Desolate Era (Book 6 - Book 10)

“Alright.” Ning and Northson both nodded. They immediately began to bind the magic treasures left behind by Adept Mooncrescent and began to search through his storage-type magic treasures.

Mount Mooncrescent was as calm and peaceful as before. The servants and retainers didn’t even know that Adept Mooncrescent had died. However, roughly two hours after Ning’s group had left, the surrounding space began to buggle and twist.

Slash! A completely pitch-black sword-shaped warship appeared in the air above the mountain. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. One blood-robed figure after another immediately flew out from it, and in the blink of an eye, the skies became filled with thirteen of them. Their leader had a silvery flying sword embroidered on the sleeves of his robes. As for the other twelve, they had grayish flying swords embroidered on their sleeves.

“Rumble…” A powerful divine sense instantly swept downwards, covering the area. The leader of the blood-robed men, a bald figure, had bizarre runes atop his skull. His gaze was icy cold as he stared downwards.

“Captain? Second Brother, he…?” A blood-robed man next to the leader whispered. “He’s dead.” The bald, blood-robed man’s voice was gravelly; it sounded ear-piercing, like sabres clashing against each other. “Although his corpse has already been destroyed by the murderer, the aura of the battle is still present, and the scent of Second Bro’s blood remains in the air. Actually, back when Second Bro’s candle, which we had within our main hall alongside all the other candles, went out, he had already died! Only, none of you were willing to believe it…”

“How could that be? Old Second Bro was close to the end of his life, and he had returned to Mount Mooncrescent to enjoy his retirement. He didn’t have any enemies, and even if he did, when he took out our blood medallion of the Northmont clan, shouldn’t he have been able to scare them off? Who would have dared to forcibly kill Old Second Bro?”

“Ole Second Bro was extremely powerful as well. Old Second Bro acquired his Mooncrescent Saber Formation thanks to his many military accomplishments, and it was tremendously powerful. Perhaps a few geniuses at the Wanxiang level would be able to defeat him, but he should still be able to withstand them for a period of time. Giving his fleeing abilities, he shouldn’t have found it too difficult to escape.”

“The only possibility is that someone knew all of Old Second Bro’s abilities, and so specially set things up so that they could kill him at one blow.”

The group continued to chat amongst themsleves.

“Old Second Bro fought in our squad for more than a century. Countless generations of brothers formed lifelong friendships with him! He had returned to his own Mount Mooncrescent, but was killed by someone here? The other old brothers won’t accept this lying down. Others should feel relieved if we don’t bully them; who dares to bully us?! We definitely must avenge him!”

“We must take revenge!”

“Whoever killed Old Second Bro, we must kill him. We’ll destroy his soul.”

“The brothers of the Shadow Army cannot be killed without repercussion.”

All of the blood-robed figures were filled with furious, baleful auras.

As for the bald, blood-robed leader, he said in a cold voice, “Investigate! We must investigate this thoroughly! We need to find out who killed Old Second Bro. He had gone home to enjoy his retirement, but they still refused to spare him…we must find the killer.”

“Right.”

“Yes.”

They all nodded.

“Let’s go back. I’ll ask the Old Captain to help and also have the headquarters of the Shadow Army to initiate an investigation into who the murderer is.” The bald man said in a cold, grim voice, “Let’s go.”

Whoosh. The group of blood-robed men all flew back into that pitch-black, sword-shaped warship. A spatial ripple once more appeared, and then the pitch-black warship disappeared into thin air once more.

As for Ning, Northson, the Whitewater Hound, and Qingqing, they were going through the relics left behind by Adept Mooncrescent. Yu Dong’s items were mostly Mortal-ranked, and so they were the first to be bound. Ning’s group was surprised as the items contained within his storage treasures, because his wealth was actually comparable to Dong One and Northriver Zhou’s.

However, Ning’s group was primarily interested in binding Adept Mooncrescent’s magic treasures. Finally, they were able to bind one of the storage-type magic treasures he had left behind, and they took out one item after another from within. Ning’s group began to closely investigate them. And as they did…all of their faces changed.

“Oh, crap,” Qingqing muttered softly.





* * *





Book 9, Chapter 11 - The Culprit, Ji Ning


After having bound Adept Mooncrescent’s storage-type magic treasure and taken the items out, Ji Ning and his companion’s faces changed.

“This is…!”

Ning’s gaze fell upon a blood-red robe. This blood-red robe emanated a sanguine aura, and it had a grayish flying sword sown onto the sleeve.

“A battle-uniform,” Mu Northson said softly. “This blood robe is covered with many runes and can also serve as a construct-type magic treasure…if my guess is correct, this should be meant to be used in unison with a group of people who all wear this same robe. They’ll be able to join into one entity and unleash an extremely powerful joint attack.”

Northson was a genius of the Dao of constructs; he instantly discovered this. As for Ning, although he wasn’t able to understand this as clearly as his junior apprentice-brother did, he was skilled in formations and so was able to discover that this war-robe was similar to a Dao-soldier’s armor.

“Judging from the complexity of the runes on this blood-red robe…it’s definitely not something which an ordinary organization can produce,” Northson said with a frown. “Sects like Snowdragon Mountain are completely unable to produce this sort of uniform war-robe…and in fact, most likely even my master wouldn’t be able to produce it.”

“He had the blood medallion of the Northmont clan,” Ning said in a low voice. “It’s very possible that he has some sort of a connection with the Northmont clan of Stillwater.”

“Look at this.” Qingqing pointed at a leather parchment. They had removed several leather parchments from the storage treasure. “Don’t touch them with your hands,” Ning barked. And then, he carefully inspected the contents on the leather scrolls.

“Old Second Brother, I, your brother, am going to retire as well. However, I will stay here at the Skylands world. I don’t want to go back…there’s nothing for me there. I’ve fought to subjugate the enemies for so many years here in the Skylands world, that I have grown accustomed to it. I have so many old brothers here, and I truly don’t wish to leave. In the past, you invited me to go with you to Mount Mooncrescent, but…forget it. If, in the future, you are free, please come to the Skylands world…”

The contents of the leather scroll instantly made Ning’s scalp turn numb. Retired? Old Second Brother? Skylands world?

“Retired?” Northson called out in shock, “Adept Mooncrescent must’ve been a member of an army, and judging from the blood-red robe…the robe should be the uniform which Adept Mooncrescent wore in that army! Because he was too old and was close to the end of his life, he came back to retire here.”

“Old Second Brother?” The Whitewater Hound spoke out as well. “Given how long this Adept Mooncrescent had lived for, I imagine that all of his surviving brothers must be extremely old as well, which is why they addressed him as ‘Old Second Brother’. But this Skylands world…”

“Skylands world…?” Ning frowned as well.