Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

“Once I get enough materials, I’ll invite a true grandmaster artificer to work on one for me,” Ning mused. “Many organizations have permanent ‘buy orders’ for deluxe hellgold, with the price set at thirty to forty million cubes of chaos nectar.” There were many major powers who would go out of their way to buy this material, but…


Well. The sellers weren’t fools either. Everyone knew how rare this material was. Generally speaking, sellers would only be willing to trade it for similarly rare treasures. Everyone had chaos nectar; who cared about that? Not everyone, however, would necessarily have high-quality treasures. Some unique ones simply couldn’t be found anywhere else.

If Ning was to acquire this deluxe hellgold, he’d be able to trade it for some treasures which were truly useful towards him. These were treasures that people generally wouldn’t be willing to exchange for chaos nectar, not unless Ning was willing to pay two or three times more than the market price.

“I still haven’t discovered the source of the resonance with my azureflower seal, but I found a pearl of deluxe hellgold.” Ning was rather excited. “The only problem is that it is surrounded by those twenty-three beasts.”





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Book 29, Chapter 24 - Rooted Down


Ji Ning stared at the twenty-three beasts off in the distance, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“Kill!” Ning didn’t hesitate at all. He immediately began to quietly approach those beasts. Any major power would’ve made the same decision as he was right now, because only a fool would give up the chance to acquire a treasure like deluxe hellgold without even giving it a shot! It must be understood that even the deceased Sword Hegemon had only left Ning with fifty million cubes of chaos nectar, which wasn’t that much more than the deluxe hellgold was worth!

This pearl of deluxe hellgold was far more valuable than even the Eternal blood had been!

Whoosh. Ning used the Shadowless evasion skill as he continued to stealthily advance. One million kilometers. Five hundred thousand kilometers. Three hundred thousand kilometers…

The physically largest member of the carapace beasts that were absorbing energy from the hellgold suddenly turned its head to stare in Ning’s direction, a look of rage appearing within its deep eyes. Moments later, it let out a furious roar. “RAAAAWR!” Its roar was ear-piercing and rent the skies, causing countless streaks of heaven-destroying energy to sweep straight towards Ning.

“Looks like I’ve been discovered. Attack!” Ning’s speed increased dramatically as he sped up to move at ten times the speed of light, and streaks of dark-gold lightning and icy-white water erupted from his body. An awesome vortex-world of water and lightning instantly appeared in front of him, encompassing all of the strange beasts within it.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

It sounded like stones cracking apart. Explosions appeared on the bodies of eleven of the smaller beasts as the carapace-like bodies burst open. Moments later, they disappeared as their bodies were transformed into dust. Nearly half of the twenty-three beasts had died from Ning’s first strike.

“Kill the invader!” The largest beast let out a frenzied howl as the other carapace beasts all charged furiously towards Ning as well.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Ning immediately activated [Three Heads, Six Arms]. He wielded his six Northbow swords in his hands as he blocked multiple strikes from the swarming beasts.

While blocking their attacks, Ning was able to sense several streams of strange, penetrating power be transmitted into his body. The power dug through the Hegemon armor and invaded deeper into his body, making him feel rather numb.

“What a strange attack. Even with the Hegemon armor protecting me, I still feel a bit numb. If I was an ordinary Daolord of the Fourth Step, I probably would actually end up dying here.” Ning relaxed slightly. Different beasts which lived in different environments would have different attacks. Some were born with terrifying illusory powers, while others were born with tremendous skill in formations. Still others were able to move so fast, they could attack at the speed of a hundred times the speed of light.

If Ning encountered a beast whose powers perfectly countered his, he would be in serious trouble. However, although the carapace beasts before him had very strange attacks, Ning feared creatures like them the least. He had a suit of Hegemon armor and a body equivalent to a low-grade Eternal weapon; to harm him through direct attacks was incredibly difficult.

“Kill!” Ning’s sword-arts were arcane and profound, far above the level of these carapace beasts.

Slash! Sword-light flashed, piercing through the head of one of the carapace beasts. Moments later, its head exploded as the internal organs inside of it were reduced to dust.

Slash! Slash! Slash! Ning’s sword was incredibly sharp, and the Blood Drop stance of his Omega Sword Dao contained tremendous penetrative power. The carapace beasts were able to endure Ning’s lightning-water vortex-world, but they weren’t able to withstand Ning’s sword! Soon, just three of the beasts were left in the air. These were the three largest beasts, and they had the toughest carapaces as well, so tough that not even Ning’s sword was able to pierce through them.

“Grrrr.”

“Invader.”

“Detestable invader.” The three strongest carapace beasts were completely enraged by the deaths of their fellows. They attacked even more ferociously than before, and each time Ning clashed against them he could sense that penetrative power seep into his body.

Ning suddenly put away five of his swords, leaving just one behind. His six hands all gripped that single sword as he raised it high into the air, then delivered a ferocious chop with it. The speed of this blow seemed both as slow as a falling leaf and as fast as a flash of lightning. An endless amount of power quickly became to accumulate, making it seem like a volcano that was about to explode.

BOOM! Ning’s sword seemed to strike out in a head-on blow, but it actually fluttered out in an unpredictable arc that skirted past the claws of the carapace beasts, then smashed one of them on its head.

Ning was taking advantage of the fact hat these beasts had low levels of comprehension and technique. If he was fighting against Daolords of the Fourth Step like Patriarch Clearwind, the latter would be able to block even a maximum-speed attack from Ning.

A low, rumbling explosion rang out and the carapace beast’s body trembled. Although its internal organs were very tough, in the end they couldn’t compare to those of a cultivator who had trained in a protective divine ability. For cultivators, the strength and endurance of every part of their body was identical. As for these carapace beasts, they had incredibly tough shells but somewhat more fragile internal organs.

Under Ning’s most powerful sword-strike, the creature’s organs were reduced to smithereens, and it died on the spot. Its body turned soft as it fell backwards, then simply hovered there in the air, its body twitching every so often as blood flowed out of its nostrils.

“Next.” It was as though Ning was riding on a sharp sword. With a swoosh, he moved at ten times the speed of light and appeared next to another one of the carapace beasts, and the beast bellowed in rage and fear as he approached.

BOOM! Yet another explosion rang out. The beast had tried to fight back, but so what? It was still struck on the head, and it too fell backwards as all signs of life disappeared from its corpse.

“And that leaves you.” Ning turned his gaze towards the largest carapace beast, the one who had been the first to discover Ning.

“Invader, you shall die for invading our racial lands.” The carapace beast let out a low growl. Its armored carapace was clearly thicker than those of the others, and it was noticeably stronger as well.