The Desolate Era

Sevenwater Star was a long distance away from the planet of Fogstone. After reaching it, they had to wait for another year before the spacetime transfer array was activated. Thus, it took them two years before they were able to reach the Badlands Everworld. This was actually quite a short period of time, and the reason why the transfer happened so quickly was because the Badlands Everworld was a fairly high-traffic location. The Badlands Everworld was the center of the entire Badlands Territory and held the most powerful organizations in the region.

Whoosh.

Ji Ning and the other cultivators appeared within the spacetime transfer array. As for Flamefairy Su Youji, Ning had naturally been stored her away into his estate-world.

“So this is the Badlands Everworld?” Ning walked out of the array, staring at the vast world that had appeared before him. He waved his hand, causing Su Youji to appear next to him.

“Can you feel it?” When Su Youji appeared, she smiled as she looked at Ning.

“Yes...”

Ning nodded slowly. “What an odd feeling.”

Ning was now powerful enough to easily destroy most chaosworlds. However, the Badlands Everworld gave Ning an impression of exalted majesty, a sense of all-encompassing grace that was completely ineffable.

“I really can’t fly here.” Ning tried to fly but couldn’t, no matter what he did.

“How marvelous. This place is exactly as the legends said it is. Supposedly, the skies have been completely sealed in the Badlands Everworld. There really is no way to fly through the air here.” Each time Ning tried to fly into the air, a strange, unfathomable sort of law seemed to exert its power upon him, making it impossible for him to fly.

According to the legends, when each everworld was first created by their powerful creators, certain Laws would be set down.

For example, there might be a ‘flamebane’. This meant that all fire-attribute types of power would be completely unusable within that everworld.

Or for another example, there might be a ‘swordbane’. This meant that even the most formidable of experts in the Dao of the Sword would find themselves unable to summon the energy of the prime essence of the sword. In fact, they wouldn’t even be able to draw their swords!

There could be some other special Laws as well. So long as the creator of the everworld set down that rule, all others who came to the everworld would be forced to follow it.

One of the Laws of the Badlands Everworld was its ‘skybane’. No living creatures were able to fly here, not even winged creatures like birds! Nothing and no one could fly in this world.

Of course, if you were incredibly powerful, you might be capable of resisting this law. Daolord Badlands, for example, might be strong enough to force his way into the air...but of course, that was just conjecture. No one had ever seen Daolord Badlands flying about within the Badlands Everworld. The only reason why people thought he might be capable of disobeying the Law was because everyone here felt the utmost of respect for Daolord Badlands’ abilities! However, it was also equally possible that not even the Daolord was capable of flying here.

As for others?

No World-level expert was capable of overcoming a local Law, to say nothing of an Ancestral Immortal or Elder God.

“Still, the everworld is a very comfortable place,” Ning said softly. “This world is incredibly deep and dense. It feels as though it embraces all visitors with warmth and kindness, bringing peace to their hearts.”

“This is a reason why so many cultivators like to live here within the Badlands Everworld and why so many organizations want to take this place over. However, only the most powerful organization of all, the Badlands Court, is qualified to rule this place!” Su Youji said.

“Come. Let us go find Waveshift City.” Ning immediately strode forward.

The two walked shoulder-to-shoulder as they advanced at tremendous speed.

Waveshift City was the largest, most bustling city of the Badlands Everworld. It was indescribably old, and it had existed ever since the Badlands Everworld itself had first come into being! Naturally, this made it far older than the so-called Badlands Court, which had merely destroyed the previous occupant of this everworld, took it over, and changed its name to be the ‘Badlands Everworld’.

Waveshift City was quite close to the spacetime transfer array.

Ning and the Flamefairy merely had to walk for roughly an hour before arriving at the base of the mountains around Waveshift City.

“Quite high.” Ning raised his head to stare upwards.

This was a mountain that was a million kilometers tall, its peaks wreathed in white clouds and crowned with an enormous city. Waveshift City.

“Let’s hike up the mountain,” Ning chuckled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gone hiking.”

“We have to walk our way up step by step. I feel just like a mortal.” Su Youji grinned as well.

The mountain path was a sinuous one that coiled around the mountain peak, slowly guiding travelers upwards. If Ning was able to fly, he would’ve flown straight up to the peak of the mountain. Instead, he now had to slowly hike up one step at a time. Within the everworld, flight simply didn’t work.

“This everworld is truly vast, far larger than any chaosworld.” As Ning hiked up the mountain, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh. “I hear that the everworld has many ancient ruins located inside it.”

“Yes.” Su Youji nodded. “I heard there are more than ten.”

There were more than ten ancient ruins within the Badlands Everworld which had never been fully conquered! This was because the Badlands Everworld was simply far too vast.

“Here we are.” Su Youji pointed towards their front.

The mountain peak itself was just a few hundred kilometers around, but it held up an enormous city that spanned hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The city almost looked as though it was hanging precariously in the air, ready to tip at a moment’s notice. Ning and Youji followed the mountain path forward, walking towards the gates.

