Desolate Era

“So this is the Worldheart of our Three Realms? I’ve never seen one as beautiful as this one,” Subhuti said as he sighed in astonishment, staring intently at the Worldheart.

“It has a special magnetism to it, as though it is filled with infinite vitality and possibilities.” The nearby Windfiend nodded in amazement as well, an intoxicated look flashing through his eyes. “Every single ray of light coming from that gem is absolutely beautiful.”

Ji Ning nodded slowly as well. All three of them were incredibly talented figures. Ning’s experiences went without saying; just think about how much treasure he had forced the Hegemons and Emperors to hand over within the Jadefire Realm! He had seen all types of treasures by now. Subhuti and Windfiend were now incredibly talented Daolords of the Third Step who were on the same level of power that Ninedust had been when Ning and Ninedust had battled for the first time. All of them were highly experienced figures… and all three of them were truly stunned by how beautiful the Worldheart was. It was completely different from other Worldhearts.

“This should be the reason why our Three Realms has given birth to cultivators of such incredible power,” Ning said.

“Given how extraordinary the Worldheart is, the chaosworld born from it will naturally be extraordinary as well.” Subhuti smiled.

“Let us see what the ‘new Three Realms’ will end up looking like,” Windfiend agreed.

……

Time slowly flowed on. Ning, Subhuti, Windfiend, and the other major powers all continued to watch silently as the Worldheart continued its transformation. The Worldheart slowly melted away, its power dispersing into nine thousand different parts, with a much smaller remnant core left behind where the original Worldheart had been. This was the largest of the nine thousand ‘pieces’.

36,000 years went past. 9000 Gods and Fiends of Primordial Chaos were born. These Fiendgods were at different levels of power based on how much of the Worldheart’s power they had each absorbed. The weakest were merely at the Empyrean God level, while the strongest was the Fiendgod born from the remnant core that looked like a miniature Worldheart. This one was born at the World level of power.

This World-level Fiendgod was born with such overwhelming power that the other Fiendgods didn’t dare to approach him. This caused him to feel great loneliness, and on one day he rose to his feet and lifted his hands up, using them to tear through the primordial chaos and establish a vast chaosworld around him. His body began to grow in size as he poured all of his energy into sustaining and strengthening this chaosworld, making it grow as well.

“This Chaos Fiendgod should be even stronger than Pangu once was.” Subhuti stood off in the distance, watching as the new Three Realms were born. This was his evaluation.

“Pangu was once the most powerful of the Chaos Fiendgods of the Pangu Chaosworld, but the Pangu Chaosworld’s Worldheart was merely a single unblemished gem,” Windfiend said. “The new Three Realms are different. Its Worldheart was formed from the collision and merger of the Worldhearts of the Seamless Chaosworld and the Pangu Chaosworld. It only makes sense for it to give birth to a Chaos Fiendgod who is stronger than even Pangu.”

“But once he establishes Heaven and Earth, he shall die.” Ning couldn’t help but sigh when he saw this. That incredibly powerful Chaos Fiendgod was being guided by invisible laws; its very existence was for the sake of establishing this chaosworld.

Finally, the Chaos Fiendgod died of exhaustion… but he had already completely established an incredibly vast new chaosworld! The old Three Realms had been shattered into countless pieces, but the new Three Realms was a perfect whole.

The Fiendgods warred across the new Three Realms for supremacy, and all sorts of new lifeforms were born. More and more mortal lifeforms emerged, and eventually cultivation techniques were invented which allowed them to embark upon the path of cultivation.

……

The new Three Realms, as a fairly extraordinary type of chaosworld, was destined to live a fairly long life. Two chaos cycles went past, but it remained extremely stable.

“Odd.”

“Although we haven’t taken too heavy a hand in guiding the new Three Realms, we have left behind many legacies in the void around it. We’ve even accepted some of the most talented cultivators of the new Three Realms into our tutelage, and have transmitted our most precious techniques to them. Why is it that not a single one of them has been able to fuse multiple Supreme Daos together?” Subhuti, Windfiend, and Ning were having another get-together. Suhbuti was quite puzzled by the state of the Three Realms.

Ning nodded slowly as well. “I noticed it as well. It seems as though, compared to the old Three Realms, the cultivators of the new Three Realms have on the whole a lower level of potential! However, they are still quite impressive compared to the outside world.”

“We’ve secretly guided the new Three Realms for two chaos cycles, allowing it to give birth to more than a hundred World-level cultivators. There are no Samsara Daolords yet, but this is still an impressive haul.” Windfiend smiled. “To be honest, we had to undergo a process of slowly increasing our power as well. Prior to the Pangu Chaosworld and the Seamless Chaosworld colliding, Subhuti and I weren’t all that strong! It was when faced with the threat of annihilation that I suddenly had an epiphany which allowed my flying speed to surpass the limits of the Heavenly Daos. Once the ‘Three Realms Era’ began, Subhuti and I began to grow much more powerful as we spent more time training. His mastery Dao of Spacetime became even more unfathomable, while I learned to more perfectly merge ‘Wind’ and ‘Space’ together. More time had to pass, followed by you bestowing us with those incredible techniques, before we truly rose to power.”

