Desolate Era (Book 22 - Book 24)

“I have to get out of here.” Ning raised his head to look upwards. The gray wind howled furiously above him, blocking his vision. Ning used his top-grade Chaos armor to form a semi-translucent barrier over his head; only then was he able to see just a little bit of the area above him.

“I have to get out of this pit. The wind is too powerful; I won’t be able to maintain a grip on any jutting pieces of rock. My only choice is to drive my entire arm deep into some of those crevices and cracks.” Ning scanned the area above him for more crevices. The gray wind had caused quite a bit of erosion to this pit, resulting in quite a few crevices appearing.

“There’s one.” Three hundreds above Ning was a slightly smaller crevice.

“Let’s go.” Ning immediately stretched one of his hands upwards.

Whoooooosh.

The furious power of the wind blasted down against Ning’s hand with the weight of a thousand stars, completely preventing him from reaching upwards. Ning did his best to fight back against it, and he found that he was able to stretch his arms out in various other directions…but to go completely against the win and reach upwards? Completely impossible.

“Won’t work. Wind’s too strong.” Ning quickly gave up the attempt.

“If I can’t go up…”

Ning lowered his head to stare at the seemingly bottomless black pit beneath him. “Then my only choice is to go down!”

Ning looked downwards carefully. Roughly six hundred meters below him, he saw another large crevice. He immediately stretched out with a hand to grab a hold of it.

Going up meant going against the wind.

Going down meant going with the wind.

When he increased his arm to make it many hundreds of meters long, it was easy for him to snake his hand deep into the crevice. Ning sent one hand after another into the second crevice before finally letting go of the first one.

Whoosh!

Ning quickly fell downwards, then came to a halt.

“Let’s continue.” Ning glanced at his surroundings, then began to climb downwards again.

And so, Ning began to slowly make his way down through this bottomless pit of darkness.

A while later, Ning saw a sword that was jutting out from a stone pillar.

“This sword wasn’t one of Hellsword’s. Some other poor bastard must’ve been dragged in here and lost control of his weapon, resulting in it being stuck here.” Ning immediately, laboriously reached out to grab that sword, then took it into his estate.

Ning then continued his slow downwards climb.

Three hundred meters. Three thousand meters. Thirty kilometers…

By now, Ning had picked up a total of three weapons. Alas, all three were ‘merely’ Chaos treasures; none of them were Dao weapons. Still, it made sense. If a World-level expert was grabbed by the gray wind, he wouldn’t have been manhandled as badly as Ning and Hellsword had been. There were very few Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals who held Dao weapons; the chances of one of them just happening to fall down into this pit were even lower.

Ning slowly clambered down over another hundred kilometers, then took a rest and glanced at his surroundings in the hopes of finding a way out of here.

“What’s that?” Ning look downwards, surprised.

A cave had actually appeared on the walls of the pit. This was clearly a cave that had been artificially dug out, and it was many hundreds of meters wide. Although the gray wind howled past it, it didn’t go into the cave itself, making the cave a rare and welcome oasis of peace.

Because it sloped downwards and inwards, Ning wasn’t able to see it earlier. Only now, when he drew closer, did it appear before him.

“Who dug out this cave? Doesn’t matter, I suppose. I’ve used up quite a bit of my divine power after climbing so long and keeping [Three Heads, Six Arms] active for so long. I need to get in there right away.”

Ning hurriedly began to climb in its direction, then sent his arms deep into the cave entrance. There were a few jutting pieces of rock inside the cave, allowing Ning to easily gain a handhold.

Ning quickly ‘shrank’ his arms, resulting in the rest of his body being pulled into the cave like a rubber band.

“I’m in.”

It was strange. There was no wind in this cave at all. Ning had gotten so used to the raging gray winds that he felt rather unaccustomed to the calm.

“Whew. I can finally take a break.” Ning deactivated [Three Heads, Six Arms], then glanced at the gray wind which continued to rage outside of the cave. He then turned his head to carefully inspect the cave itself.





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Book 24, Chapter 20 - The Nine Seals


It was extremely obvious that this cave had been dug out artificially. It had been dug out in an extremely methodical manner, and various markings that looked like fish scales could be seen on the walls. There were also some diagrams and some writing that had been left behind on the cave walls, and the cave itself emanated a strange intent that felt like flowing water. Ji Ning couldn’t help but be affected by the cave’s aura, and his heart became quite calm as well.

Ning was in no rush to read the words or look at the pictures. Instead, he first carefully inspected the scale-like patterns and marks on the walls.

“Very neat.”

“If someone slowly dug the cave out, there’s no way it could all be so neat and tiny.” Ning stared at the tiny markings. “I feel as though someone must’ve used a divine ability to instantly scoop out the rock and make the cave.”

Ning couldn’t help but feel shocked by this possibility.

When he had grabbed onto that stone pillar a short while ago, the powerful tearing force from the tornado had only been able to cause a few cracks to it. He had tested out using his hands to ‘dig’ a handhold into the walls, but had been completely unable to succeed whatsoever. This was why Ning had chosen to find pre-existing crevices instead.

“The stone here has been nourished by the local formations and baptized by the gray wind, giving it extraordinary properties. Most likely, not even World-level experts would be able to so easily dig out a cave of such size,” Ning mused to himself. He reached out with his hand, gently stroking it against the fish-scale patterns.

As he did, he suddenly could sense a strange, unique intent pouring towards him from the patterns.

“As calm…as water…”

Ning carefully inspected the cave in detail for a while longer, then turned his attention towards the writing and the diagrams on the cave walls. As Ning viewed it, those diagrams wouldn’t exactly be running away. If he wasn’t careful and missed something or activated a trap by accident, that would be truly disastrous.

The ‘Hundred Streams of the Windsource’ in these ruins are quite marvelous indeed. A pity…I would’ve loved to have had the chance to sit down and discuss the Dao with the fellow Daoist who created this estate. That fellow Daoist died countless years ago. In the future, when I reach the end of my own life, I shall also leave behind my Dao and allow the cultivators who come after me to get a good look at it…

I have spent more than a hundred thousand years here and have gained certain insights. Although I’ve only inspected a few of the streams, I can tell that there is a great difference between them and the path which I have chosen, and so it doesn’t matter if I look at the rest of the Hundred Streams or not…

Here are the insights I have gained from a hundred thousand years of viewing these streams. I’ve recorded all of them down here. If a cultivator has the chance to come here in the future and see them, consider this a bit of karma between us.

These are the words of Waterwind!

Every single character emanated a relaxed, carefree aura.

When Ning looked at these words, he felt as though he could see that ancient power writing them down all those years ago.

“Waterwind?” Ning murmured softly to himself, “Who is that? Judging from what he wrote, he should be someone who was on the same level of power as the creator of the Windsource Ruins.”