The Desolate Era

“Is that...!”

The Lord of All Fiends, the major powers of the Nuwa Alliance, and Godfiend Witherspike’s incarnation all stared at the chaos vortex which had suddenly appeared. All of them tensed as they sensed that aura of tremendous power expand and wash over them. The source of that terrifying aura...lay in the center of Old Man Yuan’s giant palms.

“Impossible. This is impossible.” Old Man Yuan was still seated on his lotus throne, but his face now completely changed. He could keenly sense the terrifying power emanating from Ji Ning, who he still held within his grasp. Clearly, Ji Ning was striving to push him back.

“He made a breakthrough?!”

Old Man Yuan had experienced the war that ended the Primordial Era. It was at the very end of that war when Mother Nuwa had broken through to become a World God, absorbing enormous amounts of chaos energy and then dominating all her foes. For a chaos vortex to appear at a moment like this...Old Man Yuan knew right away that Ji Ning had begun to make a breakthrough.

But...Ji Ning had only trained for roughly a thousand years!

“He’s barely a thousand years old. There’s no way he could possibly become a World God so quickly.”

“And judging from the size of this chaos vortex, it doesn’t appear as though he has become a World God.”

“So long as he isn’t a World God, he still won’t be a match for me.” Old Man Yuan had been heavily wounded. He knew that this was a critical moment, and he truly did not wish to lose. To lose meant dying in the hands of these local yokels, and so he repeatedly consoled himself by telling himself he would win.

“Get over here!” Old Man Yuan sought to tighten his grip around Ning and pull him over.

BOOM!

Ning suddenly manifested three heads and six arms. His six arms trembled violently, but he was still able to push Old Man Yuan’s palms aside.

A vast flood of chaos energy continued to pour into Ji Ning’s body. Ji Ning’s divine body was continuously improving and transforming as his True God power was rapidly converted into Elder God power. This caused his aura to continue to grow in power, allowing him to fight back with greater and greater efficacy.

“Damn.” This time, Old Man Yuan struck out with all six of his massive palms.

BANG! BOOM! BANG!

Ning continued to block and occasionally counter-attack. Only part of his mind was on the fight; most of his efforts were directed towards converting his divine power.

His body continued to grow more and more powerful...

“How can this be? How can he be this strong? Even if he has become an Elder God, it doesn’t make sense for him to become this strong.” Old Man Yuan grew frantic. The amount of power which Ji Ning had revealed already surpassed that which an Elder God should be capable of. Old Man Yuan’s six arms were now completely incapable of suppressing Ji Ning.

Of course, Old Man Yuan had no idea that Ji Ning had trained in both the [Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods] and the [One True Body] divine abilities. Upon becoming an Elder God, Ning would be as strong as seventeen Elder Gods added together. This was even more effective than seventeen Elder Gods joining together into a formation; he could be considered a half-step World God!

Old Man Yuan couldn’t be blamed for his miscalculation.

This combination of techniques was extremely rare, even amongst Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals. Less than one in ten thousand would be at such a level of power. The King of Pangaea himself had only risen to prominence amongst Elder Gods after he had mastered the third level of the [Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods], which allowed him to fuse all eighteen of his bodies together. When he later became a World God, he became an incredibly powerful one thanks to his enormously strong and stable foundation.

“Old Man Yuan can no longer hold him down.” The Lord of All Fiends revealed a look of joy.

“He can’t hold Darknorth down any longer.” Buddha Maitreya and the others began to grow excited as well. Why had so many major powers, Immortals, and Fiendgods sacrificed their lives earlier? It was all for the sake of defeating this alien Outsider and defending their Three Realms. Now...they could see hope!

“You have to win. You HAVE to win!” Patriarch Subhuti grew excited as well, his body beginning to visibly tremble.

“Die! Die! DIE!” Old Man Yuan’s six arms struck out at Ji Ning with wild, berserk abandon.

Rumble...

The flood of chaos energy continued to pour into Ning’s body, causing even more of his True God power to be converted into Elder God power. By now, more than seventy percent of the divine power in his body was Elder God power, and the rest was still being converted. He was now so strong that his punches and kicks were enough to completely block Old Man Yuan’s attacks. In terms of raw power alone, he had definitely surpassed Old Man Yuan already.

A half-step World God...unless a true World God made an appearance, a half-step World God could be described as capable of utterly dominating all opponents.

“How could this happen? How could he be this strong? What the hell type of divine abilities and secret arts has he trained in?” Old Man Yuan was beginning to panic. “I need to leave, now!”

There was no time for slow pondering. Old Man Yuan immediately chose to flee!

As one of the Nine Divine Generals, he was an extremely crafty figure. He knew very well that given how Ji Ning had learned the [Ninehorn Lightning Serpent], it would be extremely difficult for him to flee. This was one of the reasons why he hadn’t tried to leave earlier and had instead focused on attempting to wipe out the experts of the Three Realms. Now, his plan was to take advantage of the fact that Ji Ning was making a breakthrough and use the remaining time to flee.

