The Desolate Era

Book 25, Chapter 6 - A Clean Sweep

A terrifying shockwave blasted out towards Ji Ning from every direction. Although the brunt of it was blocked by his armor, some of the power still made it through to assault Ning’s body.

“Whoah.”

Ning’s legs were slightly flexed as he stood there in a stable position. He took a deep breath, then glanced at his surroundings. The divine runes that had been flickering on the walls had turned dim. A few aftershocks of power continued to swirl through the corridor, but they were incapable of posing any danger to Ning.

“So World God Cavecry actually prepared a nasty trick like this. What a nasty fellow. If a Chaos Immortal encountered this trap, he probably would’ve died,” Ning murmured softly. The power of that formation was as strong as a frontal blow from a World God. Still, given Ning’s power, even if he was still just wearing his previous set of top-grade Chaos armor he still wouldn’t have been in any trouble.

Anyone with a strong divine body would’ve been able to withstand this blow. Only physically weak Ki Refiners would’ve been slain by it, most likely.

“Rocky.” Ning stepped into the room.

The stone titan had been blasted into the room and against one of the walls. He had now regained his footing as well and he said in a rumbling voice, “I’m fine, Master. World God Cavecry really was a nasty piece of work. He probably set this formation up in secret. Even I didn’t know about it.”

“Right.” Ning turned to glance at the private study. The private study was roughly three hundred meters in size, and the black-robed figure remained seated in the lotus position in the center of it. That enormous banner remained placed directly behind him.

Flutter. Flutter. Streams of black energy swirled around the enormous banner as Fiendgod-like figures began to fly out from it. The creatures that flew out of the banner had human-shaped upper bodies but lower bodies of mist and smoke. They wore suits of black scale armor, had blood-red eyes, and sharp claws. All of them stared intently at Ning and the stone titan.

“Sinfiends.” The stone titan hurriedly sent mentally to Ning, “Master, this is a powerful sin treasure which World God Cavecry personally forged. It is known as the Eversnow Banner and it holds a total of nine sinfiends, each of which is slightly weaker than me.”

Ning’s face changed upon hearing this. A powerful sin treasure?

He could instantly tell that these three ‘sinfiends’ were creatures akin to the ‘ghost generals’ that existed within the Three Realms. The difference was that these sinfiends could grow powerful by devouring sin. When given certain valuable treasures that existed in the primordial chaos, they could undergo a fundamental transformation and become living creatures. These nine sinfiends were all World-level creatures.

“World God Cavecry died long ago,” the stone titan growled. “The nine of you still intend to bar me and my master?”

“Your master? You acknowledged a puny Elder God as your master?”

“Master created us. He shall always be our master.”

“Any who barge into Master’s cultivation grounds shall die.”

“Die!”

The nine sinfiends bellowed and transformed into blurs that charged towards Ning from every direction.

They were intelligent creatures. They knew that Ning was the master of the stone titan. So long as they could kill Ning, everything would come to an end.

“Foolish sinfiends.” The stone titan let out a roar, charging forward to meet them. He transformed into a streak of light, moving far faster than the sinfiends. His hands became enormous in size as he smashed down towards the sinfiends with them.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

His enormous palm smashed down upon them again and again.

The stone titan possessed an overwhelming advantage in strength. As a stone titan golem, his speed and strength was far superior to the vast majority of World Gods! However, those World Gods all had high levels of insight into the Dao and were very skilled, which was why it would be very hard for the stone titan to slay them.

These sinfiends, however, also didn’t have any insights into the Dao. They solely relied on their innate gifts and brute strength.

Bang! A sinfiend let out an ear-piercing screech as it was smashed aside.

The private room wasn’t that large. The stone titan was able to stop six of the sinfiends all by himself. However, the other three managed to move past the stone titan and charge straight towards Ning.

“There’s no way we can kill the stone golem. Kill the Elder God instead.”

“Eat him.”

“Eat him alive.”

As the three sinfiends flew towards Ning, they emitted strange, ear-piercing cries that caused inaudible ripples of sound that struck out towards Ning’s soul.

“Eh?” Ning’s soul was protected by the heartforce soul-lock technique and reinforced by the azureflower mist energy. It was able to completely negate this soul attack.

“CHOP!”

Ning struck out with the sword in his hand.

Sword-light flashed in a dazzling manner.

Slash!

The Killsword stance, an attack that held nothing back. Ning had just unleashed a tiny amount of the power of Violetjewel’s quintessence core. Given that Ning himself had the strength of a World God, how could these puny sinfiends possibly withstand Ning’s Eternal weapon?

