The Desolate Era

Ji Ning knew very well that the Endless Territories was a place filled with countless marvelous treasures. It wasn’t surprising for this particular treasure to have no affinity for him. It was already lucky enough for him to have gained the Nine Chaos Seals.

“Master.” After leaving Armaments Gorge, Ning once more reunited with Su Youji.

“Let’s find a place to live first.” Ning and Su Youji flew through the skies. Suddenly, they saw a solitary mountain peak that jutted high up into the skies, surrounded by clouds and mist. This was one of the taller mountains in the Sword Palace. There were only so many ‘formal’ members of the Sword Palace, after all. Most people could easily find a place of their choosing within the Sword Palace, so long as there was no one else already there.

Ning waved a finger from afar. Whoosh! An estate suddenly appeared in midair, then descended upon the top of the mountain.

“From this day forth, this estate shall be our residence in the Sword Palace.” Ning looked at Su Youji. “Right, Youji. The Twelve Palaces all have spacetime transfer arrays connecting them together. You can give the Palace of Fire a shot. Perhaps you’ll be granted entry into it.” He wasn’t going to be able to give her much advice in the Dao of Fire. She’d have to rely on herself for everything.

“I have to say, now that I’ve wandered through the Sword Palace I do feel a bit jealous.” Su Youji grinned. “Although I know my chances aren’t that great, I’ll still give it a shot.”

“Mm.” Ning nodded.

......

The Sword Pagodas towered around everything around them. It was as though countless ancient powers were standing there in front of Ning. As Ning walked through the Forest of Sword Pagodas, his heart was filled with amazement and regret. So many major powers who had been the dominant forces of their time, who had been able to defeat even Eternal Emperors, had all passed away. The number of Daolords in the Sword Palace who were able to live for more than a hundred thousand chaos cycles could be counted on two hands.

This was the unstoppable, ruinous power of time.

“If I am to become an Eternal Emperor, then I wish to become one who is akin to the almighty Hegemon. Otherwise... I would rather become one of those Daolords capable of slaying Emperors. I have to become powerful enough to convince the almighty Hegemon or someone on his level to rescue and revive my wife!”

A dreamy look was in Ning’s eyes. “If I could bring her back... me, her, and Brightmoon would be together once more. Our family of three would be together again. Even if I eventually fail my Daomerge and perish, it will all have been worth it.” Although Daolords walked a fine line between life and death with each step, even those who failed their Daomerge would be able to live extremely long lives. If their family of three was able to live together in peace for some time, Ning would be satisfied.

Ning’s greatest regret was... his wife Yu Wei had perished shortly after giving birth to Brightmoon.

Whoosh. Ning waved his hand, causing a thatched cottage to suddenly appear next to him. This thatched cottage was actually Ning’s temporal acceleration treasure. Ning had made a few cosmetic alterations to it.

Ning entered the thatched cottage, then sat down in the lotus position. He set the flow of time to a hundred times the normal rate, then turned his gaze towards the distant Sword Pagodas.

“So many supreme sword-arts for me to analyze... and in fact, every single sword-art is filled with the sword-intent of its creator.” Ning couldn’t help but sigh at this. For most cultivators, greed was not a good thing. In fact, if you learned too many techniques, you might end up losing yourself or your own way. However, Ning’s path was a path that began from understanding the fundamental essence of the sword, and it was a path he would walk by analyzing and dissecting all other sword-arts, absorbing their best parts into his own [Brightmoon] sword-art.

The [Brightmoon] sword-art was still quite young and incomplete, but Ning had chosen a path where he would use it to embody all the mysteries of the Dao of the Sword.

This path Ning had chosen was a very difficult path. It had been a blurry, unclear path for Ning back when he was in the Three Realms, but the guidance Daolord Solesky had given Ning had made everything clear! He had analyzed thousands of sword-arts in the Allgod Estate, and now he had arrived in the most sacred part of the Sword Palace, the Forest of Sword Pagodas.

“There are 83612 Sword Pagodas here, many of which are comparable to my [Nameless] sword-art. I have to treasure this opportunity.” Having come from the Three Realms, Ning knew exactly how precious this opportunity was. It must be understood that the reason why none of the others had been able to reach the World level was because they had no access to good techniques. This was true for Ning’s own master, Suhbuti, as well as the martyrs such as Houyi or Three Purities. It was only in recent years that Ning’s Primaltwin had begun to transmit more information regarding the Dao back home.

However, this opportunity in the Sword Palace was truly priceless, and Ning valued it immensely. He was the second person to leave the Three Realms, with Mother Nuwa being the first. He didn’t know what had happened to Mother Nuwa, but he was determined to seize this opportunity to make himself as strong as he possibly could.

Su Youji stood outside the Forest of Sword Pagodas, staring at that distant form which was seated in that thatched cottage. The white-robed youth was completely absorbed with meditating on his sword-arts, and countless streams of swordforce began to naturally manifest in the area around him, followed by one sword-stance after another. These things manifested whenever Ning had a new insight.

