The Desolate Era

Book 20, Chapter 26 - Destruction

It was true that Ji Ning had made this trip with the intent of killing Empyrean God Greatdream, but in his heart he didn’t have absolute faith in what Empyrean Gods Sin and Sealthroat had told him. Based on the reports he had seen prior to entering Undermoon Lake, those two were unlikely to be petty, vindictive liars, but Undermoon Lake had a way of changing people. In addition, Ning had grown extremely close to Empyrean God Zhenbu and other Seamless Gate members on Myriad Mountains Island, and so he wouldn’t act against the Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate in a casual manner.

This was why he gave Greatdream a chance to sneak attack him!

He wanted to see for himself exactly what type of a person Greatdream was. Perhaps ordinary Empyrean Gods wouldn’t dare to allow others to sneak attack them, but Ning had the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] protecting him; he held no fear of Greatdream at all.

And in the end...Greatdream really had launched a sneak attack!

Whoooosh. Ning used the [Starseizing Hand], using his fingers as swords and filling them fourth-stage swordforce, causing a blurry black light to appear at his fingertips. In almost the same instant that Greatdream attacked him, Ning launched a counter-attack. They were very close to each other...and this attack of Ning’s was simply far too fast!

It was a sword-strike that had absolutely reached the speed of light! In addition, to save time, Ning didn’t even pull out any magic treasures, instead simply striking with his sword-fingers. This was because he wanted to strike as fast as possible!

“Not good.” Greatdream hurriedly tried to dodge, but the distance between them was too short, and this sword was too fast.

Slash!

A huge, gaping wound appeared on Greatdream’s flank. Blood poured out of the wound, but Greatdream transformed into a bloody streak of light and began to flee, having no desire to fight whatsoever. “This Empyrean God Darknorth...I gave him a full-power strike, but I wasn’t able to harm his body at all. What sort of protective divine ability has he trained in? Could it be the legendary [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]?”

Attempting a sneak attack against an Empyrean God practitioner of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]...poor bastard!

There were very few practitioners of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] in the Three Realms to begin with. The number of Empyrean Gods that had reached the Ninth Cycle were even fewer and could be counted on one hand...but Ning was one of them!

Whoosh. Ning’s right hand explosively increased in size to become many hundreds of meters long as he chased after Greatdream.

Greatdream’s evasion abilities, however, were quite astonishing. He managed to escape Ning’s attack. Although Ning’s sword was very fast, the rate at which his right hand could increase in size was, comparatively speaking, much slower. With a boom, Greatdream evaded Ning’s attack as Ning’s sword-fingers slashed past the pillars and walls of the palace. Instantly, a pillar collapsed, the walls shattered, and half of the entire palace began to collapse.

“What’s going on?!” A group of Seamless Gate members were outside the palace in small groups. All of them turned their heads to stare.

They saw Empyrean God Greatdream fleeing from the palace, soaked in blood. Filling his voice with divine power, he shouted out frantically, “Darknorth ambushed me! He came to kill me! Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat sent him here to kill me!” He had decided to first shift the blame to Ning, then worry about the rest later.

“Ambush? Kill?”

These Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate all knew that their side had been tussling against the other side for quite some time now. The enemy side had always wanted to slay Greatdream, and so none of them questioned his claims now.

And in truth, technically speaking, Greatdream’s words were true. Ji Ning really had come to kill him! Except...it was Greatdream who ambushed Ning first.

“Assemble the formation.”

“Kill Darknorth.”

Instantly, the twenty-plus Empyrean Gods began to join together into formations, joining together to form a trio of Seven Planets Gods and a single Three-Eyed Demon.

The white-robed Ning stared at the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon before him.

“Darknorth, you actually came to ambush Empyrean God Greatdream?”

“You really are seeking out your own death.”

“Damn you.”

They all glared at Ning.

Ning said calmly, “If I said that it was Greatdream who ambushed me, would you believe it?”

“If I ambushed you, why is it that you are completely unharmed while I am deeply injured?” One of the Seven Planets Gods roared furiously. This one had a face quite similar to that of Greatdream’s. “You actually swindled your way into our ranks to ambush me. Quite bold! Everyone, attack! Wipe him out and let Sin and the others know that anyone who dares to attack us will be killed. If one comes, one will die; if ten come, ten will fall!”

Because these Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate stood alongside Greatdream, they had been fighting against the forces of Sin and Sealthroat for many years now. They had always been at a disadvantage due to their lower numbers and thus nursed deep grudges.

“If you were to join together and hide within the Immortal estate...I might not be able to do anything to you.” Ning mentally shook his head.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Instantly, more than seven hundred Pure Yang swords appeared around him. The pure energy from Ning’s Jindan flowed into the swords, then was transformed and manifested as an incomparably sharp jade sword that appeared before him. Ning just glancd at the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon before him, and the jade sword instantly launched an attack.

“Kill.”

“Kill!” The enemy forces came charging straight towards Ning.

In terms of raw power, none of the Seven Planets Gods were comparable to the one which Redsnow commanded.

As for the Three-Eyed Demon, it was the weakest of the four, and by a wide margin at that.

It must be understood that during the Crimsonbright Realmwar, Evergreen’s Daofather golem had been able to suppress the Seven Planets God...but Ning’s perfect Heaven Punisher had been able to suppress the Daofather golem! Now that Ning had a Pure Yang Jindan that was similar to that of a weak Daofather’s, his sword was incredibly powerful when using the most terrifying stances of the [Brightmoon] sword-art. The past hundred years of battle had only caused his sword-arts to become even deadlier.

