Desolate Era (Book 36 - Book 40)

“There’s no way something as unearthly powerful as this can exist,” one of his Black Emperor subordinates said.

“Agreed. If he succeeds in the Daomerge, he’ll probably be invincible unless an Autarch intervenes,” Lord Wulf murmured softly. “But if he fails… that’ll be when he becomes truly troublesome. No one can guess what a Daolord who has failed the Daomerge would do. More importantly, the Lonely King also will be competing against Realmslord Windgrace. The struggle over the Flamewing God will probably be the greatest battle which our Icepeak Army has ever engaged in…”

Although the Icepeak Army had taken part in numerous great wars, it had never faced off against an opponent of Realmslord Windgrace’s caliber. In addition, there was a third party to this conflict… Ji Ning and the Flamewing God who served him. Lord Wulf spoke the truth when he described this conflict as the ‘greatest battle’ the Icepeak Army would have ever engaged in.

“Daolord Darknorth won’t go crazy, right?” The four Black Emperors were rather nervous. They had all witnessed the Flamewing God’s power.

“Who knows what a Daolord who has failed the Daomerge might do?” Lord Wulf stared at the distant Vastheaven Palace. “However… we must give it our best shot, no matter how dangerous it is! There’s no way Realmslord Windgrace or our Lonely King would give up a chance to control the Flamewing God. They’ll throw every resource they have into it.”

The Flamewing God was more valuable than all the combined value of all the treasures Realmslord Windgrace and the Lonely King possessed. There was a limit to how powerful a Sithe war machine could be, after all… and the greater the power, the greater the cost of activating it. Each time Realmslord Windgrace wished to use the Blacksun to fire off an attack, he had to pay an enormous price. But Flamewing? It had a virtually indestructible body and could fight without rest. The Flamewing God was more valuable than the entire Icepeak Army.

However, only the likes of the Lonely King and Realmslord Windgrace were actually interested in trying to take control over Flamewing. The ordinary soldiers and generals of the Icepeak Army, along with the likes of Hegemon Brightshore, simply felt fear! This was because no one could predict how wide-ranging and destructive such a war would become. A war on this level could easily result in the deaths of Hegemons and Black Emperors. Even the likes of Lord Wulf would perish under the might of a fully-powered Blacksun!

The only ones who stood a good chance at surviving were the Lonely King, who had numerous Sithe war machines at his disposal, and Realmslord Windgrace, who had his Blacksun. Everyone else could very well perish!

Oh, right. Daolord Darknorth would be safe, as he could hide behind the Flamewing god. However… if Daolord Darknorth had failed the Daomerge, he might go crazy and become an even greater threat than Windgrace or the Lonely King.

“Ugh.”

“Let’s pray that he succeeds in the Daomerge.” In truth, some of the Black Emperors were silently hoping for Ning’s success. They would be nothing more than cannon fodder in a battle at this level, after all. Still… all of them knew in their hearts how unlikely it was that Ning would succeed.

……

The white-robed Ning in Vastheaven Palace and the black-robed Ning in the Azureflower Estate meditated silently as the Flower of Eternity began to bloom with excruciating slowness.

“This is correct. No errors thus far.” Ning was being incredibly careful. As soon as the flower had started to bloom, his Eternal Omega Sword Dao had begun to take form. Everything seemed so perfect and flawless… but if he made so much as a single mistake, the Flower of Eternity would instantly begin to wither and his truesoul would begin to crumble away.

He couldn’t afford a single mistake! Thus, Ning proceeded very slowly with the Daomerge.

Time passed on, one day after the other, and more Eternal Emperors appeared around the Vastheaven Everworld. Ning’s exalted aura had covered all of the Flamedragon Realmverse and had even stretched out into the Great Dark. Although the aura grew increasingly weak with distance, the majority of Eternal Emperors in the Flamedragon Realmverse were able to sense it. However, realmverses were so far from each other that the aura spread just a comparatively short distance into the Great Dark before becoming completely indetectable.

“Eh?” Roughly half a year after the Flower of Eternity began to bloom, the faces of the white-robed Ning and the black-robed Ning simultaneously turned pale.





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Book 38, Chapter 42 - Sword-Heart


“Now this is a deadly problem.” Ji Ning had just encountered the greatest obstacle within the Daomerge thus far.

Why was it that Daolords all wished for the chance to completely simulate the Daomerge? It was so that they would have sufficient experience for the real thing. A mistake in the simulated Daomerge could be fixed in the real one.

Alas, even the Daomerge Firecloud Flower could only simulate a partial Daomerge for an Omega Dao. It could only simulate the Daomerge up to the point where the bud first formed! In other words, the only real benefit it brought to Ning was that it had saved him three years worth of time; it hadn’t given him a chance to actually compensate for any mistakes or errors! And now, as a result, the completely unprepared Ning now encountered an enormous problem which he had to resolve.

“If I wish to succeed in the Daomerge for the Omega Sword Dao, I must also master the fifteenth stance of the [Heartsword] art!” After spending half a year slowly blooming his Flower of Eternity, he immediately realized this problem.

Ning had originally thought that the [Heartsword] art was just a type of special technique that combined heartforce, divine power, and Immortal energy. He didn’t believe that it had anything to do with his Omega Sword Dao… but now that he had actually initiated the Daomerge, he realized that he was wrong!

It was connected! In fact, it was connected in a very important way!

Ordinary Emperors and even Hegemons didn’t need to worry about techniques like the [Heartsword] art during their Daomerges, but Ning was different; his path was that of the Omega Sword Dao!

“The [Heartsword] art focuses on training the heart, the heart of the sword. The more sincere one’s heart is towards the sword, the more perfectly one can merge heartforce, divine power, and Immortal energy. I was only able to master the fourteenth stance of the [Heartforce] art because I realized that Yu Wei would not come back to life, and thus I came to understand the essence of ‘Remorseless Unto Death’. I poured everything into the sword without any remorse… but that isn’t enough. Although a sword-heart like this is enough to merge divine power, heartforce, and Immortal energy to a very high degree… it still isn’t enough.”

“I need a truly perfect and complete sword-heart! Only then can I also have a perfect, Eternal Omega Sword Dao.”

He only came to understand this during the Daomerge itself. The many insights he had gained into the Dao of the Sword would form the ‘body’ of his Eternal Omega Sword Dao, while his perfect sword-heart would form its ‘soul’. Only then would it be fully formed! Only then would it become a true and truly terrifying Eternal Omega Sword Dao.

This was why the [Heartsword] art was so marvelous, and why it allowed for one to merge all types of energy together, resulting in every single attack increasing explosively in might.