Desolate Era (Book 25 - Book 27)

Trapped within the Pentabolt Gourd, Foxblaze would suffer perpetual attacks from those five types of lightning. Sooner or later, his divine power would run out and he would be ground into dust.

“Why, Master? He was a World God, after all.” Su Youji and the others looked curiously at Ning.

“I wanted to kill him, so I did.” Ning’s response was quite calm.

A World God? What of it?

He didn’t like people with Foxblaze’s character. He’d feel uncomfortable having the man around, and a mere elite World God wouldn’t be of much use to him anyhow. Any of his four golems was comparable to Foxblaze in power, after all.

As for selling him off into slavery? He wouldn’t be worth nearly as much as a golem. Golems were absolutely loyal to their masters, after all. Foxblaze would most likely go for just a hundred cubes of chaos nectar at most, but the problem was that he knew how strong Ji Ning actually was. For now, Ning wished to keep his true power a secret.

He wouldn’t worry about the information leaking after he became a World God, and wouldn’t have minded selling Foxblaze off at that time… but who knew how long that would take? And by then, would he care about a petty hundred cubes of chaos nectar.

“Might as well kill him. I feel more comfortable doing that.” High-level cultivators had to follow their own hearts and their own paths to begin with.

“At my current level of power, killing elite World Gods still requires a bit of effort.” Ning reflected on this recent fight. “Without the four golems helping out, things probably wouldn’t be so easy.”

Thanks to the four golems, he had been able to kill an elite World God in a fairly short period of time.

“Wild Dog, Blacksun, go back and get some rest. Await my orders,” Ning instructed.

“Yes,” both Elder Gods said respectfully, their eyes filled with blazing eagerness.

What a show of utter dominance.

They had almost instantly slain a Chaos Immortal and a World God. The World God had begged to be enslaved, but their master didn’t even want to bother with enslaving him. This was true dominance! Their master truly was far too powerful. How mighty would he become when he actually reached the World level?

Whoosh. After Rocky, Elder God Wilddog, and Elder God Blacksun were all transported back into the estate-world, Ning turned to look towards Su Youji. “Youji, let’s get back to our hunt for that bugbeast.”

“Right.” Su Youji nodded as well.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Relying on his attunement to the Mirrorsnow Painting, Ning quickly led Su Youji towards the location of the second painting.





* * *





Book 25, Chapter 31 - Grove of Monoliths


Ji Ning led Su Youji forward, using his attunement to the painting to sense where they should go.

The bugbeast had already come to a halt, causing Ning to feel quite uneasy. Although most bugbeasts were fairly dumb, World-level bugbeasts were both powerful and rather clever. Since this one knew that Ning had a way to track it, for it to come to a halt could only mean that it had found a place it felt was very safe.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

Ning and Su Youji flew past one mountain peak after another, shrouded by mist. Every so often they could thread their way past forests or deep gorges. They advanced with great caution and deliberation, and as a result spent nearly an hour before they reached their destination. The bugbeasts had come to a halt, after all; it didn’t matter too much if they were moving a bit slower than before.

“It should be up ahead.” Ning was standing atop a towering, jagged boulder as he mentally conversed with the fiery-robed Su Youji.

“Let’s take it slow,” Ning sent mentally.

He was the vanguard and Su Youji was the rearguard.

The two began to move even more slowly than before. Thanks to the mist which permeated this region, Ning was only able to see to a distance of a few hundred kilometers. As he slowly drew closer and closer to the destination, he could sense a terrifyingly powerful aura suddenly sweep towards them from afar. Both Ning and Su Youji blanched at the power of this aura.

“Where are we?” Suddenly, Ning saw something up ahead.

A few hundred kilometers up ahead, there was a single giant monolith that was roughly three hundred meters tall and surrounded by mist.

“The Grove of Monoliths?” Su Youji’s face tightened. “Master, this seems to be the Grove of Monoliths.”

“Let’s move a bit closer and check it out,” Ning replied. His heart clenched as they slowly moved closer and closer to the monolith. Soon, they were roughly ten kilometers away from the first monolith and were able to see a second monolith of similar size and shape that had been embedded into the ground.

This second monolith had a red-winged beast that lay coiled atop it which emanated an aura of tremendous savagery.

Ning frowned. They continued to advance, keeping a careful distance from the creature. One monolith after another entered their field of vision, each of which was roughly three hundred meters tall. The monoliths had all been planted deeply into the ground, and many of them had terrifying bugbeasts that lay coiled on top of them. Other monoliths were surrounded by magic treasures and weapons which had auras of tremendous power. Most of them were Dao-level weapons or treasures.

“Master…” Su Youji grew increasingly nervous. This was a terrifyingly dangerous part of the Fog Sea, the ‘Grove of Monoliths’.

“Withdraw.” Ning finally gave the other.

The two carefully, quietly, and rapidly retreated from this location, only coming to a halt after they entered a nearby copse of trees.

“It actually went into hiding within the Grove of Monoliths.” Ning frowned.

“This is all the fault of World God Foxblaze and Chaos Immortal Foxbold. They delayed us at a critical moment! Otherwise, we probably would’ve been able to catch up to that heavily injured bugbeast.” The Flamefairy couldn’t help but feel quite upset by this. She knew exactly how much her master needed that sword-ki painting, and it now seemed evident that the painting would be unobtainable.

Ning wasn’t in a very good mood right now.

He had felt rather exuberant after slaying World God Foxblaze and Chaos Immortal Foxbold, as this was the first time he had personally slain a World-level expert, and two of them at that! However, Ning now felt rather resentful at all this.

“They ruined everything!” Ning gritted his teeth.

“What should I do? What should my next plan of action be?” Ning began to ponder.

The Ten Thousand Mountains was the outer region of this world.

The Fog Sea was part of the inner region.

The Fog Sea had many dangerous areas within it, and the Grove of Monoliths was definitely ranked as one of the deadliest locations. Based on the experiences of the many cultivators who had adventured into it, this was a region that took up roughly ten thousand kilometers of space, and within this region there were many enormous monoliths that had been inserted into the ground.

For some unknown reason, bugbeasts were highly attracted to these monoliths. Thus, bugbeasts would often rest within the Grove of Monoliths, with dozens of them nesting in this region at any given time. All of these bugbeasts were World-level creatures. Bugbeasts were fairly unintelligent and did not understand the mysteries of the Dao. They had to rely on their physical strength and their innate gifts to fight, and so most of them only had the power of ordinary World Gods! A minority were comparable to elite World Gods and a tiny number of them were comparable to master-class World Gods.