The Desolate Era

Book 25, Chapter 35 - Dao-Seals

The endless primordial chaos was filled with endless mysteries. Even the exalted Eternal Emperors, figures who would exist for all eternity for and whose every word carried the force of law, would never dare to claim that they understood all of its secrets. The primordial chaos held certain special types of lifeforms, one of which Ji Ning had encountered in the Three Realms. Back then, Ning had encountered the Waterian servant of the Elder God known as Godfiend Witherspike. Although Waterians were considered alien Outsiders to the Three Realms, they were actually quite common in the Endless Territories and not worthy of special mention.

The Silkmaid race, however, was different. They were much rarer and much more mysterious.

They existed only in small numbers, and all of them were female. They had to copulate with males belonging to other species in order to give birth to new Silkmaids, and their children would always be female! Despite being few in number, they were extoradinarily powerful because they were born with tremendous innate skill in illusions and also were very skilled in close combat. A Silkmaid who reached the World level would be an absolute nightmare for other World-level experts to face, because anyone trapped in one of their illusions would find themselves easy prey for the Silkmaids in close combat.

“Let us begin,” the three-eyed man ordered.

Thousands of golden warriors once more began to manifest atop the Samsara Grinders. With a loud howl, the golden warriors all transformed into streaks of light as they threw themselves towards World God Dragonbinder and World Goddess Silkwater.

Whoosh.

Two azure golems suddenly appeared next to World God Dragonbinder.

“Master.” The two azure golems took up defensive positions around him.

“Block any foes who attempt to attack me. Don’t let them get too close,” World God Dragonbinder sent mentally to them. At the same time, he took out a Dao-seal that looked like a dried yellow leaf. The seal was covered in many wriggly divine runes and emanated an aura of mystery and power.

“Time to go all out.” World God Dragonbinder felt a tinge of heartache. This was a treasure which he had saved to keep himself alive in a desperate situation. However, upon learning that his opponent was a Silkmaid and upon seeing all those golden warriors charge towards him, he could no longer afford to be stingy with his treasures. Staying alive was what mattered the most.

Rumble...

As World God Dragonbinder poured his Immortal energy into the Dao-seal, the dried leaf-like seal instantly disintegrated into countless divine runes. These runes intersected with each other like countless thin strands of silk, forming a golden set of armor over Dragonbinder’s body.

“SHKREE!!!”

The half-scorpion, half-female World God Silkwater let out an ear-piercing shriek. The sound instantly drove its way into the ears of the distant World God Dragonbinder, the strange cadence delving deep into his mind and causing him to instantly lose his mental connection to the outside world.

He realized that he had suddenly been transformed into an ordinary mortal. He was in the middle of a lake, and there were many beautiful women dressed in just swathes of gauze who were slowly moving closer and closer to him.

“Illusions? BREAK!!!”

Although he seemed like he was just an ordinary mortal, his suddenly explosive roar was filled with his heartforce and the power of his mighty will. The roar caused the illusory world to instantly break apart and quickly dissipate.

World God Dragonbinder regained his faculties.

A large number of golden warriors had drawn close to him and were charging straight towards him. The two golems he had were doing their best to defend, but there were simply too many of them. By now, two of them had already reached Dragonbinder himself and were in the process of launching an attack against him. However, the golden leather armor covering his body just rippled slightly, easily defending against this attack.

“Die.” World God Dragonbinder stabbed out with his claw-like hands, piercing directly through the heads of those two golden warriors. Boom! Boom! Both golden warriors died instantaneously.

“What a powerful illusion. It managed to trap even me within its world for a period of time.” World God Dragonbinder was shocked. My heartforce has reached the fourth stage, and I have a secret art which Master taught met, yet I was still unable to defend against it.”

Although he had almost instantly defeated the technique, battles between World-level experts could start and finish in a single instant. That brief moment when he had been trapped by the illusion was quite possibly enough to spell doom in battle. However, weaker illusions wouldn’t have been able to drag him into that illusory world, thanks to his powerful heartforce and his soul technique.

“Die!”

“World God Dragonbinder, die!” The Silkmaid battling against the other golden warriors off in the distance let out repeated screeches, each screech causing Dragonbinder a certain amount of trouble. He’d often come to a halt mid-strike, giving those golden warriors a chance to land attacks against him.

Although his two golems stayed close to him and defended him in close combat, it was impossible for them to prevent every single golden warrior from reaching him.

“The disciples of Daolord Badlands truly are difficult to deal with.” The gold-robed youth’s face tightened slightly. “So he actually had a seal of such tremendous power?”

“Fukai, aren’t you supposed to be very talented in the art of Dao-seals? The Dao-seal which World God Dragonbinder used just now was pretty powerful, right? When those golden warriors manage to land attacks against him, the Dao-talisman seems to almost completely nullify and ignore those attacks.” The blood-robed youth snickered. “It seems your Silkmaid is about to lose.”

