The Desolate Era

“Young master Youngflame, there’s no way we can deal with so many monstrous Dao-soldiers,” Adept Vastriver sent hurriedly.

Ning, staring at the titanic, sky-filling wave that had been formed by countless monstrous Dao-soldiers, felt powerless as well. He sent, “Young master Youngflame, what now?”

“Young master Youngflame.”

“Young master Youngflame.”

All of them looked towards Youngflame Nong. Even the black-skinned man, Xiangliu Fang, looked towards his young master.

“Uncle Fang, don’t worry about me. Go all out and massacre them.” Youngflame Nong ground his teeth. Waving his hand, he produced a marvelous golden globe of light which flew into the air, quickly growing in size until it reached a diameter of thirty meters.

“All of you, get in,” Youngflame Nong ordered. At the same time, he produced a white sack in his other hand, which opened up. “Don’t resist.”

Whooooooosh.

The surrounding Zifu Disciples were all sucked into the sack, and then the sack itself was carried by Youngflame Nong as he stepped into the golden globe of light.

Ji Ning, Mu Northson, Ninelotus, Yu Wei, Adept Vastriver, Xue Hongyi, Adept Bu You, and the other Wanxiang adepts all flew into the golden globe of light as well.

“Uncle Fang, I’ll leave this in your hands. Let’s reunite later,” Youngflame Nong said.

“Alright. It’s been quite a while since I’ve truly gone all out in a fight.” A hint of excitement had appeared in Xiangliu Fang’s eyes. Even he found it quite taxing to help protect Youngflame Nong from so many combined Dao-soldier attacks, as he had to block them all. Now that he no longer needed to do so, he was suddenly much more free to utilize his speed and agility, fighting to his heart’s content.

“Let’s go.” With but a thought, Youngflame Nong instantly caused the golden globe of light to begin flying at high speed. With a swoosh, it quickly flew towards the distance.

Ning and the others within the golden globe of light, curious, reached out to touch the light. Previously, they had been able to easily pass through it, but now, they realized that this golden globe of light felt extremely tough and resilient.

“This is my ‘Goldspirit Halo’,” Youngflame Nong said confidently. “Once I’ve activated the divine light within it, we are no longer able to exit it, but outside attacks are similarly unable to reach us... forget about these Dao-soldiers, even if three or five Loose Immortals came and attacked, they wouldn’t be able to do anything to us until after the energy of the divine light is used up.”

Ning secretly sighed in amazement. Unless something unexpected occurred, Youngflame Nong would be the next Godplume Duke... and he really lived up to that reputation. A casual treasure he pulled out was already comparable to the two life-saving items which Ning had acquired from the underwater estate.

Of the two life-saving items Ning had acquired in the underwater estate, one was offensive while the other was defensive. The defensive one, he had acquired from the Treasure Pavilion when he had reached the Wanxiang level as a Fiendgod. The offensive one, he had acquired after passing the fourth level of the Wargod Hall. This offensive treasure had been personally forged by Daoist Threelives in a moment of amusement, and its power was extraordinary.

“Five Skypillars!”

“Look! Five Skypillars!”

The Goldspirit Halo had just flown a few hundred kilometers away, high into the skies. As the saying went, when standing at a high vantage point, one would be able to see to a greater distance. This Immortal estate was tens of thousands of kilometers in size. Now that they were in the skies, they could immediately see that at the ends of the world in each direction, there was a pillar of golden light, soaring through the clouds and into the heavens. There were five in total, and each was unfathomably tall.

These five golden Skypillars of light seemed to be holding up the entire Immortal estate world.

“Five directions... the Five Elements,” Ning murmured to himself. “It seems this Immortal estate is divided up into five branching halls, each of which help to stabilize this world.”

“Skypillars.” Adept Vastriver and the others all revealed looks of delight.

“Hahaha...” Youngflame Nong began to laugh loudly. “So this Witchriver Immortal Estate is divided up into five halls. Those five distant Skypillars represent the locations of the five halls. Let’s immediately go over there. I have the key to the estate, and we can enter the halls. Those monstrous Dao-soldiers, however, cannot. Let’s go!”

Swoosh!

The golden globe of light quickly flew towards one of the closest Skypillars.

“Kill!”

“Kill!”

