Desolate Era (Book 25 - Book 27)

“He’s a freak! He’s one of those horrifyingly, freakishly talented geniuses that were in the higher strata of the Astral Islands. He must’ve been admitted into the Twelve Palaces already!” The fleeing World God Azurekai was more frightened than anyone else. “And he must’ve been one of the top freaks!”


Some of those ‘freaks’ were strong because of special treasures or secret arts, while others held enormous advantages in terms of speed and strength. Those freakishly strong cultivators who were as strong and fast as Daolords of the First Step were the most terrifying ones of all. Kilostar and Ning both belonged to this category. Even when Ning’s sword-arts had been weak, his powerful divine body had allowed him to stably reside within the fifth stratum. Once his sword-arts improved, he became strong enough that even Bertulu would have to reveal his true form in order to be certain of victory over Ning.

“Fleeing?” After slaying World God Dragonking, Ning’s body flickered as he began to chase after World God Azurekai.

World God Azurekai and World God Dragonking were both transcendent World Gods and the strongest members of the twenty-seven. As for the others? Ning really didn’t care about them.

Boom! Sword-light descended.

“No!” World God Azurekai struggled to defend, utterly terrified. But after a few strokes of sword-light, he was finished.

World God Northrest had acquired something like the [Golden Idol] out of pure luck. In contrast, World God Azurekai had only been able to train his body to make it comparable to a top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasure. He hadn’t even reached the Chaos treasure level. Protective divine abilities were very rare, after all, and they were extremely hard to train in. Elite protective divine abilities were even more rare!

Soon, World God Azurekai disappeared into a cloud of dust.

Ning glanced at the treasures he had left behind, then waved his hand and collected it all.

As for the other Waterfiend Lords, they had all fled long ago. They didn’t even want their palace any longer. As for the attendants and maids inside the palace, they had hidden themselves in terror.

“Time to go.” Ning soared into the skies, shooting out of the lake and into his flying vessel as he departed. Once he entered his vessel, Ning began to bind the treasures which World God Azurekai had left behind. Soon, he located the Mirrorsnow Painting he was looking for.





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Book 26, Chapter 50 - Bloodfire Cloudfruit


The flying shuttle flew through the clouds with Ji Ning seated on the deck, going through the treasures he had just acquired.

“It is actually…” Ning stared at the Mirrorsnow Painting in his hands. This painting was a painting of a beautiful palace. This palace was slightly different from the painting of a palace which Ning had already acquired, but Ning immediately recognized it as being painted by Emperor Mirrorsnow… partially because of how ugly it was, but also because no one could imitate his distinct sword-intent.

“A painting of a palace? Is this another copy of the first painting?” Ning nodded slowly. “It makes sense. I would have to have stupid good luck in order to find the fourth painting right away.”

Ning wasn’t too surprised by the fact that this painting wasn’t the fourth painting.

“Still… at least this painting can be sold for roughly a hundred or two hundred thousand cubes of chaos nectar. In fact, someone who desperately needs it would probably be willing to pay even more.” Ning was in quite a good mood. These paintings were popular, valuable items. Generally speaking, those who acquired the paintings wouldn’t divulge it to others! Given that there were only forty of them in all the Endless Territories, and given that some might have multiple copies of each…

It certainly wasn’t going to be easy for him to just randomly encounter the exact piece he needed. For him to even find a copy of the first one here in the Brightshore Kingdom was already a stroke of great luck.

“After I go to the Palace of the Sword, I’ll ask the Twelve Palaces to help me locate the fourth painting,” Ning mused to himself.

The Twelve Palaces of the Brightshore Kingdom were on the same general level of power as the Dao Alliance.

Last time, Ning had asked Daolord Badlands to help him buy Mirrorsnow Paintings, and Daolord Badlands had sought out the Dao Alliance to carry out this task. Because they were on a tight time schedule, the Dao Alliance didn’t really carry a large-scale search. The Twelve Palaces, however, was itself an incredibly powerful organization that held cultivators, Aeonians, and other Aberrants.

In the future, Ji Ning would be one of their links to the Dao Alliance.

In the future, Gorho would be one of their links to the Aeonians.

As a result, the Twelve Palaces of Brightshore were on very good terms with many of the organizations of the Endless Territories. It might be hard for the Twelve Palaces to immediately procure a copy of the fourth Mirrorsnow Painting, but if they were given enough time they stood an extremely good chance of succeeding. But of course… that was only if you were willing to pay the price!

Ning sent out a strand of his divine power into his new copy of the first painting, creating a divine clone within it.

Within the palace inside the painting. A golden-robed emperor manifested atop the royal throne within the palace.

Ning sighed upon seeing this. “Although there are slight differences, I can sense that he is similar to the golden-robed emperor within my original first painting.”

“Oh. A while ago, it was World God Azurekai who met with me. Did you kill Azurekai?” The golden-robed emperor looked downwards at Ning.

“Yes.” Ning nodded. “I already acquired other Mirrorsnow Paintings in the past. Do all ten copies of the first Mirrorsnow Painting created by Emperor Mirrorsnow hold the exact same ‘type’ of person?”

“They do.” The golden-robed emperor smiled and nodded. He didn’t really care about Azurekai’s death. He existed for the sake of completing the Eternal Emperor’s mission, and for someone to be able to kill Azurekai meant that this person should be even stronger.

“Let’s have a little competition,” Ning said.

“Azurekai was never able to defeat me.” The golden-robed emperor produced a golden greatsword in his hands as he walked down the stairs towards Ning. “You said you already have other Mirrorsnow Paintings. You should know the rules.”

“I know them.” Ning nodded.

After a brief battle, Ning defeated the golden-robed emperor.

Aboard the flying vessel, the true Ning revealed a look of resignation. “Although there are slight differences in the sword-arts they use, the two golden-robed emperors really do belong to the exact same ‘school’. This is of no use to my sword-arts whatsoever.”

“What else is there?” Ning began to go through the rest of his spoils of war.

World God Azurekai didn’t have any particularly good treasures aside from the painting. He did have an azure sword which was an Eternal weapon, but Ning was quickly able to judge that it was merely a low-grade Eternal weapon that was actually weaker than his Violetjewels! And there was only one Eternal weapon. As for the other treasures, they were negligible.

“He did have two decent techniques.” Ning glanced through them. “Useless to me, but I can transmit them to the Three Realms.”

“I wonder what World God Dragonking had?” Ning scanned through these treasures as well. World God Dragonking was a spear-wielder, but his spear was also merely a low-grade Eternal treasure.