The Desolate Era

Book 29, Chapter 19 - Battling Patriarch Clearwind

Ensconced by trillions of sword-shadows, the mid-air Ji Ning manifested three heads and six arms, with each of his six hands gripping that single Northbow sword.

“Kill!” Ning raised his Northbow sword up high, the swords emanating auras of incomparable dominance and power. He then unleashed a single furious chop directly towards his opponent.

It was like the Northbow sword was cutting an utterly massive yet extremely neat chasm through space. Sword-light immediately filled those chasm, almost instantly chopping directly towards Patriarch Clearwind. The power of this strike suddenly exploded, as though it a volcano that had been building towards an eruption suddenly erupted in an instant.

Ning was using his Omega Sword Dao – Heavenbreaker! The Omega Sword Dao could be gentle or savage, insidious or dominating. It was all up to his personal decision. Once the many mysteries of the Dao of the Sword were truly merged together, they instantly exploded in power.

Ning had chosen to fight head on with his first strike, which was why he had merely used a single sword. For such a wild, furious strike, a single sword was actually better. The deceased Hegemon himself had used that single dark blue greatsword! This was because when the power of six arms were completely focused upon a single sword, it would give that sword even more dominating power.

“Hmph.” Patriarch Clearwind remained as calm and unflappable as the winds. He simply narrowed his eyes and snorted, then produced a seemingly slender yet incredibly sharp longsword in his hands. He didn’t understand much regarding the Dao of the Sword, but to him using swords or sabers really didn’t make much of a difference. The slenderness and incredible sharpness of this sword was just highly suited to his own Dao.

“Scram!” Patriarch Clearwind struck out with the longsword in his hands. If one strictly viewed this from the standpoint of the Dao of the Sword, this truly was a rather unsightly stance. But when the longsword in his hands struck out, it instantly began to roar like an endless tempest howling angrily through the lands.

The volcanic eruption from the Northbow sword clashed against the howling, gale-like slender sword. Two surges of terrifying, earth-rending power collided together.

“What?!” Patriarch Clearwind revealed a shocked look. He had actually been knocked backwards by that attack!

An utterly terrifying shockwave spread out in every direction, and space itself rippled as though a black wave had spread across its watery surface. Mountain ranges were instantly reduced to dust, while Vastheaven Palace’s barriers managed to withstand this shockwave. As for Patriarch Clearwind’s shrine, it was actually sent tumbling through the air, and the seven World-level cultivators within it were all filled with horror.

“Master!”

“Patriarch!”

They all stared nervously towards the outside world.

Ning had taken just a single step backwards, while Patriarch Clearwind had been knocked flying. However, the latter quickly found his footing, then turned to stare icily towards Ning. This was the first time he truly viewed Ning as a worthy opponent. “What a dominating Sword Dao. I never would’ve imagined that a Daolord of the Second Step would be able to threaten me.”

Patriarch Clearwind was truly stunned. Although he had delivered just a casual blow, it was still a blow from a Daolord of the Fourth Step. How was it that he had actually lost that exchange?

“You aren’t bad either,” Ning snorted coldly.

“Excellent. Receive another blow from my sword, then.” Patriarch Clearwind’s body transformed, becoming as blurry as the wind as the slender sword in his hand struck out again, once more bringing that terrifying, enraged stormy howl.

As for Ning, he once more valiant and confidently gripped his sword with all six hands, moving forward to welcome the blow head on.

BOOM!

This frontal collision caused a shockwave that was even more terrifying than the previous one, but this time the one knocked backwards was Ji Ning.

“As expected, he’s stronger than me in a frontal clash.” Ning’s face tightened slightly as he was sent flying backwards, and he was only able to come to a halt just before crashing into the barriers around Vastheaven Palace. “However... this strike is roughly on the same technical level as the one that came before it; it was just several times stronger. He probably used some sort of a divine ability.”

Ning’s azureflower mist energy gave him the energy level of a Daolord of the Fourth Step, but he wasn’t able to use any divine abilities. Now that his opponent was, he was at an immediate disadvantage! This was one of the problems of fighting those who were at a higher level than you. Fortunately, Ning was using a lifeblood weapon; otherwise, he would’ve lost even more disastrously. Ever since he had used his Omega Sword Dao to reform the quintessence cores inside his lifeblood weapons, they had grown significantly more powerful.

“You actually managed to block. Hmph.” Patriarch Clearwind’s face tightened slightly as he narrowed his eyes, then leapt forwards to charge towards Ning once more.

“Haha, is this really all you have?” Ning laughed loudly as five more swords came flying out from the scabbard on his back, landing in his other five hands.

Six hands, six swords. All six were lifeblood weapons!

“Let’s fight.” Ning stood there in the air, instantly charging to appear in front of Patriarch Clearwind.

“Die.” Patriarch Clearwind chopped out with the slender sword in his hands, his stances sometimes soft but sometimes ferocious. At all times, it embodied the essence of the wind itself, and it possessed truly incredible power.

Ning, however, had six swords and many different stances available. Some were extremely inscrutable and mysterious, while others seemed to form terrifying black holes that had folded layers of terrifying spatial power. Previously, Ning had to use all six swords together to achieve this effect with his Soleheart stance, but now that he had his Omega Sword Dao he was able to infuse all of those mysteries with but a single sword. It looked like a black hole, but it also seemed to contain some of the mysteries of the Shadowless stance, the Heavenbreaker stance, and other stances.

