The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

As soon as Ji Ning exchanged blows with them, he had a bad feeling. Patriarch Deadwood and Patriarch Arcanum alone were able to completely suppress him and his junior apprentice-brother. “Not even the fourth stage of the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation] is able to overcome them. If I was also a Celestial Immortal and was able to use Celestial Immortal-level elemental ki in activating the fourth stage of the [Greater Thousand Swords Formation]…things would probably be different. It’s simply too taxing for Void-level Earth Immortals to battle Celestial Immortals.”

And so, not hesitating at all, Ning shattered the talisman, requesting aid from his master Immortal Diancai and Celestial Immortal Hunchmont.

“A message-talisman.”

“Ji Ning is asking for aid.”

“Quick.”

All four of the Celestial Immortals of the Youngflame clan were watching this battle. They naturally noticed how the divine black dragon of sword-light had suddenly shattered a talisman.

“Let me handle it.” The man holding the greatclock in his hand let out an angry roar, then waved the clock-wielding hand. The greatclock instantly soared high into the skies. The many tendrils that were blocking out the sun opened a path for it, and so the greatclock transformed into a rainbow that instantly flew to a location a few kilometers away from Ning.

It hovered there in the air, its surface radiating a blurry golden light.

The man controlling the golden greatclock instantly used his own power to activate this top-grade Pure Yang artifact. This was an artifact which the Youngflame clan had come into possession of back during the era of Pangu’s World; it had been passed down for countless years, and was one of the artifacts that was meant to safeguard the entire clan.

Claaaaang.

The golden clock suddenly emitted a ringing sound. The sound of the clock spread out in a slow manner. The base of the golden greatclock was aimed straight towards Ning, and as the clock rang out, circles of golden ripples that were visible to the naked eye appeared around it.

The circles radiated downwards, while the nearby tendrils quickly retreated, beating out a path for it, with the slower-moving tendrils instantly transformed into dust.

The golden ripples of light moved at an extremely fast speed. By the time Ning saw them, they had already nearly reached him.

“Careful!” Ning called out in shock, quickly willing the nearby black-robed Ning to disappear into thin air.

Claaaaaang.

The golden ripples of light shattered apart one of the divine black dragons, then struck towards Ning’s body, at which point it once more let out a slow, gonging sound. Ning felt as though countless heavy hammers were smashing against his body.

The nearby Mu Northson, who was in control of the Winged Immortal golem, was partially hit by the attack as well. The Winged Immortal golem was instantly knocked flying, spinning out of his control. Right at this moment, two of the nine incomparably massive main tendrils came snaking towards the Winged Immortal golem.

“Junior apprentice-brother.” Ning immediately stretched his hand out, his palm increasing to a size of three hundred meters as he grabbed the somersaulting Winged Immortal golem. “Don’t resist.” He immediately brought the Winged Immortal golem back into his own mobile Immortal estate.

……

The appearance of the golden clock forced the Primaltwin to retreat, while the Winged Immortal golem had already been finding it hard enough to deal with the ‘Starlight Revolution’; there was no way it could fight back at all now. Ning’s only choice was to have both his Primaltwin and his junior apprentice-brother retreat for now, leaving his true body to stand there by itself.

“Hahaha…” The man controlling the golden greatclocked roared with laughter. “With my divine clock having emerged…death is the only outcome for you.”

“What terrifying power.” Ning’s heart was filled with shock.

Patriarch Deadwood and Patriarch Goldclock were polar opposites; Patriarch Deadwood focused on control, suppression, and binding, whereas Patriarch Goldclock focused on raw power and straightforward crushing! In truth, as far as Ji Ning was concerned, Patriarch Deadwood was actually a greater threat to him! This was because, once he became bound and restricted by those tendrils, he’d find it very difficult to escape, even though he trained in the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]!

Dong! Dong! Dong!

The golden greatclock rang out in the skies, and the golden ripples of power struck towards Ning repeatedly.

By now, Ning had completely withdrawn all of his three hundred-plus Immortal swords. He had executed his divine ability, [Three Heads, Six Arms], and was relying on his six mighty palms to block.

