Desolate Era (Book 31 - Book 35)

Beneath the leaves of a strange, fiery-red tree that was more than ten million kilometers tall sat a skinny bald youth. The youth had a smile on his face, but his eyes were closed as he trained there silently. His upper body was covered with fiery red divine runes which seemed linked to the enormous flaming tree behind him. The runes would sometimes spread out while at other times clustering together…


“Eh?” Solewind opened his eyes, then smiled. “Brother Darknorth has actually become a Heartforce Cultivator, and a powerful one at that? I had thought that I was doing fairly well for myself, after having created a secret art comparable to the [Featherdress Soulthrall Song]. I didn’t expect that brother Darknorth would not only become a Heartforce Cultivator but become even more powerful than me in this area.”

Solewind was actually incredibly talented in heartforce. When he had been at the World level, he had been on par with monstrously talented figures like Greatjoy and Ji Ning. After becoming a Daolord, he would be able to easily reach the Verge and become one of the most powerful of Heartforce Cultivators.

In the Genesis Lands, he had acquired a legacy left behind by a Heartforce Hegemon. He naturally had an extraordinary destiny ahead of him, and he had already created a secret art that was on par with the [Featherdress Soulthrall Song]. Although he had only created the early stages of it, his foundation was already quite solid.

The more solid your foundation was, the slower and steadier your training would be. At present, Solewind was also just a Daolord of the Second Step.

……

“No. No way. Impossible. How can he be this much more powerful than me?!” Firesurge was located within a tattered shrine, and he was bellowing with rage. “Impossible! I’ve been working so hard. Why is it that he’s pulling farther and farther away from me?!”

Of the four peerless geniuses who had visited the alternate universe, Firesurge had the weakest mind and Dao-heart. He had always felt certain that he would become the strongest, and had been working hard this entire time. He was now quite powerful… but Darknorth, a master of the Dao of the Sword, had somehow ended up becoming a Heartforce Cultivator, and reached incredibly terrifying heights in heartforce at that.

……

The news quickly spread throughout the universe, and everyone had a different reaction to it. Ning’s primary goal was achieved – the vast majority of Daolords shrank back. Very, very few had the courage and confidence needed to fight a Heartforce Cultivator.





* * *





Book 31, Chapter 21 - Sincerity


A dimensional rift appeared within a region which bordered both the Endless Territories and the Terror Starsea. Two figures emerged from it, one a white-robed youth who carried a golden sheath on his back, the second an insidious-looking silver-robed man who radiated an aura of power.

“We finally made it.”

“Haha, I didn’t expect things would progress this smoothly.”

Ji Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord both sighed in amazement.

“The two of us were so worried about dying at first.” The Ninedust Sectlord laughed. “Thank goodness Patriarch Vulturas gave us that star map, and thank goodness your sword-arts have transcended space, Darknorth. And thank goodness you are also a Heartforce Cultivator!”

“We also need to celebrate our good fortune. The Starflow River was supposed to be the most dangerous part of the journey, but we were so lucky that we didn’t run into anything dangerous at all,” Ning sighed happily.

Their good luck had combined with many other factors, allowing them to survive their return to the Endless Territories.

“Come, come! We need to make haste. We wasted sixty years after leaving Thundersouth Palace, and we’re still quite far from the Waveshift Realm. We’ve already wasted so much time, and if we waste any more the Voidsea Jadeseals will probably end up being taken by those who arrived early on,” the Ninedust Sectlord said.

“No rush,” Ning said. “I have a very quick way of travelling straight to the Waveshift Realm.”

“A very quick way?” The Ninedust Sectlord stared at Ning, puzzled.

“Through the spacetime tunnels of the Brightshore Kingdom.” Ning immediately added, “Brother Ninedust, I never spoke to you about this, but… although I am a member of the Dao Alliance, as a World-level cultivator I was abducted to the Brightshore Kingdom. Thus, I’m a member of the Twelve Palaces of Brightshore.”

“The Brightshore Kingdom? You belong to them?” The Ninedust Sectlord was stunned.

“Yes.” Ning nodded. Their journey back from the Terror Starsea had been a dangerous one, with life-threatening situations possibly occurring at any moment. In order to avoid any mistrust and anything that could affect their ability to work together, Ning had stayed silent this entire time about his true status. Now that they had shared so many life-and-death experiences for so long, he truly didn’t wish to keep this hidden.

“Y-you…” The Ninedust Sectlord had a rather complicated look on his face. He then let out a helpless sigh. “Thankfully you are merely a member of the Twelve Palaces. If you were a member of the Brightshore Imperials, I’d really have no clue what to do. The Brightshore Imperials have always been enemies of us Ancient cultivators. We’ve been fighting each other for countless chaos cycles.”

Ning nodded. The Brightshore Imperials had once been the slaves of the Ancient cultivators, which they viewed as the greatest stain on their honor. It wasn’t at all odd that the successive generations of Brightshore Imperials had all viewed the Ancient cultivators as their enemies.

“The Brightshore Hegemon is absolutely shameless.” The Ninedust Sectlord gritted his teeth, hard. “Of the three Hegemons, he’s the most shameless! He relies on his incredible mastery over spacetime to abduct some of the most powerful World-level cultivators of the Endless Territories. If it wasn’t for the Twelve Palaces of Brightshore, the Brightshore Kingdom wouldn’t have the status and standing it currently does.”

Ning had to acknowledge this as being true. In terms of Daolords, the Twelve Palaces of Brightshore had far more members than the Brightshore Imperials. The Twelve Palaces often numbered one or more of the top three Daolords of each era within their ranks… and they even had Eternal Emperors! By comparison, the imperial clan was much weaker.

“It doesn’t matter. You remain a brother for life,” the Ninedust Sectlord declared. “And given my current level of power, I really don’t worry about those Brightshore Imperials at all. Don’t worry. I won’t make things difficult for you.”

Ning immediately let out a sigh of relief. If Ninedust ended up in a battle against the Brightshore Imperials, the lifeblood oath Ning had sworn would force him to protect the Brightshore imperials. Ninedust was making his position clear in order to avoid precisely this type of awkward situation. Indeed, given Ninedust’s standing at the very peak of power amongst Daolords, there really were few to no Brightshore Imperials who were a match for him, and not a single one who could truly threaten him.

Now that he was a Daolord of the Fourth Step, the Ninedust Sectlord’s ‘invulnerable aquaform’ was far more powerful than Kongsan’s ‘darkness incarnate’ form had been. In a normal battle, no Daolord was capable of annihilating him when he assumed that form. In truth, all of the most supreme Daolords had their own special talents, and all of them were generally quite hard to deal with. The only ones capable of threatening them were the most supreme of Heartforce Daolords, who were able to use techniques that struck at their very souls and truesouls. Those attacks still proved dangerous to them.

Daolord Featherdress had created the [Featherdress Soulthrall Song] and become acknowledged as the most powerful of Daolords. The other supreme Daolords were unwilling to fight against her precisely because of her heartforce abilities.