Desolate Era (Book 19 - Book 21)

The power of this sword-strike he had just launched was actually much more powerful than that of even the perfect Heaven Punisher he once commanded.

“Die!” The Seven Planets God that Greatdream commanded let out a furious roar. He wielded a pair of enormous scimitars in his hands, and he sent them chopping downwards towards Ning.

The jade sword arced through the skies in a solitary, beautiful line.

Swish.

Although Greatdream sought to block it, the jade sword was simply too fast, and he was just a bit too slow. It must be understood that the demon king was just as fast and strong as the Seven Planets God, but even he was unable to block Ning’s jade sword. And after a century of battle, the current Ji Ning had improved tremendously compared to the Ji Ning of the past.

Slash. The jade sword slashed downwards across the body of the Seven Planets God.

“Go, go!” Ning stared coldly.

The many Immortal swords around him undulated, allowing his energy to flow through and coalesce into two more jade swords that immediately flew towards the enemy.

“How can this be?”

“Good heavens.”

“How can he be this powerful?! How can an Empyrean God be this strong?!”

In almost the blink of an eye, the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon were all destroyed. The Empyrean Gods that had been within the formations were terrified. Greatdream, in particular, found this all impossible to believe; how could this person be so powerful? This was a level of power that caused him to feel despair.

“Spare us!” Greatdream called out hurriedly.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

One of the jade swords was spent, but the other two continued to fly forwards. All the Empyrean Gods they flew past were chopped apart into multiple pieces. These Empyrean Gods immediately began to heal themselves and flee in terror…but alas, they were quickly ground up into tiny slices of meat.

“Die.” Ning stretched out with his two hands, which instantly swelled in size. They seemed to become two enormous black clouds that slammed towards the remnants of the Empyrean Gods.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Ning’s two gigantic cloud-sized hands clapped together multiple times, with all of the Empyrean Gods trapped within them. He clapped them into dust. Just a few claps later, their divine power was completely used up and they all perished.

More than twenty Empyrean Gods…had died, just like that!

In truth, if all of them had hidden themselves within their Immortal estate and relied on the formations of the estate to protect themselves, there would’ve been nothing that Ning could’ve done. Perhaps Ning’s Rahu Formation was capable of breaching the combined defenses of more than twenty Empyrean Gods who were jointly resisting him within a formation, but Ning didn’t have any other Immortals following and assisting him at present. All he had was the Pure Yang Jindan within his body, and so Ning was ‘only’ as strong as a perfect Heaven Punisher, with his sword-arts being more profound than before.

But they had instead chosen to exchange attacks with Ning?

That was suicide…and so they really had died.

“The person who kill you was me…Ji Ning,” Ning murmured softly to himself.

At his level of heartforce, Ning knew exactly when to kill and when not to kill. He had already made the decision in his mind.

After killing Greatdream and the others, Ning only let out a sigh and shook his head. He remained as calm and collected as ever as he began to return to the others.

……

“Eh?”

“That’s Empyrean God Darknorth over there!”

“Isn’t Darknorth supposed to be with Sin and the others?” Quite a few of the Empyrean Gods were confused. Ning had only informed Sin and Sealthroat of his decision to attack.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

Soon, two more figures appeared. They were Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat.

“It’s good to see you back.” The two of them both felt relieved upon seeing him.

“I told you I’d be fine,” Ning said. He had the power to defeat all of the enemy’s Empyrean Gods at the same time; of course he would’ve been fine.

“How’d it go?” Sealthroat immediately asked.

“Dead,” Ning said.

Sealthroat and Sin both revealed looks of wild joy on their faces. Sin mumbled to himself, “Wonderful. No matter what we tried, we weren’t able to do anything to him. He was simply too crafty…but now, he’s dead. Wonderful, wonderful!”

“All dead,” Ning elaborated.

“All…dead?” Sin and Sealthroat revealed looks of disbelief on their faces.

They really couldn’t believe what they had just heard. In fact, that very day the two of them paid a personal visit to the place where the Seamless Gate’s forces had gathered. They stared at the collapsed palace, at the shattered ground, at the scars of battle…but there wasn’t a single enemy Empyrean God in sight. Only then did they truly believe that Ning had done what he said he had done.

“More than twenty Empyrean Gods. All dead. How?!” Sin was filled with confusion. “There were so many of them. Most were comparatively weak, but they had the absolute advantage in raw numbers. Even if they just joined together into simple Seven Planets Gods, they would become incredibly powerful.”

“If you can’t understand it, don’t bother trying to. Darknorth had his own methods for succeeding. All we know and need to know is that he is very powerful. No wonder the demon king said that he is very likely to succeed in leaving Undermoon Lake.” Sealthroat couldn’t help but sigh and smile in amazement while praising Ning. “This is perfect. If Greatdream was the only one to die, the other Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate would’ve posed a headache as well, forcing us to constantly be on our guard. Now, however, we have nothing to fear.”

“Agreed.” Sin nodded as well.

Greatdream had already become a person of the past. What Ji Ning cared about the most right now was the final challenge! He was just one step away from leaving Undermoon Lake.

The third day since his arrival on Kilostar Island.

The dawn moon had risen into the skies.

On the other side of Kilostar Island, Ning was standing with the other two, staring off into the distance.

Sin pointed towards the distance. “Look, over there! That’s the Path of Blades. It is the final challenge. If you are able to walk the Path of Blades, you’ll make it to the fifth island and be able to leave.”

“The Path of Blades?” Ning stared at the distant wooden bridge. The wooden bridge led to a place that was filled with countless enormous knifes, swords, and spears that stood upright and erect.





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Book 20, Chapter 27 - The Final Challenge: The Path of Blades


“How strong is the guardian of this ‘Path of Blades’? Anything special to watch out for?” Ji Ning asked.

This was the final challenge. Ning understood that the guardian definitely had to be a terrifyingly strong figure.

Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat exchanged a glance, then they both laughed. Sin then turned to Ning. “The foe you will encounter on the Path of Blades…is yourself!”

“Myself?” Ning was flabbergasted.

“Right.” Sin explained, “When you challenge the Path of Blades, the enemy that appears will look exactly like you and have the exact same divine body, the exact same divine abilities, the exact same Immortal energy…the exact same everything. In fact, if you use sword-arts, he’ll choose to use sword-arts as well. The only difference is…the sword-arts that he uses will be the sword-arts of Undermoon Lake.”