The Desolate Era

“Although I’ve grown much more powerful, compared to the leaders of Buddhism and Daoism, I’m still rather lacking. The Endwar is coming. The more powerful I become, the better. The Heavengazer Tower of Radiance...I have to acquire it.” Although Ji Ning desperately desired this treasure, he first still carefully meditated on the insights he had gained from his fight with True God Ultrafish, reflecting on what had happened in that fight.

Three days after his battle against True God Ultrafish, Ning finally set off for True God Shiyu’s region.

......

A beautiful mountain gorge, filled with flowers and grass. A silver-haired man was here, attending to the flowers.

Whoosh.

A black lightning serpent flew towards him from far away, instantly arriving in the air above him.

“Eh?” The silver-haired man raised his head, giving it a glance. He saw a white-robed youth descending towards him from the heavens.

“So you are the new Overseer?” The silver-haired man looked puzzledly at Ning.

“True God Shiyu, you actually have the energy and presence of mind to be a gardener?” Ning said, “Almost all of the primordial chaos energy in this prisonworld is being refined and distilled into chaos nectar. All of the Elder Gods, Ancestral Immortals, and supreme True Gods and True Immortals are doing their best to absorb energy from what little primordial chaos remains. You only have access to a small amount of it, and yet you actually use it to take care of these flowers.”

The environment in the prisonworld was rather stark and grim. It was a world of perpetual dusk. Here in True God Shiyu’s gorge, however, there were fragrant flowers located everywhere. It was completely different from the region outside the thousand kilometer restrictive formation keeping him here. Clearly, it was True God Shiyu who was taking care of these flowers.

“If my guess is correct, those Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals are all using the energy they absorb from the primordial chaos to maintain their estate-world treasures. Their estate-world treasures contain a world inside of them with many living creatures, and so the Ancestral Immortals and Elder Gods have sent their minds and their incarnations into those worlds, roaming through them and experiencing the vicissitudes of life.” True God Shiyu laughed softly. “But...that’s the behavior of a weakling.”

Ning was startled.

“Now that they’ve been imprisoned here, they’ve lost all their motivation and willpower; all they care about is enjoying life.” True God Shiyu laughed coldly.

“Their actions aren’t exactly wrong.” Ning shook his head. “They have been imprisoned here for countless years. How many would be willing to endure such loneliness for so long? If they can’t endure it, why shouldn’t they go and enjoy life in another world?”

“Weaklings.” True God Shiyu let out a cold laugh. “They have completely given up on escaping this place.”

“Oh? You haven’t given up?” Ning looked at him.

“I’ve never given up. I train in infiniforce and taiji-force; I only need to break through to the sixth stage in one of them and I’ll be able to break these shackles. In fact, I’ll be able to break apart this entire prisonworld as I regain my freedom.” True God Shiyu didn’t try to hide it at all. All of the Immortals and Fiendgods imprisoned here, Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals included, hoped to make a critical breakthrough and shatter their fetters, then break apart the prisonworld and leave.

“If you were to reach the sixth stage, you would be at the World-class of power.” Ning nodded. “That would indeed be possible. But...you’ve been imprisoned here for a very long period of time.”

“Nearly five chaos cycles.” True God Shiyu nodded, staring at Ning. “I know what you are going to say. You are going to say, if a person is unable to break through to the World-level within one chaos cycle, it will be forever impossible for them to make that breakthrough. Am I right?”

Ning looked at him. This was common knowledge.

After searching through many memories of the prisoners of Pangaea, he had learned many things. Ning had also learned many bits of common knowledge from the information imparted to him by World God Northrest. If a person wasn’t able to reach the World-level within a single chaos cycle, it was virtually impossible for him to succeed for the rest of his life.

“But there are no absolutes in life. There’s always a chance.” True God Shiyu gritted his teeth as he stared at Ning.

Ning nodded. It was true. There really were no absolutes!

For example, perhaps someone only didn’t make that breakthrough because his cultivation techniques were too poor, or because he didn’t have a good teacher. He might spend multiple chaos cycles of painstaking work to become a ‘mere’ Elder God. However, once he gained detailed information regarding a top-tier cultivation technique or guidance from a World-class expert, he might quickly break through to the next stage and become a World God himself.

Or perhaps an Elder God or Ancestral Immortal might experience an unexpected event that would allow a breakthrough to be made.

In short...there was always a chance of a lucky stroke of fate!

None of the major powers of the Three Realms had access to truly top-notch cultivation techniques, and none of them had been guided by particularly powerful figures. Houyi was a good example. Although he had been alive for more than a chaos cycle, he had trained painstakingly on his own and developed his heartforce technique all by himself, as well as his archery techniques. If he was given truly top-tier techniques or had the guidance of Vastheaven Palace, however, it was entirely possible that he would’ve broken through to become a World God by now.

“Here in the prisonworld, True God Shiyu has no one to provide him with tutelage, and he won’t have any lucky encounters either. It has been nearly five chaos cycles, but he still wishes to reach the World-level? It really is almost impossible.” Ning couldn’t help but secretly sigh to himself.

