Desolate Era (Book 36 - Book 40)

The passageway was very deep, dark, and gloomy. From the outside, the castle looked as though it was merely fifteen thousand meters long, but on the inside it was absolutely enormous. Ning’s group flew more than a thousand kilometers along the hallway before they finaly reached an open, empty region. This region was divided up into three different levels, with each level representing three different core controls used to operate the castle.

There were Sithe corpses floating above the altars which existed in all three levels. The corpses all emanated the auras of Eternal Emperors. There were also some Black Emperors and Golden Emperors who had undergone the Ritual Sacrificium; all of them had perished here.

Ning slowly descended upon the bottommost layer, then glanced at his surroundings. Nuwa and the others came flying over as well, also landing on the altar at the very bottom.

“The insides of this castle are intact. How did they all die?” Azurefiend glanced at the corpses in astonishment. “I don’t see any wounds on these corpses.”

“Someone managed to kill these Golden Emperors through the protection of the castle.” Nuwa and the others were all quite stunned.

“A total of thirty-two Sithe are inside here,” Ning said. “It had to have been an Autarch who used either karmic techniques or truesoul destruction techniques to bypass the castle walls and slay the Sithe inside.”

The Autarchs had chosen different Daos and thus had different areas of specialty. Some, like Autarch Bolin, specialized in frontal attacks. Others had techniques which were more mysterious and harder to understand.

“There are actually three command centers.” Ning raised his head to look at the other two, his forehead creased into a frown.

“The bottom command center has an enormous formation within it which can be used to reach out from the base of the castle and connect it to an enormous area around it! This castle can be used to command, consolidate, and protect an entire region. It will gather chaos energy from the area around it.”

“The middle command center is comparatively simpler. It controls a scanning formation, ensuring that any opponent who appears will find it almost impossible to escape. It has tremendous control over dimensional power, allowing it to scan an incredibly vast area and discover even the most minute of spatial ripples. Even I would probably be unable to avoid its detection,” Ning said with a surprised sigh.

“As for the top command center… it is also quite complicated. It involves a powerful offensive formation that gathers together the power of lightning, focusing it together into an attack of incredible power. Even Golden Emperors would probably perish before it,” Ning said slowly as he continued to inspect the insides of the castle.

“Is it really that impressive? That means this is a perfect weapon of war,” Hegemon Azurefiend said with a shocked sigh.

“During the Dawn War, it was probably just as important as the Blacksun,” Ning said. “This, too, is a war machine that is capable of affecting the flow of battle in an entire region. I’m amazed that we were lucky enough to stumble upon such an important war machine.”

“Haha, given your incredible prowess, Daolord, it is only natural that your luck is also extraordinary,” Patriarch Treewind praised.

Ning himself felt rather puzzled. Luck, eh? It was true that he was held in high favor by the prime essences of the Chaosverse. When he had failed his Daomerge, he could sense that the prime essences had sighed on his behalf. If the reason that he had just stumbled upon an incredibly valuable war-fort was because he was ‘lucky’ thanks to being favored by the prime essences… even Ning could do nothing but sigh.

Sithe war machines of this level of power were incredibly hard to find. Lord Houwu had only become known as the ‘Lord Governor of Houwu’ after finding Houwu City, while the Blacksun had made a ‘Realmslord’ out of Realmslord Windgrace.

“I would need at least three people to take control of the formations in order to operate this castle.” Ning frowned. “And all three need to be Hegemons.”

“Me and my avatar can account for two, but that won’t be enough.” Nuwa felt rather worried.

“What about me?” Azurefiend volunteered.

Ning shook his head. “I’m planning to leave this castle in my homeland. Azurefiend, are you really volunteering to stay in my homeland forever?”

Azurefiend was speechless. He loved freedom and loved adventuring. He really wouldn’t be able to endure staying in Daolord Darknorth’s homeland forever.

“The formations within this castle are quite complicated. Nuwa, you probably wouldn’t be able to take direct control of them either,” Ning said. “Let me take a closer look.” Ning was planning to modify the central command centers of this castle, making it more suitable for the Three Realms.

……

Ning himself was able to easily control all three formation-diagrams, but modifying them even slightly would be difficult. Ning actually ended up creating a fourth formation-diagram inside the castle, one which would serve as the ‘master controls’. Thanks to this fourth formation-diagram, a single Emperor would be able to simultaneously control all of the castle’s functions. This took Ning over eight hundred million years to accomplish.

“Ahah! Finally, I’ve succeeded.” Ning let out a loud laugh, his laughter echoing within the empty space. Nuwa, Su Youji, and the others who had been quietly meditating all immediately stopped their training.

“Nuwa,” Ning said with a smile, “I added an additional formation-diagram that simplifies the process of controlling this castle! Once the castle has been activated, it will be able to scan to a distance of over a trillion kilometers, and it’ll be able to stand guard over this region. When I go back, I plan to modify the formations protecting our homeland and make this castle the centerpiece of our defenses. If anyone dares to attack our home, they’ll have to endure an assault from the castle.”

“My modifications have resulted in a decreasing in its scanning range, and have also resulted in it only being able to focus its firepower on a single target… but I think it should be enough,” Ning said. “Besides, if we have enough Hegemons in the future, you can just ignore my fourth formation-diagram and take direct control over the three original ones.”

“Understood.” Nuwa nodded.

Ning waved his hand, causing a jade slip to appear with instructions on how to control the castle. “Take it.” Ning handed the slip over to Nuwa. “Test it out and see how strong it is.”

“Alright.” Nuwa scanned the slip, quickly memorizing the information.

“Let’s go out,” Ning said, “And take a look at the castle’s power.” The group of cultivators immediately left the castle, leaving only Nuwa behind. They all stood outside in the void, staring at the castle.

Rumble… the very tip of the castle suddenly began to light up. BOOM! An invisible dimensional ripple suddenly spread out to cover an area of a trillion kilometers, making it so that nothing within this area could escape its sensors.





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Book 40, Chapter 7 - Acting On Orders


There was a round disk located at the ‘neck’ of the castle, which was divided into a black side and a white side. Flickers of terrifying lightning could be seen gathering around that location. According to the castle’s original configuration and power, it was capable of shooting out two bolts of thunder simultaneously, each one carrying a tremendous amount of power. In order to simplify the controls, Ji Ning had made it so that just a single bolt of thunder could be unleashed. However, this had the beneficial side effect of reducing energy costs by 50%. Attacks of such power consumed enormous amounts of energy, after all.

“That looks absolutely terrifying. I can sense that the power of that thunder is more than enough to wipe me out,” Azurefiend said with a sense of lingering fear.