The Desolate Era

Within the estate-world.

“Open.” Ji Ning was standing at the peak of a mountain, staring down at the vast wilderness before him. He waved his finger, and with a boom an invisible surge of pressure slammed down upon the wilderness, causing an enormous indentation to appear on the ground. The indentation was nine hundred meters deep! Ning then reached out with his right hand, causing a small little black gourd to appear. He pulled out the stopper, causing a stream of deep blue water to flow out from the gourd. The stream of water grew in size as it flew out until it became many meters thick, almost like a watery dragon as it soared out to fill the indentation.

Whoooosh. The liquid continuously poured out, quickly filling nearly half of the indentation. This was the frozen ninesong pith Ning had just recently acquired.

“Go ahead, children.” Ning smiled as the six Northbow swords on his back instantly flew out of the sheath, each one of them manifesting a child.

“Haha, frozen ninesong pith!”

“That’s the frozen ninesong pith.”

“There’s so much of it! We can eat as much as we want.” The six Northbow swords were all extremely excited. Each of them transformed to become nine hundred meters long, plunging themselves into the pool like sword-shaped mountains that then began to furiously devour the frozen ninesong pith.

Ning waved his hand, causing his temporal acceleration cabin to appear next to him. He entered the cabin, then begain to train in the [Swordbody] divine ability. He now had all the materials he needed, but the actual training process was very slow because this sort of cultivation technique placed enormous burdens on his body. He had to take it slowly and allow the power to slowly seep through. However, at least these protective divine abilities didn’t require him to focus too much of his attention on it.

Thus, he was able to devote most of his time to meditating on his Omega Sword Dao and the [Heartsword] art.

......

Nearly three months went past. Ning could sense that his lifeblood weapons had already finished evolving, and so he walked out of his temporal cabin.

“Northbow swords.” Ning looked at the six enormous mountain-sized Northbow swords, still stuck into that giant indentation. Their appearances had changed as well. They previously were a dazzling pure golden color, but now they had the color of blue gold. The surfaces of the swords were now very glossy, with the light of the sword being rather reserved. They looked almost like pure spring water.

“Come out.” Ning willed the six Northbow swords to fly out, and they quickly flew towards him while shrinking to their normal size. Five of the Northbow swords flew into his sheath, while the sixth landed in his hands.

“Let’s see just how they’ve changed after absorbing the frozen ninesong pith.” Ning immediately began to execute his sword-arts, causing sword-light to shine everywhere and transform the empty area around him into a realm of the sword. The aura of the Dao of the Sword pervaded every inch of the area as he began to execute the five stances of the Omega Sword Dao.

“Mm.” Ning revealed a look of delight. “The Northbow swords are now both fierce and flexible, making them of great use to my defensive sword-arts. Both the Yin-Yang stance and the Soleheart stance have improved significantly; I imagine that both of them are five times as powerful as previously.”

The Yin-Yang stance could be used to execute the Yin-Yang Sword Domain with all six swords, making it an excellent area defense.

The Soleheart stance was focused on single-target defense.

“If I was to fight against Winesage again, I could fight him head-on. My defensive sword-arts would be able to easily ablate and deflect his power. At least I wouldn’t be sent flying this time!” Ning revealed a look of delight. In a deadly situation, defensive sword-arts were even more important than offensive attacks. The power of your attacks would determine the fate of others, but the power of your defenses would determine the fate of yourself.

“We’ll be reaching the Stone Hellephant Wall soon. By then they’ll be able to absorb plenty of the deepfire blackstone, and my Northbow swords should only grow even more powerful.” Ning grew increasingly eager to see what would happen.

The growth of any lifeblood weapon would be tied to the treasures they devoured. The majority of supreme Daolords all used lifeblood weapons, but very few of them would be able to acquire as many treasures as this!

Ning wasn’t a good example; neither the sea of golden sand nor the lake of frozen ninesong pith were things which ordinary supreme Daolords were capable of acquiring. However, Eternal Emperors had very long lives, with Hegemons possessing tremendous power; as a result, their lifeblood weapons were usually very powerful. Daolord Dreamlore’s bloodblade, for example, had once been a lifeblood weapon that had reached an incredible level of power. From a material level, it absolutely had the potential to become a Universe treasure... but alas, the Dao inside it was slightly lacking and thus it wasn’t able to reach this level.

......

Hegemon Welkin’s flying vessel had long ago departed from the Flamedragon Realmverse and entered the endless Great Dark.

The Great Dark... there were no stars here, no light... nothing at all. There was nothing but darkness! Darkness, enough of it to cause even Eternal Emperors to feel despair.

In truth, the Great Dark did have some foreign objects floating about within it. Daolord Clevermind of the Ninedust Sect, for example, had seen those six great warhammers floating about within the Great Dark as he had travelled around its borders. This was why he had been lucky enough to acquire them. Thus, the Great Dark wasn’t truly devoid of all things.