Ning nodded. As his own level of insight increased, he began to gain a better sense of attunement towards the future and towards fate. Ning now had the feeling that the ‘Three Realms Era’ that came about as a result of the collision between the Pangu Chaosworld and the Seamless Chaosworld would be the most powerful era for the Three Realms. The later generations would all be significantly weaker, and not even the most supreme of legacies would change that.

“Eh?” Ning suddenly revealed a look of delight.

“It seems Darknorth just received some good news.” Windfiend smiled.

“I just found the way to rescue a good friend of mine,” Ning said.

……

The Terror Starsea. The Jadefire Realm. The hidden control room.

Ning’s divine power calm remained seated above the altar, staring downwards at the enormous flower-shaped ‘Seven Flaming Hells formation-diagram’.

“After training for over a thousand accelerated chaos cycles, I’ve finally gained mastery over this formation-diagram.” Ning was absolutely delighted.

This had been an extremely difficult task. To fully unlock the formation-diagram, one needed to have reached extremely profound levels of insight into the Dao of Space and the Dao of Fire… and of course, the Dao of Formations.

Thus, Ning had first spent quite a bit of time analyzing the Dao of Fire. Fire and water mutually opposed each other but also reinforced each other. Ning thus chose to spend some time on the Dao of Water as well, so as to more quickly and thoroughly understand the Dao of Fire.

It took Ning a full chaos cycle to reach the Archon-level in the Dao of Water, even with the aid of the Autarch’s stone! As for the Dao of Fire, it took three entire chaos cycles.

Next, Ning focused on ‘space’. Ning wasn’t really talented in this regard, and ‘space’ was an incredibly difficult Dao to comprehend. While focusing on the Dao of Space, Ning also spent part of his time analyzing the Dao of Lightning, because he discovered that the Dao of Lightning was intimately connected to the Dao of Space.

Ning was quite skilled in the Dao of Lightning. It took him only two chaos cycles for him to reach the Archon level in this Dao. Only after finishing his work on the Dao of Lightning did he focus all of his attention on the Dao of Space once more.

It took him more than two hundred accelerated chaos cycles before he was able to create an Archon-level technique pertaining to the Dao of Space!

Now, he had reached sufficient heights in both fire and space. Ning turned all of his attention to the art of formations itself.

The Dao of Formations was an extremely complicated and awesome Dao. Ning spent more than eight hundred chaos cycles in accelerated time before he was finally able to reach a high enough level that he could understand how the Seven Flaming Hells’ formation-diagram worked! Thankfully, Ning had access to the many Sithe formation records which Autarch Awakener had left behind. Those techniques had included many descriptions on them, allowing Ning understand their fundamental principles and then take control over the formation-diagram.

“The Dao of Formations truly is insanely difficult.” Ning was speechless. “I had the Autarch’s stone dais helping me out, but I still spent over eight hundred accelerated chaos cycles working on it! If I didn’t have the stone dais, I could’ve spent a thousand times as much time in training without being able to succeed. In other words, there would’ve been no chance that I would’ve been able to finish mastering it during my 108,000.”

Ning felt a bit celebratory. Thank goodness he had the Autarch’s stone dais! That was why he had ‘only’ spent eight hundred chaos cycles to solve the Seven Flaming Hells formation-diagram.

This was proof that it was best for Daolords to focus on their areas of expertise. Ning was skilled in the Dao of the Sword, and so he trained in it quite quickly. He was also skilled in water and thunder, and thus he trained fairly quickly in those two Daos as well. Fire was a bit slower, while space had been ridiculous; it took him two hundred chaos cycles to reach the Archon level in it. As for the Dao of Formations? That went without saying.

“For me to have found the Autarch’s stone dais was a stroke of tremendous luck. Oh, Ninedust… you have no idea how lucky you are as well, to be able to make it out of this place.” Ning chortled. He really was delighted! After spending over a thousand chaos cycles in total, he had finally solved the Seven Flaming Hells formation-diagram. This sense of excitement and accomplishment truly was joyful.

“Let me see if I can control it all.” Ning’s divine power clone stared downwards, sending out a tendril of its will.

Rumble… the enormous flower-like diagram of the Seven Flaming Hells began to light up. Countless shadow images appeared throughout the hidden control room, and the images represented the entire Jadefire Realm! Every single flaming passageway and prison appeared, all of them under Ning’s control. He was now able to activate any prison cell with but a thought.

“Eh?” Ning’s divine power clone suddenly narrowed its eyes, turning to stare at the very center of the Jadefire Realm projection. There was actually another hidden region located directly beneath the prison region.

“There’s ANOTHER secret region?” Ning frowned.

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