Desolate Era (Book 16 - Book 18)

“He truly is formidable. He’s comparable to Celestial Immortal Rainsoar.” Yu Wei was surprised and delighted as well.

“Truly formidable. Impressive!” Immortal Diancai was excited as well. There were so many Celestial Immortals here, quite a few of whom were almost as powerful as Pure Yang True Immortals. However, it truly was hard to say which of them would be able to unleash the most power from the Heaven Punisher Formation.

The million Immortals all sighed in praise as well.

Within the formation, the white-robed Xia Emperor nodded. “Six shattered pieces, with the seventh piece slightly damaged. You are very close to fellow Immortal Rainsoar; you are just a tiny bit weaker. You rank second amongst the 192 fellow Immortals who have tested so far.”

The formation dispersed, allowing Celestial Immortal Unity to fly out. A look of delight was in his eyes.

To rank second amongst 192 Celestial Immortals meant that he had a very good chance of ranking in the top nine of the 359 total Celestial Immortals. But of course, it was also possible that he was just unlucky, and that the later figures would all be incredibly powerful. If that was the case, there was nothing he could do.

One Celestial Immortal after another went forward as the tests continued.

“Why isn’t it your turn yet, junior apprentice-brother?” Yu Wei was getting a bit impatient.

“No rush. There will always be some who come first and some who come later,” Ning said. The Xia Emperor most likely had a very high opinion of Ning, which was why he had put Ning towards the rear, as part of a grand finale.

By now, more than three hundred Celestial Immortals had made their tests. A total of five Celestial Immortals had shattered six pieces of chaos goldstone!

“Fellow Immortal Ji Ning, please step forward,” the white-robed Xia Emperor said.

“Ji Ning?”

“Ji Ning is up.”

“Immortal Darknorth, Ji Ning? Supposedly, his true body was, at the Void level, capable of resisting nine mighty Celestial Immortals by himself. He’s the disciple of a Daofather…and by the looks of it, his Primaltwin has overcome the tribulation and become a Celestial Immortal.”

“I was actually watching Ji Ning during the Conclave of Immortal Destiny. He truly is a monstrously talented genius. However…fellow Doaist Ji Ning has trained for a fairly short period of time. I don’t know if he’s capable of controlling this Heaven Punisher Formation well or not.” The plaza was immediately filled with discussions regarding Ning; after all, Ning was quite well known amongst the ten thousand-plus Celestial Immortals. As they saw it, perhaps Ji Ning wasn’t particularly strong right now, but in the future he would probably surpass them.

……

Within the formation.

“Fellow Daoists, thank you for your help,” Ning said towards the thousand Celestial Immortals and hundred thousand Loose Immortals.

“Assemble the formation.”

Ning immediately soared upwards, flying into the air as a thousand Celestial Immortals followed him, scattering all around him. As for the hundred thousand Loose Immortals, they in turn followed their respective Celestial Immortal leaders. An enormous number of bloody runes appeared, all of which began to gather together and form into a blurry, dark-red giant. The surrounding natural energy began to furiously flow towards them. An enormous, thirty thousand meter tall Heaven Punisher quickly took shape, one whose face was rather similar to Ning’s.

“This feeling…such tremendous power…” Ning sighed in amazement.

The flood of power flowing through him was beyond what he could truly control. All he could do was to try and control it as best he could.

“Fellow Immortal Ji Ning, familiarize yourself with it first.” The white-robed Xia Emperor smiled.





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Book 18, Chapter 6 - Becoming Generals


Every Loose Immortal was very weak, but the amount of natural energy a hundred thousand Loose Immortals could summon…finally, Ji Ning had a taste of it for himself. Even though a thousand Celestial Immortals were guiding and taming the energy, making it so that it wasn’t too unruly or chaotic, Ning still could sense how tough it would be to control it.

“Controlling the power of the Heaven Punisher Formation is like controlling the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation].” Ning sighed.

The [Greater Thousand Swords Formation]…the more Immortal swords one used, the more difficult it was to control the formation.

This was especially true now that Ning used nine top-grade Pure Yang flying swords, the Ananda World-Swords, as the heart of his [Greater Thousand Swords Formation]. Although his heartforce was incredibly powerful, which was of use to him in controlling these magic treasures…Ning was still only able to just barely activate the first level of the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation]!

The main reason for this was that those nine Ananda World-Swords were simply far, far too powerful. It must be understood that not even most Pure Yang True Immortals would be lucky enough to acquire such a complete set of top-grade Pure Yang swords. Thus, one could imagine how hard it was to control them! The only reason why Ning was able to do so despite being merely at the Celestial Immortal level was because his heartforce had reached the third stage, ‘ruler’.

Although Ning hadn’t yet learned the way to apply heartforce to his soul, the more powerful one’s heartforce was, the more flying swords one could control. This was similar to an unskilled strongman wielding a sword; the stronger he was, the heavier his sword could be. The application of heartforce to the soul was like a matter of technique; with the proper technique, the strongman would be able to wield even heavier swords, while also allowing the power of his sword-arts to explosively increase.

This was the difference a good technique could make.

Right now, Ning was completely relying on his heartforce to brute-force things for him.

Whoooooosh. A flood of energy circulated throughout the Heaven Punisher as Ning took control over it.

He slowly grew familiar with its power and gained experience wit it.

In truth, it really wasn’t that different from controlling one of his sword-formations.

……

The white-robed Xia Emperor put away the earlier, shattered chaos goldstones, then placed ten more undamaged pieces on the ground. The chaos goldstones all glimmered with golden light, filled with beauty and magnetism.

“You can begin.” After watching Ning familiarize himself for a few moments, the white-robed Xia Emperor gave the order.

Rumble…

The Darknorth Heaven Punisher took a single step forward, lifting up his thick, powerful right arm. The attention of the million-plus Immortals located outside the formation was all focused on this massive arm, many thousands of meters long.

Rumble…

The enormous palm hacked down like a massive greataxe, chopping downwards with irresistible might.

It was like Pangu splitting open the cosmic egg of primordial chaos and establishing the universe. Spatial ripples appeared around the palm, pushing out in two directions like waves.

The enormous, dark-red axe-hand carried awe-inspiring might as it chopped downwards like a hatchet towards the mountain of chaos goldstone.

BOOM!!!

An enormous collision, followed by a shockwave that blasted out in every direction. When the shockwave struck against the grand sealing formation, a series of booming sounds could be heard. When the million-plus Immortals outside the formation heard those sounds, they were all tremendously shocked.

“Such power.”

“This level of power…it’s definitely the strongest thus far.”

“This Ji Ning truly is extraordinary. Monster. What a monster!”

“I wonder how many pieces of chaos goldstone he broke apart?”