Desolate Era

“Darknorth.” Azurefiend had been seated in the lotus position, but he hurriedly jumped to his feet to pull Ji Ning back. The Flamewing God was capable of killing even Hegemons with ease; a puny Daolord would be nothing to it. How could Azurefiend not be worried?

Unfortunately, Ning moved far too fast. With a single step, he appeared right next to the Flamewing God, who turned to look at the tiny little speck that had just appeared next to it.

“Be careful!” Azurefiend and Whitethaw both held their breaths. Ning was now so close that they wouldn’t be able to intervene in time!

“You want some too?” The Flamewing God looked at the tiny human before it, a happy look in its eyes.

“From this day forth, why don’t you stick by my side?” Ning raised his head to stare at the titanic beast before him.

“Hm. Alright. But you have to give me food,” the Flamewing God said.

“No one would be able to give you this much spirit-fruit every day. However, I promise that you’ll have much more and much better food than you have in your estate-treasure,” Ning said.

The Flamewing God felt delighted for a moment, but it then turned to look helplessly at the black chains behind it. “But I’m trapped here. I want to leave with you, but I’m unable to.”

“Let me take a close look.” Ning flew over as he spoke, landing on the Flamewing God’s giant body and moving towards one of the black chains attached to its wings.

Azurefiend and Whitethaw both stared blankly at this sight. “B-but…” Azurefiend was dazed. “Flamewing is a Chaos Primordial. Why is it being so obedient? Aren’t Chaos Primordials supposed to be easily angered and moved to eat anything that approaches them?”

Taming a Chaos Primordial was an incredibly difficult task. It had a child’s intelligence and a child’s temper. It was entirely possible that it would be happily jesting with a cultivator one moment, then devour that cultivator in the next. Not even the Sithe were able to tame it; the only thing they could do was send three Exalts to capture it with overwhelming power.

“I don’t know. All I know is that it seems to be very obedient towards my master.” Whitethaw felt puzzled as well. He transformed into a streak of light, wishing to move closer to Ning and protect him.

“Eh?” Flamewing had been squatting there while eating fruit, but now he raised his head to glare at the approaching Whitethaw in a baleful manner.

“Be good, Flamewing. He’s my Protector while the other guy is my retainer. Don’t hurt them,” Ning said from his position atop Flamewing’s back.

“Eh, alright.” Flamewing immediately calmed down and ignored Whitethaw. The terrified Whitethaw finally landed on Flamewing’s back as well.

“Master, you have to be careful. This Flamewing God might be playing nice now, but it might very well turn on you in the next moment,” Whitethaw said hurriedly.

“That won’t happen.” Ning was very calm, and his gaze continued to be focused on the black chains.

“But this is a Chaos Primordial!” Whitethaw still didn’t feel safe.

Ning shook his head. He turned to sweep Whitethaw and the distant Azurefiend with his gaze, then said: “Starting today, Flamewing shall be one of my followers as well.”

“Master, you…?” Whitethaw instantly understood.action

“Darknorth, are you saying that the Flamewing God has already submitted…” the distant Azurefiend sent a stunned mental message to Ning.

Ning nodded. No longer paying any further attention to their astonishment, he focused completely on analyzing the black chains.

……

Protector Whitethaw and Hegemon Azurefiend truly were stunned by this. Ning had tamed a Chaos Primordial? This was absolutely inconceivable. Chaos Primordials were incredibly rare, and not even Hegemons knew how to tame them. The Sithe weren’t capable of it either. Most likely, only the supremely exalted Autarchs were capable of such a thing!

To tame a Chaos Primordial, one had to both be lucky enough to encounter one while also having a method of taming it. Clearly, their master ‘Ji Ning’ had one such method which had allowed him to tame it without anyone being the wiser.

“He’s tamed the Flamewing God… absolutely incredible. Simply incredible! A pity that the Flamewing God is trapped here. If he could come up with a way to release it… haha, the Flamewing God would ensure that Darknorth’s reputation would skyrocket to incredible heights. Who would dare cause trouble for him? He could simply order Flamewing to attack and wipe that person out.” Hegemon Azurefiend sighed in awe.

Not even Realmslord Windgrace would be able to withstand Flamewing’s retribution. No one would ever dare to antagonize a major power who commanded a Chaos Primordial.

