Desolate Era (Book 31 - Book 35)

“I gained quite a bit from my visit to Crimsonwave Temple. I naturally had to seize this chance to train,” Ninedust said hurriedly. He then looked at Ning. “Darknorth, you traded for quite a few treasures from the Hegemons and Eternal Emperors. You’ve probably grown quite a bit stronger as well.”


“I’m doing alright.” Ning nodded. He had only been able to train his body to make it comparable to a middle-grade Eternal treasure, primarily because the protective divine ability placed incredible demands and burdens on the body. He had to take it slow; if he did it too fast and tried to force things, his divine body would crumble and his truesoul would crumble with it. Thus, he had to train slowly even though he already had all the materials needed.

“We’re not too far away from the Flamedragon Realmverse,” Hegemon Welkin said. “The two of you should still be able to sense it.”

“We can.” Ning and Ninedust both nodded. Ning could sense exactly where his Primaltwin was.

“Darknorth, my young friend, your sword-arts have transcended spacetime. I brought you here to the Stone Hellephant Wall, but I think you should be able to slowly return under your own abilities. Given your power, you should be able to return within a thousand years,” Hegemon Welkin said.

“A minor matter.” Ning nodded. A thousand years was a very short period of time for supreme Daolords; he wouldn’t force Hegemon Welkin to wait by his side for a trifling matter like sending him home.

Whoosh. The flying vessel disappeared, causing the three of them to appear within the empty space of the Great Dark.

“There really is nothing but darkness here.” Ning scanned the area, only to see absolute darkness all around him. There was no light at all; only by using godsense was he able to ‘see’ the surrounding area, and there really was nothing whatsoever around him.

“Senior.” Ning couldn’t help but ask, “Factoring in my ability to transcend spacetime… if I were to go drifting through the Great Dark, would 100,000 chaos cycles be enough for me to reach the closest realmverse?”

“The realmverse closest to the Flamedragon Realmverse is known as the Multilight Realmverse. Although your ability to transcend spacetime is impressive, it will still take roughly a million chaos cycles before you get there,” Hegemon Welkin said.

Ning and Ninedust shared a glance. Yeah, forget that. Samsara Daolords could spend their entire lives travelling without making it to the Multilight Realmverse.

“Let’s go to the Stone Hellephant Wall,” Ninedust said immediately.

“The Stone Hellephant Wall is just up ahead. Follow me.” Hegemon Welkin emanated a bubble that encompassed both Ning and Ninedust, ‘carrying’ them with him as he flew forwards at high speed.

Whoosh. Hegemon Welkin was simply too fast, so fast that Ning and Ninedust both felt their hearts tremble. They were starting to truly understand how terrifyingly strong Hegemons were. Their speed alone ensured that supreme Daolords wouldn’t even have a chance to react before dying.

A few moments later, they had flown tens of billions of kilometers. “See that?” Hegemon Welkin pointed up ahead. “That right there is the Stone Hellephant Wall.”

Ning looked towards the front. A colossal object was up ahead, hanging within the endless darkness. It emanated a natural but dim aura of light that was enough for supreme Daolords like Nine and Ninedust to make it out clearly.

The thing up ahead was roughly a million kilometers long and shaped like a giant elephant. Only, it had what looked like an incredibly sharp horn coming from its ‘head’. The entire thing was black… or perhaps an incredibly deep red!

“At first glance, it rather looks like a demonic elephant, doesn’t it?” Hegemon Welkin said, “But if you move closer, you’ll see that it is actually very, very thin.”

“Oh?” Ning and Ninedust hurriedly moved closer. Indeed, although this enormous thing was over a million kilometers long, it was merely a thousand kilometers thick. The thickness was very even.

“It… looks almost like a wall carving someone did,” Ninedust said.

“Right. It looks like a detached wall carving of an enormous, hellish elephant,” Hegemon Welkin said. “That’s why I named it the Stone Hellephant Wall. This thing has been floating in the Great Dark for an extremely long period of time, and the entire thing is composed of deepfire blackstone. I was overjoyed when I saw it and wanted to take it with me, but it was just too big. Some sort of invisible power made it so that I just couldn’t take it away by force. Your lifeblood weapons wish to absorb deepfire blackstone, right? Go ahead and let them absorb as much as they want from this enormous wall of deepfire blackstone. Now… we agreed on a hundred coldfire cauldron fruits. Go ahead and give them to me.”





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Book 34, Chapter 8 - Mining


Ji Ning glanced at the enormous Stone Hellephant Wall. “Senior, please let me first see if they can even absorb it.”

“Go ahead.”

One of the Northbow swords flew out from the sheath on Ning’s back and stabbed straight towards the Stone Hellephant Wall. Crack! The Northbow sword didn’t damage the wall in the slightest, but as it hung there with the sword tip touching the wall, everyone present could see that a small ‘crater’ was slowly beginning to appear and expand at the point of contact.

“Master, this is deepfire blackstone. We can absorb it!” a child appeared on the surface of the Northbow sword and called out excitedly towards Ning.

Ning couldn’t help but reveal a smile. He turned his head to look at Hegemon Welkin. “Thank you, senior. Here are your hundred coldflame cauldron fruits.” Ning sent out a jade bottle with a hundred fruits within it.

Hegemon Welkin accepted it, scanned it with his godsense, then accepted it.

“You can just take your time absorbing the deepfire blackstone. I’m off.” Hegemon Welkin’s gaze turned towards the Northbow sword that had slowly plunged deep into the Stone Hellephant Wall; by now, quite a bit of the deepfire blackstone had disappeared from around it. “Even I am not able to take away this enormous chunk of deepfire blackstone, but your swords are able to absorb it… haha. Still, upgrading lifeblood weapons is an incredibly difficult process. Even if you can let them absorb an enormous amount of materials and upgrade them to their material limit, if you wish to transform them into Universe treasures then they will need quintessence cores that are at a similarly incredible level. I’ve reared lifeblood weapons of my own, but alas I haven’t been able to create any Universe treasures.”

Ning nodded upon hearing this. Creating a Universe treasure was no easy feat.

“To me, searching for an ownerless Universe treasure is a better use of my time,” Hegemon Welkin said. “There are still some who would be willing to acknowledge me as their master.”

“That, senior, is because you are a Hegemon!” The nearby Ninedust interjected, “It is normal for Universe treasures to be willing to submit themselves to Hegemons. Daolords like us though? Unless we stumble into some truly incredible luck, it’s almost impossible for us to be able to make Universe treasures submit to us.”

Ninedust was a good example. He was an exalted member of the Ancients and was a master in staff-arts who had studied the legacy of that ancestor Hegemon of the Ancient race, but the ancestor’s Universe longstaff had refused to follow him.