“Here we are.” Hegemon Welkin finally brought the flying vessel to a halt. It had indeed taken nine years.

“The two of you can come out now.” Hegemon Welkin glanced at the two estate-treasures next to him. Ning and Ninedust had both secreted themselves into their estate-worlds. With a giant booming sound, an invisible spatial wave slammed straight into the two estate-treasures, causing the estate-worlds to tremble. Soon, Ning and Ninedust both emerged.

“The two of you really do seize every moment,” Hegemon Welkin said with a laugh. “You’ve been furiously training for every day of the past nine years.”

“I gained quite a bit from my visit to Crimsonwave Temple. I naturally had to seize this chance to train,” Ninedust said hurriedly. He then looked at Ning. “Darknorth, you traded for quite a few treasures from the Hegemons and Eternal Emperors. You’ve probably grown quite a bit stronger as well.”

“I’m doing alright.” Ning nodded. He had only been able to train his body to make it comparable to a middle-grade Eternal treasure, primarily because the protective divine ability placed incredible demands and burdens on the body. He had to take it slow; if he did it too fast and tried to force things, his divine body would crumble and his truesoul would crumble with it. Thus, he had to train slowly even though he already had all the materials needed.

“We’re not too far away from the Flamedragon Realmverse,” Hegemon Welkin said. “The two of you should still be able to sense it.”

“We can.” Ning and Ninedust both nodded. Ning could sense exactly where his Primaltwin was.

“Darknorth, my young friend, your sword-arts have transcended spacetime. I brought you here to the Stone Hellephant Wall, but I think you should be able to slowly return under your own abilities. Given your power, you should be able to return within a thousand years,” Hegemon Welkin said.

“A minor matter.” Ning nodded. A thousand years was a very short period of time for supreme Daolords; he wouldn’t force Hegemon Welkin to wait by his side for a trifling matter like sending him home.

Whoosh. The flying vessel disappeared, causing the three of them to appear within the empty space of the Great Dark.

“There really is nothing but darkness here.” Ning scanned the area, only to see absolute darkness all around him. There was no light at all; only by using godsense was he able to ‘see’ the surrounding area, and there really was nothing whatsoever around him.

“Senior.” Ning couldn’t help but ask, “Factoring in my ability to transcend spacetime... if I were to go drifting through the Great Dark, would 100,000 chaos cycles be enough for me to reach the closest realmverse?”

“The realmverse closest to the Flamedragon Realmverse is known as the Multilight Realmverse. Although your ability to transcend spacetime is impressive, it will still take roughly a million chaos cycles before you get there,” Hegemon Welkin said.

Ning and Ninedust shared a glance. Yeah, forget that. Samsara Daolords could spend their entire lives travelling without making it to the Multilight Realmverse.

“Let’s go to the Stone Hellephant Wall,” Ninedust said immediately.

“The Stone Hellephant Wall is just up ahead. Follow me.” Hegemon Welkin emanated a bubble that encompassed both Ning and Ninedust, ‘carrying’ them with him as he flew forwards at high speed.

Whoosh. Hegemon Welkin was simply too fast, so fast that Ning and Ninedust both felt their hearts tremble. They were starting to truly understand how terrifyingly strong Hegemons were. Their speed alone ensured that supreme Daolords wouldn’t even have a chance to react before dying.

A few moments later, they had flown tens of billions of kilometers. “See that?” Hegemon Welkin pointed up ahead. “That right there is the Stone Hellephant Wall.”

Ning looked towards the front. A colossal object was up ahead, hanging within the endless darkness. It emanated a natural but dim aura of light that was enough for supreme Daolords like Nine and Ninedust to make it out clearly.

The thing up ahead was roughly a million kilometers long and shaped like a giant elephant. Only, it had what looked like an incredibly sharp horn coming from its ‘head’. The entire thing was black... or perhaps an incredibly deep red! action

“At first glance, it rather looks like a demonic elephant, doesn’t it?” Hegemon Welkin said, “But if you move closer, you’ll see that it is actually very, very thin.”

“Oh?” Ning and Ninedust hurriedly moved closer. Indeed, although this enormous thing was over a million kilometers long, it was merely a thousand kilometers thick. The thickness was very even.

“It... looks almost like a wall carving someone did,” Ninedust said.

“Right. It looks like a detached wall carving of an enormous, hellish elephant,” Hegemon Welkin said. “That’s why I named it the Stone Hellephant Wall. This thing has been floating in the Great Dark for an extremely long period of time, and the entire thing is composed of deepfire blackstone. I was overjoyed when I saw it and wanted to take it with me, but it was just too big. Some sort of invisible power made it so that I just couldn’t take it away by force. Your lifeblood weapons wish to absorb deepfire blackstone, right? Go ahead and let them absorb as much as they want from this enormous wall of deepfire blackstone. Now... we agreed on a hundred coldfire cauldron fruits. Go ahead and give them to me.”