The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

“Hurry up! Bring out all your best wine.” Kilostar and Bertulu were seated facing to each other on an oceanic island, a stone table in front of them.

On one side was the skinny and swarthy Kilostar, dressed in that silver cape of his. On the other side was a white-robed, white-haired youth. The two had completely different looks and auras as well. Kilostar’s aura was rather valiant and explosive, whereas Bertulu’s aura was much warmer and more radiant. He was like the warmth of the sun, bringing comfort and friendliness to all who saw him.

“That’s more like it.” Kilostar grabbed the gourd of wine that had appeared on the stone table, lifted it up high, then began to guzzle it all down.

“Alright, alright. There’s no need for you to be this angry, Kilostar.” Bertulu let out a laugh.

“You insidious, sly, hypocritical wolf in cultivator’s clothing!” Kilostar glared ferociously at Bertulu. Even his third eye within his forehead was bulging with rage. “I have NEVER fallen down from the fifth stratum. It was all because of you! You deceitful bastard, I lost because of your tricks! That was bullshit! Bullshit! BULLSHIT!”

Bertulu chortled. “You lost, alright? Even if I did pull a few tricks, the end result was that you lost. In battle, the only thing that matters is the result. The process isn’t really important.”

“I trusted you! That’s the only reason you were able to trick me!” Kilostar was furious.

Actually, this wasn’t his first time being defeated by Bertulu. In the past, he had won ten battles in a row and was qualified to charge Bertulu for residence within the sixth stratum. However, Bertulu had swiftly dispatched him and sent him right back down to the fifth stratum. Over the course of many years, the twelve in the fifth stratum had tried numerous times to make it into the sixth stratum, but each time they were quickly knocked down by Bertulu once more. The only person who could stably reside within the sixth stratum was Bertulu himself.

“If I had used my formation and focused completely on defense, there’s no way you could’ve beaten me,” Kilostar said angrily.

He was pissed off just thinking about it. He had never been knocked out of the fifth stratum before. He had wanted to keep his perfect record, leaving behind the legend of Kilostar once he departed from these Astral Islands. To be honest, Kilostar had been planning on leaving for some time now… but who would’ve thought that his golden record would be broken just before his departure? Now, he was back in the fourth stratum. Of course he was irritated by this!

“I trusted you! I considered you my friend! But you-” Kilostar truly was quite disgruntled.

“Enough, enough already. It was my bad, alright? But you know, everything is fair game in a battle.” Bertulu chortled again. “Oh, right. How strong are the newbies?”

“The newbies have improved significantly. Six of them made it to the fifth stratum,” Kilostar said.

That very first year after Ning’s arrival, four members of his ‘class’ had made it into the fifth stratum. After a thousand years, two more had joined them.

“As far as how strong they are…” Kilostar paused, weighing his words. “In terms of attack power, the Empress and Darknorth are on par with me. The others including Gorho, Daoist Fish, Fairy Brightheart, and Waterwalker are slightly weaker.”

“Oh?” Bertulu was quite intrigued.

“In terms of defensive prowess, Waterwalker is the strongest freak of all. He probably has some sort of special innate ability that makes him virtually unkillable. Next would be Fairy Brightheart, with Darknorth being third. The Empress, Gorho, and Daoist Fish are ranked below them.”

Kilostar continued, “As for endurance, Darknorth is the strongest. After him is Fairy Brightheart, Waterwalker, the Empress, then the rest.”

Kilostar nodded. “That would be how I would rank them. They each have their own specialties.” Kilostar smiled. “As for the more detailed information… go try them out yourself.”

Bertulu was intrigued. “From what you are saying, it sounds as though this Darknorth fellow is quite strong?”

“Him? He’s just as much of a bastard as you are.” Kilostar said in a disgruntled manner, “At first, his sword-arts were fairly weak and I was able to crush him with just one warblade. Over the course of the past thousand years, his footwork techniques and his sword-arts both improved dramatically. But the disgusting thing is, he not only has an Elementum Waterflame Gourd, he also has six damn Eternal weapons that are absolutely identical to each other.”

