Desolate Era (Book 19 - Book 21)

It had to have come from the primordial chaos outside the Three Realms! Ever since the most ancient of days, the unique items found within the primordial chaos were generally referred to as Chaos treasures. They were either used as ingredients for forging treasures, or used as treasures themselves. When used as treasures, they would become far more powerful than Protocosmic spirit-treasures, and so they would be titled ‘Chaos treasures’.

Where and how were Chaos treasures born? Hard to say. The primordial chaos did indeed give birth to Chaos treasures, but the terrifying golems that the ‘Lord of All Things’ had created were definitely no weaker than any Chaos treasure. Thus, the Three Realms had suspected for some time now that some of the more powerful Outsiders were perhaps capable of creating artifacts that rivaled Chaos treasures in might.

“Can this be a Chaos treasure?” A thought flashed through Ning’s mind.

Whoosh!

Instantly, a figure appeared. Ning’s true body descended upon the clone, merging into it. As for the outside world…Ning left a small amount of his divine power there, in the form of yet another clone.

“Neither coresense not heartforce can detect it. That leaves just divine power and Immortal energy” Ning picked up the stone stele, then gently placed it down within the very center of the hall. Previously, he had thought this to simply be a treasure which Youngflame Freak had acquired by luck; he didn’t think it could possibly be particularly powerful. But now, it seemed, this stone stele had a weighty background to it.

Not even coresense or heartforce could detect it. Most likely, the other major powers of the Three Realms didn’t even know that it existed.

“Youngflame Freak. Oh, Youngflame Freak. For a Celestial Immortal like you to have been in possession of a treasure like this…if it wasn’t for the fact that I wanted to gain revenge for my mother and for junior apprentice-brother Northson, I probably wouldn’t have been able to acquire something like this. This should be an item from the primordial chaos…I wonder if it is a Chaos treasure?” Ning felt a certain itchiness in his heart. If this really was a Chaos treasure, this would be a tremendous stroke of luck for him.

But of course, not all items from the primordial chaos were particularly valuable. For example, when first testing out the Heaven Punisher, Ning had been able to shatter apart ‘chaos goldstone’. Shennong located many different medicinal herbs within the primordial chaos, but their value was far, far lower than that of a Chaos treasure.

“Let me try to bind it first.” Ning sat down in the lotus position, placing his hand atop the giant stone stele. The stone stele was nearly 300 meters tall and nearly 30 meters thick. The divine power within Ning’s body instantly flooded into the stone stele.

“Eh? Not a Chaos treasure?” As soon as Ning sent his divine power into it, he realized something was wrong. There was no way to bind this treasure. Ning knew exactly how it felt to bind a treasure, even a Protocosmic one, but when his divine power flooded into this treasure, he found the insides to be empty. There was nothing at all for him to bind.

However, when his divine power flooded into the two massive characters at the front of the stone stele, a ripple of information was transmitted straight into Ning’s mind.

“Seventeen.” Ning instantly understood what the enormous characters meant.

“Those two words mean ‘seventeen’. What does that mean? Can it mean that there are many of these stone steles, and that this is the seventeenth?” Ning guessed. “Right; there are many other characters at the back.”

Swoosh!

Ning’s body blurred, then he appeared in the lotus position to one side of the stone stele. He began to pour a large amount of divine power into the stele. As his divine power flooded into it, it quickly began to interact with the countless characters on the other side of the stone stele. As it did, Ning could sense a tremendous, invisible force resisting his own power; clearly, to forcibly scan and understand the information contained within those countless characters was beyond what his capabilities.

“Wait.” Ning came to a halt. “The front side only has two characters, whereas the back side has at least a million. Two characters didn’t give me much pressure, and I was able to understand them right away, but a million is far more than what I can handle.”

The stone stele was nearly three hundred meters tall, and its rear was filled with those tiny, worm-like scribbles. As best as Ning could tell, there was roughly 1.2 million of them.

“Let’s start from the top and proceed slowly.”

Ning immediately began to attempt to fill up a few characters with his divine power.

“This is so slow.” Ning immediately found the process to be quite taxing. Despite that, a good amount of information began to fill Ning’s mind.

“[Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods]…” An extremely ancient technique immediately began to be transmitted into Ning’s mind. As Ning’s divine power filled each character, more and more information regarding this technique entered his mind. Soon, he completely memorized this entire technique.

“It…it’s actually a cultivation technique.” Ning stared at the stone stele in astonishment. “And this is just a small part of the top.”

The characters on the stone stele were divided into seven major regions. The first region had this technique, the [Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods].

“What a powerful technique. It actually allows you to divide into eighteen different bodies.” Ning let out a sigh. “Although Fiendgods can divide into many different clones, once the clone dies, the part of the soul within it will die as well. This will result in the soul fragmenting, and when too much of the soul is destroyed, you will die.”

“But this technique…upon mastering the first level, you’ll be able to perfectly divide the soul into eighteen different spawns. Although each spawn will have less than a tenth of the power of the original body, they are all capable of surviving on their own. In addition, if the other seventeen are destroyed, the final spawn will slowly be able to recreate the other spawns.”

“Once you reach the second level of this technique, the eighteen spawns will all have the same level of power as the original body.”

“If you master the third level…the eighteen spawns can merge back into the original body at any point in time, and the original body can also divide into those eighteen spawns. When they merge into the original body, the power of the original body will explosively increase.” Ning sighed in amazement.

If he mastered this technique, it would be as though there were eighteen Ji Ning’s. Even if he chose to use his original body to fight by itself, his power would still exponentially increase.

How monstrous a technique was this?!

“It seems that this is the technique which Youngflame Freak used, and that he was only able to train to the first level of this technique.” Ning immediately understood. “I had thought that he trained in a secret art like the Bloodshadow Incarnation…but it seems he’s actually training in this unfathomably profound technique.”

The Three Realms had powerful techniques of its own. The Bloodshadow Incarnation, for example, guaranteed that so long a single incarnation remained alive, the others would come back to life as well. However, true experts would rarely use this technique, because the power of each incarnation would drop dramatically; it was better to keep the true body at maximum power instead! Everyone believed that Youngflame Freak had trained in this technique because he was a coward who feared death, but who would’ve thought that he actually was in possession of a technique like this [Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods]? The relative weakness of his bodies was only due to the fact that he had merely trained to the first level.

“Where did this technique come from?” Ning let out a sigh of amazement. “Still…it will be very hard to truly master this technique.”