Desolate Era (Book 16 - Book 18)

Fortune and disaster often came hand-in-hand.

Whoosh. That spatial vortex once more appeared next to Patriarch Subhuti, looking just like an oceanic whirlpool. Patriarch Subhuti guided Ning into the spatial vortex…and then it all completely disappeared from the Nihilum Zone.

The Primordial Ruinworld. The Snaphorn world.

Within a field of endless darkness.

Three minds were conversing with each other…and their thoughts were full of terror.

“Who was that old man?”

“We’ve never seen him before. We didn’t even see him in that great war, all those years ago.”

“If we had encountered him in that war, we probably would’ve died long ago.”

“By the looks of him, he appears to be one of the humans of the Three Realms. From the fact that he attacked us, we can tell that he should belong to the side of the Three Realms.”

“Logically speaking, it should be impossible to teleport through the space of the Nihilum Zone…but he was able to do it! And in addition, he was able to annihilate our three clones simply through his mastery over spacetime. Abilities like these are utterly inconceivable.”

The three Queen Mothers were all restless and uneasy.

He had been too powerful.

His power had completely eclipsed theirs. In that great war, the three of them had been small-time players; they had only survived due to luck. Any one of the truly powerful figures of that great war could’ve crushed them to death with ease. Clearly, this old man was comparable to one of those truly powerful figures! A supreme power who was capable of impacting the entire course of that war!

“I wonder if that old man of the Three Realms has left or not.”

“I hope he leaves right away.”

“I hope he never comes to our Snaphorn world again.”

The three Queen Mothers conversed hopefully to each other, their courage having been completely shattered by the two words ‘vile creatures’. All they wanted right now was to never encounter that old man again.

“What the…”

“Oh no!”

“He’s here!”

The three Queen Mothers had covered the entire Snaphorn world with their minds long ago. They kept an extremely tight level of control over the world, and so if any powerful figure intruded within it, they would immediately notice.

……

The Snaphorn world was located at the margins of the infinitely vast Primordial Ruinworld. It was a world in its own right and was extremely vast. There were countless horned warriors who lived in this place….but at this moment, all of them could sense their entire world shaking. The ground itself was trembling, and the mountains were beginning to collapse.

“What is going on?”

“What is this?”

The countless horned warriors raised their heads to stare towards the skies. Some of these Snaphorn citizens were merely youths, not yet qualified to join the army; they had to reach at least the most basic level, the Earth-level, before they could become warriors. At this moment, every single person in the entire world, including the Elders of the Palace of Elders as well as every single army squad were staring at the skies with raised heads.

Rumble…

From beyond the Snaphorn world…a single, utterly gigantic palm had appeared.

This palm was nearly half as large as the entire Snaphorn world itself. When it slapped downwards through the Void of space towards the Snaphorn world…

Crackle, crackle, crackle…

The protective formations covering the Snaphorn world began to crack apart, and even spacetime itself was compressed so tightly that it began to shatter. And the strangest thing was…spacetime within the Snaphorn world began to compress into multiple layers of density, and the layers of spacetime came crashing downwards.

As the palm came slamming down, the layers of spacetime began to split apart.

“No!”

“Flee!”

“FLEE!”

Three utterly enormous creatures had suddenly charged out from deep within the Snaphorn world.

They, too, had incomparably massive bodies with pitch-black scales, but compared to the ordinary horned warriors, they were were much, much fatter. At first glance…one would see that their bellies took up nearly half the size of their entire bodies. Their ugly little eyes emitted rays of dark light that attempted to tear a hole through space.

Whoooooosh…

That enormous palm continued to descend, causing spacetime to continue to compress and shatter apart, layer by layer. The spacetime at the very bottom had become incredibly dense, making it so that the three mighty Queen Mothers were completely unable to tear a rift through space and flee, no matter how they tried.

“Spare us.”

“Spare us.”

“Spare us!”

All three Queen Mothers called out loudly, their voices reverberating through the entire Snaphorn world.

But that massive palm continued to coldly, emotionlessly continue its downward smash.

“No…” The countless horned warriors were all completely stunned. They felt terror, a terror that came from their very souls. This was all completely beyond their expectations. That giant palm which they could see with the naked eye…it was a palm of infinite size, a palm that was more than half as large as their entire world itself. Even if Ning were to use his [Torch-Dragon’s Eye], he still would find it hard to see the complete palm.

They could see the massive, canyon-like fingerprints and palm-print of that mighty palm.

BANG! BANG! BANG! An incredible amount of pressure had already been brought down to bear. The countless horned warriors of the Snaphorn world began to explode into green-colored bits of blood and gore. Only a very small number of violet-caped warriors and golden-caped warriors were able to just barely stay alive…but their bodies were also slowly beginning to crack.

“Old bastard…are you trying to start another war?!”

“Damn you, you old bastard!”

“Damn you!”

Asking for mercy was useless. The three Queen Mothers went mad, beginning to curse in utter despair, using every imprecation in the book. They weren’t even able to flee…all they could do was face this terrifying palm as it came down.

BANG! BANG! BANG! The palm had yet to make contact, but the pressured, fractured spacetime that came before it had caused the bodies of even the golden-caped warriors to completely blow apart. The only ones left within the Snaphorn world were those three mighty Queen Mothers. Their hideous bodies began to crack as well. Slowly, the cracks grew larger and larger, and the three Queen Mothers began to curse and scream in an even louder manner.

Finally…it all came to an end.

The three Queen Mothers had been completely blown apart, having transformed into dust.

BOOM!

The giant palm finally came to a halt.

An ancient voice rang out. “Start another war? Nothing more than three little worms!” And then…the enormous palm completely vanished.

Everything turned silent.

The entire Snaphorn world…had become transformed into a massive planetary basin with a giant, palm-shaped impression caved into it.[1. To get a sense of what this looks like…take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99yqtxKhOCc. Start at the 2 minute mark.]





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Book 16, Chapter 23 - The Return


There were white clouds in the skies. A spatial vortex suddenly appeared within them, followed by an old man in Daoist robes emerging alongside a youth.

Ji Ning looked downwards.

He immediately saw Mount Innerheart…and he was even able to see the many disciples of the Mount Innerheart League, living their peaceful lives there.

“Let’s go.” Subhuti led Ning in flying downwards. They quickly arrived at the most central area of Mount Innerheart – the Tristar Crescent Abode, that seemingly ordinary-looking Daoist monastery. This was the place where Patriarch Subhuti normally trained in; disciples like Ning and the others wouldn’t dare to go disturb him without cause.

Within the Daoist monastery.