“There’s a limit to how much power any Dao-seal can have. Once its power is used up, he’ll die.” The gold-robed youth ground his teeth. He had paid a staggering sum of money in order to purchase this World Goddess of the Silkmaid race to be his slave. The thing was, she hadn’t actually reached the level of full mastery as a World Goddess. Even so, thanks to her innate talents and some special abilities even actual master-class World Gods found it difficult to fight against her. The gold-robed youth had done everything he could to help her grow and to help strengthen her, but his quest to find the Eternal blood was simply too important. He was willing to risk even his own life to succeed in this question. Naturally, he had brought his Silkmaid to join him.

“I didn’t expect him to actually have such a powerful Dao-seal. Thus far, more than twenty golden warriors have landed attacks against him, but the power of the Dao-seal hasn’t even begun to dim.” The gold-robed youth secretly began to worry. “This Dao-seal has to be worth more than two hundred cubes of chaos nectar, and it can only be used a single time. I’m amazed he was willing to spend that much money.”

As for Ji Ning, he let out a sigh of relief. “So senior apprentice-brother Dragonbinder actually had such a powerful Dao-seal on him. He’s safe now. Still...I’m amazed he was willing to spend that much money on it.”

Dao-seals were very powerful, but the problem was that they were single-use items! Then again, their advantage lay in the fact that they generally didn’t have strict usage requirements. All you needed to do was to fill the seal with your Immortal energy and its power would be fully unleashed.

The power of this Dao-seal which Dragonbinder had just used was comparable to a Samsara Daolord’s defensive technique. Its energy was being depleted nonstop, and when the energy ran out the golden leather armor would disappear, but prior to that happening Dragonbinder was in a position of absolute security.

“No. No! Damn...”

Although World Goddess Silkwater did her best to battle against her many foes, the golden warriors continued to swarm her without pause. She let out repeated screeches, causing World God Dragonbinder to be briefly trapped within that illusory world, but Dragonbinder had both the golems protecting him as well as the Dao-seal. By now, the golden leather armor over his body had dimmed just slightly.

Silkwater, however, was close to the end of her rope. These golden warriors attacking her weren’t actual living creatures, and as such they were able to completely ignore her illusions.

“Master.” World Goddess Silkwater cast a final glance to the gold-robed youth standing outside the Samsara Grinders, a look of apology and longing in her eyes.

Every single Silkmaid retainer was absolutely loyal to her master.

“Go, then. Go.” The gold-robed youth felt tremendous sorrow in his heart as well. Silkmaids were rarely used to fight on the front lines in such a manner. During the previous battles, World Goddess Silkwater had primarily been responsible for casting illusions from the back lines while the other World Gods attacked furiously from the front lines.

“If I can get the divine blood of the Eternal, all of this will have been worth it.”

“If I cannot... then the only thing awaiting me shall be death as well.” The gold-robed youth shut his eyes.

“Aaaaaah!” An ear-splitting scream rang out as World Goddess Silkwater cast her final illusion... and then she was completely tied up by the ropes of the golden warriors. A golden warrior holding a flask drew Silkwater into the flask, then ground her apart into dust. Just like that, World Goddess Silkwater died.

“The second match has concluded.” The bald three-eyed man’s voice rang out once more. World God Dragonbinder quickly put away his two golems then hurriedly flew off of the Samsara Grinders. He was worried that if he moved too slowly, he would also be physically tossed off the stage just as the previous winner had been.

“Congratulations, big brother Dragonbinder,” Flamefairy Su Youji said.

Dragonbinder’s body was still covered with a suit of faintly glowing golden leather armor. He shook his head. “I was just lucky. That Silkmaid wasn’t that strong. If she had actually reached the level of full mastery as a World God, she would’ve been able to withstand the attacks of those golden warriors for an extremely long period of time. My Dao-seal would’ve been used up and I would’ve been not long for this world.”

Ning and Su Youji both nodded.

Ning couldn’t help but sigh. Silkmaids possessed terrifying powers of illusions. One had to have strong heartforce, a strong soul, and certain secret arts to be able to withstand their illusions. Ning was still at the fourth stage of heartforce and as such he was probably a bit too weak. Alas, upgrading heartforce was simply too difficult. There were many World-level experts who possessed only limited talent for heartforce, because heartforce was a completely different path of cultivation.

Cultivation was primarily divided amongst Ki Refiners, Fiendgod Body Refiners, and Heartforce Cultivators. Thus far, Ning had yet to encounter a single World-level expert who was a Heartforce Cultivator! One could imagine how rare they truly were.

“Master, how should we deal with them when it is our turn?” The Flamefairy was a bit worried.