Violetjewel managed to chop through a sinfiend’s body with some difficulty, splitting it in two. Alas, the sinfiend completely transformed into mist before once more reforming in front of Ning. And yet, a look of terror and disbelief was now in its eyes.

“How can this be?”

“How could an Elder God have injured me?”

“How could a mere Elder God be this strong?” All the sinfiends were stunned.

“Surround him and attack him.”

“He’s just one person. Surround him, attack him, and kill him!” One sinfiend let out a sharp cry, followed by shrill screeches from the rest of the nine. The stone titan bellowed, “Foolish sinfiends! Shatter!” The stone titan smashed out with its giant palms with abandon. He rarely had the chance to unleash its full strength in such a manner because when fighting against World-level experts, they would make it extremely difficult for him to strike with full force.

The stone titan struck out with wild abandon. The sinfiends all tried to avoid him, instead focusing on attacking Ning.

“Chop!”

“Chop!”

Ning sent out nine sword-chops in succession, each chop splitting a sinfiend apart. Alas, Ning was still kept outside the room by their assaults, unable to enter it. These sinfiends were completely undamaged by his attacks, and they charged forward in an unceasing stream that prevented Ning from advancing.

“They are formless creatures. Chopping them apart is useless.” Ning’s gaze turned towards the banner that was placed behind the black-robed figure. “If I can bind that banner, the nine sinfiends will no longer pose any danger.”

“Rocky,” Ning sent mentally.

“Master.” The stone titan looked at him.

“Bring that banner to me,” Ning instructed. Every single sinfiend was roughly as strong as he was, and they came in an unending stream; it would be extremely difficult for Ning to move past them and reach the banner.

“Alright.” The stone titan immediately marched towards the banner.

“Stop it!”

“Stop it!” The nine sinfiends began to panic. They had all been working on avoiding the stone titan, but now they no longer were able to continue to do so. The sinfiends all turned to charge towards the stone titans, resulting in a series of head-on clashes between a pair of giant stone palms and many sharp claws. Each time, the sinfiends were blasted apart...and yet, they would almost instantly recover and continue their attacks.

Every single sinfiend was roughly as strong as Ning himself. Eight of them had to work together in order to stop the stone titan in its tracks.

“Hmph.” Ning suddenly charged towards the banner. Although the lone remaining sinfiend sought to block him, he was completely dominated by Ning and his sword-arts. There was no way it could stop Ning at all.

“No...”

There was nothing the nine sinfiends could do. If they tied down the stone golem, they would be unable to tie down Ning. If they tied down Ning, they wouldn’t be able to tie down the stone golem.

As for the banner...the nine of them weren’t able to touch it. If they did, they would immediately be sucked into it.

Whoosh. Smiling, Ning stretched his hand out and grabbed the banner, immediately pouring his Immortal energy into it.

“Graaaaah!” The nine mighty sinfiends didn’t wish to give up, but they all dispersed into mist and were drawn back into the banner.

“It isn’t that hard or that expensive to create sin treasures, but they are quite powerful. No wonder so many cultivators end up deciding to walk the path of evil.” Ning sighed to himself. If one wished to create a golem, one had to have incredibly profound insights into the art of formations and large amounts of precious resources. Only then could a powerful golem to be created. By comparison, golems were far more costly and difficult to make.

Sinfiends? Sinfiends were easy, and the treasures meant to house them were cheap to make. After absorbing enough sin, they would naturally become very powerful, much like how sin-weapons could grow in strength as well.

As for the Sinfiends themselves? If they were fed enough sin, they would grow more powerful as well. The only thing you needed to do was slaughter many people and collect enough sin.

Whoosh.

After putting away the banner, Ning turned his gaze to the black-robed corpse and the distant painting of sword-ki that was hanging on the walls.

“Come here.” Ning waved his hand, collecting both the corpse and the painting.

“Rocky, let’s look around and see if we can find any other treasures,” Ning instructed.

“Yes, Master.”

These two began to search every nook and cranny of the entire estate for treasures. They even dug three feet deep into the floor of every room. Only after completely sweeping through it did they leave.

Atop a mountain on the island.

Ning sat down in a relaxed manner, then laughed softly. “I’ve swept this island clean of all treasures. I really made a killing this time. If it hadn’t been for big brother Solesky, I don’t know how long it would’ve taken for me to acquire such a hoard of treasures.” Ning then turned his attention to the treasures which World God Cavecry had left behind.