The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

Yishui City.

This was a newly constructed city. It had been slowly built up as the Shui clan had begun to flourish, and it was guarded by the current Patriarch of the Shui clan, the Zifu Disciple, Shui Tianyi.

“Eh?”

Ning stood atop the clouds, staring downwards. His divine sense covered the entire city. By now, Ning had enough power that he could’ve annihilated this entire city, but as an Immortal cultivator…Ning didn’t dare to massacre too many commoners. For Immortal cultivators to kill commoners was a taboo and a grave sin! But of course, if commoners dared to offend cultivators, cultivators could naturally punish them, but a large-scale massacre would result in sin swirling around one’s body…and just like Bei Zishan, invite the assaults of the Raindragon Guard!

“It seems as though those ten are all potentially the Patriarch of the Shui clan.” Ning’s divine sense swept out and identified several people with fairly powerful souls and strong auras, but he wasn’t able to accurately ascertain their strength just by looking at them.

After watching for a bit longer…“It’s him.” Ning quickly picked out the actual Patriarch of the Shui clan.

……….

“Patriarch.”

“Milord.”

When Shui Tianyi was walking across the stone path, the other clansmen were incomparably respectful towards him, because he was the only Zifu Disciple guarding the clan! But of course, there was also the even more powerful ‘Shui Yi’, who was located in the distant, incomparably powerful Dong clan.

These people had no idea that the fact that they were respectfully addressing Shui Tianyi as ‘Patriarch’ had let Ning, high above them in the skies, know exactly who the Patriarch was.

“Mm.” The blue-robed Shui Tianyi’s long beard billowed in the wind. He did appear quite distinguished. Soon, he arrived at his quiet, secluded meditation room. No servants were here, and no clansmen dared to draw near. To his clansmen and servants, his meditation room was an extremely mysterious place that no one would dare to disturb.

Within the private room. Shui Tianyi sat down in the lotus position, his eyelids drooping. “My Shui clan is increasingly flourishing. The liquefied elemental essence which Elder Yi has delivered us has allowed our clan to produce three more peak Xiantian experts. If one of them were to break through to the Zifu level, that would be wonderful. Our Shui clan currently has too few Zifu Disciples!”

As the Patriarch of a tribe, Shui Tianyi held a deep desire to let his tribe grow stronger. Their current status was simply too awkward. Weak? They did have Zifu Disciples. Strong? They didn’t even have a single commandery city! An awkward status like this naturally caused Shui Tianyi and ‘Elder Yi’, these two Zifu Disciples, to rack their brains for methods for strengthening their tribes.

“Endure for now.” Shui Tianyi still remembered the words which Elder Shui Yi had told him. “Tianyi, don’t be impatient. Take things one step at a time. The roots of our tribe are simply too shallow…if we are too impatient, we might be viewed with hostility by the other great powers in the Dawn Bay region, at which point, we might be in danger of being annihilated. We need to be patient and slowly wait. Since I am with the Dong clan, the other powers of the Dawn Bay region won’t launch a war against us. When we have more Zifu Disciples in the tribe, I will bring over some of my good friends from the Dong clan and establish a base and foundation for our Shui clan!”

“Elder Shui Yi has sacrificed far too much for our tribe,” Shui Tianyi said with a silent sigh. It was only because Shui Yi had willingly entered the Dong clan as a servant that he had been able to slowly help the Shui clan.

“Eh?” Shui Tianyi suddenly felt a powerful collision against his soul. BOOM! Everything in the world instantly went dark. A sword-light flashed past, piercing through the roof of the private room, and a figure entered the room. Ning stood there in the room, a white sack having appeared out of nowhere into his hands.

“Come in!” Ning opened the bag, and the bag instantly unleashed a powerful, wild sucking power. Whooooooosh. The sucking power was so great that the nearby plates and utensils were all drawn in. As for the dazed and completely defenseless Shui Tianyi, he too was drawn directly into the sack. This sack was known as the ‘one-breath sack’, and was only a Mortal-ranked magic treasure. The sack possessed a sucking power that could drawn objects into it, and although it didn’t seem to be larger, it could store quite a few meters worth of objects.

This sack wasn’t able to be used to actually attack others. Only when enemies were completely helpless would they be absorbed into it. To put it simply, this was used to store people! It was impossible to breathe within the ‘one-breath sack’, and so ordinary people who were drawn into it would all suffocate to death. Xiantian lifeforms and above, however, would be fine even if they couldn’t breathe.

“Hmph.” Ning immediately tied the sack off with a rope. Then, with a wave of his hand, he sent out a powerful surge of strength from his Fiendgod-enhanced arms, smashing directly against the wooden table and blasting it apart in an explosion of sound.

“Time to leave.” The large sack over his shoulders, Ning transformed into a streak of light, moving towards the hole he had created moments earlier, charging into the heavens and disappearing.

The people outside were naturally able to hear the explosive sounds which came from within the private room.

“What just happened?”

“A streak of light seemed to soar into the skies, just now.”

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! The Xiantian experts of the Shui clan all hurried over, moving so fast as to appear like blurs. Quite a few of them saw the streak of light soar into the skies, moving so fast that they could only vaguely tell that it was human-shaped.

“So fast…it should have been an Immortal cultivator.”

“A cultivator flew out from the Patriarch’s private room?”

“Not good.”

All of them began to panic.

“Look, there’s a giant hole in the roof of the private room.” The Xiantian lifeforms who had reached this place first had flown in at a high enough angle that they could immediately see the large hole in the private room’s ceiling.

