Desolate Era (Book 22 - Book 24)

“Given Mother Nuwa’s abilities, I’m sure she must’ve been able to merge the Nine Chaos Seals together as well. She also must have an azureflower space of her own, and I’ll wager her insights into it are much greater than mine. She might’ve discovered some of its secrets,” Ning mused. “But…I still have no idea where she’s gone off to. There’s actually no record of her in the Badlands Territory.”


Mother Nuwa had left the Three Realms roughly half a chaos cycle ago. If she had arrived in the Badlands Territory…given her power, her arrival definitely would’ve been recorded down. It must be understood that even the more powerful Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals were known throughout the Badlands Territory. As for the World Gods, all of them would definitely be recorded down. And yet, Ning was unable to find any records of Mother Nuwa at all.

“Or perhaps she didn’t make it to the Badlands Territory? Did she get lost in the spatial vortex tunnel? Given her power, Mother Nuwa should’ve been able to traverse that tunnel with ease unless her luck was so horrid that she was completely surrounded by spatial rifts, giving her no way out at all. The chances of that happening, however, are quite low.”

“Or did she hide her true identity here in the Badlands Territory?”

“Mm. Well, I’ll worry about that later. Given her power…if she’s still in the Badlands Territory, her reputation will quickly spread throughout the region.” Ning was in quite a good mood right now. His mastery of the azureflower space had been more beneficial to him than anything he could imagine. Even if his true body ended up dying here, his backup clone would eventually be able to rebuild it.

“Thank you, senior Waterwind.” Ning turned to look at the words left behind on the cave walls.

It was thanks to the diagram of the ‘Hundred Streams merging together to form the Dao’ that Ning had been able to gain tremendous insights of his own and thus master the Nine Chaos Seals. This was far more valuable and important to Ning than merely improving his sword-arts a bit.

Ning moved to stand at the edge of the cave. He first stared upwards, then downwards towards the bottomless abyss.

“Should I climb upwards? Or should I go down?” This was what Ning was pondering.

With the azureflower energy supporting him, he would be able to easily climb upwards and escape from the pit. But after leaving the pit, would he be able to escape this place safely? Hard to say.

What would happen if he climbed downwards? Still hard to say.

“It won’t be too hard for me to climb upwards, but…” Ning nodded slowly. “I don’t need to rush out of here. I’ll go down and take a look first. Countless cultivators must’ve been swallowed by the Windsource. Hellsword himself had a pair of Dao weapons on him. The depths of the Windsource Ruins must hold many treasures.”

Although the path downwards might be filled with many dangers, it was also a path that led to great treasures.

It wasn’t impossible that Ning might end up finding four or five Dao weapons there.

“Time to go.” Ning no longer hesitated.

Cultivators were meant to battle against Heaven and Earth. If they wanted to acquire good treasures, they’d have to risk their lives for it!

Ning’s arms stretched out many hundreds of meters. He looked like a giant ape as he swung from crevice to crevice, the azureflower energy filling his body making the process quite simple. In fact, Ning was now able to easily grasp onto jutting pieces of rock without needing to focus on cracks. Previously, Ning wouldn’t be able to maintain his grip, but now he was able to do so with ease.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. He clambered down very agilely with six arms, moving so fast that he looked like a blur.

Ten kilometers. A hundred kilometers. A thousand kilometers.

Ning continued his downwards descent.

Every so often, he would encounter a treasure that was caught within a crack or on a ledge.

“This is way too deep. I must’ve gone down at least thirty thousand kilometers by now.” Ning couldn’t help but secretly sigh in amazement. “The deeper I go, the more powerful the Windsource seems to become as well.”

Right now, the Windsource was at least five or six times more powerful than it had been when he was next to the cave. However, Ning had become so much more powerful that he was still able to proceed in a very relaxed manner.

“Eh?” Ning’s eyes lit up as he saw a warblade that glistened with bloody light that had been caught within a crevice. As the gray wind blew past the warblade, it emitted an ear-piercing screech. The warblade was quite dazzling to behold, and its aura caused even Ning’s heart to clench.

“A Dao weapon!” Ning revealed a look of delight. “After climbing down thirty thousand kilometers, I picked up more than a hundred Chaos weapons. Now, I’ve finally found a Dao weapon.”

Whoosh.

Ning reached out with his arms, stretching them out several hundred meters as he stuck his hands deep into the crevice, then pulled the warblade out. Judging from the ripples emanating from the warblade, it was an ownerless item. Its former owner had most likely died a long time ago.

“I feel as though its aura is even stronger than Violetjewel’s aura is,” Ning murmured to himself. “It must be quite a powerful Dao weapon.”

Ning’s guess was correct.

This warblade was a weapon which an Elder God had acquired from an incredibly deadly place. It was a top-grade Dao weapon! However, after acquiring the weapon, the Elder God had been unable to escape the danger zone he was in. He continued to flee through the area and in the end had been swept into and perished within the Hundred Streams of the Windsource.

“For the sake of this warblade alone, I have to make it out of here alive. It’d be a huge waste if I died.” Ning quickly put the warblade away. One could perish at any moment when trapped within a deadly area such as this…but the rewards one could reap could also be staggering.

“I’ll keep going downwards.”

“I still haven’t seen those two Dao weapons which Hellsword found.” Ning reached out with his six arms, continuing his quick downwards descent into the depths of this bottomless pit.





* * *





Book 24, Chapter 23 - Windbeast


Ji Ning continued to clamber downwards, traversing yet another ten thousand kilometers. On the way down, he picked up another twenty-plus Chaos treasures. The reason why he picked up no Protocosmic spirit-treasures was because the gray wind here was so strong that even Protocosmic spirit-treasures would be slowly ground to dust by it. Only Chaos treasures were able to survive the wind for extended periods of time.

“Eh? I reached the bottom?” Ning held onto the walls with his six long arms as he stared downwards.

Rumble…

The gray wind formed a swirling maelstrom at the bottom, but the pit itself had come to an end. All Ning could see was the small part of the enormous maelstrom that was visible from his location.

“This should be the bottom. This is where the wind transforms into a maelstrom, at least. That means that the treasures left behind by the dead cultivators should all be here.” Ning began to grow rather excited. Hellsword had two Dao weapons on him, and Ning had already picked up over a hundred Chaos treasures and a top-grade Dao warblade on the way down. The number of treasures at the bottom had to be immense.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

The closer he got to the treasures, the more careful he became. He slowly climbed downwards, carefully inspecting his surroundings as he did so. The gray wind here was so powerful that if it wasn’t for his azureflower energy, there was no way he would be able to climb around here.

“The maelstrom is pretty large.” As he continued to climb downwards, the true size of the gray maelstrom of wind began to reveal itself.

“What?!” Ning was stunned.