“I’ve come here for just one reason.” Ning looked at him.

“Speak.” True God Shiyu looked at Ning calmly. He didn’t hold this Overseer in any regard at all.

“Your Heavengazer Tower of Radiance,” Ning said.

True God Shiyu’s face changed. He stared at Ning, then let out a cold laugh. “You actually know about the Heavengazer Tower, eh? What, you want me to give you a Chaos treasure? You? A trifling Overseer? Your only job is to watch over this prisonworld. You should just f*ck off and stop bothering me.” He couldn’t even be bothered to waste words with Ning. How could he hand over such a precious treasure to someone else?

“If that’s the case, I’ll have no choice but to fight you.” A pair of swords appeared in Ning’s hands.

“You’d actually dare to assault me?” True God Shiyu was shocked. “Y-you...you aren’t a member of Pangaea?”

The chaos-kingdom of Pangaea would generally send Celestial Immortals with first-tier Jindans to be Overseers. How would a Celestial Immortal possibly dare to attack him?

“Pangaea has been destroyed.” Ning held his swords in his hands. “This prisonworld is now under my control, and you are my prisoner. I don’t wish to kill you, but you WILL hand over the Heavengazer Tower to me.”

“In your dreams.” True God Shiyu snapped back in a frozen voice.

“Then we’ll simply have to fight it out.”

Swoosh.

Ning’s words still echoed in the gorge, but his lightning-fast streak of sword-light had already reached True God Shiyu. It was the fastest stance of Ning’s [Brightmoon] sword-art: Blood Drop stance!

“What a fast sword!” True God Shiyu was shocked. He no longer dared to be brash, and he produced a pair of short cudgels in his hands as well. The cudgel glowed with golden light, and the head of the cudgel had a triangular shape to it that seemed incredibly sharp.

Clang!

True God Shiyu’s twin cudgels had manifested the faint outline of an enormous Taiji diagram before him, blocking Ning’s sword-attack. After doing so, he suddenly spun his twin cudgels, transforming the Taiji diagram into an orb of black light and sending it smashing towards Ning with frenzied might.

Boom! Ning’s own sword-light transformed into a pair of black holes as he used the Soleheart stance to block. He could sense an incomparably savage and bizarre surge of energy smash against him, and he couldn’t help but be knocked flying backwards.

“What tremendous power.” Ning landed on the ground, stunned. He immediately understood that True God Shiyu had to have trained in some sort of special divine ability that was akin to Ning’s own [Starseizing Hand], an ability that allowed him to explosively increase his power. In fact, it was possible that his divine ability was even more powerful than the [Starseizing Hand]; otherwise, there was no way the twin cudgels could have produced such enormous power.

The distant True God Shiyu had a solemn look on his face as well. He stared at Ning, not daring to be overconfident. He said softly, “What a fast sword. It has surpassed the limits of the Heavenly Daos? A pity that it won’t be of use.”

“Is that so?” Ning’s body blurred momentarily, then two more heads and four more arms grew out of him, allowing him to wield a total of six swords.

“Hmph.” In response, True God Shiyu manifested a total of six arms as well. He now wielded six cudgels, but four of them had noticeably weaker auras than the original two.

The two once more began to clash against each other at full power. As they did so, True God Shiyu felt even more shocked, because this time Ning used the Blood Drop stance, Shadowless stance, and Heavenbreaker stance in succession. The most dangerous attack for True God Shiyu was the Shadowless stance, as it was both fast and incredibly unpredictable, making it extremely difficult for him to block.

Those six swords worked together in harmony, unleashing those three mighty sword stances in a series of berserk attacks. Although True God Shiyu’s divine ability was formidable, he still had to fight in an extremely cautious manner.

The two continued to fight for quite a long period of time.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The flowers and the grass in the area around the gorge had long ago been reduced to dust, but True God Shiyu couldn’t spare the attention to worry about them. Although he had spent considerable time on these flowers, they were nothing more than a way for him to relieve the loneliness in his heart. He wasn’t willing to waste the energy needed to maintain an entire world, and so he used a comparatively much lower amount of energy to maintain a garden.

“It’s useless. Your sword-arts are indeed powerful; in fact, I admit that they are extremely powerful. I roamed the chaos-kingdom of Pangaea for countless years, and I’ve met more True Gods and True Immortals than I can count. However, I’ve see no one with sword-arts which can compare to yours. Sword God stage sword-arts which are faster than the limits of the Heavenly Daos...and yet, your divine body is far too weak, and your divine abilities are too ordinary.” True God Shiyu’s voice echoed within the gorge. action

Swoosh! Swoosh!

The two collided once more, with both being knocked flying backwards.

Ning came to a halt. Staring at True God Shiyu, he said in a low voice, “It seems I’ll still have to rely on long-range attacks.”

“Long-range attacks?” True God Shiyu was stunned.

Thirty-six Swords of the Heavens suddenly appeared around Ning, and an enormous torrent of Daofather-level energy began to flow through them.