Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

“Master. Windfiend.” Many of the Immortals and Fiendgods of the Three Realms had come to bid them farewell. As for the black-robed Ning, he said, “The Endless Territories are filled with endless dangers. World-level cultivators are not yet at a level where they can go wherever they want. I recommend you stay in the territories around the Badlands Territory for now and temper yourselves first.”


“Don’t worry. I heard that the Badlands Territory has nearly a hundred thousand chaosworlds as well as many ruins left behind by Daolords. That’ll be more than enough for us to roam through,” Subhuti laughed.

“One of us is a master of spacetime, the other is a master of space. We two old farts might not be particularly talented in other areas, but if we work together we should be able to keep ourselves alive,” Windfiend laughed as well.

The two were both very relaxed. The reason why they had nearly fought to the death in the Three Realms was primarily because Old Man Yuan and Lord Demonheart had been causing trouble in secret. Windfiend had wanted to go out exploring long ago, and Subhuti was also filled with this same desire. Long ago, back when Ning had been very weak, the two had already reached the apex of power; one was the number one spacetime master of the Three Realms, the other was the fastest person in the Three Realms. By now, they had reached even higher levels. If they joined forces, there really were very few World-level cultivators capable of killing them.

“Have a safe journey.”

“Be careful, Subhuti.”

“Master.”

The Immortals and Fiendgods all bade them farewell, then watched as they began their journey into the outside world.

……

Time flowed on.

A flying vessel was soaring through the primordial chaos, with Ning’s true body at the helm. After blazing a path to the Three Realms and handing the archives over to his Primaltwin, he had left and led Su Youji and Pillsaint to the next part of their journey. By now, they had spent over a thousand years on this trip to the nearby Sacred City of the Dao Alliance.

“Right. We should arrive in a bit over two hundred years.” Ning sat on the deck of his flying vessel, staring forwards into the endless void before them.

“Master.” Su Youji suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

“Hm? No longer training?” Ning looked at her.

“I can sense that I am about to break through and become a Daolord of the Second Step.” A hint of excitement was on Su Youji’s face. “Although I wasn’t as impressive as you, I was still pretty fast, right?”





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Book 29, Chapter 29 - The Sacred City of Skywood


Ji Ning blinked, then laughed. “Not bad! I’ll find a place to let you break through in peace.”

“Right.” Su Youji nodded quite joyfully. As for Ning, he felt rather speechless. Oh, Youji… you are breaking through to become a Daolord of the Second Step, but your master is still just a Daolord of the First Step…

……

A short while later, the flying vessel reached a fairly nearby chaos planet, then descended upon it. Ji Ning waved his hand, setting up a simple restrictive formation around the planet. Ning was now on a completely different level of power compared to the past; he would now be extremely powerful even compared to other Daolords, and to encounter a worthy opponent in this region of the primordial chaos was fairly unlikely.

“What?! Youji is about to make her breakthrough?” Pillsaint had a look of astonishment on his face.

“Right.” Ning nodded. “So you have to work hard as well.”

Pillsaint nodded repeatedly. “I need to refine more pills in order to improve my Dao of Alchemy, but to gain insights from repeated, actual alchemy attempts will require quite some time. Still… since both you and Youji have made breakthroughs already, I really do need to pick up the pace.”

“Samsara Daolords… with each step we take, we walk the line between life and death. Do not be rash or push too hard to make a breakthrough. Speed isn’t the most important thing.” Ning said a few words, then fell silent. Ugh. Judging from the situation, he would probably be slower than both of his subordinates.

Whoosh.

Ning waved his hand, causing an enormous boulder to fly off of a distant mountain of the chaos planet. The boulder landed in front of Ning, who simply looked at it. Crack! The boulder was sheared flat. Ning then sat down in the lotus position atop the boulder, beginning to meditate.

“In the past thousand years, I’ve only been able to improve my Blood Drop sword-intent slightly.” Ning chuckled self-deprecatingly. “It seems I really am going to be slower than both Youji and Pillsaint.” He had to improve in all five of his original Supreme Daos and then recombine them once more into a new Omega Sword Dao; this was how his Omega Dao would improve.

Ning’s eyelids slowly swung shut, but streaks of sword-light could be seen flickering through the cracks of his lidded eyes. Tiny spatial tears repeatedly appeared and disappeared within afew meters of him as well. Clearly, Ning was visualizing and training in sword-arts.

A long while later…

BOOM! A wind arose in the skies above the chaos planet, and an awesome vortex of chaos energy began to form and be absorbed by Su Youji ni large quantities. Clearly, her breakthrough had begun. Pillsaint watched intently, but Ning simply considered to meditate in the lotus position, continuing to visualize his sword-arts.

This breakthrough took more than three days before everything became calm once more.

“Master.” Su Youji put away her Immortal estate and walked over.

“Haha, you really are different now that you’ve reached the second step. You’ve actually become even more beautiful!” The nearby Pillsaint whooped in delight. He truly had the heart of a child, and becoming a Daolord hadn’t changed him one bit. It was actually because of his pure, guileless heart that he had been able to become a Daolord. The [Seven Leafpill Chapters] had assisted him, but at the core was his own Dao-heart.

Su Youji glanced at Pillsaint, and the latter was instantly enraptured. “Pillsaint, address me as ‘big sister’.” Su Youji continued to stare sweetly at Pillsaint.

“Big sister… big sis-” The spellbound Pillsaint suddenly came back to his senses, then pointed at Su Youji and stammered, “H-Hey…”

Su Youji said smugly, “Pillsaint, it seems your Dao-heart isn’t strong enough yet.”

“Oh man. I am doomed. I was enraptured almost instantly. I am going to be in so much trouble in the future.” A miserable look was on Pillsaint’s face.

“It isn’t that Pillsaint has a weak Dao-heart, it’s that he’s still just a Daolord of the First Step.” Ning arose from his boulder, then stepped down. “Pillsaint’s path is the Dao of Alchemy, which means he will indeed be a bit weaker in combat. You, on the other hand, have the legacy of Feixian the Exalted. It would be laughable if you couldn’t enspell a Daolord of the First Step despite having reached the second step. But Youji, you really shouldn’t do that to Pillsaint too often.”

“I know, I know. I was just excited because I broke through.” Su Youji nodded repeatedly, then looked towards Ning with some excitement. “Master, why don’t you give my charm skills a try?”

Ning revealed a smile. “Go ahead and try.”

Su Youji immediately said, “Then Master, you must…” Halfway through her words, she immediately used her secret arts. She had already been beautiful enough to cause the downfall of kingdoms. Now, her smile made her eyes look like the most enchanting things in the universe. Her gaze was unfathomably deep, making it so that Ning couldn’t help but be drawn to them. Even if he wasn’t, those beautiful eyes seemed to be imprinted onto his mind, stirring and beguiling his inner heart…

Ning’s gaze slowly grew more and more distant.

“Master,” Su Youji said softly, “Come here and take Youji into your arms.”

“Yeah…” Ning mumbled softly, and Su Youji revealed a look of excitement.