Desolate Era (Book 31 - Book 35)

This newcomer had instantly captured two Emperor-class golems? How could he be so terrifyingly strong?

What they didn’t understand was that although the three clan leaders were extremely powerful, their attacks were clumsy and limited in speed to a hundred times the speed of light. Blocking their attacks was naturally quite easy! Ning, however, was different; his sword-arts were so incredibly fast that he far outstripped the Emperor-class golems in speed. Given how unpredictable his attacks were, he naturally was able to defeat and capture the golems in just a single clash.

Forget about two; even if five or six golems were attacking him, he would be able to easily defeat and capture at least half of them in a twinkling, then in the next twinkling catch the rest. This was what made Ning so dangerous!

Swoosh. After putting away the two golems, Ning turned to charge straight towards the reinforcement golems.

“Not good!”

“Hide.”

“Don’t fight him head-on!” The golems were all terrified. These golems were all roughly on the same level of power; if two of them had been captured in just a single clash, how could the others possibly dare to engage? They naturally were terrified into a hasty retreat.

“This Daolord is too powerful. He’s absolutely terrifying! Even worse than the three clan leaders.”

“What should we do?”

“Even if there were ten of us working together, we still wouldn’t be a match for him. He’d just capture us all, one after the other! I think we need at least thirty working together if we want to kill him.”

The golems quickly retreated behind some of the few remaining barriers. Neither Ning nor Ninedust dared to touch them, but since the golems belonged to the Sithe side they wouldn’t be attacked.

“Everyone, we have to hurry up and join forces against him,” the golems discussed internally.

The main problem was that the palace ruins were simply far, far too vast. The golems were all scattered across it by a distance of tens or even hundreds of millions of kilometers. To gather them all together would take time. If they tried to hastily gather together in smaller numbers, the end result would just be that Ning would defeat them one-by-one.

And so… the sixteen Emperor-class golems that were close to Ninedust’s battlefield were all so terrified that they didn’t dare to come and reinforce their ‘comrade’. After spending the time needed to boil a kettle of tea, Ninedust finally managed to deplete the Emperor-class golem’s energy reserves and caught it.

Actually, this was the exact same method the three great clans had used to capture those Emperor-class golems with invulnerable forms. This was why they had quite a few of them. All combat consumed energy, and golems didn’t have spirit-pills. Their regenerative speed was also far lower than that of cultivators! A short battle was fine, but a long battle they couldn’t escape from would result in capture once their energy stores were depleted.

“I finally caught one!” Ninedust was ecstatic.

“Congratulations.” Ning flew over.

“I only managed to catch one because you blocked the others. Does this even count?” Ninedust was still a bit worried.

Ning said with a laugh, “That senior only said that you aren’t allowed to use Universe treasures or outside sources of help; you had to capture an Emperor-class golem on your own. And… that’s exactly what you did! Me fighting a few others is a separate issue entirely. It should be fine. Let’s go and ask.”

“Alright.” Ninedust rather nervously flew towards the lion statue. Thankfully, the treasure-spirit within that beastworld didn’t stop him. Instead, it granted Ninedust entry.

“Haha…” Ning started to laugh. “With this bit of luck under his belt, brother Ninedust’s chances at the Daomerge shall be a bit better now.”

The Daomerge was far too difficult. If one wished to succeed in it, one needed to fight for every scrap of karmic fortune available. Ning wasn’t confident in his own Daomerge chances, but he wished for his best friends to succeed in theirs.

“Emperor-class golems, eh? C’mere.” Eager to do battle, Ning once more charged towards the golems. Wanting to capture them was part of his eagerness, but he also had the feeling that he was gaining new insights into the five stances of his Omega Sword Dao through combat. His Soleheart stance in particular felt as though it was just one step away from the fourth stage. Clearly, the 120 million years he had spent memorizing the Autarch’s Dao had given Ning a wealth of experience to draw upon.





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Book 34, Chapter 29 - The Plan


Within the beastworld. Ninedust was seated in the lotus position within the altar, staring at the giant claw-hand hanging in the heavens that surpassed and transcended everything else that was here.

“Whew.” Ninedust let out a long breath, then closed his eyes and revealed a smile. “Success. Finally, I see a glimmer of hope for myself regarding the Daomerge.”

When Ninedust had used up the Voidsea Jadeseal, he had been able to simulate a Daomerge. Although the simulation was partial and incomplete, he had still benefited from it enormously… but alas, he still didn’t feel good about his chances at the Daomerge. Now, however, he felt as though he had a shot.

“Autarchs… they truly are incredible.” Ninedust couldn’t help but let out a sigh of praise as he rose to his feet.

“Eh? You’ve memorized everything already? It’s only been five hundred million years. Not bad at all.” The black-robed figure materialized right next to him.

“Yes.” Ninedust smiled. “Not too shabby, but I wasn’t as fast as Darknorth.” He was an Ancient cultivator; when he was a Daolord of the First Step, his divine body and soul were already comparable to those of most Daolords of the Third Step. Now that he had reached the fourth step, his body and soul were unimaginably powerful. This was why he had managed to memorize it all in just five hundred million years.

“Ah, right. Master once instructed that every single cultivator who was able to memorize these Daos would be given a treasure based on their performance; the better they perform, the better a treasure they receive. Darknorth, for example, has improved significantly! Once he comes back here, I’ll definitely give him a superb treasure. Ninedust, go out and pick a few fights. Show me how much you’ve improved.”

“Treasure?” Ninedust grew excited.

“Yes, treasures the Autarch gave me to hand out.” The black-robed man had an enigmatic smile on his face. “An Autarch’s treasures are naturally extraordinary.”

“Alright, then let me leave right away.” Ninedust was eager to do battle. The black-robed man waved his hand, causing a spatial bubble to encompass Ninedust and teleport him outside the beastworld.

……

As soon as Ninedust emerged, he saw the white-robed youth seated in the lotus position next to a shattered wall that was within the ruined palaces.

“Darknorth!” Ninedust called out.

The distant Ji Ning opened his eyes and smiled. “You finally came out. I’ve been waiting forever for you.”

“You call that ‘forever’? Verge-level Daolords have all spent tens of thousands of chaos cycles training before they go attempt their Daomerge. In comparison, the amount of time I just spent was absolutely nothing.” Ninedust transformed into a streak of light that flew over towards Ning, landing right before the shattered wall. He asked, “You must’ve improved quite a bit in recent years, eh?”