Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

Next was the welcoming banquet, where all the brothers of Vastheaven Palace gathered together.

They all drank wine and chatted happily. Vastheaven Palace had no hierarchies; every single member was a good brother to the others. Even Daolords would merely be respectfully addressed as ‘big brother’ due to their power. This was just the type of atmosphere Ning liked, and he could sense that everyone treated him with sincerity.

Over the course of the banquet, Ning got to know more than half of the brothers of Vastheaven Palace, as well as some who were still adventuring in the outside world.

After the banquet.

“Ji Ning, Vastheaven Palace is quite a large place. We have many residences within it, most of which are empty. This one, this one, that one, and that one… all of them are free for the choosing. Just pick whichever one you like.” After the banquet, Solesky personally guided Ning off.

“Then I’ll choose this one.” Ning made his choice.

“Right. When do you wish for us to hold the formal welcoming ceremony?” Solesky looked at Ning. Technically, Ning simply had the talisman of welcome; he hadn’t actually joined Vastheaven Palace.

“A month from now,” Ning said. Right now, the most important task before him was resurrecting his parents.

“Alright.” Solesky was in no rush. To cultivators, a month truly was nothing.

……

Vastheaven Palace. Within the Darknorth estate.

“Pillsaint, Youji, I need to go into secluded meditation for a period of time. If there’s nothing important, do not disturb me,” Ning instructed.

“Yes, Master.” Pillsaint and Su Youji both acknowledged the order.

Ning nodded, then entered his meditation chambers.

Rumble… the doors to the meditation chambers swung shut. Ning sat down in the lotus position, then closed his eyes. His mind was completely focused on the distant Three Realms.

……

The primordial chaos outside the Three Realms.

A black-robed Ji Ning was striding through the dimensions. He quickly emerged from his own estate and arrived in the void of the Three Realms.

Whoosh.

The black-robed Ning stepped into yet another dimension as he stood there within the Three Realms, sensing the fluctuations rippling through it.

It had been far, far too long since he had entered the Three Realms and the area of influence its essences held sway over. For many years now, this had been a forbidden area for him. If he dared to take so much as a single step into it, he would’ve died and his Dao would’ve vanished.

“The Three Realms.” The black-robed Ning swept his gaze across the three thousand major worlds and the trillions of minor worlds. Even everything within the Celestial Realm and the Netherworld Kingdom was contained within his gaze.





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Book 29, Chapter 10 - The Three Realms


The black-robed Ji Ning’s gaze was focused upon a river that flowed through the void. This river… was the River of Destiny.

Destiny was omnipresent. All living beings had their own destiny. Even powerful cultivators like Ning or mighty Eternal Emperors had their own destinies as well. So long as you were alive, you would have a destiny all your own! These countless destinies came together to form an endless Sea of Destiny, with the destiny of the living beings of the Three Realms being merely a small rivulet of that endless sea.

This void river was all but indetectible to ordinary living creatures, but Ning was able to see countless truesouls flowing through that great river.

Whoosh. Ning swept the river searchingly with his gaze.

“Father. Mother!” Ning suddenly revealed a look of excitement on his face. He had discovered two truesouls which were located right next to each other, rising and falling through the ‘waves’ of the river together. Ning was very familiar with the auras given off by those two truesouls. He would never be able to forget them.

Those truesouls were the truesouls belonging to his father and his mother.

Only major powers who had personally seen Yuchi Snow and Ji Yichuan would be able to locate their truesouls within the endless flow of truesouls in the River of Destiny.

“Freeze!” Ning sent out his will. Rumble… an invisible, powerful stream of sword-intent that was as gentle as water instantly encompassed the entire River of Destiny, causing it to come to a complete halt.

Merely seeing the River of Destiny was easy, but to draw truesouls out from within it and then revive them was incredibly difficult. This was because such an action represented going against the will of the heavens and changing the flows of destiny; it went against the very laws of the Three Realms themselves. However, Ning was now powerful enough to annihilate the Three Realms with ease; he was naturally able to easily accomplish a task like this.

Still… if Ning’s parents had perished in an Everworld, there would be no way for Ning to retrieve their truesouls from that Everworld’s River of Destiny! This was because the repercussions of breaking an Everworld’s laws were far greater. Most likely, only Eternal Emperors and outlandishly strong Daolords would be able to resist those repercussions.

……

The River of Destiny had been frozen in place. None of the countless mortal denizens in the Three Realms could sense the laws of the Three Realms trying to fight back, but the more powerful Immortals and Fiendgods of the Three Realms could.

The Crescent world. Mount Innerheart. Two figures were seated opposite of each other, holding a casual conversation regarding the world and the Dao.

“Eh? The River of Destiny just came to a halt?” The bearded, azure-haired man suddenly let out a surprised call.

“Most likely, only my disciple Ji Ning is capable of forcing the River of Destiny to come to a halt.” Opposite the first man was a white-haired, white-bearded old man – Subhuti.

These two were currently the two strongest members of the Three Realms. One was Ning’s master, Subhuti, who had been ranked the top master of the Dao of Spacetime in all the Three Realms. Ever since Fuxi, Shennong, Suiren, Daoist Three Purities, Lord Tathagata, Houyi, and the others had all sacrificed themselves in the Endwar, Subhuti had become the number one expert of the entire Nuwa Alliance. But of course, that was excluding Ji Ning, who had long ago reached the World level.

The other man was the Lord of All Fiends of the Seamless Gate. He was now their sole leader, ‘Windfiend’… and he had long ago surpassed the limits of the Heavenly Daos in movement speed.

Both were at extremely high levels of enlightenment and were far superior to most Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals in this regard. Ever since Ning had reached the World level, he began to transmit many techniques back to the Three Realms! With those techniques guiding them, they instantly became far more powerful than they had been in the past. At present, they had reached such a high level of insight that they were able to break through to the World level whenever they wished. This was why they often sat together to discuss the Dao with each other. When all of their arrangements and preparations were complete, they would break through to the World level.

“It really is Ji Ning.” Windfiend’s divine sense instantly spread out across all the Three Realms, discovering the black-robed Ning standing in the void of the Three Realms. He could sense that stately, awe-inspiring aura of majesty radiating out from Ning.

“Let’s go.” Subhuti waved a finger, causing a spatial vortex to appear next to them. Whoosh! The two both entered the spatial vortex, then hastened towards Ning.

……

“The River of Destiny froze?”

Mt. Ling, in the eastern lands of the Celestial Realm.

Buddha Maitreya sat above all others. He was now the new Lord Buddha of the Buddhist Sangha. He had always had a very high level of enlightenment, being just slightly inferior to Lord Tathagata himself. Ever since Ji Ning had transmitted many new techniques to the Three Realms, he had grown much more powerful and was second only to the likes of Subhuti and Windfiend.

……