Desolate Era (Book 41 - Book 45)

“What’s going on? Has another civilization aside from the Sithe invaded us as well?” Ning turned pale.

Whoosh! The golden-robed Ning which had been roving the outside realm almost instantly tore through spacetime and hurried towards the source of the danger. The golden-robed avatar now had only 80% of the true Ning’s power, but it must be remembered that when compared, Ning was now at least 60% stronger than he was back when his truesoul was crumbling! This was because he had first gained Emperor-class energy, then transformed it into mana! After another six million chaos cycles of cultivation, he had infused many new Daos into his Sword Dao. As a result, the avatar-Ning was now much more powerful than ‘Daolord Ning’ had been.

In terms of raw power, Ning was ranked at the top of the list amongst the Autarchs. Even Autarch Titanos was slightly inferior to him, as Titanos wasn’t as well-rounded as Ning was! Ning’s avatar was terrifyingly strong.

……

The weaker cultivators felt nothing at all; the only people in the Chaosverse who sensed the danger were Ning and the six Autarchs, and all of them arrived. Autarch Mogg sent his avatar as he needed to stand guard over the Sithelands. The other five Autarchs all left their avatars in the Sithelands and came in person. Ning was extremely confident in his own power, and so he sent his avatar as well.

In truth, Autarchs would generally send their avatars to deal with any dangerous situations. This was because if the avatar died, they could easily remake a new one! If their true bodies died, the Autarchs would be dead for good.

Riiiiip. Ning tore through spacetime and arrived in a place within the Great Dark. He immediately saw Autarch Ekong.

“Darknorth.” The muscular Autarch Ekong was dressed in his usual loose robes. He had been the first to arrive, as he had been the closest to this location. Ning was the second to arrive.

“What’s going on?” Ning strode through the void towards him.

“There’s no one here save us.” Autarch Ekong pointed off into the distance. “The danger is coming from over there.”

Ning could sense it as well. Far off in the distance, there was an enormous silver vortex that was slowly swiveling in place. This silver vortex was so gigantic that it was vastly greater than an ordinary realmverse in size. Ning was able to see through to the very center of the silver vortex, where he saw a giant, ancient sphere-shaped object that was the size of a realmverse. It was riddled with countless holes, but Ning was unable to see through them to the insides of this sphere. All he could sense was that it was filled with boundless danger.

The giant sphere simply sat there in the darkness, furiously devouring the primordial chaos around it. The silver vortex around it represented all of the energy which it was draining from the surrounding area. Even the endless darkness itself was being swallowed up by it.

Just looking at the thing caused Ning and Autarch Ekong to feel a sense of dread.





Book 43, Chapter 16 - Going Inside


“Where did this thing come from?” Ji Ning stared at the titanic sphere located at the very center of that giant silver vortex. At his level, he was able to see at a glance that this terrifying celestial object was the source of the threat to the entire Chaosverse.

Everything within the Chaosverse, be it the emptiness of space, the endless Great Dark, or the countless living beings, were all part of the Chaosverse. In life and in death, they remained parts of the Chaosverse. Their deaths would not weaken the Chaosverse.

However… if their energies were somehow swallowed away, this would in fact harm the prime essences! The Sithe, for example, wanted to kill as many Autarchs and Hegemons as possible, then draw away their truesoul fragments and cause the prime essences to weaken. After the Chaosverse was weakened to a sufficient extent, the Sithe would have a chance at binding and controlling the entire Chaosverse.

All things were part of the Chaosverse. Destroying and devouring the souls of ordinary mortals would also weaken the Chaosverse, but doing this would be too slow and inefficient! The Sithe soul-eater technique could only be used to swallow truesouls that had been destroyed in extremely close proximity. It would probably take the Sithe tens of millions of chaos cycles to slowly do this to the countless living beings in a single realmverse!

This was why they had chosen to act against the Autarchs and the Hegemons instead. And now? This hole-riddled, realmverse-sized sphere was swallowing away even the darkness of the Great Dark! It was somehow devouring the darkness in a way that completely destroyed it, causing the Chaosverse to forever lose its energy.

This wasn’t an issue in the short term, but given enough time it would cause the Chaosverse to suffer grave injuries, and possibly even weaken the prime essences enough for the Sithe to bind them.

“Where the hell did this terrifying celestial object come from? Who made it?” Ning was puzzled.

……

Eventually, the other Autarchs began to arrive as well. All of them stared at the behemoth sphere for a long period of time.

“Its enormous and riddled with holes, almost like a beehive,” Autarch Titanos said. “Its powerful aura reminds me of the aura of the Sithe heartlands! It was that very aura of danger which made us hesitate to go inside and instead opt to seal it away. This thing reminds me of it.”

“Yes, but there are some differences between it and the Sithe heartlands,” Autarch Stonerule said. “The Sithe heartlands hold an energy generator which powers many of their Daoguard Towers. This mysterious hive, however, is continuously swallowing and destroying the energy of the surrounding area! The more it swallows, the more our Chaosverse loses and the weaker our Chaosverse becomes.”

“Why did it suddenly appear here? There’s no way our Chaosverse would’ve naturally given birth to such a terrifying thing,” Autarch Skyfeeder said.

“This is a Sithe trump card,” Autarch Titanos said.

“The Sithe?” Ning and the others all turned to look at Autarch Titanos.

“Are you absolutely certain?” Ning asked. “Can it possibly be from another civilization?”

“It is Sithe,” Autarch Titanos said with absolute certainty. “I’ve spent countless aeons analyzing Sithe weaponry. As soon as I took a close look at it, I could tell that this behemoth hive is actually a single vast weapon! It was created for the express purpose of devouring and destroying the energy of the Chaosverse, which would cause the Chaosverse to weaken.”

“How can anyone create such a gigantic, powerful weapon?” Autarch Bolin asked.

“It is overwhelming. I can feel that it is on a completely different level from Exalt-class Daoguard Towers. Not even the strongest Sithe weapons we faced during the Dawn War could even come close to comparing with this thing.” Autarch Mogg found it just as hard to believe that this realmverse-sized object was a manufactured weapon.

“The Sithe heartlands contain an energy generator which powers their Daoguard Towers,” Autarch Titanos said solemnly, “While this titanic, terrifying weapon also holds an energy generator within it, which is what allows it to function and forcibly tear away energy from the Chaosverse and devour it. That’s why I said it reminded me of the Sithe heartlands.”

Ning and the others were all rather shocked. The Sithe heartlands had been created at incredible cost. This thing before them was apparently on the same level of power?

“The Sithe have been biding their time for countless aeons. We should’ve expected their first move to be an extraordinary one,” Autarch Bolin said with a grim smile.