Desolate Era (Book 41 - Book 45)

“Right.” Ning didn’t understand it either. Even if they spent ten years working on it, they probably wouldn’t manage to figure out more than a tiny bit of it. The best way to deal with a complicated formation like this was to overwhelm it with power.

Slash! The divine sword pierced through the opening which the black serpent was maintaining, carrying apocalyptic levels of force as it cut through the eight layers of clouds and then stabbed against the runes.

Boom! Countless runes and glyphs began to tremble. “Haha, illusory runes eh? Then I’ll destroy spacetime in the area. Let’s see if your formation can remain stable then!” Ning continued to violently attack, striking each blow with maximum power and causing the runes to shudder and flicker.

……

Deep within the depths of the grasslands. The two men and the woman were beginning to truly panic now.

“What should we do? They found the formation linking us to the nine clouds almost right away.” The red-robed man frowned.

“Should we ignite the quintessence core?” the black-robed man said nervously.

“Ignite the quintessence core?” The silver-robed woman and the red-robed man were both stunned. The ‘quintessence core’ referred to the energy source powering the entire world. The reason why the Autarchs had been unable to truly break into the Sithelands which had invaded their Chaosverse was precisely because the Sithelands had its own miniaturized quintessence. This quintessence core provided the Sithelands with energy, allowing the Sithe to construct those stable and deadly Daoguard Towers! However, over the aeons the energy of that miniature quintessence had been gradually depleted. By now, there was little remaining.

The reason why the Grassland World was so powerful was because it had a quintessence core of its own as well! Iyerre had asked his own teacher to give it to him, and his teacher had obliged. That was the only reason why Iyerre had been able to create this mighty weapon. Otherwise, there would’ve been no way to power the Grassland World. Even the mightiest of weapons needed sufficiently strong external power sources here. This was a foreign Chaosverse, after all; they were rejected here and could not draw upon the local prime essences.

“Igniting the quintessence core will consume an enormous amount of energy. If we use it all up, we’ll have lost this battle,” the silver-robed woman said. “We should check with Iyerre first.” She immediately reached out to contact Iyerre.

A short while later a blurry pillar of light appeared which gradually resolved into the tall, barefoot, balding figure of Iyerre.

“What is it?” Iyerre asked.

“The cultivators set up a trap for us here. The Grassland World has been caught, and the nine layers of clouds are unable to stop them,” the silver-robed woman said quickly. “They’ve even discovered the conduit formation powering the nine cloud layers. Soon, they’ll have destroyed it. Once the nine clouds are destroyed, the Grassland World will be on the verge of destruction as well.”

“WHAT!?” Iyerre’s face was drained of all blood, and a look of shock appeared in his eyes. He was unable to remain calm any longer.





Book 44, Chapter 28 - Formation Incarnation


The Grassland World was Iyerre’s most important trump card, the one he intended to rely on to utterly defeat the cultivators and conquer this Chaosverse. It was the main reason why he was so confident in his ultimate victory. If the Grassland World was destroyed, his chances of victory would become virtually nil. He’d all but simply have to wait for defeat.

Thus, as soon as Iyerre heard this bad news his mind became filled with many thoughts. For example, how did the cultivators manage to prepare a trap in advance? How was it that the protections of the Grassland World had been breached so easily?

The latter, he had an answer for; he suspected that the silver-robed woman and the other two weren’t ready to defend it with all their strength. But the former? For now, he truly couldn’t understand how the cultivators had managed to set up a trap in advance.

He didn’t have any time to waste asking these extraneous questions. He immediately ordered: “Protect the Grassland World at all costs! Ignite its quintessence core right away!”

“Ignite the quintessence core?” The silver-robed woman blinked.

“Right. I’m on the way and will be there within a day. You have to hold!” Iyerre’s face was as cold and hard as ice. “I have to win this war. I have to take control over this Chaosverse! If you can’t hold on until I get there, don’t blame me for what I’ll do to you.”

The three couldn’t help but shudder. They knew that if Iyerre became truly infuriated with them… just thinking it chilled their hearts. If Iyerre’s countless aeons of planning ended up being ruined by their cowardice, he might actually kill them!

“Understood.”

“We’re igniting the quintessence core right now. We’ll definitely hold on!” the three hurriedly promised.

“Fine.” Iyerre’s eyes flashed coldly. “Things might seem dangerous, but we still have a chance! If the cultivators have been able to beat you so easily, that means that most likely all of them are there. If possible, trap them all inside the Grassland World! Do your best to tie them down for as long as you can. Once I arrive, we’ll kill them all! We stand the best chance if we can make the battlefield be inside the Grassland World.”

“Understood,” the silver-robed woman and the other two said hurriedly. The two sides then broke the connection, followed by Iyerre’s figure vanishing from the pillar of light.

The three finally let out sighs of relief. They felt a great deal of trepidation towards Iyerre. He was normally an affable person who always had a sympathetic smile on his face, but in their homeland he was second only to the Lord of Chaos. If they truly did cause his countless aeons of hard work to go up in smoke, no one could predict how berserk he would become.

“Ignite the quintessence.” The three traded a glance, then immediately activated the quintessence core.

The quintessence core was an indigo sphere that was located at the deepest depths of the Grassland World. It was filled with an utterly inconceivable amount of power. This tiny sphere had significantly more energy inside it than the entire Blazesun Domain! It had once been an incredibly vast energy source which had spun through the Infinite Void, but the Sithe Lord of Chaos had ended up harvesting it.

Not just any quintessence could be ‘harvested’ like this. The ones which could be harvested while remaining intact and independent were vanishingly rare.

Boom! Right as they began to ignite the quintessence, a thunderous boom rang out from the outside world, followed by a loud laugh.

“Haha, we broke one!”

Ning’s voice rang out excitedly: “Come, let’s break the next one!”

“Yes, let’s go!” Autarch Titanos was delighted as well.

After thoroughly destroying the runes and glyphs, they wrecked the entire formation. It was now incapable of transmitting any more energy to the ninth layer of clouds, causing its ‘healing’ speed to lessen. However, destroying just a single nexus wouldn’t be enough to cause the ninth layer to actually collapse. There were nine formations providing energy, after all.

“One of them has been destroyed already!” The faces of the silver-robed woman and the other two turned pale.

……