“Let’s go in.”

“Quick.”

They each leapt into that giant hole.

The Shui clan was truly too weak. The strongest member of the clan, Shui Yi, was merely a servant for the Dong clan, and so only the Patriarch’s private room was made of decent materials. Ordinary Xiantian lifeforms wouldn’t be able to break through the room, but Zifu Disciples generally would be able to.

The private rooms of the formal disciples of the Black-White College, by comparison, couldn’t be broken into by even the likes of Loose Immortals.

“Where’s the Patriarch?”

“It’s a disaster zone inside.”

“The table has been smashed, and the roof was broken apart, and the Patriarch is gone.” The entire Shui clan was instantly thrown into a state of panic. The very first thing they did was to go investigate the Patriarch’s life-tablet in the ancestral hall. When they did, they let out sighs of relief.

“The Patriarch’s life-tablet is intact. The Patriarch isn’t dead.”

“But why has the Patriarch gone missing?”

“Which Immortal cultivator attacked him?”

The Shui clan remained restless and uneasy. Their most powerful cultivator, the Patriarch, had gone missing; how could they not be uneasy? At this point in time, they thought of the most powerful member of their clan; Elder Yi, also known as Shui Yi, who was a servant within the Dong clan.

“Quick, ask Elder Yi to come back.”

“Quick, ask for Elder Yi to return.”

Ning, in the clouds above, held the one-breath sack over his shoulder as he inspected the below area with his divine sense. “As I thought, they have gone to ask Shui Yi to come.” Ning revealed a smile on his face. “However, from here to the Snowcloud Fields of the Dong clan is quite far. It will take anywhere from half a month to one or two months.”

Ning glanced sideways at the one-breath sack on his shoulder. “This fellow is a Zifu Disciple. He’ll survive a month or two being trapped inside this sack.”

Time flowed on.

The Shui clan had immediately shattered an insignia, causing Shui Yi, located in the distant Dong clan, to be greatly shocked. He knew that something major must have occurred within his clan, as otherwise, they wouldn’t have shattered it.

“I have to go back right away.” Shui Yi instantly applied for a leave of absence from the high-level members of the Dong clan. As a peak Zifu Disciple, he was naturally no ordinary servant, and could be said to have some status within the clan…a leave of absence to pay a visit to his home was a small matter. The high level members of the Dong clan had naturally nodded in approval. That very day, Shui Yi had embarked on a return trip back to his clan.

Roughly half a month later.

Just a hundred kilometers away from Yishui City, atop a wild, untamed, forested mountain, there was a beautiful estate. This was Northson’s construct-estate, and it was covered by formations that ensured that commoners and Xiantian experts would have no chance of discovering it. Ning’s group, for now, took up residence within this place.

“Master, would Shui Yi perhaps not return?” Qingqing said, worried. Ning shook his head. “This is his tribe, and he is the most powerful member of it. How can he not come back?” Aside from a very small minority of figures who had been humiliated by their tribes, most members of a tribe who had grown up within it would feel a powerful sense of belonging to their tribes. This was part of the law of survival in this vast world. If one wanted to live a good life, the entire tribe would have to be incomparably unified.

One generation after another would do battle for the sake of the tribe; this had become a form of faith for the countless tribesmen. Even those who weren’t truly infatuated with and loyal to their tribes would generally return when the tribe was in trouble.

“Eh?” A flash of sword-light suddenly appeared in Ning’s eyes. The nearby white-robed Uncle White glanced towards Ning as well. “He’s back?” Ning nodded. “He’s back!”

“Let’s go.” Uncle White couldn’t resist any longer as well, and Ning nodded. “Right.” Swoosh! Swoosh! Ning and Uncle White soared into the skies, quickly moving towards Shui Yi, who was currently hastening back towards Yishui City.

“We’ll follow them as well.” Northson and Qingqing immediately transformed into streaks of light, following after them.

In midair. A green, leaf-type magic treasure was soaring through the skies, with a gray-robed Daoist standing atop it. Shui Yi had a black birthmark on his face, and he always bore a smile, which gave him a rather crafty, sly look. However, a sly, craft person like him…had been able to claw his way to increasingly greater heights within the vast Dong clan, and rise from becoming a servant to a peak Zifu Disciple.

Actually, in addition to from those who had truly formidable backgrounds, the Immortal cultivators who had clawed their way up the ladder, one step at a time, could not be underestimated!

“What exactly happened? Why did they break the seal and ask for me to return? Even Tianyi couldn’t handle this matter?” Shui Yi, till this very moment, had no idea what had happened.

“Here I am.” Shui Yi could already see the distant Yishui City. The reason why Yishui City was named Yishui was precisely because the entire clan wanted to express its gratitude to him, Shui Yi.

“Swoosh.” Just as Shui Yi controlled his green leaf-type magic treasure to soar down from the clouds, suddenly…

Swish! A streak of light suddenly flew past, blocking his way. “Eh?” Shui Yi’s face changed. Just as he was about to reach Yishui City, another cultivator had come to bar his way? Shui Yi instantly sensed danger.

He took a close look. Standing in the air opposite from him was a fur-clad youth and a white-robed man. The white-robed man appeared to be the fur-clad youth’s servant or housekeeper. The fur-clad youth just stood there, staring at Shui Yi, his eyes as cold as ice. He said in an icy voice, “So you are Shui Yi?”