The Desolate Era

Time flowed on.

A fiery-robed maiden was seated in the lotus position next to a bubbling river of lava. It was Flamefairy Su Youji, who was meditating within the Castrum Divinitus on the karmic fortune she had been blessed with.

Su Youji stared in front of her, where a lotus was slowly swiveling within the bed of lava.

“This place is indeed a blessed place for anyone seeking to meditate on the Dao of Fire.” Su Youji frowned slightly. “However, no matter how hard I try I am unable to make any further improvements whatsoever. Ugh. According to what the formation-spirit of Castrum Divinitus said, Master is currently meditating as well. I wonder how long he will take. It has already been more than three thousand years!”

Right.

Su Youji had been in the Castrum Divinitus for more than a thousand years already.

After spending a bit of time firming up her foundation, she had gained the power of an ordinary World-level cultivator. After spending nearly three thousand years meditating in this location, a blessed place for meditating on the Dao of Fire, Su Youji had advanced to become comparable to an elite World-level cultivator.

It must be understood that although Daolord Allgod was not skilled in the Dao of the Sword, he was incredibly talented in the Dao of Lightning, the Dao of Fire, and many other Daos. Su Youji had benefited greatly from her exposure to this place.

“I suppose I’ll just have to keep waiting.” Su Youji had no other options.

......

“It’s been three thousand years, but he still hasn’t come out.” Arroyo, Fukai, and Boneplate were still quietly keeping a watch over the entire chaosworld from their position above the clouds.

Fukai had a gloomy look on his face. “I imagine that this freak of an Elder God suspects something, which is why he insists on delaying and remaining within the Allgod Estate. However, breaking through to become a World God isn’t an easy feat, even for a freak like him. Three thousand years? It is entirely possible that he might spend thirty thousand years or three hundred thousand years without making a breakthrough.”

“Cut the crap and just keep waiting,” Arroyo said coldly.

Both of them felt tremendous pressure, and this pressure caused their hearts to become filled with an intense desire to kill.

“All of those old bastards want to acquire the divine blood of the Eternal, but none of them dare to come in person. All they dare to do is send World-level experts like us for it.” Fukai was rather resentful.

“Right. They even made acquiring the Eternal blood part of our Awakening test.” Arroyo shook his head. “This is the Badlands Territory, and Daolord Badlands is one of the most skilled Numerancy experts of the entire Endless Territories. If any of those old bastards dared to enter the Badlands Territory, Daolord Badlands would probably be able to divine it right away.”

“Right.” Fukai nodded. Daolord Badlands was a very frightening person indeed.

The Endless Territories was an incredibly vast place. Not even Daolord Allgod would’ve dared to claim that he was the most powerful Daolord of the Endless Territories. Daolord Badlands, however, was ranked as one of the top three Numerancy experts of this entire realm! Numerancy experts like him would easily be able to predict and calculate when danger was coming without even needing to leave the safety of his own home. The Aeonians were the hated foes of the entire Dao Alliance. If any Aeonian dared to enter this place, he would find it almost impossible to avoid the Numerancy divinations of Daolord Badlands.

In addition, this was one of the central regions of the Dao Alliance. Once the Aeonian’s presence was discovered, there would be no way for him to escape.

This was why Aeonians, as a race, generally tried to avoid the terrifying members of the Dao Alliance whose Numerancy skills made them virtually omniscient. Only the truly terrifying members of their race who were comparable to Daolord Allgod in his prime would dare to trespass through places like this.

“We have no one to blame but ourselves for not being able to Awaken ourselves,” Fukai sent mentally. “If we were able to become true Samsara Daolords on our own, Awakening to become true members of the Aeonian race, we wouldn’t have to risk our lives to pass this trial in such a manner.”

“Mm.” Arroyo nodded.

The two of them could rely on Pseudo Samsara Pills to make their breakthrough, but if they did so they would have almost no potential for any future breakthroughs. There would be no way for them to truly Awaken, nor would they be acknowledged as members of the Aeonian race.

They had to rely on themselves.

The alternate option was to have the Aeonian Kingdom help them Awaken, but an enormous price would need to be paid. Thus, the Aeonian Kingdom had given them a test. They were to bring back the Eternal blood of Emperor Melobo, and if they succeeded the Aeonian Kingdom would help one of them Awaken! The Eternal blood wasn’t that important to the Dao Alliance, but it was incredibly important to the Aeonian Kingdom, enough so that they would be willing to pay the price necessary to help one of their descendants Awaken.

Many of their descendants had done everything they could to fight over this mission. In the end, it had been Fukai and Arroyo who had managed to succeed in having it assigned to them.

According to the orders given by the Aeonian Kingdom, if they succeeded in acquiring the Eternal blood their status would skyrocket, and they would be Awakened to become true members of the Aeonian race.

But if they failed... they would die!

“Fukai, as per the lifeblood oath we swore all those years ago, once that freak of an Elder God appears we’ll have to work together to seize the Eternal blood from him. Once we acquire it, we’ll fight to the death. The survivor will take the Eternal blood back to the Aeonian Kingdom.” Arroyo looked at Fukai.

“Naturally.” Fukai felt quite confident as well. In a true life-and-death battle, he would unleash every single ability he had to offer. He truly didn’t fear anyone below the Samsara Daolord level of power.

“Three thousand years is nothing. Even if we wait thirty thousand years or three hundred thousand years, it would be worth it.” A cold light flashed through Arroyo’s eyes.

......