The power of this sword-strike he had just launched was actually much more powerful than that of even the perfect Heaven Punisher he once commanded.

“Die!” The Seven Planets God that Greatdream commanded let out a furious roar. He wielded a pair of enormous scimitars in his hands, and he sent them chopping downwards towards Ning.

The jade sword arced through the skies in a solitary, beautiful line.

Swish.

Although Greatdream sought to block it, the jade sword was simply too fast, and he was just a bit too slow. It must be understood that the demon king was just as fast and strong as the Seven Planets God, but even he was unable to block Ning’s jade sword. And after a century of battle, the current Ji Ning had improved tremendously compared to the Ji Ning of the past.

Slash. The jade sword slashed downwards across the body of the Seven Planets God.

“Go, go!” Ning stared coldly.

The many Immortal swords around him undulated, allowing his energy to flow through and coalesce into two more jade swords that immediately flew towards the enemy.

“How can this be?”

“Good heavens.”

“How can he be this powerful?! How can an Empyrean God be this strong?!”

In almost the blink of an eye, the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon were all destroyed. The Empyrean Gods that had been within the formations were terrified. Greatdream, in particular, found this all impossible to believe; how could this person be so powerful? This was a level of power that caused him to feel despair.

“Spare us!” Greatdream called out hurriedly.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

One of the jade swords was spent, but the other two continued to fly forwards. All the Empyrean Gods they flew past were chopped apart into multiple pieces. These Empyrean Gods immediately began to heal themselves and flee in terror...but alas, they were quickly ground up into tiny slices of meat.

“Die.” Ning stretched out with his two hands, which instantly swelled in size. They seemed to become two enormous black clouds that slammed towards the remnants of the Empyrean Gods.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Ning’s two gigantic cloud-sized hands clapped together multiple times, with all of the Empyrean Gods trapped within them. He clapped them into dust. Just a few claps later, their divine power was completely used up and they all perished.

More than twenty Empyrean Gods...had died, just like that!

In truth, if all of them had hidden themselves within their Immortal estate and relied on the formations of the estate to protect themselves, there would’ve been nothing that Ning could’ve done. Perhaps Ning’s Rahu Formation was capable of breaching the combined defenses of more than twenty Empyrean Gods who were jointly resisting him within a formation, but Ning didn’t have any other Immortals following and assisting him at present. All he had was the Pure Yang Jindan within his body, and so Ning was ‘only’ as strong as a perfect Heaven Punisher, with his sword-arts being more profound than before.

But they had instead chosen to exchange attacks with Ning?

That was suicide...and so they really had died.

“The person who kill you was me...Ji Ning,” Ning murmured softly to himself.

At his level of heartforce, Ning knew exactly when to kill and when not to kill. He had already made the decision in his mind.

After killing Greatdream and the others, Ning only let out a sigh and shook his head. He remained as calm and collected as ever as he began to return to the others.

......

“Eh?”

“That’s Empyrean God Darknorth over there!”

“Isn’t Darknorth supposed to be with Sin and the others?” Quite a few of the Empyrean Gods were confused. Ning had only informed Sin and Sealthroat of his decision to attack.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

Soon, two more figures appeared. They were Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat.

“It’s good to see you back.” The two of them both felt relieved upon seeing him.

“I told you I’d be fine,” Ning said. He had the power to defeat all of the enemy’s Empyrean Gods at the same time; of course he would’ve been fine.

“How’d it go?” Sealthroat immediately asked.

“Dead,” Ning said.

Sealthroat and Sin both revealed looks of wild joy on their faces. Sin mumbled to himself, “Wonderful. No matter what we tried, we weren’t able to do anything to him. He was simply too crafty...but now, he’s dead. Wonderful, wonderful!”

“All dead,” Ning elaborated.

“All...dead?” Sin and Sealthroat revealed looks of disbelief on their faces.

They really couldn’t believe what they had just heard. In fact, that very day the two of them paid a personal visit to the place where the Seamless Gate’s forces had gathered. They stared at the collapsed palace, at the shattered ground, at the scars of battle...but there wasn’t a single enemy Empyrean God in sight. Only then did they truly believe that Ning had done what he said he had done.

“More than twenty Empyrean Gods. All dead. How?!” Sin was filled with confusion. “There were so many of them. Most were comparatively weak, but they had the absolute advantage in raw numbers. Even if they just joined together into simple Seven Planets Gods, they would become incredibly powerful.”

“If you can’t understand it, don’t bother trying to. Darknorth had his own methods for succeeding. All we know and need to know is that he is very powerful. No wonder the demon king said that he is very likely to succeed in leaving Undermoon Lake.” Sealthroat couldn’t help but sigh and smile in amazement while praising Ning. “This is perfect. If Greatdream was the only one to die, the other Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate would’ve posed a headache as well, forcing us to constantly be on our guard. Now, however, we have nothing to fear.”

“Agreed.” Sin nodded as well.

Greatdream had already become a person of the past. What Ji Ning cared about the most right now was the final challenge! He was just one step away from leaving Undermoon Lake.

The third day since his arrival on Kilostar Island.

The dawn moon had risen into the skies.

On the other side of Kilostar Island, Ning was standing with the other two, staring off into the distance.

Sin pointed towards the distance. “Look, over there! That’s the Path of Blades. It is the final challenge. If you are able to walk the Path of Blades, you’ll make it to the fifth island and be able to leave.”

“The Path of Blades?” Ning stared at the distant wooden bridge. The wooden bridge led to a place that was filled with countless enormous knifes, swords, and spears that stood upright and erect.