The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

Within the Eight Revolutions Spacetime Temple.

The Sithe Exalts remained seated on the eight stone pillars ringing the outer perimeter of the temple. They were closely watching all of Ji Ning’s actions within the formation, not daring to be the slightest bit negligent. Thanks to their control over the formation they were able to scry and see Ning’s white-robed figured seated in the lotus position, surrounded by countless divine runes of incomparable complexity.

“He’s skilled in formations, illusions, spacetime…” A Sithe Exalt sighed in amazement. “Only an Omega Emperor could be skilled in so many aspects!”

As Sithe Exalts, they had the same level of insight as the native Autarchs of this Chaosverse. Thus, they were able to tell from the runes surrounding Ning that the man had reached incredible heights in both formations and spacetime.

“Emperor Darknorth lives up to his reputation. Still… it isn’t likely that he’ll be able to solve this formation in just eighty-two short days. Twenty days have already gone past.”

“Perhaps the spacetime formation alone will be enough to trap him.”

The Sithe Exalts were conversing mentally with each other. They knew just how important Emperor Darknorth was to the war. He was most likely the greatest obstacle to almighty Iyerre taking control over this Chaosverse! This was why Iyerre was hastening towards them at top speed. If they managed to successfully keep Emperor Darknorth trapped for eighty-two days, they would have carried out their primary mission. Once Iyerre became the Lord of Chaos for this Chaosverse, he would definitely give them great rewards.

Time continued to flow on, one day after another. The spacetime formation was indeed quite complicated, but on the thirtieth day of Ning’s imprisonment, an explosion suddenly erupted forth from within the formation, followed by the faces of the eight Sithe Exalts turning grim.

The white-robed Ning had risen to his feet. He had assumed his three-headed, six-armed form and was using his six Northbow swords to furiously assault the spacetime formation around him.

He seemed to be randomly hacking to the right and to the left, but somehow his ‘random’ hacks managed to disrupt the functioning of the entire formation. He had located and broken through some of the energy nexus points, causing the power of the formation to drop dramatically.

“He’s discovered the secrets behind our spacetime formation. The formation is going to break. It won’t hold much longer!” The eight Sithe Exalts were shocked by Ning’s speed.

Boom! The spacetime formation finally collapsed, followed by those countless miniature spacetime bubbles popping and dissipating.

After thirty full days, he had finally defeated the spacetime formation.

“Incredible. Simply incredible.” A black-haired Sithe Exalt sighed in amazement. “He was able to breach the formation in just thirty days. If I was trapped there, I probably wouldn’t be able to get out even if I spent a hundred chaos cycles trying.”

“You aren’t skilled in formations. You’d stand no chance whatsoever.”

“He really is impressive.”

“Thirty days have gone past. Only fifty-two days are left. The ‘eight revolutions formation’ should be able to trap him for fifty-two days, right?” a Sithe Exalt with golden fur covering his face said.

“The Eight Revolutions Spacetime Temple’s strongest trap-type formation is the ‘eight revolutions formation’; the spacetime formation isn’t quite as strong. When I tested the spacetime formation out, I was able to get an overall sense of what I needed to do and could calmly meditate on it, but when I tested out the eight revolutions formation I just felt completely baffled and lost,” a female Sithe Exalt said. “If it took him thirty days for just the spacetime formation, the eight revolutions formation will probably take him over three years.”

“There’s no way he’s getting out of there.”

“Check out that stupid look on his face.”

“Haha, he wants to break through via raw force? What a joke!” The Sithe Exalts all began to laugh when they saw what Ning was doing. They knew just how powerful their ‘eight revolutions formation’ was.

……

Boom! Ning had just broken through the vast spacetime formation. Now, he surveyed his new surroundings with a frown. He was within a sealed dimension of raw fire. The flames filled every inch of this dimension, but they were pushed aside before even getting close to Ning.

“A sealed dimension?” Ning had no idea that he had now entered the most dangerous and most difficult part of the Eight Revolutions Spacetime Temple… the eight revolutions formation! This would be his greatest obstacle to escaping the temple. If he managed to break through this, the temple wouldn’t have much else left.

“I should be able to just tear through dimensional membranes via raw force.” Ning didn’t hesitate at all, immediately using the technique which Autarchs favored the most – raw force!

Boom! Ning shot upwards while manifesting three heads and six arms. His six Northbow swords furiously chopped against the dimensional membrane, with each strike empowered by the mysteries of the Space Sword Dao. Ning unleashed several hundred chops just the blink of an eye!

