, he remember that the person who had displayed that sword-strike was Ji Ning. Ji Ning was once a minor figure who he held in complete contempt, so much so that the Godking didn’t even care that much about using Yu Wei as a chess piece. Who would’ve thought that this minor figure would have become even more powerful than him! Although he didn’t want to admit it, he knew quite well that Ji Ning no longer needed to use any formations to fight with him. That sword-strike alone was proof that Ji Ning had vastly surpassed him. This sword-art alone ensured that Ji Ning was very close to the overlord level of power!

“No one could’ve imagined that Ji Ning would advance so rapidly. The actions the Godking took against him, such as the destruction of Yu Wei’s soul...normally speaking, those actions should’ve cast a shadow over his heart and perhaps even thrown him into an eternal stupor, never to advance any further. The Godking’s actions weren’t wrong. Ji Ning...Ji Ning is simply too much of a monster,” Daofather Augur said with a laugh.

“A shadow over his heart?” Daomother Devilhand shook her head. “I heard that during the Crimsonbright Realmwar, this dear Godking of ours tried to force Ji Ning to choose to join us. Instead, he broke through to the fourth stage of heartforce in the blink of an eye. This time, our Godking went straight to killing Yu Wei’s soul...and in yet another blink of an eye, Ji Ning’s nearly become an overlord-class figure. Last time in the Deerchaser world, Ji Ning had to rely on the Rahu Formation and his Envoy in order to reach this level of power. This time, he no longer has to rely on any external sources of help.”

“Godking.” Daomother Devilhand turned and smiled at him. “Some people are irrepressible. You simply can’t beat them down. The more you pressure you place upon them, the more dazzling their performance shall be. Ji Ning is one such person.”

“Thank you for your lesson, aunt-master.” The black-robed Godking bowed towards her.

“Ji Ning has already turned into a serious problem for us.” The Lord of All Fiends looked at the others, then instructed, “Blackheaven, keep a close eye on him in the Primordial Ruinworld. If you can find a chance to kill him there, do so.”

“Yes,” Celestial Immortal Blackheaven assented respectfully.

......

The Primordial Ruinworld. The Darkstill world.

A titanic foot that was tens of thousands of kilometers in size pierced through the skies, slamming downwards towards the land. Mountains and rivers alike were completely crushed and flattened by this foot as an enormous footprint was gouged into the earth.

The giant foot then quickly shrank in size, and a bare-chested, muscular man who was dressed in a fur loincloth appeared. The laughed loudly, “Ahaha, these dogshit formations sure are a pain in the ass. They seem so mysterious and profound, but when I put my foot down even the earth itself is blasted apart. Doesn’t that wreck those formations perfectly?”

“The ones you can destroy are all the weaker ones.” A golden-robed woman with draconic horns on her head laughed as she walked towards him.

“That was a bit anticlimactic. I wanted to spend a bit more time studying the mysteries of this formation.” A handsome, silver-haired, fan-wielding youth shook his head.

“Kuafu took advantage of the fact that he runs faster than me. Otherwise, I would’ve split that formation apart with a blow of my axe.” A massive headless Fiendgod walked next to them as well. This headless Fiendgod was bare-chested as well, but he had eyes where his nipples should have been and a mouth where his belly button should have been. His belly-mouth was speaking rather unhappily.

“Xingtian, I didn’t ‘run’ per se. I just stretched my leg out and stepped on that dogshit formation.” The muscular man holding a wooden staff in his hands was Kuafu. Kuafu laughed smugly, and he even twiddled his toes a bit.

The six Fiendgods chatted and joked amongst themselves as they continued to cause destruction. Deadly formations? Screw’m. They’d first give them a chop of the axe or a good hard stomping.

When the six of them worked together, their actions were straightforward and brutal.

“Eh?” The handsome, fan-wielding youth’s face changed slightly as he turned to look off into the distance. “Something’s happening?”

The other five Fiendgods, upon hearing his words, all grew careful as they turned over as well. They knew very well that although their good friend ‘Windfate’ was an ordinary Daofather, his senses were incredibly acute. He could use the wind to sense many things which others could not sense. In fact, he was also very skilled at scrying on the workings of fate itself, which was why he was known as Daofather Windfate. In this squad, he was the best detector of danger; without him, these brutish figures would’ve easily been drawn into dangerous, trap-filled regions.

Swoosh. A black lightning serpent was flying towards them from afar.

“A Ninehorn Lightning Serpent?” Upon seeing the black serpent, all of them relaxed slightly.

“It’s Sword Immortal Darknorth, Ji Ning.” Xingtian laughed. “The only person who can use this [Ninehorn Lightning Serpent] technique in the Three Realms should be Ji Ning. But...it’s a bit odd. Wasn’t his true body destroyed by the Seamless Gate?”

“Patriarch Subhuti told me that Ji Ning would come, but I didn’t expect him to come using the [Ninehorn Lightning Serpent],” a soft, gentle-looking maiden said.

Ning’s figure appeared in midair above them, then began to descend.

“Ji Ning.”

“Darknorth.”

The six Fiendgods walked towards him in a very friendly manner.

