Desolate Era (Book 41 - Book 45)

“Why don’t you teach me instead?” Autarch Mogg’s avatar teased.

“You are too weak when it comes to the Dao of Formations. You wouldn’t be able to learn it even if I tried to teach you.” The white-robed Titanos glanced sideways at Mogg, then looked at Ning: “Darknorth, you are every bit my equal when it comes to formations. The only reason why you weren’t able to come up with this idea is because you aren’t very experienced in the creation of weapons and artifacts.”

“Take a look at this.” The white-robed Titanos gently waved a finger, causing an illusion of the black tower to appear before him. “This black tower is the nexus of the entire hive, right?”

Ning and Mogg both nodded. This much, they both knew.

“It is also the energy wellspring for the entire hive,” the white-robed Titanos said. “But merely providing power doesn’t mean that much; its real value lies in how it applies that power! This is why the black tower is covered with countless runes. The energy wellspring uses those runes to form the hundred-layered vortex, causing the swallowing power to be increased dramatically.”

Ning understood this principle. It was akin to using ten percent of your full power to achieve a hundred percent of the effect you desired!

“The vortex, in turn, links with those countless spacetime bubbles to form an enormous formation of even greater power. This formation resonates throughout the entire hive, generating that tremendous sucking power towards the outside world around it,” the white-robed Titanos said.

“In other words, the vortex is an amplifier. The formation employing all those spacetime bubbles is a second amplifier. The way in which the formation resonates with the entire hive is the third amplifier!

“These three amplifiers are the real reason why the black tower’s power has been increased to such an inconceivable level that it can rip away energy from the Chaosverse itself,” the white-robed Titanos said. “If we can disrupt any of the three amplifiers, the hive won’t be able to function properly. Destroying the hive’s structure would accomplish this, as would destroying the black tower or all the spacetime bubbles inside this place.”

Autarch Mogg immediately said, “But we can’t! This hive is a weapon of terrifying power; we aren’t able to even scratch the thing. As for the spacetime bubbles, we were able to destroy some, but new ones would almost instantly be created. As for the vortex, its composed of countless specks of light. There’s nothing to destroy.”

“Hah! You dummy.” The white-robed Titanos glanced at Mogg, then chortled, “It actually isn’t too hard to deal with the hundred-layered vortex. All we need to do is set up an even larger vortex formation around it, one which spins in reverse. My reverse-vortex formation simply needs to weaken the power of the astral clouds vortex. In doing so, it’ll dramatically weaken the effect the hive has on the outside world. Once this happens, it probably won’t be strong enough to plunder energy from the Chaosverse by force.

“A reverse-vortex formation?” Ning began to understand.

“This is the reverse-vortex formation I came up with. Take a look, Darknorth.” The white-robed Titanos waved a finger, causing an illusory reverse-vortex to suddenly appear around the illusory astral vortex in front of him. This was an inwards-focused formation that pushed back against the astral vortex, weakening its power.

“The vortex of astral clouds is an outwards formation which uses the black tower as its energy source.” Ning smiled. “Our reverse-vortex formation will be an inwards formation which uses me as its energy source. My power comes from the Chaosverse itself and is virtually limitless! I don’t need to completely stop the astral vortex; all I need to do is weaken it by 30%, and it’ll most likely be rendered ineffective.”

“Here are the insights I used to create this formation. Take a close look, Darknorth.” The white-robed Titanos immediately began to explain the finer details regarding the reverse-vortex formation to Ning, who listened attentively. Mogg listened as well, but a mystified look was on his face. In the end, he wasn’t even close to being Ning or Titanos’ equal when it came to formations.





Book 43, Chapter 24 - Gaining Entry


The reverse-vortex formation was unspeakably complicated and profound. Ji Ning’s true body in the Three Realms had to spend quite a bit of accelerated time in meditation before truly understanding it.

“Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous!” Ning couldn’t stop praising it.

“Haha!” The white-robed Titanos let out a proud laugh. “I wouldn’t dare boast about other things, but I’m quite confident in myself when it comes to artifacts. Darknorth, are you now able to set the formation up?”

“I am indeed.” Ning nodded.

Mogg’s avatar just chuckled to himself. He had also tried to learn it, but had made very little headway.

The white-robed Titanos said, “Then hurry up and use it!”

“Alright.” Ning immediately flew over, warping through space to appear in the ‘skies’ above the vortex of astral clouds.

“Arise!” Ning’s face was solemn, and an endless wave of mana energy began to flow out from his body. He was using mana to guide the power of the Dao into creating those formations! Waves of energy rippled through the area above the astral vortex as countless streams of sword-light manifested. It was like a vast world of the sword had appeared, and it quickly began to spread outwards to encompass and cover the entire astral vortex.

The white-robed Titanos and Mogg both watched nervously.

“Now what are they up to?” The dragon turtle raised its head, staring puzzledly from its position on the fiftieth level.

“What are these cultivator Autarchs playing at now? Hmph. Do they think saturating the area with an attack will be enough to disrupt my vortex? How laughable! The Annihilation Hive is almighty Iyerre’s proudest creation, and it took him untold years to create it.” The black-white haired Exalt Anitya was responsible for watching over the entire hive from the dark room he was in. He muttered confidently to himself, but he still continued to watch intently.

……

The vast world of sword-light covered the entire astral vortex, with Ning using an enormous amount of mana to keep it under control.

“Time for the reverse-vortex formation!” Ning immediately willed the countless streaks of sword-light to become grains of ‘sand’ that began to revolve around him. They first took shape at the outer perimeter, then began to spin inwards! The power of the astral vortex was weakest at the outside, and it was also easiest for the grains of sword-light to infiltrate the outer perimeter. As the enormous vortex of sword-light continued to spin, more grains of sword-light began to take form and seep inwards.

They reached the tenth level… the twentieth level… the thirtieth level…

“Right. That’s the way to do it, to just seep straight through it.” A smile was playing at the corner of Ning’s lips. The reverse-vortex formation didn’t try to overpower the astral vortex; rather, it was overwriting it and disrupting it!

The spokes of a wheel in motion possessed tremendous power, but if you threw a bunch of rubbish into the axel you could gum up the works. The astral vortex seemed to be formless and thus hard to disrupt, but the reverse-vortex formation was similarly formless and simply focused on disruption.

“Success.” Autarch Mogg watched from afar. He could sense how the awesome suctioning power around him was beginning to slowly weaken, and he couldn’t help but smile: “We succeeded.”