Arroyo and Fukai waited impatiently on the outside. From the inside, Su Youji was left to speculate on how long she would have to wait for her master.

Ning, however, was completely absorbed within that sea of sword-arts.

He had never experienced something like this before!

Never in his entire life had he felt so confident in his own sword-arts.

Whoosh.

Ning appeared out of nowhere within the hall, then turned to stare at the thousands of sculptures on the four walls. At the very center of the hall there was a large pagoda-shaped tower. This was the Heavengazer Tower of Radiance.

Ning had spent almost every minute of every day meditating within the Heavengazer Tower, as he knew that completely dissecting and mastering these thousands of different sword-arts would require an incredibly long period of time. He naturally was going to make use of the Heavengazer Tower’s time compression abilities.

“I’ve finally finished meditating on every single sculpture, and I’ve reached my limit for now.” Ning waved his hand, putting aside the Heavengazer Tower.

Ning was filled with boundless vigor and excitement. As he stared at the surrounding statues, he bowed slightly and said, “Thank you, senior Allgod. If it wasn’t for you collecting all these sword-arts, how could I, Ji Ning, possibly have gained sudden enlightenment today?”

Ning was being quite modest in describing himself as having ‘gained sudden enlightenment’ today. There was nothing sudden about the hard work he had put in.

As a saying on Earth went, comparisons can be deadly. What were the strengths and weaknesses of a sword-art? An amateur wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at it. Only by completely dissecting these sword-arts and carefully comparing them to each other would you slowly discover that while this sword-art was exceedingly profound in this area, it had certain flaws in other areas.

Why was it strong?

Why was it weak?

After dissecting all of those sword-arts, Ning had gained certain yardsticks which he could use to judge the qualities of various sword-arts. Slowly, he gained an increasingly deeper level insight into the Dao of the Sword. In fact, Ning now had a complete, systemic view of the Dao of the Sword that belonged to him and him alone.

These thousands of sword-arts could be divided up into several general categories. In the end, Ning had divided those five thousand-plus sword-arts into twelve primary categories. After ascertaining that his judgements were correct, Ning suddenly felt as though wide panorama had opened up before him. He almost felt as though no sword-arts were too mysterious for him to understand! Even if there were some which were so profound that he would not be able to understand them at present, if he was given enough time he would thoroughly master it!

This self-confidence came into being after he had finished visualizing these thousands of sword-arts.

“Let me test it all out using the [Nameless] sword-art and Violetjewel’s quintessence core.” Ning smiled slightly. In recent years, he hadn’t spent any time truly focusing on the [Nameless] sword-art At most, he would just turn a small part of his attention to it when he learned something that would be relevant for it. Despite that, he had still long ago mastered the third stance of the [Nameless] sword-art, the ‘Great Firmament’ stance.

“The fourth stance of the [Nameless] sword-art – ‘Horizon’s End’. Quite profound, really.”

Ning quickly began to work on dissecting this sword-art, starting from the basic essence of the sword and then slowly working up to mentally executing the technique.

He spent a total of twelve hours on it.

“So that’s how it works. The creator of this sword-art truly was an incredible figure. This fourth stance is far more profound than those thousands of sword-arts I just finished analyzing.” Ning sighed softly in amazement. Still, he knew that although those thousands of sword-arts weren’t particularly profound in comparison, they had still served to help broaden his horizons and let him get a deeper understanding of the true nature of the sword.

It had only taken him twelve short hours for him to master the fourth stance of the [Nameless] sword-art.

“The fifth stance, then?” Ning began to meditate on the fifth stance, but a short while later he gave it up. “Even World God Northrest himself was only able to master the fifth stance. During the past three thousand years, I’ve been meditating in seclusion but haven’t gained any practical combat experience.”

Violetjewel suddenly appeared in Ning’s hands. “I suppose I should take a look at my sword’s quintessence core.”

Ning carefully attuned himself to the savage, murderous, yet exalted sword-intent that lay hidden within Violetjewel’s quintessence core. In the past, it was extremely hard for him to attune to it, but it was now noticeably easier. It took him a full day before he felt as though he could no longer make any further improvements or gain a better understanding of it... but the insights he did gain were more than enough.

Soon, Ning began to develop a new sword-stance of his own.

“This stance shall be the second stance of the [Quintessence Sword-Intent]. Since I developed it here in the Allgod Estate, let it be named the Allgod stance,” Ning murmured softly.

In his heart, Ning felt a hint of gratitude.

If it hadn’t been for Daolord Allgod spending many chaos cycles of hard work in watching master-class World Gods train in the Dao of the Sword, then laboriously carve these thousands of sculptures, how could Ning have been able to gain such tremendous enlightenment in such a short period of time?

But of course, this was also because Ning’s own understanding of the sword was a pure one that guided him straight to the prime essence of the sword. There might be many other experts of the Dao of the Sword who had more profound insights than Ning, but when they saw these statues they would probably say, “I have my own path already. These differ from my Dao of the Sword.”

“Haha... I had planned on leaving this place after becoming a World God, but I didn’t expect that this place would be far more valuable to me than the drop of Eternal blood.” Ning let out a heartfelt laugh. Not only had he mastered the third stance of the [Nameless] sword-art, he had even mastered the fourth stance. The third stance was all that was needed to become a World God!

These past three thousand years had been a truly transformative period of time for Ning.

His sword had now truly gained a soul of its own.

He had established a firm foundation for becoming a peerless expert in the Dao of the Sword in the future.

“Mm. Time to break through to the World level.” Ning sat down in the lotus position, calming his heart and soul.

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