The thundering roars of battle seemed to shake the world. That vast, heaven-covering wave came crashing towards them, but in front of that Goldspirit Halo, a single, seemingly ordinary figure stood there protectively. It was that servant... Xiangliu Fang.

“Young master, the rest of you can head over. I’ll be there soon,” Xiangliu Fang said.

Within the Goldspirit Halo, Ji Ning and the others were naturally staring towards the distant figure of Xiangliu Fang, as well as that heaven-covering wave.

And then...

Xiangliu Fang’s body suddenly increased explosively in size. An unearthly, savage aura blasted out from him, and his figure quickly transformed into an incomparably massive, terrifying, and towering shape that was more than three thousand meters tall. His lower body was that of an enormous serpent, while his upper body appeared to be human. From his head, however, eight additional, massive serpentine heads emerged as well.

Nine heads, and the body of a serpent. An ancient, primal, savage aura emanated from him, filling the skies.

“Fiendgod!” Ning held his breath.

“A Fiendgod.”

“Good heavens... a Fiendgod.”

All of them were completely overwhelmed. They could all tell that this was definitely a Fiendgod! Someone with a strange appearance like this, with nine heads and the body of a serpent, clearly was not a human... and yet, he didn’t have the slightest hint of a monstrous aura either. What he emanated was the aura of a primordial Fiendgod, which caused all of their hearts to quiver. Given his massive body and ancient aura... he could only be a Fiendgod.

The likes of Xue Hongyi and Adept Bu You had never before seen a true Fiendgod.

“What an enormous body... is that a divine ability, or is his body naturally that large?” Adept Bu You couldn’t help but ask.

“Fiendgods are born with massive bodies,” Youngflame Nong said confidently. “Uncle Fang belongs to the primordial Fiendgod race known as the Xiangliu, the Hydraga. Hydraga, even amongst Fiendgods, are extremely powerful. Even without using any divine abilities, they have Fiendgod bodies that are three thousand meters long. Although Uncle Fang is only at the Primal level, as a true Fiendgod, and a Hydraga at that, even many Loose Immortals are no match for him.”

Ning and the others were all completely stunned. Although previously, Ning had seen an ancient Fiendgod attack during the time he spent in the wild marshes of the Gaol Mountains, and that ancient, awakened Fiendgod was clearly even more powerful than Xiangliu Fang... that ancient Fiendgod had simply crushed the Dragonwhale King’s skull with his fingers. Ning hadn’t had a chance to watch him truly fight.

But this time... he finally had a chance to see a true Fiendgod fight.

Fiendgod Body Refining... the goal was for humans to approach Fiendgods in terms of body strength! However, compared to a true Fiendgod, there was still a huge difference; for example, one’s body wouldn’t be as large as a Fiendgod’s, and one’s innate talents wouldn’t be as strong as a Fiendgod’s...

.....

“A Fiendgod?” The monstrous Dao-soldiers that were attacking were all badly startled as well. They had been living in this Immortal estate the entire time; they had heard of Fiendgods, but this was their first time actually seeing one.

The enormous, nine-headed, serpent-bodied Fiendgod towered there in the skies, two enormous black awls appearing within his hands.

“KILL!” Xiangliu Fang bellowed loudly.

BOOM!

Xiangliu Fang’s enormous serpentine tail swept out, and the air itself seemed to explode. Xiangliu Fang threw himself directly towards the giant group of monstrous Dao-soldiers.

“Just a single Fiendgod, and one that hasn’t even reached the Void level. No need to fear him.” That massive, sonorous voice echoed out once more, ringing in the ears of each of the monstrous Dao-soldiers. “Crush this Fiendgod to death.”

“Haaaaaargh!”

“Haaaaaargh!”

“Haaaaaargh!”

Xiangliu Fnag’s eight serpentine heads simultaneously unleashed savage roars. Suddenly, the temperature in the surrounding area dropped precipitously, to the point where ice and frost began to form. Instantly, a world of frost and snow manifested. In addition, his roars also struck out against their souls. However, since the monstrous Dao-soldiers were joined together as one, their souls were joined together as well.

“Kill!” The massive tidal wave crushed forward.

BOOM! BOOM!

