Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

“Right.” Ning nodded as well.

They had once personally witnessed the flaming creatures disappear into the stone walls like water flowing into a desert, leaving behind no trace of its passing. It must be understood that neither Ning nor the Ninedust Sectlord were able to damage the walls at all despite launching repeated full-strength attacks against them.

“Darknorth, do you have any Thousand Origins pills or other similar types of spirit-pills?” The Ninedust Sectlord looked at Ning. “If you do, sell them to me. Judging from the way you fight and how stable you are, it doesn’t look like you are relying on some sort of forbidden technique or divine ability that explosively increases your power for brief periods of time.”

Ning chuckled. Thousand Origins pills were used to replenish Immortal energy and divine power. Using extremely powerful divine abilities or forbidden arts in battle consumed divine power a hundred times faster than normal; if the battle went on for too long, one would have to rely on spirit-pills to replenish one’s energy. The rate at which one absorbed energy from chaos jewels was simply too slow, and while chaos nectar was quite fast, using it in this matter was extremely wasteful.

Ning was primarily relying on the azureflower mist energy in battle; at most, he would also use the [Three Heads, Six Arms] divine ability, and so very little of his divine ability was used up. As for the azureflower mist energy, it was also consumed very slowly, allowing him to replenish it with chaos jewels alone. As a result, he didn’t need to rely on using spirit-pills to replenish his energy.

But of course, when the Ninedust Sectlord unleashed his full power he remained a bit stronger than Ning. There was nothing Ning could do about this; the azureflower mist energy simply couldn’t be used to execute divine abilities.

“Are you jealous of my Sword Dao?” Ning smirked.

“Your Sword Dao is indeed formidable; it can be all but described as flawless and perfect. We encountered several dangerous situations earlier, but you were able to perfectly defend against all of them. I, however, was forced to rely on my divine abilities and forbidden arts.” The Ninedust Sectlord looked at Ning. For once, he was willing to give up a bit of his face. “I imagine you’ve used up very few of your spirit-pills. Sell some to me. Il’l pay double the normal price.”

Ning shook his head.

“Five times the normal price!” The Ninedust Sectlord said hurriedly.

Ning just looked at him.

“Ten times!” The Ninedust Sectlord gritted his teeth. “Darknorth, don’t go too far.”

“Ah, forget it. I’ll sell it to you for ten times the normal price them. I was planning to wait until you were really panicking, then sell them to you at a hundred times the normal price.” Ning let out a teasing smile. To sell a spirit-pill at a hundred times the normal price when the buyer was in mortal danger was quite common.

Ning actually had more than ten thousand Thousand Origins pills and Chaos Spirit pills. He had acquired all of them from the deceased Daolord Kongsan, as Ning himself had never used them before.

The Thousand Origins pills were somewhat cheap; each of them were normally worth around a thousand cubes of chaos nectar. As for Chaos Spirit pills, they were worth ten times as much.

The two completed their trade. The Ninedust Sectlord spent thirty million cubes of chaos nectar to buy some of Ning’s spirit-pills. Finally, he let out a sigh of relief. With these spirit-pills on him, he would be able to use his powerful divine abilities without fear. In truth, he still had a good number of spirit-pills on him, but who knew how long they would be stuck in this place for? These flaming creatures really did seem to be all but endless, and he was forced to use his forbidden arts whenever they ran into a bit of trouble. Otherwise, they’d be swarmed and overwhelmed by the things.

Ning was different. Although he couldn’t use any divine abilities, the unscrutableness of his Omega Sword Dao allowed him to easily escape his foes, and the Soleheart stance of his Omega Sword Dao ensured that the creatures found it nearly impossible to actually reach Ning.

“Oh, right. Ninedust, you haven’t told anything me about yourself yet,” Ning said. “All I know is that you are the sectlord of the Ninedust Sect, and a new one at that. But what did you do before becoming the Ninedust Sectlord? I’ve never heard of you before. It’s odd that such a powerful Daolord as you suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and you don’t exactly seem to be the low-key type.”

“You want to know more about me?” The Ninedust Sectlord glanced sideways at Ning, then said smugly, “I’ll tell you the truth. I’m actually just a Daolord of the Third Step.”

“A Daolord of the Third Step?” Ning was surprised. How could a Daolord of the Third Step be this strong? Didn’t that mean that it was all but guaranteed he would be the equal of Daolord Dawnstar once he reached the fourth step?

“But your divine body…?” Ning frowned. The Ninedust Sectlord’s divine body had an aura of tremendous power, and it was far stronger than the bodies of most Daolords of the Fourth Step. It was highly unusual for a Daolord of the Third Step to have a divine body with such a powerful aura. “Are you some sort of Aberrant, or…?”

“Hmph. Those Aberrant special lifeforms are nothing. I am an Ancient cultivator, the most perfect type of creature to ever exist,” the Ninedust Sectlord said.

Ning was surprised. Although the Ancient cultivators were one of the six major organizations in the Endless Territories, they were incredibly few and rare in number, on par with the Brightshore Imperials of the Brightshore Kingdom. He didn’t expect that the Ninedust Sectlord would turn out to be an Ancient cultivator.

“As you’ll find out soon enough, this is one of the ancestral sites left behind by the ancestors of my race.” The Ninedust Sectlord looked at Ning. “I’m afraid, Darknorth, that you won’t be able to gain anything at all from this place, given that it was left by my ancestors for members of my Ancient race.”





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Book 30, Chapter 16 - Everything Has Its Bane


“An ancestral site of the Ancient cultivators?” Ji Ning was slightly startled for a moment, then smiled. “No wonder you insisted on attacking the Eastroad Sect, and were able to discover the Void Pathway right away.”

“Eh?” The Ninedust Sectlord glanced at Ning with surprise. “You don’t seem to be frightened at all. Since this place was left behind by my ancestors, any treasures or legacies here will probably fall into my hands. As for you? You might even die here.”

“What’s the point of being afraid?” Ning said casually. Since they had already come here and were unable to flee, the only choice they had was to face everything head-on.

“Besides. It’s too early to speculate as to which one of us will be the one to die. You were the one getting your rear kicked by those flaming beasts.” Ning looked quite relaxed.

The Ninedust Sectlord really was rather amazed at Ning’s calm aplomb. He hadn’t revealed the truth previously, but now that both sides had sworn a binding oath to enter into an alliance and to not attack each other or plot against each other, the Ninedust Sectlord was finally willing to divulge the secret of this being an ancestral site for him. As he saw it, towards the end Ning would still find out, so long as he survived.