Kilostar shook his head. “You tell me, doesn’t that just piss you off? Although I, Kilostar, have acquired multiple Eternal weapons as well, the only ones that suit me are those two warblades. He actually has SIX of those Eternal swords, and they are absolutely identical!” Kilostar said furiously, “It’s like a six on two fight! And that Elementum Waterflame Gourd continuously releases lightning against me as well…”

Bertulu was surprised. “It sounds as though this Darknorth has quite a few treasures.”

“He has a ridiculous amount of treasures! It’s damn near impossible to get six identical Eternal weapons, and that Elementum Waterflame Gourd has to be worth at least half a million cubes of chaos nectar as well. All combined, that stuff has to be worth more than a million cubes!” Kilostar grumbled unhappily, “If all he had was two swords and if he didn’t have that lightning helping him, I’d still be able to crush him.”

“Oh…” Bertulu nodded upon hearing this.

“Have an idea of what you are going to do?” Kilostar looked at him.

“A few ideas.” Bertulu nodded. “I wanted to first challenge all of the old timers, then sweep through the six newbies. After that, I’ll be leaving.”

“You are going to be leaving the Astral Islands?” Kilostar was briefly stunned, but he then nodded slightly.

“It is time. The reason why I’ve been staying for the past few years was because I wanted to wait for this newest batch of ‘recruits’ to have a chance to grow up,” Bertulu explained. “The almighty Hegemon generally only goes out to personally abduct people roughly once every chaos cycle. I certainly can’t afford to wait that long for the next crop.”

“You bastard, you can break through to become a Daolord whenever you want.” Kilostar shook his head and sighed. “I, unfortunately, have only gained a vague glimpse of what my path is to be. I haven’t truly understand it yet.”

Only by truly discovering one’s own path and discovering one’s own Dao would one be able to rely on that Dao to become a Samsara Daolord.

Bertulu had discovered his path and his Dao long ago. He was able to become a Samsara Daolord whenever he wished it. However, Brightshore Kingdom was a very safe place and he was simply in no rush to make his breakthrough. Once he made that choice, there would be no going back. He naturally wanted to make sure everything was perfect first.

“You will benefit greatly from your time in the Twelve Palaces,” Bertulu said. “Although the Astral Islands have ninety-nine legacies, only the top ten legacies can be considered decent. Strictly speaking, none of these legacies can be considered ‘core’ legacies of the Twelve Palaces.”

“Mm.” Kilostar understood this point as well.

Kilostar lost his battle. His astral island sank from the fifth stratum to the fourth stratum.

After that, Bertulu began an absolute ‘massacre’. He challenged one fifth stratum expert after another, but none of the challenged experts were afraid of him. Bertulu was a person who they normally wouldn’t have a chance to fight. All of them were filled with a towering desire to do battle as they went forth to face Bertulu.

And the end result was…

Every single astral island was smacked down to the fourth stratum.

Originally, the fifth stratum had sixteen islands. It shrank down to fifteen… fourteen… thirteen… twelve…

More and more islands began to fall.

“Yet another island has fallen.” Ning stood at the edges of his own astral island, staring off into the distance as another astral island that had been within his stratum began to sink downwards.

“Mm. My sword-arts have reached a bottleneck, as have my footwork techniques. It’ll be difficult for me to improve any further here in the Astral Islands. Although there are many freaks here for me to fight against, it is still time to leave soon,” Ning mused.

It was time to leave the Astral Islands. Yes, the environment here was nice, and it was possible that over the course of countless years sparring against these monsters he might gain some insights that would allow him to master the seventh stance of the [Nameless] sword-art, but…

That would almost assuredly be something that happened a very, very long time from now. It had taken him nearly five hundred years to master the sixth stance, and if you factored in the temporal acceleration it had actually taken tens of thousands of years. As for the seventh stance, Ning was completely mystified by it. He knew that mastering it would be an incredibly difficult prospect, and it would most likely take him perhaps a thousand times more time and effort.

