Desolate Era (Book 22 - Book 24)

They loved to court death, loved the feeling of adventure. A single successful expedition could result in enormous rewards.

Elder God Skysouth was a classic example. Because of one enormously successful trip, he had ended up being able to purchased over a hundred Elder Gods as well as an Elder God Formation, becoming an often-discussed figure amongst the adventuring cultivators.

“It’s time I pay a visit to the Windsource Ruins myself,” Ning mused to himself. On the first day he had arrived, Ning had acquired a detailed report regarding the Windsource Ruins from the black-robed Ancestral Immortal. The Three Realms was a place that was somewhat lacking in opportunities, but the Badlands Territory was a place with many legacies left behind by ancient powers.

It had been countless years, but the Windsource Ruins still had yet to be fully investigated. Even World-level experts had died within it. Clearly, the ancient power who had left behind the Windsource Ruins was someone who surpassed World Gods in power.

Given that Ning had a clone located in the prisonworld, Ning definitely had to give this place a good look.





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Book 24, Chapter 16 - Entering the Ruins


Three days later.

“So this is the Windsource Ruins?” Ji Ning stood atop a cloud, staring downwards at the vast world before him. He saw an unfathomably large area that was completely covered by clouds. It must be understood that the Windsource Ruins was once the Immortal estate of that ancient power, and as such it took over nearly half of the space of the entire chaosworld. One could imagine how enormous it was!

“Time to go in.”

Ning flew deep into the cloud-shrouded world.

Whoosh.

He could sense space twisting around him. Suddenly, Ning’s legs went soft. Ning’s face changed and he hurriedly try to fly back up.

Whoosh…

An enormous bloody maw suddenly appeared below him, delivering a fierce chomp towards him. Fortunately, Ning was able to fly quite quickly and thus was able to dodge the bite.

“I was actually teleported straight towards the swamp.” Ning glanced downwards as he continued to fly high up in the air. The region below him was an incredibly vast swamp, and there was a mud-covered beast below him that was staring straight at him. The creature had a savage look in its eyes at it slowly crawled out from the muck, revealing a lizard-like body.

“According to my records on the Windsource Ruins, as soon as you enter you’ll be teleported to the swamp. It doesn’t matter where you enter from; you’ll still be sent straight here. The swamp is filled with countless bugs and beasts, some powerful and some weak. The weak ones might be merely as powerful as a True God, while the most monstrously powerful ones might be as powerful as a World God.” Ning glanced downwards once more at the beast who was now tracking him.

It was normal for powerful cultivators to rear bugbeasts within their estates.

The ancient power who had build this estate had intentionally created an enormous swamp within it for the sake of rearing certain bugbeasts. In fact, he had established a breeding loop that would ensure that the bugbeasts would continue to kill and eat each other, becoming stronger and stronger without him even needing to worry about them. Thus, even though the estate’s owner had died countless years ago, there were still a shocking number of bugbeasts in the swamp.

These bugbeasts were reared for the purpose of becoming the guardians and protectors of the estate. Thus, all outside invaders would suffer attacks from these bugbeasts.

Growl…

The lizard-shaped creature opened its mouth even wider as it suddenly soared into the skies, its body coiling upwards for many hundreds of meters as it ‘crawled’ upwards through the air.

“Die.”

A dazzling streak of sword-light slashed through the bugbeast’s army.

Snick! The bugbeast’s body was chopped into two halves. Blood sprayed everywhere as it died, and as the blood came crashing back down to the swamp it kicked up a few small muddy waves.

[Brightmoon] sword art, Shadowless stance!

Ning held a Darknorth in his hand, shrinking it from being three thousand meters in length to merely three meters.

“There are way too many bugbeasts in the swamp. I need to get out of here.” Ning immediately transformed into a black lightning serpent and began to fly away.

The Windsource Ruins’ outermost region was the swamp region. Everyone had to start from the swamp and work their way in if they wished to reach the other regions of the ruins. Even Ning found it difficult to tell north from south after he had entered the ruins. All he could do was just choose a random direction and begin flying at maximum speed.

“Eh?” Ning could sense some ripples of power from afar. He immediately began to stealthily fly in that direction.

A short while later, Ning was able to see what was happening in the distance. There was a desolate hill off in the distance, and atop the hill coiled a two-headed serpent whose body was more than ten kilometers long. Its head was raised as it stared upwards at an enormous winged scaly monster that was right above it. Both creatures had auras of tremendous power.

“I have the feeling that in raw strength alone, both have reached the World-level of power. Still, they are fairly weak in terms of technique. It’d take me a bit of effort to kill them, but it wouldn’t be too hard.” Ning mused to himself, “I’ll wager these two are two of the bosses of the swamp.”

“GRWAAR!” The two-headed serpent let out a thunderous roar as it suddenly charged upwards.

As for the scaled monster, it plunged downwards as it attacked as well.

The entire swamp seemed to shake. Thankfully, spacetime in the Ruins was incredibly stable; even if World-level experts fought here, they wouldn’t be able to shatter it. If these two creatures were battling in the outside world, they would probably cause entire chaosworlds to shatter in their wake.

“Is that…?” Ning suddenly saw a filthy looking boat appear in the distance. The boat was filled with sabers, swords, suits of armor, pearls, banners, and all sorts of other magic treasures that emanated powerful auras.

“So many treasures? And almost all of them are Chaos treasures!” Ning was delighted.

Over the course of countless years, an equally countless number of Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals had died in the swamps. The bugbeasts weren’t capable of using the treasures the slain cultivators had left behind, and so the more powerful ones simply piled them together as spoils of war!

Ning suppressed his aura and bent light around him, making it so that the bugbeasts couldn’t see him.

“In order to completely repair Violetjewel, I’ll need to acquire an enormous amount of Five Elements essence. I have to get these treasures.” Ning immediately came to this decision. “Ideally, these two creatures will kill or maim each other.”

Slash!

One of the heads of the two-headed serpent was seized by the sharp claws of the scaly creature, but the other head had managed to latch its maw around the scaly creature’s own head. The scaly creature struggled furiously, beating its massive wings and causing waves of mud to kick up around it.

Boom! The scaly creature’s head suddenly exploded. Its aura began to grow weak and its struggling wings slowly began to sink downwards.

One of the two-headed serpent’s heads had been completely crushed, but its remaining head let out an excited roar.

“GRWAAAR!”

Its roars echoed in the skies.

It then lowered its head, beginning to dine on the flesh of the scaly creature. This was how these bugbeasts lived; they would fight each other and consume each other, constantly growing and transforming. As the serpent continued to feed, its destroyed head began to slowly grow out anew.

Swish!

A figure suddenly drew close to it.

The two-headed serpent was enraged, and its undamaged head immediately turned to stare angrily at the white-robed figure.

Whoosh! Its tail suddenly moved, lashing out lightning-fast towards the offender.

“Heartsword Realm.”