Desolate Era (Book 41 - Book 45)

“They are about to arrive.” Autarch Bolin’s true body was in constant contact with them. “Five more warps through spacetime and they’ll arrive.”


“Make your preparations, everyone,” Autarch Titanos said. “Hide the formation’s power. Don’t make your moves until they enter its range.”

Titanos had been alive for longer than any of the others, and he had been the most powerful before Ning’s rise to power. Everyone was accustomed to him giving the orders, and he had been the one to devise the majority of the components of this formation. Ning and the others had only played a supplementary role.

Silence. The entire formation fell completely and utterly silent.

Ning and the others all stared intently, nervously awaiting the most critical battle of them all.

……

“According to the information almighty Iyerre gave us, they should be arriving soon. We’ll be able to escape.” The nine Sithe Exalts within the Nine Cicadas Temple were all seated in the lotus position, eagerly awaiting the Grassland World’s arrival. They had felt extremely restless and uneasy after being sealed away here, as all they could do was passively watch and wait for the cultivators to eventually breach the formations protecting them.

“They should arrive in just another day or two.”

……

Rumble… a dimensional rift suddenly appeared just a hundred billion kilometers away from the Nine Cicadas Temple, followed by a silvery-white ship flying out of the rift. This was an ordinary-looking realmship, while the person commanding it was nothing more than an ordinary Hegemon.

However… the twelve Autarch-class combatants hidden within this region all knew the truth. They knew that the Grassland World was hidden within that realmship, because Autarch Bolin’s true body remained trapped inside.

“They’ve entered the net.” Autarch Titanos’ eyes shone with baleful light. “Activate.”

“Activate.”

Ning and Titanos were in control of the Yin-Yang poles, and they simultaneously activated the formation with the other five working in concert with them. Rumble… an utterly apocalyptic amount of power instantly filled a vast region of ten trillion kilometers. The mere flow of power caused the void of space itself to be ground into countless sand-like particles, instantly disintegrating the silver realmship. As for the Sithe descendant who was commanding it, he stared in terror as he himself was disintegrated into dust.

The only thing left behind was a strange ovaloid object.





Book 44, Chapter 25 - Snake and Sword


This ovaloid object was the most powerful Sithe weapon… the Grassland World.

“We’ve been traped!”

“What’s going on? How could there be a trap here? We cut off all connections to the outside world and are undetectable. There’s no way the cultivators could’ve tracked us here. How could they have set up a trap in advance?!” The black-robed man, the red-robed man, and the silver-robed woman were standing atop the clouds, staring at the outside world. They were able to see past the Grassland World’s dimensions with ease.

The world outside had been transformed into a writhing realm of primordial chaos, filled with such power that even they shuddered at it.

“Did they perhaps manage to guess that we were going to come and rescue the Exalts and so set up a trap in advance?” the silver-robed woman asked, puzzled.

“They trapped a total of four temples. How could they be sure that we would come to the Nine Cicadas Temple first?” the red-robed man boomed.

“Could they have set up traps around all four temples?” the black-robed man asked in his icy voice.

“Impossible. You can see how much power the formation outside is using. The ambient power alone is enough to annihilate realmships with ease. The cultivators must have poured all their power into creating a formation of such power,” the silver-robed woman said. “There’s no way they could simultaneously maintain four or five formations of such power.”

The red-robed man shook his head. “In the end, this is their Chaosverse. They must’ve come up with some other way of tracking our whereabouts. No time to waste on wondering how they did it! Right now, our biggest problem is that we’ve already been trapped.”

“Then what should we do?” the black-robed man said with a frown.

Unlike the other Sithe Exalts, they weren’t truly Iyerre’s subordinates. Thus, they didn’t really care too much about whether Iyerre won or not. They had only taken part because they had been required to, while the promised rewards ensured that they weren’t excessively opposed to helping out! However, when they could sense that they were in mortal danger, there was absolutely no way they would throw away their own lives for the sake of this war.

Outside this Chaosverse, they could kill these Autarchs with ease. Here in this Chaosverse, these local Autarchs were terrifyingly powerful. Now that they had joined forces and used a mighty formation, the three felt even more nervous.

“We can’t risk ourselves. Absolutely not. If Iyerre wants to take risks, let him do it,” the black-robed man muttered.

“Let’s see just how strong the grand formation is. Let the fools go,” the silver-robed woman said. “We ourselves can just stand back.”

“Fine.” The black-robed man and the red-robed man both agreed. By their very nature, they looked down upon those three ‘fools’.

“Hey, idiots! Hurry up and get over here!” the silver-robed woman shouted.

Soon, three enormous creatures emerged from beyond the clouds. The first was the giant cyclopean bear, the second was the red-eyed white-furred humanoid, while the third was the tentacled stormcloud. These Autarch-class void dwellers were extremely displeased at the contempt which these three powerful Sithe displayed towards them. They could sense it keenly, but they were weaker than the three Sithe and so there was nothing they could do.

“What do you want?” the giant cyclopean bear rumbled unhappily.

“We have business for you, of course,” the silver-robed woman snapped. “The Grassland World has already been trapped by the cultivators! We don’t know anything at all about the situation outside, and so we need you to help investigate it for us.”

“Investigate?” The three Autarch-class void dwellers were filled with both rage and fear. They knew just how powerful these three Sithe were… and yet, the Sithe were too afraid to go outside and so were sending them out?

“The three of you are skilled at staying alive.” The silver-robed woman’s eyes flashed coldly. “I suggest you go immediately. Don’t force our hand.”

They had to go, whether they wanted to or not! The three Autarch-class void dwellers exchanged glances, communing in secret.

“We can go if you want,” the red-eyed, white-furred humanoid said hoarsely, “But we’ll need to keep part of our bodies within the Grassland World. We’ll only let parts of ourselves go outside! That way, we can be sure to keep ourselves alive. If you want us to completely depart from the Grassland World, we’d rather die than comply! It’d be death either way.”

“Right!” the cyclopean bear and the tentacled stormcloud both chorused.

“Haha, so you three idiots aren’t as dumb as you look?” the silver-robed woman snickered. “Don’t worry. We don’t stand to benefit from your deaths. All we want to do is to use you to investigate the outside world. We can agree to your terms… now hurry up and go! Find out what’s going on outside so we can take the appropriate counter-measures.”

The three Autarch-class void dwellers could no longer refuse, and so they immediately soared upwards through the clouds. They went through one layer of clouds after another. The clouds were normally quite resilient, but when they flew through them the clouds all parted before them. Soon, they reached the ninth and final layer of clouds.

“Be careful, everyone.” They exchanged glances, then nervously began to fly through the ninth layer as the two men and one woman below them watched intently.