Desolate Era (Book 36 - Book 40)

Who would know all these little details? Aside from Ning himself, only the deceased Archon Silksnow knew.

“Nasty move, Silksnow… so this is the final card up your sleeve to kill me?” Ning slowly shook his head. “You risked your life to delve into the Jadefire Realm, all for the purpose of trying to draw me inside and kill me… and you even came up with a final backup plan to use the realmship to kill me if you yourself could not.”

Emperor Solesky and Emperor Goldisle both looked at Ning, waiting for him to make a decision.

“Darknorth, why don’t you give the realmship up?” Emperor Solesky couldn’t help but suggest.

“Give it up?” Ning shook his head. “If I trade the realmship to others, I’ll still be in possession of a vast amount of treasure. That treasure will continue to attract greedy eyes from some other major powers…”

“Then don’t ask for any treasures at all. Just hand it over as a gift,” Emperor Solesky said.

“And why do I have to give away my treasures?” Ning shook his head, a cold smile on his lips and a chilling gleam in his eyes. He then looked at Emperor Goldisle. “Brother Goldisle, there’s something I’ll have to trouble you with.”

“Just go ahead and say the word.” Emperor Goldisle felt a bit embarrassed himself, but there had been nothing he could do; the Dao Alliance’s rules were binding! In addition, quite a few Emperors were connected to the outside world. Many of them spent their days wandering and adventuring but kept their avatars back home! Thus, it was extremely simple to ask these Emperors to help spread the word.

There was no way to stop it at all, and so Emperor Goldisle wasn’t willing to disobey the laws of the Dao Alliance.

“As you know, I’ve always wished to reverse spacetime to revive my Dao-companion.” Ning smiled. “Now that I have this realmship, I wish to use it to ask an Autarch to do just that.”

“Ask an Autarch?” Emperor Goldisle and Emperor Solesky were both stunned. They had both heard of Autarchs, but not even the majority of Hegemons were ever able to actually meet one.

“Fine.” Emperor Goldisle nodded repeatedly. “That’s a good solution. If your treasures ends up in the hands of an Autarch, nobody would be able to do anything about it! But Darknorth, I have to warn you… the Dao Alliance can only help you send the word to the Autarch as soon as possible. As for how long the Autarch will take, we can’t be sure. To Autarchs, realmships might be nice little toys, but they still won’t care enough to drop everything for one. They’d only accept your offer to ensure that the most basic laws of fairness in the universe are maintained.”

“I understand.” Ning nodded. Autarchs were at the apex of power amongst cultivators, capable of creating even otherverses with ease. When the Sithe had been defeated, the Autarchs must’ve acquired countless spoils of war. Even if that wasn’t the case, at their level these treasures really held almost no meaning for them at all.

They weren’t truly completely uncaring towards the weaker cultivators… but they couldn’t just help everyone who asked willy-nilly either! That wouldn’t be appropriate. Thus, Autarchs operated off a simple principle… if you wanted one of them to help you out, you had to pay a corresponding price, even though they themselves didn’t care about treasure per se.

“Right. I’ll go send the word now,” Emperor Goldisle said. “I’ll get you a response as soon as I can.”

“Good.” Ning felt excitement swell in his breast. He was asking a favor of an Autarch! A favor for a realmship… when would the Autarch come?

……

Word quickly spread to Realmslord Windgrace’s territory. He possessed a pre-eminent status; he was the only one in all the Sixteen Realmverses Alliance who was capable of contacting an Autarch.

“He wishes to use a realmship to ask an Autarch to revive his Dao-companion? This Daolord Darknorth is quite the romantic.” Realmslord Windgrace laughed when he heard this, then immediately helped send the word.

……

A distant region of great darkness. Within the emptiness of the void, there was an enormous triangular region with a series of dazzlingly beautiful palaces in the very center, each of which emanated specks of golden light.

At the very center was a particularly towering palace, the greatest of them all.

“Master.” An azure-robed youth who emanated the aura of eternity moved to stand respectfully outside a private room within the palace.

Inside the private room was a bald, black-robed old man who had a pair of fleshy antennae growing from the top of his head. His golden eyes were focused intently on the skull-sized round gray globe in front of him, and the countless runes and patterns the globe was covered with.

The fleshy antennae waved about above the bald old man’s head, but his eyes were filled with excitement. He gently reached out to tap the gray globe once, causing the countless patterns to instantly change and an aura of power to build.

“Still not right.” The bald old man shook his head, then reached out with his ashen white right hand to give it another tap, bringing it back into quiescence.

“Master.” A second call rang out from outside.

“Xian’er. Why are you bothering me?” Only now did the old man notice the distraction and respond.

“Realmslord Windgrace sent word that someone named Daolord Darknorth in the Flamedragon Realmverse wishes to use a realmship to ask you to help him reverse spacetime to revive his Dao-companion,” the azure-robed youth outside said respectfully.

“Another lovesick man.” The bald old man nodded. “Alright, fine. Got it. Stop bothering me, I’ll head over there soon!”

“Soon?” The youth outside the door murmured softly, “Master, the last time you said you would go ‘soon’, you delayed by over 600,000 chaos cycles…”

The bald old man’s antennae instantly begin to twist in embarrassment and irritation. “How dare you mock me, you brat! This time, it really will be soon! I’ve pretty much finished repairing this treasure. It needs just a tiny bit more work. Once I’ve finished repairing it, I’ll head over! Alright, don’t bother me again before I finish this project.’

“Alright.” The azure-robed youth had no choice but to leave, then send this response back to his good friend ‘Realmslord Windgrace’.





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Book 37, Chapter 12 - Escorted


After helping Ji Ning send word, Emperor Goldisle didn’t immediately hurry to depart. He instead continued to remain at Vastheaven Palace as he wanted for the Autarch’s response. Just half a day later, that response came.

“Darknorth.” Emperor Goldisle immediately sought Ning out. Ning was seated silently at the peak of a mountain. When he saw Emperor Goldisle fly towards him, he couldn’t help but feel nervous: “Do we have an answer?”

Whoosh. Emperor Goldisle alighted on the mountain top next to him. “We have an answer. Ever since the war against the Sithe concluded, it became hard to locate the Autarchs and virtually no Hegemons know where they are! We had to rely on Realmslord Windgrace and his extraordinary status to accomplish it. He rendered major accomplishments during the Dawn War and is the only person in the Sixteen Realmverses Alliance who can contact the Autarchs… but this time, he was only able to reach out to Autarch Titanos!”

“Autarch Titanos?” Ning grew eager with anticipation. All Autarchs were transcendental figures. After the war, Autarch Bolin had created the Aeonian race and then disappeared. Autarch Awakener was an even more mysterious figure; he had wandered the entire Chaosverse then disappeared without a trace as well. It was only thanks to Ning’s encounter with the Azureflower Estate that he knew Autarch Awakener had perished in a way which ‘could be considered suicide’.