“I’m under the effects of a lifeblood oath to reach Vastheaven Palace within a chaos cycle. Only then will I be able to return to the Three Realms to bring back my parents. Although a chaos cycle is an extremely long period of time, who knows what new variables might be introduced in the future? I can’t waste too much time here.”

Ning nodded to himself. To have spent a thousand years here in the Astral Islands was enough.

“I should give this footwork legacy to World God Pillsaint.” Ning picked up his golden book, then sent World God Pillsaint a challenge. He was going to leave and he wouldn’t be able to take this jade tome with him. He might as well give it to Pillsaint instead. The first person Ning had met here in the Astral Islands had been Pillsaint, and he had quite a good impression of the man.

……

“A challenge?” The rosy-lipped, white-teethed, chubby-faced youth, World God Pillsaint, looked at his book. His eyes lit up. “It is Darknorth.”

Ning and Pillsaint were on very good terms with each other.

For example, when Ning didn’t wish to battle against a particular foe, but that person insisted on challenging him, Ning would often send World God Pillsaint a challenge and use that duel to avoid the first one.

“Is Darknorth trying to avoid another challenge?” Pillsaint was puzzled. Still, he entered the room filled with divine runes and allowed himself to be teleported directly to the battlegrounds.

This was an icy cold oceanic island that was completely locked in by icebergs. A cold wind howled through this world.

As soon as Pillsaint appeared, he immediately saw the white-robed youth who was carrying that sword on his back.

“Darknorth,” Pillsaint immediately called out to him.

“Pillsaint.” Ning looked at him. “I’m going to be leaving.”

“Leaving?” Pillsaint was stunned. “So soon?”

“Yes.” Ning nodded.

“That’s crazy fast. We cultivators live extremely long lives. Why rush things like this? Generally speaking, most of those other freakishly talented geniuses will spend ten million years or a hundred million years here before leaving,” Pillsaint said.

Ning laughed. If he stayed here for ten million years, he probably would indeed be able to master the seventh stance of the [Nameless] sword-art. Ten million years out of an entire chaos cycle? That really was nothing. Still, Ning wanted to save as much time as he could, for fear of something else from happening.

“Time for me to leave. This time, I admit defeat.” Ning spoke out in a high-pitched voice.

“Admit… defeat?” Pillsaint was stunned. Ning had never admitted defeat in any of his battles before. He knew that that Ning had a footwork legacy in his hands. Was Ning planning to transfer this legacy to him?

“I won’t be able to take this footwork legacy away with me. Take it.” Ning tossed the jade tome over to him.

Pillsaint couldn’t control himself. He immediately extended his arms to accept the jade tome, gripping it with his fingers. His eyes couldn’t help but turn red. He had been trapped here in the Astral Islands for an extremely long period of time. He desperately wanted to find a way to leave, but acquiring a full legacy truly was not easy. Whenever he had enough parts of a legacy, he would suffer countless challenges from cultivators on the third and fourth strata. Each time he got close, he would lose it all!

“Darknorth.” Pillsaint’s eyes turned red.

“I’m embarrassed to say this, but I was actually planning to give you a sword-art legacy I acquired quite some time ago. Unfortunately, Waterwalker managed to force it out of me.” Ning shook his head.

“Darknorth, I’m endlessly grateful that you are willing to help me out. You’ve been here for less than a thousand years, right? It hasn’t been a long time at all.” Pillsaint was quite moved. With this legacy, he would regain his freedom.

“Alright. Once I leave, I’ll be joining the Palace of the Sword of the Twelve Palaces,” Ning said. “If you wish to meet me, go to the Sword Palace and seek me out.”

“I will.” World God Pillsaint nodded vigorously.

“And now… the only thing that remains is my battle against Bertulu.” Ning had a distant look in his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do before leaving this place was to have a battle against Bertulu.

Bertulu, the undisputed number one expert of the hundreds of thousands of astral islands. Ever since he had made it to the sixth stratum, he had never fallen down from it.

Ning had battled against all the other talented geniuses. He had never, however, battled Bertulu.

“I really look forward to it.” Ning could feel his blood boiling with eagerness just thinking about this battle.