The golden ripple of light struck out…but Ning was completely unharmed!

“Hmph.” Patriarch Arcanum controlled the Starlight Revolution to attack, but Ning completely ignored it, allowing it to fall against his body as it pleased.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…

An enormous number of tendrils came crashing over.

Only now did Ning begin to take things seriously. He executed his divine ability, [Obscuring Wind of the Nine Heavens], seeming to have transformed into a gust of wind. He was occasionally drifting and gentle, but occasionally savage and vicious in his movements. He shuttled through the tendrils in an unpredictable manner, while his six arms all used the [Starseizing Hand]. With unearthly power in his hands, comparable to that of Pure Yang treasures, he chopped with his palms in every direction!

Bang! Bang! Bang! The weaker tendrils and vines were blasted apart into dust; only the thicker tendrils were able to resist.

And thanks to his [Obscuring Wind of the Nine Heavens], Ning remained extremely agile and dodged about easily.

“How can this be?”

“Impossible!”

Patriarch Arcanum and Patriarch Goldclock were both shocked. Their attacks were actually very weak against Ning?! Patriarch Goldclock was especially shocked; his power was on the same level as Patriarch Deadwood’s, but Ning was able to completely resist the power of his attacks head-on…and was even able to borrow from the momentum of the clock-strikes to increase his speed.

“This golden greatclock of mine is a top-grade Pure Yang treasure with extraordinary power; not even Celestial Immortals would dare to take it on head-on. Even if a Void-level Fiendgod were to encounter it, the only outcome would be death.” Patriarch Goldclock couldn’t believe it.

“He must have some protective treasure?” Patriarch Arcanum said.

“Even if he did, once it suffered an attack from my golden clock, it would instantly have its power used up.” Patriarch Goldclock truly couldn’t believe it.

After Patriarch Goldclock struck, the last of the four mighty Celestial Immortals, Patriarch Infatuation, began to launch a full-strength attack as well. Cold spheres of light began to manifest in the area around Patriarch Infatuation. These cold spheres of light numbered in the thousands as they hung around him, with flowing runes appearing on their surface. The flowing runes joined together, forming into an incomparably profound formation.

Rumble…

The area within three thousand meters of Patriarch Infatuation had been completely transformed into a world of frozen ice.

There was frozen ice everywhere. Patriarch Infatuation stood at the very peak of a tower made of frozen ice, like the only sovereign of this miniature world of ice.

“Chop!” Patriarch Infatuation looked at the distant Ji Ning, who was fleeing from the strikes of the golden greatclock and the giant tendrils. He pointed at him.

Instantly, more than half of the ice within this miniature frozen world began to gather in one location, forming into an enormous chopping sword of frozen ice. This was like the blade of an executioner…but it only had a blade, without a handle. This enormous executioner’s blade of frozen ice instantly slashed through the skies, chopping straight towards Ji Ning.

Ning, currently using the [Obscuring Wind of the Nine Heavens], raised his head and saw the enormous executioner’s blade of ice crashing down upon him.

Cold!

He felt a heart-piercing cold. Even before the executioner’s blade had fallen upon him, Ning felt a cold pain, misery, and fear fill his heart as he stared at it. This was a sort of fear and pain that one would naturally feel upon seeing that executioner’s blade.

“What a bizarre blade.” Ning felt that something was off. He immediately let out an angry roar: “F*CK OFF!”

Two of Ning’s massive hands punched straight upwards, looking like Pangu pushing up the heavens. 1

The enormous freezing executioner’s blade came crashing down!

BANG!!!

The executioner’s blade collided head-on with Ning’s twin hands!

Ning was blasted downwards by the power of the blow, like a meteor sinking into the ground. Ning had never before suffered an attack of such terrifying power. Even back in the Eastwoods mountain range, he had never received such a disastrously mighty chop.

“What? He didn’t die?” Patriarch Infatuation could hardly believe it. This technique of his, which he had used to roam and dominate the Three Realms, had been unable to kill Ji Ning? This blow was so powerful that even some Heaven-ranked magic treasures would be instantly blown apart.

