The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

The gates swung open. Ji Ning stood outside the gates, staring inwards. He was able to see that the insides of the towering estate stretched out at least ten billion kilometers, and an awesome, terrifying aura instantly swept out towards him from inside. The aura of power circulated in accordance with a formation and gathered at three particular spots, where three trees were located.

“Is this...?” Ning’s face turned pale when he looked at them.

Three trees. The first tree was in a corner, and its trunk was twisted like a coiling dragon. The entire tree, including its leaves, glowed with a faint blue light. It had three fruits hanging off its branches, and the fruits were snow-white in color and fist-sized. The fruits were surrounded by surges of flowing blue energy.

The second tree was the largest tree and had the most foliage. It was like an enormous canopy of flowers that covered an area of tens of millions of kilometers, and as soon as Ning saw it Ning realized that this tree only had two fruits on it. Both fruits were completely blood-red, and they looked as though blood would flow out of them if anyone touched them.

The third tree was the smallest one, so small it could simply be described as a sapling. It was roughly just three meters tall, and it looked semi-translucent and as cold as ice. Every single leaf was like a work of art, while the sparse branches held nine fruit that glowed with light. Each fruit was like a miniature sun that glowed dazzlingly.

“Is that one of the eight sacred bloodfruits, the ‘skyjewel bloodfruit’?” When Ning’s gaze fell upon the two blood-red fruits located on the second (and largest) tree, he couldn’t help but feel stunned. This was insane. Insane!

The eight sacred bloodfruits... most likely, people like Daolord Solesky had never even heard of them. Ning only knew of them because of the [Seven Leafpill Chapters]. The [Seven Leafpill Chapters] had contained a great deal of information regarding rare ingredients, including the eight sacred bloodfruits. Every single one of the eight was incomparably rare, and a single sacred bloodfruit tree would drive Eternal Emperors wild with lust and could incite warfare amongst Hegemons.

“Skyjewel bloodfruit... that means this is a sacred bloodfruit tree?” Ning stared at the awesomely large tree before him, then turned to look at the other two. The first tree was the one with a twisted trunk that looked like a coiling dragon, while the other tree was the sapling. However, Ning had the feeling that the aura of power emanating from these two trees was every bit the equal of the central sacred bloodfruit tree.

“I only recognize the skyjewel bloodfruit.” Ning shook his head. “I don’t recognize the other two at all.” The only reason he even recognized the former was because of the [Seven Leafpill Chapters]. Otehrwise, he wouldn’t recognize any of them at all.

“I wonder... can I take them away?” Ning could feel his heartrate speed up. “Won’t know until I find out.” Ning walked over, quickly arriving at the large tree at the very center. Ning reached out with his right hand, which expanded to become so large that it blotted out the skies itself. His hand was now a million kilometers in size, and it reached out and grabbed the tree by the main trunk, seeking to uproot it! Ning’s movements were very slow; if any danger appeared, he would have ample time to react.

BOOM! Suddenly, a surge of power emanated from the surface of that tree, knocking Ning’s hand aside.

“Seems I can’t take it with me after all.” Ning actually laughed. This was as he had predicted; these three trees had clearly been planted here by the major power who had set up the Azureflower Estate, after all. How could that major power have allowed others to so easily rob him of his trees?

“I wonder if I can harvest the fruit or not.” Ning then reached out to one of the fruits. He was able to easily harvest a completely blood-red fruit. Pop! The fruit fell into his hands.

“So one sacred bloodfruit has fallen into my grasp, just like that?” Ning was rather amazed. He had just wanted to give it a try; he hadn’t expected to actually succeed. “What about another one?” Ning reached out to try and harvest the other bloodfruit, but this time a wave of power swept out from the sacred bloodfruit tree’s trunk, preventing Ning from succeeding. “So stingy! Still, one is enough. Thank you, senior.”

The sacred bloodfruit tree was currently sending surges of power to the location where the first bloodfruit had been harvested, and the power was slowly taking the form of a bloody ball of mist. Clearly, the tree was beginning to give birth to a new fruit.

A single sacred bloodfruit tree could at most give birth to two fruits at once. Now that Ning had harvested one, it could give birth to a second one, but of course that would take quite some time.

The value of a single fruit was naturally much lower than that of the actual tree, which would be capable of giving birth to sacred bloodfruit over and over. Despite that, it was still a rare reassure worth over twenty million cubes of chaos nectar. Treasure like this could be pined for but never planned on!

“What about the other two trees?” Ning headed over to try his luck with harvesting once again.

......

Uprooting the trees? Impossible. He couldn’t break as much as a single twig on the trees. These three ancient, mysterious trees seemed to possess sentience; they would only permit Ning to harvest a single fruit each! After that, they wouldn’t even let Ning draw near them.