Swoosh! Old Man Yuan immediately began to flee at high speed atop his black lotus, and as he did so he gave orders to his many soulslaves. “Stop Ji Ning!”

“You want to run?”

Ji Ning was continuing to convert his divine power, but he immediately transformed into a streak of black lightning and chased after Old Man Yuan. Although his divine power was not yet fully converted, and although combat would slow down the breakthrough process, that wouldn’t make much of a difference. When Mother Nuwa had made her breakthrough to become a World God, she had caused an even greater disturbance and needed to convert even more divine power, but she was still able to dominate all her foes during the process.

Swish! The black lightning serpent flashed forward through the Void, easily dodging past the other major powers and chasing after Old Man Yuan.

“Damn.” Old Man Yuan felt hatred and regret. He had made so many preparations and backup plans, and he had even managed to avoid exposing himself during the war that had ended the Primordial Era after seeing Mother Nuwa make her breakthrough. This time, he had only chosen to reveal his true self after Lord Demonheart had died and the two alliances had come to a ceasefire...but then he ended up running into this monster, Ji Ning!

Houyi was a monster.

Ji Ning was a monster as well.

Houyi had slain Lord Demonheart and breached the first black lotus formation.

Shennong’s Lifeseizer Flower had heavily injured him.

The self-detonations of the various major powers had depleted the majority of Old Man Yuan’s divine power.

“Given all of my abilities, if I was at peak power I wouldn’t be afraid to battle this Ji Ning head-on. But...this body is a body that I took over through possession. It is too slow!” Old Man Yuan shook his head. He wasn’t even able to fly as fast as the speed of light; there was no way he would be able to escape. And, unlike Subhuti, he didn’t have any techniques that allowed him to flee to a different spacetime continuum. His only choice was to face Ji Ning head-on.

“Blacklotus Guard.” Old Man Yuan sat down in the lotus position once more, the black lotus flowers once more circling around him and covering an area of ten thousand kilometers. The lotus petals began to swivel in place as he stared icily at the white-robed youth.

Ning just stood there in the Void, his aura continuing to grow more and more powerful.

Ninety percent. A hundred percent!

The chaos vortex above him finally began to vanish. Ji Ning looked at Old Man Yuan, his eyes filled with a terrible, terrifying light.

“Outsider...today is the day you die.” Ning’s body blurred briefly as he manifested his three heads and six arms.

“A yokel like you dares to put on airs in front of me?” Old Man Yuan sat there atop his black lotus throne as he replied in a cold voice. “I might be heavily wounded, but if I have to fight to the death I can still kill a bumpkin like you.”

“Hmph.”

Ji Ning let out an angry snort. His six arms instantly stretched out through the Void, expanding many tens of thousands of kilometers as they simultaneously struck out towards Old Man Yuan’s black lotus flowers. Ning’s six mighty arms were like six enormous axes, and he furiously chopped down upon the black lotus flowers with power comparable to Pangu’s when Pangu cleaved apart Heaven from Earth.

Divine ability...[Starseizing Hand]!

[Brightmoon] sword-art, Heavenbreaker stance!

“Keep dreaming.” Old Man Yuan felt complete confidence in himself. The Blacklotus Guard was a secret art of God Emperor Blacklotus. It possessed incredible defensive strength and was so durable that the simultaneous attacks of Ji Ning, Daoist Three Purities, the Lord of All Fiends, and Keeper Everwood had been able to do nothing to it.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Six massive explosions rang out.

The black lotus flowers surrounding him shuddered violently. Even his lotus throne shuddered, and quite a few of the lotus petals began to crack apart.

“What?!” Old Man Yuan was shocked. How was this possible? He had been personally taught this technique by the God Emperor. Even supreme Elder Gods should find it difficult to breach this technique!

“Eh?” Ning actually frowned as well.

He knew better than anyone else how shockingly powerful he had become. He was now a half-step World God, and his six palms were all comparable to Chaos weapons. His skills in sword-arts were incredibly high, and when he used the ‘Heavenbreaker stance’ to strike his blows definitely possessed the power of a supreme Elder god. He had also used the [Starseizing Hand], making his blows more powerful than even Lord Demonheart’s had been.

He had struck out with six palms at the same time...and yet, the black lotus flowers hadn’t completely shattered?

“I told you. Today is the day you die.” Ning retracted three of his six arms, then manifested a blood-red sword within one of them – Violetjewel. Ning’s eyes were filled with murder.

If he didn’t use Violetjewel and instead used brute force strikes, he would probably still be able to eventually break apart the Blacklotus Guard or to completely exhaust Old Man Yuan’s divine power and then kill him...but Ning felt far too much hatred towards Old Man Yuan. He wasn’t willing to wait, and so he immediately took out the most powerful weapon he had.

A half-step World God body...a supreme sword-art...the [Starseizing Hand]...and Violetjewel, a weapon that was comparable to a Dao weapon...

Ning’s power had already crossed the threshold of a World God’s power.

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