“There’s no way a protective item could last for so long. Could it be that he’s using his body to block?”

“The [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]!!!” Patriarch Infatuation was suddenly shocked as he thought of this possibility.

Moments later, he became certain that this was correct; there was a very high chance that Ning had trained in the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]! This was because after Ning had suffered the first assassination attempt from Bloodcloud Hall, Bloodcloud Hall had actually dared to increase the price to an exponential level; this indicated that Ning probably wasn’t just relying on a protective treasure. Only the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] made sense.

“So what if he has the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]? He’s still only at the Void level; he won’t be able to escape from the combined attacks of us four Celestial Immortals.” Patriarch Infatuation instantly sent mentally to the other three, “It is very likely that this Ji Ning has trained in the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]. Deadwood, focus on binding him. Goldclock, draw him into your golden greatclock and keep him suppressed within it.”

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

……

Ning was sent slamming downwards from the force of that frozen executioner’s blade. Rustle rustle rustle…instantly, the enormous rattan vines came twirling towards him.

“Not good.” The power of that chop had been simply too great; he was about to be trapped and entangled by those thick rattan vines. Ning gritted his teeth.

BOOM!

As Ning landed, his body suddenly separated into two as it was instantly torn apart, diving into two separate bodies. The two Nings slammed their palms into each other, and with a massive boom, borrowed from the momentum of the blow to send each other flying away at high speed, avoiding the many tendrils that were coiling towards them from below.

“He split his body?”

“He’s looking to die.”

Patriarch Deadwood let out a cold laugh.

Although this instantaneous creation of a clone had seemingly allowed him to dodge that trap, both of the clone bodies would now be much weaker; after all, each of the two bodies would only possess half of the soul that had been infused into every cell of the original body, and so the power of any sword-arts would also be dramatically lowered. Even the intricacy and effect of the [Obscuring Wind of the Nine Heavens] would be lowered! These were all weaknesses.

And once one of the clones was destroyed, the divine power within that particular clone would be completely used up.

BOOM! One of the Nings suddenly blew up.

The power of the other fleeing Ning instantly skyrocketed. A large amount of divine power was returning to him, and his divine soul was rapidly healing as well. Fiendgod Body Refiners…so long as their divine power was not used up, they could regenerate from as little as a single drop of blood.

“Quite decisive.” Patriarch Infatuation, standing atop his tower oef frozen ice within his miniature ice realm, let out a cold laugh. “Let’s see how many times you can self-detonate.”

He pointed once more.

Instantly, that enormous frozen executioner’s blade once more swung over, quickly arriving in the air above Ning.

Ning gritted his teeth.

What was he to do?

Earlier, he had instantly split his body into two clones, then self-detonated one to recover part of his divine power…but this still used up a lot of divine power. That single self-detonation had already consumed twenty or thirty percent of Ning’s total power. This was a far faster rate of depletion than when he had been fighting; after three or four more self-detonations, he would be finished.

“What should I do?” Ning began to grow nervous. Hide within his mobile Immortal estate and use a Greater Teleportation Dao-seal to escape?

This was a seemingly good solution, but it was dangerous as well. Would his mobile Immortal estate be able to withstand the attacks of Celestial Immortal Infatuation and the other three?

Although his mobile Immortal estates was described as an ‘Immortal estates’, it wasn’t actually an Immortal-ranked magic treasure; if it had been, Ning wouldn’t have been able to bind it in the past! Treasures of this sort were mobile but did not possess significant defensive power. This one was roughly on par with Heaven-ranked magic treasures. Against Bloodcloud Hall’s Ba-Serpent, Ning had felt that it should be able to resist for a short period of time.

But in the face of the far more powerful Celestial Immortal Infatuation, who was being aided by three more Celestial Immortals…it might instantly be blasted apart.

1. According to Chinese mythology, heaven and earth used to be an indivisible whole in the cosmic egg. In Pangu’s creation of the universe, he literally lifted up the heavens away from the earth, forming the universe.