Desolate Era (Book 25 - Book 27)

“He’s not bad, I suppose.” The golden-armored man laughed. “We cultivators are fairly weak in general. It is quite rare for an extremely powerful cultivator to emerge. We simply can’t compare to the members of your race. All of you are born with utterly enormous power.”


“Is that comparable? Is that even comparable?!” The black-haired man glared at him. “How many of you are there? How few of us are there? The Hegemon, that old bastard… how much time does he need to spend wandering the Endless Territories before he is able to find another member of our race? For each new member of our race that is born, another ten Daolords emerge amongst you cultivators. You cultivators give birth to monsters by the bundle. Just look at the Twelve Palaces. How many Daolords do you have? And how few members do we have in our imperial clan?”





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Book 26, Chapter 37 - The Plight of Su Youji


“Ahaha!” The golden-armored warrior laughed. “Fine, I misspoke.”

“Sometimes, I really envy you cultivators. There is a stupid large number of you. You guys are absolutely everywhere. Every single territory has you cultivators in them.” The black-haired man sighed and shook his head. Suddenly…

“THAT BRAT! Is he trying to die?!” The black-haired man’s eyes suddenly bulged out. Two streaks of golden light shot out of his eyes, passing through the barriers of spacetime and reaching a distant figure in a distant place.

……

The Astral Islands.

“What just happened?” Ning’s entire body had turned stiff. He felt as though an utterly terrifying presence had suddenly taken notice of him. However, that terrifying sense of danger quickly dissipated.

“Who was that just now?” Ning guessed that it had to have been an incredibly powerful figure who was scrying upon him, a figure that didn’t even bother to hide his aura. If he had, there was no way Ning would’ve been able to sense him.

“That sense of danger… it was second only to the sensation I felt when I encountered that terrifying behemoth that brought me here,” Ning mused to himself.

The terrifying behemoth that had devoured him and brought him to this place was the most terrifying thing Ning had ever encountered in his life. It vastly surpassed any and all experts Ning had encountered in the past.

The Brightshore Kingdom was an organization that was on the same general level of power as the entire Dao Alliance itself. The Dao Alliance was unfathomably powerful, while the Brightshore Kingdom was very secretive and quite powerful as well.

“Doesn’t matter, I guess. Either of them can crush me like a bug.” Ning couldn’t be bothered to worry about it. The point of the almighty Hegemon bringing them here was to raise a crop of powerful cultivators. Even the most powerful of organizations would need constant injections of fresh blood, after all.

No matter how powerful their elite experts were, only their Eternal Emperors would live eternally. Samsara Daolords who did not succeed in the Daomerge would all perish eventually. Thus, they needed to ensure a constant, steady stream of new blood.

Ning was one of them, a future expert of the Brightshore Kingdom.

“Mm. Fortunately, Youji is still alive.” Ning flipped through the golden book again, then let out a sigh of relief.

“Eh? Someone just challenged me?” Ning frowned. One of the talented geniuses of the fifth stratum had just issued him a challenge. It must be understood that the twelve members of the fifth stratum had been on that stratum for a long period of time. They were all definitely superior to Sabafalle in power.

Ning had been forced to pull out his Elementum Waterflame Gourd for the sake of defeating Sabafalle.

“I’m currently protected by the Astral Islands. Even if I lose, I would at most lose some legacy treasures. However… I need to make sure this set gets to Su Youji first. If too much time passes, something unexpected might happen.” Ning didn’t dare to be too arrogant.

Ning waved his hand. Whoosh! Three hundred and twenty legacy treasures suddenly appeared before him. These were all fiery red leaves. The fiery leaves were all gathered together, and Ning could immediately sense the tremendous amount of information they contained, as well as that blazingly powerful aura of fire.

This was a legacy pertaining to the Dao of Fire. Sabafalle, Ning’s previous opponent, had walked the Dao of Fire. The reason he had kept these legacy treasures with him was so that he could be in constant contact with the blazing will they contained. However, the treasures had now fallen into Ning’s hands.

All he had to do was swear a lifeblood oath and he would immediately be able to study this legacy.

Ning did end up learning it, but he simply memorized its contents. This legacy was indeed quite profound and remarkable. Just by reviewing the entire legacy from start to finish, Ning’s insights into the Dao of Fire increased substantially, reaching a level of near-parity with his Dao of Water or his Dao of Lightning.

“Possession of a legacy really does make a big difference,” Ning mused to himself. “Still, my Dao is the Dao of the Sword. I can’t waste my time and energy on fire.” Ning quickly buried this legacy into another corner of his mind. He had simply memorized it to gain a bit of additional experience, as all Daos shared certain commonalities. This legacy contained many abstruse mysteries that would be of some use to Ning in his mastery of the Dao of the Sword.

“Time to challenge her.” After looking through the legacy treasure, Ning nodded silently to himself. Su Youji was quite talented in the Dao of Fire. If he gave this to her, it would be of tremendous benefit to her in mastering the Dao of Fire. She would improve quite quickly.

Ning sent Su Youji a challenge.

“I hope she accepts. She has to accept.” Ning was rather worried and nervous.

He had learned the location of Su Youji’s astral island from Daolord Flameflow, but Su Youji didn’t know that Ning had reached the fifth stratum. If she suddenly saw someone from the fifth stratum challenge her, would she accept?

If she did not, then Ning would have to accept this duel from Kilostar, his fifth stratum challenger. If he won, that was one thing, but if he lost… his legacy treasures would all be gone as well.

It wouldn’t be too hard for Ning to get another set of legacy treasures, but to get another set that was of the Dao of Fire which Su Youji could use would be quite difficult. In addition, if too much time passed… Su Youji might perish.

……

The bottom stratum of the hundreds of thousands of astral islands. One of the islands was covered with plants and flowers. This was a very beautiful island.

Su Youji, dressed in fiery red robes, was lying within the grass, staring at the skies. A look of exhaustion was on her face.

“If this keeps up, I really won’t be able to endure for much longer. Master… I probably won’t be able to accompany you for much longer.”

Su Youji lay there in the grass, utterly exhausted. She truly had almost no energy left.

Ji Ning had given her his bugbeasts and his set of Hellwind Golems. At first, she had indeed been able to win quite a few battles in a row with ease. On the first stratum, there really weren’t that many who were a match for her.

But soon, trouble began to appear.

News that she had many bugbeasts and a set of Hellwind Golems quickly began to spread. There were many powerful World-level cultivators who wanted those bugbeasts and those powerful golems!

For example, there wasn’t a significant difference in power between cultivators on the third stratum and those on the fourth stratum. If they had a set of Hellwind Golems helping them out, a third stratum cultivator might be able to charge into the fourth stratum and have a chance at acquiring a full legacy.