Desolate Era (Book 16 - Book 18)

Within the underwater estate.

The black-robed Ning was currenty asking the giant yellow bear some questions. “Senior bear, do you know what the sharp lights surrounding my fingers are?”

“You don’t know?” The giant bear was puzzled. “You know about heartforce, so how can you not know about…oh, right. Most likely, Patriarch Subhuti was worried that you would set your sights too high, and so he didn’t tell you right away.”

“What do you mean?” Ning asked.

The giant bear explained, “For Sword Immortals, fully mastering the Grand Dao of the Sword isn’t the end of the road. After you completely master the entire Grand Dao of the Sword…you’ll begin to focus on understanding the essence of the sword itself. When using sword-arts, your blade will naturally emit this sort of sharp light. This sort of sharp light is also referred to as ‘swordforce’; generally speaking, peerless Sword Immortals who have thoroughly mastered the Grand Dao of the Sword will begin to slowly discover and cultivate this power. You’ve just barely touched upon it; I imagine you are at the lowest, most basic level of swordforce.”

“Swordforce?” Ning now understood. “So that’s how it is. When I was in Mount Innerheart, I saw some books which made note of the fact that when one completely mastered the Grand Dao of Taiji, one would begin to attune to the very essence of the Taiji itself, at which point a strange type of power would slowly be developed; taiji-force! It seems my swordforce is quite similar to this taiji-force in nature.”

“Right.” The giant bear smiled and nodded.

Ning now completely understood.

Taiji-force, swordforce…generally speaking, those who completely mastered the Grand Daos of Taiji or the Sword would be able to slowly work on controlling this type of power. It could be considered an additional supplement, making one a bit more powerful in battle.

“One of the greatest dangers for Immortal cultivators is being overly ambitious.” Ning let out a sigh.

For example, when he first entered the Black-White College, the Primal Daoists, Loose Immortals, and Earth Immortals wouldn’t even tell him that the Dao was divided up into Heavenly Daos, Grand Daos, and ordinary Daos. This was precisely because they were worried about their disciples being excessively ambitious, resulting in them accomplishing nothing whatsoever! The same was true for Patriarch Subhuti; if he had told Ning about swordforce all along, it might’ve caused Ning to deviate when attuning to the Dao of the Sword, which would actually negatively impact his insights.

“I haven’t even fully mastered the Dao of the Sword yet, but I’ve actually begun to be able to use a slight amount of swordforce already.” Ning laughed in a gratified manner.

“The number of battles you have engaged in during the past ten-plus years was far more than the total number of battles you engaged in before you arrived here in the Nihilum Zone. The Dao of the Sword is an attacking Dao to begin with; if the Dao of the Sword or the Heavenly Daos were present here, I imagine that you would’ve advanced quite astonishingly fast in the Dao of the Sword.” The giant bear added, “Since this place does not have the Dao of the Sword, you haven’t been able to advance in the Dao of the Sword at all…which means you accidentally focused on attuning to the essence of the sword and ended up controlling a tiny thread of swordforce. This can be considered an unexpected benefit for you. I trust that in the future, the fact that you have started your quest for the essence of the sword will be of tremendous help to you in comprehending the Dao of the Sword.”

“Right.” Ning nodded lightly.

……

“Monster. A true monster.”

“No wonder Lu Dongbin felt so certain that he was born to be a peerless Sword Immortal, and even Patriarch Subhuti felt that he was extremely talented in this regard. Even before mastering the Dao of the Sword, he’s already taken control of a tiny amount of swordforce. Clearly, he has an incredibly, unbelievably high level of aptitude towards the sword.”

Within the blurry, void-like region within the underwater estate. The giant yellow bear had told them about his conversation, and the seven Fiendgods all signed in amazement.

However…Ning had only mastered the most basic, elementary level of swordforce at present; there was a limit as to how much it could help him. By comparison, his ruler-level heartforce had helped Ning increase his power much more.

Still…that tiny bit of mastery over swordforce was a testament to the fact that Ning truly was an unbelievable talent as a Sword Immortal.

“No matter how talented he is, it won’t matter unless he can escape this Nihilum Zone.” A muscular man whose entire body was red in color let out a sigh. “To date, the Snaphorn world hasn’t truly gone all out against our young master…but if push comes to shove, then we will be forced to intervene. By then, we will have to deal with the master of the Snaphorn world…and we have no idea as to if we can beat him or not.”

“The real question is, has the master of the Snaphorn world reached the Daofather level yet?”

“If not, he won’t pose a threat.”

“But if he is at the Daofather level…we’ll probably be doomed.”

“We have nowhere to run. Even if we don’t move to rescue our young master, the master of the Snaphorn world will eventually discover the Starseizing Manor. After discovering the Starseizing Manor…if he is at the Daofather level, he’ll definitely be able to find our world. By then…we’d still have to fight him.”

Technically speaking, Ning had yet to become an Empyrean God, and per the orders of Daoist Threelives, they weren’t supposed to save him; they were supposed to leave Ning’s fate up to himself, and if he died they were to go find another successor. Alas…they were now trapped within the Nihilum Zone and unable to depart from it, much less find another successor.

This day, Ning engaged in dozens of battles before coming to a halt, acting as though he needed to replenish his divine power. In reality, Ning still had half of it left; after all, now that he had reached the seventeenth stage of the [Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens], his divine power was much thicker than it had been in the past. For the sake of being prepared for all eventualities, he always came to a halt when he only had half of his divine power left.

In turn, the violet-caped warriors always let him replenish his divine power as needed.

As he replenished his energy…three mighty minds were conversing within the darkness of the Void.

“Ever since this human began fighting against our Firstborn, he’s continuously improved his mastery over his heartforce. Less and less of it leaks out, and the ripples it causes are harder and harder to discern. Recently…he’s leaked out no heartforce in his battles whatsoever. Although we can vaguely sense that he is using it, we are unable to sense any of the heartforce ripples now. This poses no use to us in our attempts to develop a heartforce technique at all.” The first Queen Mother’s thoughts held a hint of resentment.

“Two elder sisters, what should we do?” The third Queen Mother asked.

“During this period of time, tens of thousands of battles have been carried out. We’ve developed a few ideas, while you, little sister, have actually managed to coalesce some heartforce. You’ve developed a basic level of skill in heartforce; this can be described as a merit for this human.” The second Queen Mother continued, “However, our elder sister and I have yet to be able to coalesce heartforce, much less figure out a way to apply it.”

“Although I’ve managed to coalesce heartforce, I still need to slowly work away at a method for applying it.” The third Queen Mother’s thoughts held a hint of resentment as well. “If he continues to leak heartforce…a few more centuries of battle should be enough.”