The Desolate Era

Book 38, Chapter 17 - Pursuit

“Oh, NOW you want to flee?” By now, the Flamewing God had been thoroughly enraged by Lord Wulf as well. Its wings fluttered, sending it soaring through the void at terrifying speeds as it instantly caught up to the fleeing Lord Wulf. Flamewing once more sent its clawed paws against Lord Wulf: “So you think you can just attack and run as you please?”

BOOM! A titanic explosion rang out. Lord Wulf remained undamaged, and the warblades in his hands seemed to spin like circles of light. He himself arced outwards, borrowing from the momentum of the shockwave to continue fleeing. His body was so tough that it was completely undamaged.

Lord Wulf continued to flee, while Flamewing pressed the attack.

“Chase him down, Flamewing!” Ning ordered mentally.

“Leave it to me. This guy thinks he can just flee whenever he wants? It wont be that easy!” Flamewing chased furiously, giving vent to his rage.

“Let’s follow them!” Ning waved his hand, producing his realmship. Ning, Azurefiend, Emperor Waveshift, and Whitethaw all flew into it.

“Darknorth, let us watch as well!” Hegemon Brightshore flew over, followed by Hegemon Netherlily and Hegemon Windrain. They were extremely interested in watching a battle between Otherverse Lord-level combatants, especially since they themselves were in no danger. The brief part of the battle they had seen earlier had already caused them to learn a few things. Without question, the mysterious and terrifying beast which had completely dominated the Golden Emperor had to be on Ning’s side.

“Alright, let’s go together.” Ning didn’t refuse them. And so Ning, Emperor Waveshift, Azurefiend, Brightshore, Windrain, Netherlily, and Whitethaw all rode the realmship as it chased after the two combatants. Although in raw speed alone Ning was unable to make the realmship move as fast as the Flamewing God, Lord Wulf was much much slower than both of them. As the Flamewing God continued to hunt after and beat down upon Lord Wulf, Ning and the others were able to keep up with ease.

“Waveshift!”

“Long time no see, Waveshift.” Hegemon Brightshore and the other two Hegemons all greeted Emperor Waveshift. Like them, Emperor Waveshift was a native of the Flamedragon Realmverse; he had naturally met all three of them long ago. They chatted amongst themselves as they watched the distant, high-level battle occurring before them.

“Darknorth, is this creature one of those legendary ‘Chaos Primordials’?” Hegemon Brightshore soon asked the question he wanted to ask the most. The nearby Hegemon Windrain and Hegemon Netherlily were both curious as well.

Ning nodded. “It is indeed a Chaos Primordial. Its name is the ‘Flamewing God’.”

“No wonder.”

“I knew it. Only the legendary Chaos Primordials could possibly possess such a level of power.” Hegemon Brightshore and the others were enlightened. Although they had their guesses, they had never actually seen a Chaos Primordial before. Those were legendary creatures which were never seen.

“Incredible, simply incredible! Flamewing God, a Chaos Primordial, is battling against the Icepeak Army. It must have been tamed, right?” Hegemon Windrain asked.

Hegemon Netherlily turned to look at Emperor Waveshift. A smile on her face, she said, “Waveshift, did you tame this Chaos Primordial?”

All of them felt amazement and awe. The legendary Chaos Primordials were incredibly rare, and taming one of the creatures was something out of the myths! Still, for Emperor Waveshift to accomplish this was shocking but believable to them. Emperor Waveshift was often invited and feted by the most supreme of major powers, who asked him to accompany them to some incredibly mysterious places. It was believable for him to have been lucky enough to tame a Chaos Primordial on one of those trips.

“I don’t have that sort of ability.” Emperor Waveshift shook his head. “It was Darknorth who tamed it.”

“Darknorth?” Hegemon Brightshore and the others all turned to stare at Ning in disbelief. For a moment, none of them knew what to say.

Daolord Darknorth was an absolute monster! They had never heard of such a terrifying Daolord. It would be understandable if a powerful Emperor like the Lonely King or Hegemon Windrain had tamed a Chaos Primordial, but a Daolord?! This was truly miraculous.

“Nothing more than lucky.” Ning calmly watched as the battle proceed, his gaze focused on the enemy realmship that was following from behind like a streak of lightning. “That realmship really is fast. It flies far more quickly than even my own realmship. I can sense from its sudden bursts of speed that its even faster than Flamewing.”

“Hegemon Thunderstar became a Hegemon via the Dao of Lightning. He’s extremely skilled in speed, and when he is in command of a realmship he’s able to more perfectly draw out its full power than many, allowing it to move much faster,” the nearby Emperor Waveshift said. “Thus, personal insights truly do matter. Different treasures in the hands of different major powers will be capable of unleashing different levels of might.”

Ning nodded.

......

Whoosh. Hegemon Thunderstar kept his realmship at the margins of the battle, hiding far away and watching as the Flamewing God continued its pursuit.

“Thunderstar, hurry up and go rescue our general!” the other four Black Emperors urged desperately.