When Ning had been trapped within that ‘hidden’ dimension, Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos had used the same principle to break through the dimensional membrane – raw force! This was because, unlike the Sithe, they had nigh-limitless amounts of energy here in their own Chaosverse. There was no worry about running out, whereas the Sithe had to consider how much energy they had available when planning their killer attacks.

Thus, using raw force to overpower a formation was actually a highly effective technique, even though it seemed rather brutish and clumsy!

“It seems like it is breaking.” Ning could see that the dimensional membrane was shuddering in the face of his frenzied attacks.

In the spacetime maze, Ning had tried to furiously assault the spacetime bubbles in this manner as well. However, all of the spacetime bubbles he destroyed would release their energies to the local spacetime field, which would then give birth to new bubbles. As a result, the actual energy of the formation wasn’t depleted in the slightest. Raw force was useless against a tactic like this, unless he reached a level where he was so strong he could tear apart the entire formation with just one strike of the sword.

Dimensional membranes, however, were different. They had to endure the weight of Ning’s strikes head on, and each time that happened they would be depleted of energy. Eventually, they would be so weak that they would simply collapse!

Boom! After the time needed to boil a kettle of tea, one of Ning’s strikes finally tore open a giant wound that was roughly three hundred meters in size. Through the tear in the dimensional membrane, Ning was able to see… a vast world of water outside.

“Eh?” Ning turned to stare at the world of fire he was currently in, then back at the world of water on the opposite side of the dimensional membrane. The rift in the membrane was already beginning to quickly heal.

“Another dimension?” Ning frowned, but he didn’t hesitate in immediately charging through the rift and entering the world of water.

“That was fast. The dimensional rift closed after just three seconds.” Ning watched as the tear he had created vanished before his very eyes.

“So this is a world of water, eh?” Ning flew through the water. The waves were powerful and heavy, but like the flames they were incapable of harming Ning in the slightest.

“I’ll break through again.” Ning once more used his sword-arts as he flew to the edges of the world, then began to frenziedly assault the dimensional membrane. It once more took him the amount of time needed to boil a kettle of tea to once more tear a dimensional rift open… and this time, he was able to see a world that was filled with vitality and boundless green light.

“Yet another world?” Ning had a bad feeling about this, but he still flew through and continued to assault the dimensional membrane in this third world.

……

And so, Ning began to enter and then furiously chop through one world after another without stopping. An ordinary person probably would’ve given up long ago, but Ning spent an entire day chopping through a hundred different dimensional membranes before stopping. Alas, there was no end to them.

“I’ve broken through over a hundred worlds in a row.” Ning was standing atop a mountain, pondering to himself. “These hundred worlds seem to be constructed from eight dimensional archetypes. I can view them as the ice world, the water world, the life world, the earth world, the mountain world, the fire world, the lava world, and the metal world. The dimensions continuously fluctuate between these eight worlds…”

“There’s only eight basic ‘types’, but each world I enter seems to have a slightly different aura than the previous ones.” Ning was growing a bit nervous. He had spent an entire day analyzing the worlds, but still had no idea how he was supposed to break through them.

When he had been within the spacetime formation, at least he could tell that there were countless spacetime bubbles that were linked together into a formation. He was able to glean insights on the workings of the formation from those bubbles before finally solving it!

However, the ‘eight revolutions formation’ he was trapped in simply gave him a new world once he broke through the previous one. It was a never-ending cycle of these eight types of worlds, a cycle without end…

“How should I break through? How should I escape?” Ning continuously pondered this.

“Can it be that there are actually only eight worlds in total? No, that can’t be right. I can sense through my mastery of spacetime that there should be more than just eight.” Ning simply had no idea as to how he was supposed to understand the mysteries behind this formation!

……

Time continued to flow on one day after another. The Sithe Exalts on the eight stone pillars gradually began to relax. Everything was as they had predicted. The eight revolutions formation was much more difficult to break than the spacetime formation, after all. In truth, every single one of these temples was quite extraordinary. Autarch Ekong had only been able to escape his temple thanks to Autarch Titanos sacrificing his avatar.

“Once Iyerre gets here, we’ll have completed our mission.” The Sithe Exalts continued to wait silently.

As for Ning, he was now seated in the lotus position at the very center of a world of lava. Time was sped up to a rate of 100x around him as he continuously pondered the problem before him. Ning had already notified Titanos, Mogg, Skyfeeder, Bolin, and the others. All six Autarchs were helping him with suggestions, but none of them were able to come up with any true solutions for this deceptively simple cycle of eight worlds.