“Master has never had a truly excellent teacher who was able to give him any good guidance. Now, after so long, he has finally reached a truly holy place for cultivation. I imagine this will result in his power skyrocketing. He’ll be even more dazzling than before,” Su Youji murmured silently to herself.

“I have to work hard as well. Now that I have the legacy of Feixian the Exalted, I should be able to provide him with some assistance.” All this time, it had been Ning helping Su Youji rather than vice versa. She felt grateful, but she also wanted to be able to do something for him.

“Time to go to the Palace of Fire.” Su Youji turned her head and departed.

The Twelve Palaces were all linked together by spacetime transfer arrays.

“So many World-level cultivators here?” When Su Youji arrived at the Palace of Fire, she saw numerous World-level cultivators on the path before her seated in the lotus position. She walked forwards, quickly reaching the end of the path.

“Halt!” Suddenly, a black-armored Daolord barked out at Su Youji.

“I wish to join the Palace of Fire,” Su Youji said.

“You’ll have to wait. In about half a month, the next batch of World-level cultivators will be permitted to take part in the trials.” The black-armored Daolord gave her a cold look. “You World-level cultivators are only permitted to remain on this path. You are not permitted to go into other parts of the palace without prior permission. If you do, the restrictive spells here will automatically activate and burn you to a crisp.”

“Understood.” Su Youji immediately nodded.

When she had entered the Sword Palace, she had been alongside Ji Ning and so the black-armored Daolord had been fairly courteous to her. Normally, however, the black-armored Daolords were quite cold and indifferent to these applicants. There were simply too many of them, after all.

“Another half month.” Su Youji found an empty spot and sat down in the lotus position.

“Another newcomer. There really are a lot of people who wish to join the Palace of Fire.” Just a few hundred meters away from Su Youji was a chubby youth dressed in fiery robes. The chubby youth mumbled to himself, “I’m a venerable grandmaster of alchemy, but I not only was rejected by the Palace of Spacetime, I even failed the trials of the Palace of Fire. Ugh. What should I do? Why the hell isn’t there a Palace of Alchemy?”

The chubby youth shook his head. “I’m skilled in alchemy, spacetime, and fire, but I wasn’t able to pass the trials of either the Palace of Spacetime or the Palace of Fire...” The chubby youth sighed. “It seems I’ll have to seek out brother Darknorth and ask him to help. He definitely entered one of the Twelve Palaces. If I follow him, things will be a bit easier for me.”

This chubby youth was World God Pillsaint.

He truly was an unlucky fellow. He himself was an extremely skilled, grandmaster-level alchemist and pillmaker. Why would a person like him be forced to engage in combat? In the past, he had to simply wave his hand and whatever he wished would be carried out, and his master would often give him advice with regards to alchemy. Who would’ve thought that he would suddenly be abducted to the Astral Islands. In the Astral Islands, combat was all that mattered. Who cared about you being an alchemist? He had started off with an Eternal weapon, but as soon as he arrived he had been robbed of it. Thankfully, alchemy required high levels of insight into both fire and spacetime, and he was quite skilled in both. This was why he had been able to survive for so long... but accumulating a complete legacy and being able to escape was incredibly difficult.

It was all thanks to Ji Ning’s assistance that he had been lucky enough to survive.

His skill in alchemy made his life in the Brightshore Kingdom an easy one, which was why he was able to reach the Twelve Palaces. Alas, his skills weren’t enough for him to enter the Twelve Palaces.

“I’ll keep trying. The trials for the Spacetime Palace were too difficult, but if I improve a bit in the Dao of Fire I might be able to make it into the Fire Palace.” World God Pillsaint gritted his teeth. He was determined to make something of this.. He knew that entering the Palace of Fire would be a tremendous boon, and he deeply desired to succeed.

Although Su Youji and Pillsaint were just a few hundred meters from each other, neither knew each other.

......

The imperial palace of the Brightshore Kingdom.

Whoooooosh.

A blazing beast of fire was racing through the void of space. There were a few chaos stars in this vast region, which was part of the Brightshore Kingdom’s even vaster imperial palace. This was the place where the almighty Hegemon usually rested and resided.

The blazing beast was racing happily through it. Ever since it had been captured, it had been living a terrifying life of danger and adventure. Although a powerful member of his race known as ‘King Wu’ had been keeping eyes on it, it had still been worried that it might die at any moment. Thus, it had never dared to relax in the slightest. But now, it had finally survived and succeeded.

“Child.” An enormous behemoth appeared within the emptiness of space. When the behemoth stared at the blazing beast, its eyes were filled with warmth.

“Hegemon.” The blazing beast was so frightened that it immediately came to a halt and stood there obediently. It already knew that the almighty Hegemon was the most powerful member of their race.

“Ever since you were born, you have been training by yourself. You are still too young. Most of your time has been spent in slumber. Although you didn’t spend too much time in the abyss of the Astral Islands, you have still improved significantly. You are now qualified to enter the Archaeus region.” The giant behemoth’s head spoke out.

“The Archaeus region?” The blazing beast was puzzled. “Where, exactly?”

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