Desolate Era (Book 41 - Book 45)

It wanted to lure Ning and Mogg closer. They’d have to deal with ever-greater amounts of pressure, giving the void dweller a better chance at killing them.

Ning and Mogg glanced sideways at the dragon turtle, not even bothering to answer it. The two did rather envy its defensive powers, though. They could at most fight to the fiftieth layer, but the dragon turtle was able to reach that layer with ease by completely ignoring the crushing weight of the vortex. Its body was simply ridiculous! No wonder Ning hadn’t been able to do anything to the creature at all.

“Let’s calm down first and come up with a plan. We’ll have Titanos try and help us come up with something as well. Let’s figure out a way to charge past the astral clouds,” Ning said.

“I agree. Let’s calm down and think. We’ll definitely think of something.” Mogg tamped down his own nervousness as well. They quickly spread word to the other five Autarchs, and all six of them began to try and devise a way of passing through the vortex of astral clouds.





Book 43, Chapter 23 - Titanos’ Solution


An ancient temple was hovering above an island located within the outer perimeter of the Sithelands. There were six figures seated in the lotus position within this ancient temple. They were Autarch Titanos, Autarch Mogg, Autarch Stonerule, Autarch Skyfeeder, Autarch Bolin, and Autarch Ekong. They were here either in person or in avatar form, and they were all seated meditating. In front of Autarch Mogg, there was an illusory image which displayed what was happening within the Annihilation Hive.

“The insides of the hive are completely filled with countless spacetime bubbles which are linked together in an extremely complicated formation.”

Autarch Mogg pointed at the images and explained, “There is a vortex at the very center of the hive, and it holds a total of 106 layers of astral clouds which surround a black tower. The black tower is the energy wellspring for the entire hive. That’s essentially what we’ve managed to discover thus far. Try and help us come up with an idea, everyone.”

“Hm.”

“Got it.” The other five Autarchs all nodded slowly.

Time flowed on. Autarch Skyfeeder’s avatar kept time accelerated at a rate of 500x for the Autarchs, buying them time to slave away at this problem! The Annihilation Hive was constantly devouring energy, after all. The more time they took, the more harm would be done to the Chaosverse.

“No, that won’t work.”

“Anything else?”

“We have to reach the nexus and destroy the black tower if we wish to break the hive apart, but a hundred layers of astral clouds? It’s too hard.”

The Autarchs pondered continuously. Every so often one of them would voice a suggestion, but the others would quickly point out the flaws!

Time passed, one day after another. The Autarchs spent more than three years painstakingly analyzing the problem. Thankfully, the 500x temporal acceleration meant that only two days went past in the outside world.

“What a marvelously constructed weapon.” Autarch Titanos stared at the illusory images in front of him. An illusory black tower took form, followed by a vortex which took control over spacetime to generate an even more powerful sucking effect. This effect resonated across the entire behemoth hive, giving birth to that terrifying force which was devouring everything around the hive.

“I’m far from being a match for the person who was able to create this weapon.” Autarch Titanos shook his head slightly, then murmured: “But if all I have to do is cause some damage, I should be able to do it.”

“Eh?” The other five immediately turned to look at him.

“Titanos, do you have an idea?”

“What did you come up with?” All of them grew excited.

Autarch Titanos had been alive for an extremely long period of time, and he had spent much of it analyzing Sithe weapons. The other five Autarchs held great faith in his abilities in this regard.

“I’m fairly confident in my idea,” Autarch Titanos said, “But I need to enter the hive first and inspect it personally before I can be sure if it would work or not.”

“Titanos, take the route which Darknorth and I used. The two of us will be there to welcome you,” Autarch Mogg said.

……

Rumble…

The bald Autarch Titanos was staring at the Annihilation Hive from afar, watching as it swallowed and destroyed everything in an extremely wide area around it. Time quickly began to accelerate around him until it reached 100x the rate of normal time. He then waved his finger, causing a black cauldron which was 300 meters long to appear next to him. He then tossed many precious ingredients into the black cauldron.

Just six days later, a streak of light shot out from inside the black cauldron. It was a white-robed avatar of Autarch Titanos.

“Go on.” This freshly created avatar of Autarch Titanos had just 20% of his true body’s strength. It quickly flew towards the distant Annihilation Hive.

For now, he was just going to use this weak new avatar for exploring the Annihilation Hive. As for his first avatar in the Sithelands, it would begin to weaken now that Autarch Titanos was focusing his energies on maintaining the second avatar, but the weakening was a gradual process. If he didn’t spend too much time maintaining the second avatar and quickly abandoned it to turn his efforts back to his first avatar, the first avatar would quickly reach peak power once more.

The white-robed Titanos dove into the tunnel which Ning and Mogg had entered, flying into the hive. The tunnel was unfathomably dark and deep.

“Titanos.” Two figures hailed him from afar.

“Darknorth. Mogg.” The white-robed Titanos revealed a smile.

“This new avatar of yours is really puny,” Mogg’s avatar said teasingly. “You’d probably get wiped out in an instant if you got into a fight with those Autarch-class void dwellers.”

“It’s just a temporary body. We’re in a rush for time, so I just used a quick and dirty method to get this thing up and running,” the white-robed Titanos said.

The three continued to fly forwards as they chatted together. Ning led the way, warping through spacetime and moving them towards the vortex of astral clouds.

“How beautiful.” Autarch Titanos stared at the astral clouds from afar, an amazed look on his face. He then turned to look at the countless spacetime bubbles off in the distance. “Impressive. Truly impressive. Now that I had the chance to witness these things operating in person, I feel even more admiration towards the Sithe who set this all up. It had to have been the Sithe Lord of Chaos who personally created this thing. This place’s creator is far more talented than I am.”

The more accomplished one was in understanding how complicated artifacts and weapons were fashioned, the more one would understand just how incredible this Annihilation Hive was.

“Do you have any ideas?” Ning asked.

“Creation is hard, but destruction is much easier.” The white-robed Titanos smiled. “I came up with an idea after quite a long period of pondering, and I’m sure it’ll be effective.”

“What’s the method?” Both Ning and Mogg were excited.

“Don’t rush me! I need to make some further improvements.” The white-robed Titanos stared intently at the vortex of astral clouds, scrutinizing how it functioned while pondering how to improve his technique further. Of course, it was Autarch Titanos’ true body in the outside world which was doing most of the real work.

Six hours went past. Ning and Mogg had been waiting this entire time, and finally they saw a smile appear on the white-robed Titanos’ face. “I’ve finally completed it. Darknorth, I’ll teach you the technique. You use it.”