Desolate Era (Book 25 - Book 27)

“The fifth stance, then?” Ning began to meditate on the fifth stance, but a short while later he gave it up. “Even World God Northrest himself was only able to master the fifth stance. During the past three thousand years, I’ve been meditating in seclusion but haven’t gained any practical combat experience.”


Violetjewel suddenly appeared in Ning’s hands. “I suppose I should take a look at my sword’s quintessence core.”

Ning carefully attuned himself to the savage, murderous, yet exalted sword-intent that lay hidden within Violetjewel’s quintessence core. In the past, it was extremely hard for him to attune to it, but it was now noticeably easier. It took him a full day before he felt as though he could no longer make any further improvements or gain a better understanding of it… but the insights he did gain were more than enough.

Soon, Ning began to develop a new sword-stance of his own.

“This stance shall be the second stance of the [Quintessence Sword-Intent]. Since I developed it here in the Allgod Estate, let it be named the Allgod stance,” Ning murmured softly.

In his heart, Ning felt a hint of gratitude.

If it hadn’t been for Daolord Allgod spending many chaos cycles of hard work in watching master-class World Gods train in the Dao of the Sword, then laboriously carve these thousands of sculptures, how could Ning have been able to gain such tremendous enlightenment in such a short period of time?

But of course, this was also because Ning’s own understanding of the sword was a pure one that guided him straight to the prime essence of the sword. There might be many other experts of the Dao of the Sword who had more profound insights than Ning, but when they saw these statues they would probably say, “I have my own path already. These differ from my Dao of the Sword.”

“Haha… I had planned on leaving this place after becoming a World God, but I didn’t expect that this place would be far more valuable to me than the drop of Eternal blood.” Ning let out a heartfelt laugh. Not only had he mastered the third stance of the [Nameless] sword-art, he had even mastered the fourth stance. The third stance was all that was needed to become a World God!

These past three thousand years had been a truly transformative period of time for Ning.

His sword had now truly gained a soul of its own.

He had established a firm foundation for becoming a peerless expert in the Dao of the Sword in the future.

“Mm. Time to break through to the World level.” Ning sat down in the lotus position, calming his heart and soul.





* * *





Book 26, Chapter 6 - Breakthrough, World Level!


BOOM!!!

The heavens shook and the earth quaked as the chaos energy in the area began to oscillate wildly.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Two figures suddenly appeared in the plaza before the Castrum Divinitus. It was the bald three-eyed man and the formation-spirit maiden. Both raised their heads to stare deep into the castle.

“What a torrent of chaos energy.” The maiden let out a sigh. “This is causing a far greater disturbance than is usually seen when a cultivator breaks through to the World level.”

“You can’t compare Ji Ning to ordinary World-level cultivators,” the three-eyed man said.

It must be understood that they were located within the Allgod Estate, but they were still able to see the chaos energy surging violently. One could imagine how huge the disturbance outside was! When the Flamefairy had made her breakthrough, the disturbance had been much smaller.

……

“A breakthrough? It must be Ji Ning of Vastheaven Palace.” The formation-spirit of the Ten Thousand Mountains appeared at the top of a mountain peak in white robes. He raised his head to stare at the chaos energy pulsating through the skies.

……

“The chaos energy seems to be shaking quite violently.” Even though Su Youji was located within the Castrum Divinitus, she could still sense that something was happening. “Did someone make a breakthrough? Was it Master?”

……

Outside the Allgod Estate. The disturbance in the rest of the chaosworld was far greater than the disturbance within the estate itself. An utterly enormous chaos vortex had appeared high above the chaosworld, covering the entirety of the skies. Just looking at it would cause one’s heartrate to speed up.

“What a huge event.” The blood-robed Arroyo, the gold-robed Fukai, and World God Boneplate all raised their heads to stare coldly at the skies.

“That freak of an Elder God must have made his breakthrough,” Fukai growled.

“Most likely. Good. Now that he’s made his breakthrough, he’ll be coming out soon.” Cold light flashed through Arroyo’s eyes. “He lives up to being an Elder God who can battle master-class World Gods to a standstill. Look at the size of that thing! He has to be close to being on par with me by now.”

“Right.” Fukai nodded as well.

Both had extraordinary backgrounds and were extraordinarily talented. When they had made their breakthroughs, they had caused similarly shocking disturbances to the local flow of chaos energy.

……

The Castrum Divinitus. Within the Hall of Swords.

Ning was seated in the lotus position, an endless torrent of chaos energy swirling around him and into his body.

Rumble…

Within his Jindan region. This had previously been a beautiful, peaceful place, filled with islands that floated within a sea of elemental energy. However… everything was now being destroyed and returned to the primordial chaos from whence they came.

The entire Jindan region had been reduced to a region of utter chaos.

“Sword-seed!”

A seed had appeared out of nowhere. This seed was a sword-seed that would naturally form once one reached the fifth stage of swordforce, the ‘Sword God’ stage. Generally speaking, it would be extremely hard to see it with the naked eye. However, now that the entire region had been reduced to primordial chaos it was now much more noticeable.

The entire region of chaos energy swirled around the sword-seed. It was the center of the entire region.

“The sixth stage of swordforce – Sword World!” A voice echoed throughout this world of chaos.

Whoosh….

This seed surrounded by sword-ki began to expand and transform. It slowly began to split open, allowing a sapling to emerge from its shell. Soon, the sword-seed had completely transformed into a small tree that was growing at an incredible pace. Its many branches began to furiously extend outwards as Ning poured his insights regarding the Dao of the Sword into it, nourishing it and allowing this tree which represented his Dao of the Sword to grow nonstop.

Rumble…

The tree continued to grow at an incredible pace, becoming thirty meters tall. Three hundred. Nine hundred. Eighteen hundred. Three thousand…

Ning’s insights into the Dao of the Sword were simply astonishing. As a result, his Dao-tree was growing to a similarly astonishing size.

Ordinary trees allowed the ground they were rooted in to be stable, while a Dao-tree would allow a Chaos Immortal’s Jindan chaos region to be stable. The presence of the Dao-tree would allow the Jindan chaos region to continuously grow and expand.

This Dao-tree represented a cultivator’s insights into the Dao!

Ning’s path was the Dao of the Sword, and so this tree was a tree which represented the Dao of the Sword! Of course, in the future Ning’s Jindan chaos region could give birth to other Dao-trees as well, ones which embodied the Daos of Water or Lightning. However, at present Ning clearly was not sufficiently enlightened with regards to these Daos. His other Daos were not at the World level yet. He might be able to form Dao-seeds, but there was no way for them to bloom and grow into trees.

The height of a Dao-tree represented a cultivator’s level of insights into a Dao.

Normal cultivators who had just broken through to become World-level cultivators would generally just have Dao-trees that were around a thousand meters tall! Only after stabilizing their foundation would their Dao-tree grow to become three thousand meters tall.

A Dao-tree of three thousand meters meant that one had become a ‘normal’ World-level cultivator.