The three-thousand meter Fiendgod moved straight forward to receive the attack, and the long awls in his hands stabbed out viciously towards the massive wave, causing the air to expode and seeming to carry enough power to shatter the skies and rend the earth.

Xiangliu Fang’s massive serpentine tail oscillated repeatedly, causing him to be incomparably agile and crafty, allowing him to time and time again avoid the sharp ‘tip’ of the massive wave, and then give the massive wave a vicious counter-stab!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

There, in the skies, the Fiendgod and the massive wave collided against each other repeatedly. A true Fiendgod absolutely had the power to fight those at a higher level of power. A Primal Fiendgod... this was something that was generally comparable to a powerful Loose Immortal or Earth Immortal. As for a Void-level Fiendgod? They were all comparable to Celestial Immortals! By comparison, Void-level human Earth Immortals, even those who trained as Fiendgods, however, were vastly inferior to Celestial Immortals. From this, one could tell how unique Fiendgods were.

However, there were simply far too many of the monstrous Dao-soldiers. Even Loose Immortals and Earth Immortals would have to stay away from them. Thus, the Fiendgod, Xiangliu Fang, was still the weaker party in this engagement. However, given his massive, Fiendgod body, he wasn’t afraid of suffering wounds. He was also incomparably nimble, and was thus able to unleash one terrifying attack after another in response.

“Uncle Fang can both advance or retreat in this battle, and he’s extremely nimble. He’s also able to keep fighting for a very long time... although these monstrous Dao-soldiers are capable of unleashing a shocking amount of power, there is a limit to their elemental ki; they won’t be able to hold on for too long,” Youngflame Nong said confidently.

“Formidable.” Adept Vastriver couldn’t help but sigh in amazement. “A true Fiendgod... they truly are formidable. Fiendgod Body Refiners... no matter how hard they strive to approach Fiendgods in power, a gulf still remains.”

“Right.” Ning nodded as well.

“The Youngflame clan truly is one of the top ten ancient clans of the Grand Xia Empire. A single young master’s personal servant... is actually an ancient, Primal-level Fiendgod.” Ning secretly sighed in amazement as well.

“How long will it be before my Dongyan clan is this powerful as well?” Ninelotus murmured silently to herself. Although the Dongyan clan also had Fiendgods, they wouldn’t go so far as to let one of their Primal-level Fiendgods serve as personal bodyguards.

Yu Wei just watched all of this quietly. As she looked at the Hydraga, some images from her past life began to flit through her mind.

“Hydraga...” Yu Wei let out a soft sigh. action

......

As Ning’s group was fleeing towards the Skypillar while watching the battle, suddenly...

“Old Poison-Dragon, hahaha... this Fiendgod is clearly only at the Primal level, but you still aren’t able to do anything to him? You, a Loose Immortal? Hahaha, it seems as though in the end, it will still be left to our Witchriver clan.” Accompanied by a laugh that seemed to cause the world to tremble, off in the distance, an enormous, ugly, hunchbacked giant suddenly appeared. The hunchbacked giant was tens of thousands of meters tall, and wielded a massive metal pitchfork. This giant appeared rather blurry and indistinct; clearly, it was formed from a large number of monstrous Dao-soldiers.

“Yaksha Dao-soldiers? Immortal Witchriver actually had Yaksha Dao-soldiers under his command?” Youngflame Nong was shocked. “The Witchriver clan... can these be the descendants of Immortal Witchriver?”

Immortal Witchriver was originally a monster himself. Naturally, he treated his own clansmen with more favor. Although countless years had passed, the clansmen of Immortal Witchriver remained the most powerful monstrous force within this Immortal estate world.

“Uncle Fang, quick, retreat.” Youngflame Nong didn’t dare to hesitate, staring with panic towards the distant Skypillar.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! The Goldspirit Halo continued to move closer and closer towards it.

“I can sense it.” Youngflame Nong revealed a look of delight as he stared towards the massive yet blurry illusion of a Skypillar, then loudly shouted, “OPEN!”

Instantly, an enormous entrance appeared into the illusory Skypillar. The entrance was open, and upon seeing it, Ning and the others all revealed looks of delight, knowing that this was one of the true, important locations of the Witchriver Immortal Estate.

Swoosh.

The Goldspirit Halo flew directly inside, and then the illusory entrance once more vanished.