“These three fruits...?” Ning waved his hand, causing three fruits to appear and float in the air in front of him. The first was the completely blood-red skyjewel bloodfruit, the second was a snow-white fruit that was covered by swirls of blue energy, and the third was the fruit that shone like a miniature sun. “The major power who built the Azureflower Estate was quite generous. I won a fortune as soon as I entered this place!

Ning put away the fruit and continued his explorations. Soon, he saw an utterly beautiful arch bridge, below which was a wide stream of flowing water. The water was clear and pristine, but radiated an aura of iciness which caused a layer of white steam to appear above it.

Ning walked onto the arch bridge. He immediately saw that on the other end, atop the distant grasslands a pair of old men were seated facing each other, a chessboard and some chess pieces before them.

“T-there are other cultivators here?!” Ning was stunned. However, the two old men were dressed in exactly the same clothes; both wore grayish-black robes, and they both turned their heads to stare towards Ning’s bridge.

“Seniors.” Ning immediately bowed towards them. The two elders had restrained their auras, making it so that Ning couldn’t secretly investigate them, but when Ning looked at them he fel a sense of incredible danger from them. He knew that if they were to fight, he would probably be at danger of losing his life.

“An outsider has actually arrived in the estate.” One of the two gray-robed elders chuckled as he looked at ing through his two silver eyes. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen an outsider.”

“Hmph.” As for the other gray-robed elder, he had a pair of blood-red eyes. Ning was looking right at him as he stared at Ning, and when their gazes intersected Ning suddenly felt as though he was seeing an endless sea of murder and blood! Ning’s heart shivered when he saw that unfathomable amount of hatred and slaughter. Thankfully, Ning’s heartforce was quite strong and just a step away from sixth-stage heartforce, and so he was able to safeguard his own heart.

“A mere Daolord of the Second Step?” The blood-eyed elder laughed coldly as he swept out with his sleeves.

BOOM! His sleeves suddenly stretched out through the skies, seeming able to sweep away all things and moving so fast that Ning was unable to dodge it before it reached him and struck at him.

“What’s going on?!” Ning had no time to spare. His body immediately blurred as he manifested [Three Heads, Six Arms], and all six of his arms gripped a Northbow sword. His sword-light flashed, then transformed into an enormous black hole. The sky-blotting sleeve lashed down upon Ning’s sword-light, and Ning’s sword-light began to crack as the black hole tottered.

BOOM!

Ning could sense a terrifyingly strong concussive force be applied to his entire body, a force so strong as to completely stun Ning. He flew backwards uncontrollably, flying millions of kilometers past the arch bridge before slamming into the ground with a loud booming sound. He actually rolled over a few times on the ground before slowly beginning to regain consciousness.

“W-what...” When Ning came to his senses, he was terrified by the implications of what had just happened. “Even though I had the Hegemon armor protecting me, I was knocked completely senseless for a few moments. Thankfully, my divine body is comparable to a low-grade Eternal weapon. Otherwise, I probably would’ve died even through the Hegemon armor.” Ning couldn’t help but celebrate his survival. The Hegemon armor had once again weakened the attack to one thousandth of its full power, but that old man had been far more powerful than Patriarch Clearwind when the latter had used his forbidden secret arts!

Ning’s guess was that this had been the attack of someone on the Eternal Emperor level. Ordinary Daolords of the Fourth Step would probably be instantly slain by it! Ning himself was only able to survive because of both the Hegemon armor and the fact that his body was incredibly tough as well. Despite that, he had been instantly stunned and dazed by that attack.

“Eh?” Moments ago, the blood-eyed elder had been smirking. Now, however, he revealed a look of astonishment. “He didn’t die? How?! How could a Daolord of the Second Step withstand my killing strike?”

“Kid, get over here. Let me get a good look at you,” the blood-eyed elder spoke out.

“Stay away!” The silver-eyed old man immediately said. “No matter what, don’t step onto that bridge. The area beyond the bridge is forbidden to me and this old man. If you move past it, he’ll definitely attack you again.”

“Big brother!” The blood-eyed elder said angrily, “Whose side are you on?”

“Second brother, he’s just a young Daolord of the Second Step. He can help relieve our boredom for atime. Why must you move to kill him?” The silver-eyed elder was irritated as well. “We are Eternal Emperors, after all. For you to ignore your own status and try to kill a Daolord of the Second Step... have you not noticed that you are going crazy?”

“Emperors? We aren’t even cultivators any longer. Emperors? Ahaha...” The blood-eyed elder laughed wildly. He laughed like a madman, and his laughter was filled with endless hatred and pain.

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