Whoosh. Azurefiend flew over as well. Now that he knew that Flamewing had been tamed, he no longer felt as worried as he had previously. “How does it look, Darknorth? Are you able to break these chains?” Azurefiend asked. If Ning was unable to breach the chains, then this would all be for naught, and the tamed Chaos Primordial would not be able to overawe the outside world.

Ning frowned as he stared intently at the black chains. The chains were actually formed from countless black threads that were woven together, each of which was covered with countless tiny formations. The formations weren’t that complicated; given Ning’s current level of mastery in the Dao of Formations, he would be able to resolve them with ease. The problem was that the seeming-ordinary formations engraved upon the chains were all wrapped together and merged into a larger and even more complicated formation.

Every single chain had a suppressive effect as well as an energy absorption effect. The suppressive effect caused the Flamewing God to be completely tied down, preventing it from even changing in size.

“What marvelous formations.” Ning suddenly moved. Swish! Swish! Swish! He flew to one black chain after another, this time moving quite quickly as he carried out his inspections.

“Mmm. As I thought, all six of the black chains are virtually identical, and they also work together.” Countless thoughts flitted through Ning’s mind as he sought to come up with a way to resolve this formation.

In truth, he already had certain ideas when he saw the chains from afar. Now that he was able to inspect them closely, he completely understood how all of the formations operated. However, understanding was one thing; resolving the formations was another.

“How does it look?” Azurefiend asked again. “Can you solve it?”

“Azurefiend, you are even more impatient than I am,” Ning teased with a laugh.

“How can I not be? That’s a Chaos Primordial! If you came bring this Chaos Primordial into the outside world, you can literally do whatever you want.” Azurefiend was quite excited. “It’ll belong to you, but as your retainer… ahaha! Hurry up and tell me if you can solve it or not!”

Ning nodded. “I can!”

Azurefiend was delighted. “Incredible! Impressive indeed. My head hurts just looking at those black chains and their formations… but you think you can solve them? There probably are very few Hegemons who are a match for you in the Dao of Formations.”

Ning laughed. Of course! His mastery of the Dao of Formations had already reached the Archon level. Only someone who had relied on the Dao of Formations to complete the Daomerge and become a Hegemon would be able to surpass him in this regard! But to do that was no easy task. No one in the Sixteen Realmverses Alliance had ever been able to do such a thing!

“How long would it take, approximately?” Azurefiend asked.

“Hard to say. A few chaos cycles, probably,” Ning said.

“That’s fast! You can complete it in just a few chaos cycles?” Azurefiend praised.

Ning secretly muttered to himself. It might be just a ‘few’ chaos cycles, but that was because his Primaltwin was under the affects of accelerated time. It would be equivalent to a few hundred ‘accelerated’ chaos cycles!

These chains and their formations were extremely complex. The only reason why he stood a chance at breaking them was because he had access to many other similar Sithe formations and a very high level of insight into the art of formations, as well as the assistance of the Autarch’s stone dais. Despite that, it would still take him a few hundred chaos cycles!

Still, Ning didn’t really mind. By now, he was finding it extremely difficult to make any breakthroughs in his Omega Sword Dao. The only step waiting for him was the Daomerge! Thus, his goal right now was to focus more on other Daos, including formations, water, fire, time, space, etc. The more insight he gained into these Daos, the more assistance they would be to him in the Daomerge. All Daos shared certain commonalities, after all.

“Flamewing, I’m going to leave for a short while. I’ll be back soon,” Ning said as he flew off its body.

“Oh?” The Flamewing God suddenly raised its head to stare at Ning’s departing figure. “You aren’t going to abandon me, are you?” For some strange reason, it truly wanted to stay by Ning’s side.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon,” Ning said. In his heart, he couldn’t help but sigh. Flamewing was a Chaos Primordial, born with incredible strength but no true understanding of how to use it. It had never ‘trained’ before, and it didn’t even notice that Autarch Bolin had used a technique to invisibly infiltrate its soul and truesoul. Still… to live a life of ignorant bliss was a form of joy as well.

Whoosh. The giant red copper gate appeared once more, with Ning, Whitethaw, and Azurefiend both flying through it.

“Why are we leaving?” Azurefiend asked while flying out.

“It’ll take quite some time for me to breach those chains. Before beginning, I need to go release Ninedust,” Ning said.

“Ninedust? Oh, that friend who you risked your life for in jumping into the Jadefire Realm?” Azurefiend laughed.

“Yes. We’re friends for life.” Ning nodded.