It was a battle of six swords against one, and Ning’s sword-arts truly were frightening. For now, Patriarch Clearwind was unable to do anything to Ning.

“You are quite impressive. For you to be able to force me to show my divine abilities... you should feel proud of yourself.” Patriarch Clearwind let out a cold snort, then instantly manifested a total of six arms as well as five slender swords.

Six arms, six swords. Once more, he charged straight towards Ning.

“Not good.” Ning’s defenses were breached in a single exchange. The enemy’s attack was simply too overwhelming. This man was clearly quite a bit stronger than him.

“It seems I really can’t just fight against him head-on.” Ning now understand the difference in power between the two of them. Earlier, he used all six arms to wield a single sword while using his most physically powerful strike, but he had still been overcome. With this foe now using six swords as well... there was no way he could win in a head-on fight.

Swoosh.

Ning suddenly vanished into thin air.

“Eh?!” Patriarch Clearwind was momentarily stunned. His white eyebrows shot up in surprise as he swept the area with both his gaze and his godsense, only to discover that someone was circling him at absolutely terrifying speeds.

Sword-light shone once more. Clang! Patriarch Clearwind immediately moved to dodge.

Moments later, hundreds and thousands of streaks of sword-light began to light up. Ning struck simply far too fast, and his dodging speed was incredibly fast as well, so fast that there was nothing Patriarch Clearwind could do. If your advantage in combat speed and agility reached a point where you were dramatically superior to your opponent, you could attack your opponent freely without your opponent being able to fight back.

“How can he be this fast? How can he be this fast in actual combat?!” Patriarch Clearwind was completely stunned.

To be able to move at ten times the speed of light in combat was extremely rare. He never would’ve imagined meeting someone capable of it who was merely a Daolord of the Second Step.

“Where the hell did this freak come from? He must be one of those freaks who has mastered and joined together multiple Supreme Daos... and his Daos must be as freakishly strong as he himself is!” For the first time, Patriarch Clearwind was beginning to view Ning as a true equal, not just as a worthy opponent.

“Darknorth!” Surrounded by Ning’s attacks, Patriarch Clearwind used his six arms to defend in an almost whirlwind-like manner. He called out in a cold and deep voice, “You are indeed a worthy opponent for me. Unfortunately... in the end, you are just a Daolord of the Second Step. Have a taste of my [Six Winds] secret art!”

As his voice echoed in the skies...

Rumble...

Patriarch Clearwind’s long, handsome black robes began to flutter as a series of gales sprang up. There were six types of wind; azure wind, red wind, blue wind, violet wind, white wind, and black wind. The six furious gales immediately began to erupt after appearing, filling the skies as they swept towards Ning. As Patriarch Clearwind saw it, even if he was unable to kill Ning, he’d still be able to shut him down and make it so that he wouldn’t be able to move so quickly.

Seeing this, Ning came to a halt in midair. “Clearwind, parlor tricks like this really won’t cut it.” Ning’s body instantly began to emit streaks of electric light. The lightning was dark-gold in color, so dark as to be almost black with just a few flickers of gold within. At the same time, he also unleash a turgid stream of water that was completely icy-white in color. As soon as it appeared, it emanated an aura of coldness that caused even space itself to freeze.

Septessence thunder, and septessence water!

Ning’s azureflower mist energy was already comparable to the energy of a Daolord of the Fourth Step, and he also had the [Seven Leafpill Chapters] to study from. It had been fairly easy for him to master the septessence thunder and the septessence water techniques.

“Go!” Ning’s gaze turned cold as the dark-golden lightning thundered downwards apocalyptically and the infinitely cold stream of water froze all within its path. Even worse, they swirled and coiled about each other, forming an utterly terrifying and enormous vortex-world. This was the power of the Yin-Yang Sword Domain of Ning’s new Omega Sword Dao when used in the form of a lightning-water domain. It was at least ten times stronger than merely using septessence thunder and septessence water normally.

The dark lightning-water domain seemed to be capable of breaking apart everything within its range. As soon as it clashed against the six types of wind, the six types of wind emanated terrifying howls of rage as it began to splinter apart. Clearly, it was actually weaker!

“What?!” Patriarch Clearwind’s face finally turned pale.

Within Vastheaven Palace.

Daolords Solesky, Battlemaster, Brightfish, Pillsaint, and Su Youji had been watching this entire time. All of them were stunned as well.

This battle involved utterly ruinous levels of power, and both sides were using nearly apocalyptic techniques. Patriarch Clearwind had long been a famous figure. Who would’ve thought that Ji Ning would actually be able to fight him to a standstill?!

“Darknorth’s lightning-water sword domain was actually able to break apart that madman’s [Six Winds] secret art.” Daolord Solesky sighed in amazement. “Oh, this is really, really impressive. I thought that he would definitely be at a disadvantage in this fight, and would have to rely on his speed to keep himself alive. Now, it seems as though the difference in combat power between the two of them isn’t that great, and he even has an advantage in terms of secret arts. It won’t be easy for that madman to win this fight. He’ll probably have to unleash his desperation attacks if he wants to win.”

“He’s actually able to fight Clearwind to a standstill.” Daolord Battlemaster sighed in amazement as well.

“Master.” Su Youji’s eyes were shining with excitement as she watched this fight.