“There’s no way for me to save him.” Hegemon Thunderstar shook his head. “That Chaos Primordial is too fast. Although I’m skilled in flying, my speed still isn’t even close to being on par with that creature’s. Even though I’m in command of a realmship which is famous for its speed, I’m still just slightly faster than it. The problem is, your general Lord Wulf is far too slow, even slower than me flying normally! The Chaos Primordial continues to circle around him. Once I go nearby, I’ll probably be captured by it as well... and once it captures us, we’re doomed.”

“Ugh.”

“Damn.” The four Black Emperors were utterly enraged as well. They had suffered severe mental and physical blows from this, but they knew just how terrifying the Flamewing God was. It had slain five of their comrades in the blink of an eye, after all! If they had been just a heartbeat slower, they would’ve died as well.

“Don’t worry. I can tell that Lord Wulf is more than capable of keeping himself alive,” Hegemon Thunderstar said.

“Yes, the general has stopped launching all those crazy attacks. If all he needs to do is keep himself alive, he’s able to dramatically lessen the amount of energy he uses up. He’ll be able to keep fighting for an extremely long period of time.”

“Although that Chaos Primordial is very strong, its insights are too weak. Its attacks are all quite clumsy, making it easy for the general to stay alive.” All four of the Black Emperors nodded.

However, they also knew that Lord Wulf was only able to keep himself safe thanks to the fact that he had an Otherverse Lord’s combat prowess! Black Emperors like them? Yes, the Chaos Primordial might have an extremely low level of insight into the Dao, but it would still crush them with contemptuous ease. No amount of insights would be enough in the face of such an overwhelming disparity in power.

......

Boom!

Slash!

Whoosh!

Lord Wulf was being battered around like a ball. Each time, he was able to exquisitely time his defenses to make use of the momentum generated by the Flamewing God’s attacks to flee, allowing him to use up just a small amount of his energy even though he was sent flying repeatedly. Lord Wulf remained quite calm, and he continued to pay close attention to the realmship following behind them. “Daolord Darknorth. I won’t forget about this. Just wait and see.”

Time flowed on, with the pursuit lasting for tens of thousands of years. Ning continued to pursue the two in his realmship, but the frown on his face was beginning to deepen.

He was continuing the pursuit because he didn’t wish to give up the chance to kill a Golden Emperor. His Chaos Primordial was born with tremendous karmic blessings and had a virtually indestructible body as well as unearthly amounts of strength with it replenished incredibly fast. This was why the Sithe had chosen to use it as a power source for the Jadefire Realm! Golden Emperors, however, replenished their energy stores much more slowly. Ning had been eagerly awaiting the sight of Lord Wulf exhausting his energy stores, at which point he would probably perish.

Alas, his foe was no fool. Lord Wulf had ceased his frenzied attacks and was instead borrowing from the momentum of Flamewing’s own strikes. As a result, he was keeping energy expenditures low enough that he was able to replenish whatever he used up, allowing him to resist for an extremely long period of time.

“Its been tens of thousands of years, but Lord Wulf remains able to defend with ease.” Ning frowned. “It seems clear that his energy expenditure rates are below his replenishment rates.”

“Come back, Flamewing.” Ning finally issued the order.

“GWAR!” Flamewing let out a final, proud roar within the Great Dark. For it, pursuing an opponent for tens of thousands of years was nothing. It could spend an entire chaos cycle just taking a nap!

The fleeing Lord Wulf was briefly startled. Moments later, he realized that the Flamewing God had finally ceased its pursuit. Only then did Lord Wulf turn to fly towards Hegemon Thunderstar’s realmship.

Swoosh. He quickly flew into the realmship, which then sped up dramatically and transformed into a dazzling streak of electric light and disappeared into the Great Dark.

Ning quietly stared into the darkness. The nearby Emperor Waveshift said, “In terms of energy stores, Chaos Primordials vastly outstrip Otherverse Lords. Alas, its insights into the Dao are too low-level. It is like a child, capable of just the most basic forms of combat! Thus, all of its overwhelming power is of no use; it’s only able to suppress, not kill, Otherverse Lords in combat. The legends say that there has never been an Otherverse Lord or a Golden Emperor who has perished to a Chaos Primordial.”

Ning nodded. “It does not make efficient use of its power. The Sithe were able to take all of its terrifying energy to set up the Jadefire Realm, then transform it into a ‘Decimatus Wave’ which could kill Otherverse Lords with ease.”

If Flamewing had reached Ning’s level of insights into the Dao, it would be able to kill Golden Emperors with ease. Alas, its insights into the Dao were negligibly low, and it possessed just the most basic of animalistic instincts. All it knew was the most basic forms of attack.

“A pity that we had to let that Golden Emperor escape,” Azurefiend mumbled.

“We can’t chase after it any longer. If we did, then we’d be in trouble once the Lonely King commanded the rest of the Icepeak Army to come and reinforce them,” Emperor Waveshift said. “By then, we’d have no choice but to hide behind the Flamewing God’s protection.”