Desolate Era (Book 41 - Book 45)

Countless tough tendrils and branches were continuing to furiously rain blows upon Ning, whose truesoul was crumbling at an extremely fast pace. In order to conserve as much energy as possible, he didn’t launch any counter-attacks and instead focused completely on defense.

Ning’s body was covered by a miniature spacetime cocoon which accompanied him as he fled, dodged, and was occasionally knocked flying. Each time he was struck, he didn’t try to resist the momentum, instead borrowing from it to conserve as much of his own power as possible.

Time continued to flow on. Ning repeatedly used his sword-arts to defend, but each time it resulted in his truesoul crumbling faster and faster.

“Hurry up… hurry up! I can’t hold on much longer.” Ning grew increasingly desperate. “I have nothing left!”

BOOM! An enormous explosion rang out. The countless branches within the Daoguard Tower began to tremble as two figures charged inside the tower.

“No. No! I have to kill this Daolord!” The great tree was already heavily wounded, but it still had a considerable amount of power left. It continued to rain attacks down against Ning while sending many tendrils out to block the two intruders.

Whoosh! Boom! Saber-light flashed while black gloves struck out as Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos unleashed the power of their Daos. In the face of their attacks, these branches seemed unspeakably weak and were destroyed on a large scale.

A snowy-white streak of saber-light suddenly flashed out, severing all the branches and leaves within its path. Some of the branches which were furiously assaulting Ning were severed as well, and Ning could sense that the attacks against him had suddenly lessened. The saber-light was followed by two consecutive strikes from the black gloves, causing the surrounding branches to wither away and rot into nothingness.

Ning finally allowed himself to relax. He landed atop one of the undamaged spacetime bubbles, then sat down and took a deep breath. “Whew.” Ning smiled as he looked at Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos. “You finally made it.” Ning laughed, and his laughter was very joyful.

They had finally succeeded.

Autarch Titanos’ terrifying black gloves finally demolished the great tree’s remaining life force. The Daoguard Tower was now completely empty, with just a few remnants of the spacetime maze left behind as well as some terrified Sithe. The great tree had not gone out of its way to slay these Hegemons and Emperors.

“Darknorth.” Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg both looked at Ning. They quickly turned pale.

Ning’s truesoul was crumbling at an incredibly fast rate. It was now so badly cracked that the truesoul itself was shuddering violently, as though it was going to break apart at any moment. If Ning absolutely had to, he might be able to unleash four or five strikes at most… but even if he didn’t, the truesoul was still going to completely crumble apart soon.

“As soon as my true body became trapped in here, I knew that my chances of surviving would be slim. I’m happy that I was able to survive as long as I did… and to tell the truth, I benefited greatly from my experiences here,” Ning said with a smile.

“You…” Autarch Titanos could sense that Ning’s truesoul suddenly began to crumble many times faster than before. Clearly, it was about to completely break apart.

“Oh. Don’t be in a rush to kill these Hegemons and Emperors. Many of them are Sithe descendants. They are quite pitiable,” Ning said hurriedly.





Book 42, Chapter 21 - Glad You Are Safe


“It doesn’t really matter if we kill them or not. They’re nothing more than foot soldiers,” Autarch Titanos said. “But if we don’t kill them, I recommend that we at least imprison them. We shouldn’t let them escape and reinforce the other Sithe.”

“I understand.” Ning smiled. “There’s something else I’ll need to trouble you two with.”

“Hm?” Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg both looked at Ning.

“Please don’t tell the Paragon of Pills and the others about my true body dying here,” Ning said.

Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos blinked. Autarch Titanos said with surprise, “Don’t tell them? You came to the Sithelands for the sake of the Paragon, I believe. They’ll probably be able to guess the truth.”

“Let’s hide it as best we can. Otherwise, they’ll feel guilty about this,” Ning said with a smile. Suddenly, Ning’s gaze grew distant. He murmured softly, “What an odd feeling. So this is what it feels like for my truesoul to crumble…”

Boom! His truesoul completely fell apart. Ning could feel his mind and his thoughts turn sluggish. The entire framework of his truesoul was completely collapsing, like a cracked dike which was falling apart. Countless truesoul fragments spread out in every direction at a pace which was thousands of times faster than before.

So much of his truesoul was breaking apart that it was actually visible to the naked eye. Countless specks of light flew out from Ning as his divine power and Immortal energy both vanished as well.

“Everything… feels… slow. Going… back… to… Chaosverse?” Ning’s sluggish mind could sense that an enormous, warm location was calling towards him. This had to be the Quintessence of the Chaosverse.

Suddenly, Ning’s seated figure lit up like a ball of fire, instantly transforming into countless specks of light that blasted out in every direction, leaving nothing behind. Ning’s body was completely gone. The only things left were his clothes and magic treasures.

Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg simply watched silently.

……

Within an estate-world. The black-robed Ning was silently standing on his feet. The death of his true body had no impact on his Primaltwin at all, as the two were completely different ‘lives’. His Primaltwin would only perish if a powerful foe was able to use a karmic attack to slay the true body and then follow the karmic connection between the two to slay the Primaltwin as well! A normal dissipation, however, wouldn’t result in any connected consequences. Ning’s Primaltwin continued to slowly disintegrate, but it had yet to engage in any combat since his Daomerge attempt and so the process was still quite slow for it.

“So this is what it feels like for one’s truesoul to dissipate?” the black-robed Ning murmured softly.

His true body had died. If his Primaltwin was unable to devise the ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique, it would face the same fate. “I have to seize this opportunity.” The black-robed Ning’s eyes were shining with hope.

“Autarch Titanos, let me out,” the black-robed Ning said.

“Very well.”

……

Within the Daoguard Tower. Ning’s true body had dissipated, while the black-robed Ning had appeared next to Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg.

“Come.” The black-robed Ning waved his hand, summoning his Northbow swords and his other treasures to him. Moments later, his clothes immediately changed as well, going from black to white as he sheathed the Northbow swords on his back once more.

“From this day forth… there is no ‘true body’ or ‘Primaltwin’; just me,” Ning murmured softly. This was the only life he had.

“Break.” Ning released his awesome Sword Dao Domain, instantly beginning to destroy the few remaining spacetime bubbles of the maze that had trapped him.

The nearby Autarch Mogg chuckled. “Let me give you a hand.” As he spoke, he unleashed an awesome wave of power that swept across the entire region, instantly annihilating the continuum bubbles and destroying them in just two seconds.

Autarch Skyfeeder and Autarch Mogg were most likely superior to all others in this Chaosverse when it came to solving spacetime mazes. One was the master of the Time Daobirth Essence, while the other was the master of the Space Daobirth Essence.

With the various continuum bubbles destroyed, the Hegemons and Emperors who had been scattered throughout the various seams were all revealed.

Some of the Sithe descendants managed to remain quite calm, but the true Sithe were driven to both rage and despair because they knew that Ning would never spare them.