The walls of the city were engraved with two words ‘Wave’ ‘Shift’.

“Waveshift...” Ning raised his head to look at those two words, sensing the incredibly arcane ripples emanating from within them.

Those ripples were simply too hard to lock down. Just trying made Ning feel tired and extremely uncomfortable. The difference in power was simply too great. Ning quickly tried to give up attuning to those ripples, but was unable to break free from the endless might that radiated out from those two words.

“Urgh.” Ning vomited out a mouthful of blood before finally coming back to his senses.

“Master, don’t you know that you must not stare at those two words?” The Flamefairy asked.

“I know, but I still wanted to take a look. I won’t die just because I looked at them, right?” Ning laughed. “They truly are incredible. Those two words made me vomit up blood just because I looked at them. I wasn’t able to glean any insight into them at all, just a feeling that they are unfathomably profound.” According to the legends, even World Gods who stared at those two words would vomit up blood, to say nothing of someone like Ji Ning.

Generally speaking, if you took over an everworld you would change its name.

The Badlands Court had taken over this everworld and had thus renamed it to be the ‘Badlands Everworld’. However, they hadn’t changed the name of the most prosperous city of this everworld, precisely because those two words ‘Wave’ ‘Shift’ were completely inviolable. Those two words served as the core of the entire city and possessed utterly supreme power. So long as those two words remained on the walls, all other cultivators would continue to call this place ‘Waveshift City’, no matter who tried to change its name.

Thus, there were many cultivators who suspected that when the Badlands Everworld was first established a long, long time ago, its original name might’ve been the Waveshift Everworld.

“No one knows who wrote those two words.” The Flamefairy let out a sigh. “That person might well be more powerful than even Daolord Badlands.”

“Mm.” Ning nodded.

It made sense.

There were differences in power even amongst Daolords. Didn’t Daolord Windsource have a Daolord amongst his retainers?

Ning’s heart began to beat slightly faster as he thought about that ancient, powerful figure. A few moments later, he turned and entered Waveshift City alongside Su Youji. Waveshift City was an incredibly prosperous city, and it had one simple rule: All combat within city limits was forbidden! Anyone who violated this rule would instantly suffer automatic attacks from the formations protecting Waveshift City.

“What a bustling place.” As Ning walked through the wide streets, he could see Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals everywhere. As for True Gods and True Immortals, there was a ridiculous number of them located here.

“I would imagine that almost half of the cultivators of the entire Badlands Territory are gathered here,” Su Youji said. “Waveshift City even holds more than a thousand World-level experts!”

Ning nodded. This was a place of power and safety. No one would dare to attack you here.

However, once you left the city, no one would care if you lived or you died.

“Is that the Palace of Ten Thousand Treasures?” Ning stared off into the distance. Far away, at the ends of the street, there lay an utterly enormous palace that glowed with absolutely breathtaking light. The entire palace emanated many ripples of power, each of which represented the presence of a Dao weapon. The ripples which the palace were intentionally radiating out numbered over a hundred.

“Yes, that’s the Palace of Ten Thousand Treasures. It holds more treasures within it than any other place within Waveshift City. Here, you can buy whatever treasures you desire! You can have Dao weapons custom made for you, or even be able to purchase one of those legendary treasures with a quintessence core inside of it. So long as you are willing to pay the price, you can buy anything...but of course, the price of such a weapon would be truly terrifying.” Su Youji let out a sigh.

Nind nodded. He knew that the master of this Palace was actually Daolord Badlands himself!

Daolord Badlands could capture a few dozen World Gods, then enslave them and sell them off, but they still wouldn’t be as valuable as a single treasure with a quintessence core. The price of such a treasure was unimaginable, enough to drive even a World God completely mad.

“What do you plan to buy or sell, Master? You can do it all here. This place is extremely safe, and the Palace will never reveal your secrets,” the Flamefairy sent mentally.

“I know.” But in his heart, Ning silently muttered to himself – Bullshit.

Yes, the Palace was an extremely safe place where he could sell off his Dao weapons to acquire a hundred cubes of chaos nectar; the Palace wouldn’t really care much about it. But if he was to directly purchase ‘treasure fragments’ from them in large quantity, everyone would be able to guess that Ning had a treasure which required significant amounts of Five Elements essence to repair!

Daolord Badlands had an exalted status here; there was naturally no way he could possibly switch positions and decide to come here to run the shop. The ones in charge of this place were most likely World Gods or Chaos Immortals...and Violetjewel was a treasure that would attract attention from any World-level expert, some of whom would actually stare at Ning from afar.

There was no such thing as the old nonsense saying about ‘one’s word is priceless’. Everything had a price to it; the only question was how high. A magic treasure that had a quintessence core was valuable enough that many Elder Gods and Chaos Immortals would be willing to sacrifice anything, face included, to acquire it.

“I have to spend a little bit of thought on this,” Ning mused to himself.

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