Desolate Era (Book 19 - Book 21)

Now, Ning began to think back to the previous battle and carefully analyze it.

After flying for half a day, another island appeared before Ning. This island had a massive volcano in the center of it. Boom! Boom! Boom! The volcano constantly belched forth lava and ash, sending them flying into the skies and turning the entire island red.

“A volcano island?” Ning no longer pondered his sword-arts. Instead, he rapidly flew forward and landed atop the volcano island.

This was the second of the five islands.

“Eh?”

At the end of the wooden bridge, Ning sat a giant, vertical stone stele, with the stone stele covered by an enormous diagram of a bellowing ape. This ape looked rather similar to Snowfiend, and he was roaring at the heavens.

As soon as Ning saw it, his mind was drawn into the diagram’s depths.

He saw the illusion of an ape, twirling a longstaff in its hands as it trained in a staff technique. The ape started with the simplest techniques, then proceeded to the advanced ones, his staffwork growing increasingly marvelous. A short while ago, Ning had battled against Snowfiend for a long period of time. Now that he was able to carefully see each of the illusory ape’s separate techniques in detail, he instantly felt enlightened regarding his previous experiences. Only after a long period of time did the display of techniques come to an end.

“Eh?” Ning’s consciousness returned to his body.

“What a marvelous staff technique. A pity that my path is the Dao of the Sword.” But suddenly, Ning’s entire body turned stiff as he just stood there blankly.

He had been trapped at a bottleneck in the [Five Treasures] for some time now. Upon viewing that complete staff technique, it was as though a ray of sunlight had suddenly pierced through a covering of dark stormclouds, illuminating a world that had previously been cast in shadow.

Ning stood there silently and unmovingly. Both him and his second clone were completely absorbed in the [Five Treasures] sword-art. They were gaining continuous insights into the third chapter, and in the end the bottleneck was no longer able to impede Ning’s progress. The bottleneck shattered, and all of his insights became completely linked together, merging to form a perfect whole. The entire third chapter was completely mastered…and Ning’s swordforce silently advanced to the fourth stage as well.

Swordforce, stage one – Silver Moon.

Swordforce, stage two – Dazzling Sun.

Swordforce, stage three – Imperial Ruler.

Swordforce, stage four – Sword Heart.

“Sword Heart…” Ning murmured to himself, then flicked out with his finger in a slow arc. A black streak of sword-light appeared, swirling around it.

When he had created the very first stance of the [Brightmoon] sword-art, Ning had already reached the third stage of swordforce. Nearly a century had passed, and over the course of this period of time Ning had completed the [Brightmoon] sword-art, battled against many Empyrean Gods and Celestial Immortals in the prisonworld, and even sparred against True Gods and True Immortals there. However, he had been unable to make that final breakthrough. Only after sparring against Snowfiend and after his consciousness was drawn into the stone stele did he finally break through the last bottleneck and reach the fourth stage of swordforce.





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Book 20, Chapter 13 - Volcano Island


“The Dao of the Sword…” Ji Ning shut his eyes.

Slowly, an invisible surge of power began to manifest in the area around Ning. It formed into the blurry image of a black sword which covered Ning and swirled around him.

Normally, those who mastered the Dao of the Sword would be referred to as Sword Immortals…but this was actually just the beginning of the Sword Immortal path! Only by comprehending swordforce would one be able to pursue the true essence of the sword itself.

“It is alive.” Ning opened his eyes, staring at the blurry, illusory black sword around him. This manifestation of fourth-stage swordforce allowed Ning to clearly sense the childish playfulness of the illusory sword. It was like a little child that absolutely loved to stick closely to Ning, causing Ning’s own heart to be filled with joy.

Sentience. Life.

The first three stages of swordforce only involved the rigid application of power, but the fourth stage of swordforce actually gained both life and sentience. Although the level of intelligence was very low, it was still enough to truly stun Ning.

Prior to this, before his heartforce had actually reached the fourth stage, Ning had never sensed this from his swordforce. As for heartforce, it came from himself; it was the power of his own heart. Swordforce, however, came from an arcane, inexplicable, unfathomable essence of the sword itself. The path that Ning was pursuing was the path of finding the original essence of the sword.

Whoosh.

Ning rose to his feet. He waved his hand, and the black swordforce responded accordingly.

“Such tremendous power. Prior to this, I was a bit weaker than senior apprentice-brother Silvermoon and Redsnow, due to me not having trained for long enough. Although my heartforce is formidable, it’s consumed far too quickly in battle. When I want to beat down on those weaker than me, it’ll allow me to gain victory in just one or two blows, but when fighting against experts of the same level, it simply won’t last. Swordforce, however, doesn’t use up any divine power, and it comes in a steady, unbroken stream.” Ning was absolutely delighted.

Upon truly comprehending swordforce, even a mortal commoner would be able to infuse his punches and kicks with fourth-stage swordforce.

“I can vaguely sense that the power of this swordforce is roughly equal to 80% of the power unleashed when I use my heartforce to maximum ffect.” Ning sighed in amazement. Although it was ‘only’ 80%, it could be used in every single strike and blow; in a protracted battle, it would be far more useful to Ning than heartforce would be.

“From this day forth, in a one-on-one battle, I am now the equal of senior apprentice-brother Silvermoon and Redsnow.”

After calming himself, Ning took a look at the volcanic island. This island had a towering volcano in the center that was occasionally belching forth plumes of lava. However, because the sea around the volcanic island was completely frozen with countless snowflakes falling all around it, the borders of the volcanic island were at a perfect temperature, with only the volcano itself being blazingly hot.

Whoosh. Ning willed it, and a second person appeared next to him. It was Empyrean God Roughpeak.

“Junior apprentice-brother Darknorth.” Roughpeak immediately smiled and called out to Ning upon stepping out…but upon seeing his surroundings, he was instantly stunned.

The volcano belching fire…

It was a sight completely different from that of the snowy island.

“Th-this place is…” Roughpeak stuttered.

“This is the second island. I call it ‘Volcano Island’,” Ning said.

“You actually su-succeeded. Ahahaha…wonderful! Wonderful!” Roughpeak turned his head to look at Ning with eyes full of excitement. “Junior apprentice-brother Darknorth, to tell you the truth, I didn’t really think you’d be able to succeed. In fact, after spending a few days in your Immortal estate, I was truly afraid that you had already failed. But you actually succeeded! Wonderful, simply wonderful.”