“Respectful greetings to you,” Ning said hurriedly. He had something of a friendship with Xingtian the Heaven Punisher long ago, thanks to the latter permitting him to use the ‘Heaven Punisher Formation’. As for the other five, he had met four of them before. It was back when Exalted Celestial Thundergod and some other major powers had sought to learn the [Ninehorn Lightning Serpent] technique from him; back then, a large group of major powers had congregated around him.

True God Xingtian laughed. “Ji Ning, let me make the introductions. This fellow here is Kuafu, a barbarian who has warts for brains.”

“You make it sound like you are very refined and gentile,” Kuafu said with a laugh.

“Kuafu actually knows the word ‘gentile’? How unexpected.” The fan-wielding Daofather Windfate chortled.

“Ji Ning, Subhuti told me that you’d be coming. Not bad, not bad...it seems your true body is in perfect shape.” Kuafu reached out with his hand and patted Ning on the shoulders.

Xingtian continued with the introductions. “This is Daofather Windfate.”

Daofather Windfate folded his fan, then nodded and smiled at Ning.

“This is Empress Xi.” Kuafu pointed at the dragon-horned woman dressed in golden robes.

Ning nodded. Empress Xi was also a Fiendgod. She was actually the grand-daughter of the Ancestor Dragon. The Ancestor Dragon had nine sons. One of them, the Bi’an Tiger, had a daughter who he named Xi. No one expected that Xi would actually prove to be even more formidable than her father, and she eventually became an elite Daofather.

“This is Luwu.” Xingtian pointed at the honest-looking man.

“True God Luwu.” Ning greeted him.

Luwu smiled. He looked like the honest, straightforward man he was. He had become an Empyrean God long ago, and he had served as a guard for quite a few different major powers. In fact, he had once been a guard and general for the Celestial Emperor which Xingtian had slain. When Xingtian had assaulted the Celestial Court, Luwu had attempted to stop him, only to fail.

After that great battle, Xingtian had finally made his breakthrough to become a True God. A few years later, however, the low-key Luwu had also silently, soundlessly broken through to become a True God.

“This is Graceful Peacock.” Xingtian pointed at the gentle-looking maiden. “She has four clones, and one of them is in each squad. This makes it easier for our squads to communicate with each other.”

“Greetings to you, Daomother Graceful Peacock,” Ning said.

Graceful Peacock had an extremely formidable elder brother, Mahamayuri of the Buddhist Sangha. During the Primordial Era, he had become a figure who was close to the overlord level of power. His savage reputation was known throughout the Primordial Era, but in this day and age he rarely showed himself. [1. Mahamayuri is also known as the Peacock Wisdom King, and is often shown as being or riding a peacock.]

Both Graceful Peacock and Mahamayuri were the children of the deceased Elder God known as the ‘Phoenix’.

Although Graceful Peacock was merely an ordinary Daomother, she had been able to cultivate her five peacock feathers into five separate clones, each of which had bodies like top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasures that were completely unbreakable. She usually sent those clones out to adventure, while her true body was kept safe in the legendary Phoenix Palace.

“We’ve sent a total of four squads to destroy the Primordial Ruinworlds,” Kuafu said with a loud laugh. “Our squad completely consists of Fiendgods – Myself, Empress Xi, Windfate, Graceful Peacock, and Luwu. Lord Tathagata the Buddha is commanding a squad that is completely composed of Buddhas of the Buddhist Sangha; their squad has four total! Fuxi’s squad also has four members, each of whom is a major power of the human race. The final squad is led by Daoist Jade Cauldron, which consists of seven True Gods and Daofathers of the Daoist Path.”

“Now that you’ve joined us...hm. We’ve already decided upon a joint combination formation that we are using. I’m not exactly sure how we should work you into it.” Kuafu pondered on this matter.

These Daofather squads all came equipped with formations, so as to be able to unleash tremendous power in battle.

“How about this?” Xingtian said. “Ji Ning, just follow us. If you encounter anything dangerous, just stay inside our formation for now. We don’t have enough time to alter the formation for you right now.”

“Understood.” Ning nodded.

In truth, Xingtian and Kuafu were speaking in quite a delicate, tactful manner. Because all six of them were True Gods, when they unleashed their formation they were able to do in a very perfect manner. But now, Ji Ning had suddenly appeared. As they saw it, he was just an Empyrean God. He might have some special techniques, but if everyone else in the formation had True God divine power while Ning only had Empyrean God divine power, an imbalance would occur.

Ning had his own concerns as well. Xingtian and the others all had True God power, while he himself was a half-step Elder God. His divine power was even purer than theirs. If he joined their formation, it truly would cause an imbalance. It probably was indeed better for him to act independently for now.

“Be careful and stay close to us. The Primordial Ruinworld isn’t easy to deal with,” Kuafu advised. He actually cared quite deeply about Ji Ning, as Ji Ning had rendered tremendous merits to the Nuwa Alliance. However, Kuafu was quite puzzled as well...why had Ji Ning even come? Didn’t he know that he would just be slowing them down? Still, this question really wasn’t very appropriate to actually voice.

“I won’t cause any trouble.” Ning nodded.

“Alright. Let’s head out.” Kuafu gave the order, and the group of seven began to advance once more, smashing through all impediments that sought to bar their path.

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