Desolate Era

At the peak of that solitary mountain. Ji Ning and Realmslord Windgrace remained seated facing each other, while Su Youji poured their wine.

“Master,” Su Youji suddenly said.

“Hm?” Ning turned to look at her.

“I’m going to go with you on this trip to the Blazesun Domain,” Su Youji said hurriedly. She knew that since Ning had failed the Daomerge, there was a limit to how much longer his lifespan would be. He might end up in a battle, resulting in his lifespan depleting even more quickly. She wanted to accompany Ning in his final days for as long as she could.

Ning hesitated for a moment. He knew what Su Youji was thinking. In the end, he nodded: “Very well. However, you need to stay with me and listen to my orders.”

Su Youji immediately smiled radiantly. “Alright.”

“Daolord Darknorth, shall I use the Blacksun to help speed you on the first part of your journey?” Realmslord Windgrace was rather hesitant.

“If you poured in all the treasures you own, how far would you be able to send me via the Blacksun?” Ning said with a laugh.

“Tearing through space consumes an enormous amount of energy! The Hiddenfiend Realmverse is fairly close to the Flamedragon Realmverse, which makes things easy for me. But if I did that a few hundred times, I’d completely use up all of my treasures,” Realmslord Windgrace said.

Ning was surprised: “A few hundred times? Not bad! You live up to your reputation, Realmslord Windgrace. I didn’t realize you had that much treasure.”

“I probably don’t have as much as you, Daolord Darknorth,” Realmslord Windgrace said with a laugh. “The Lonely King plundered his way through the Chaosverse. He had many foes, but he also had many more treasures than I do.”

Ning admitted to it. The Lonely King had an entire army pillaging on his behalf, and had killed three Otherverse Lords. He had also acquired a complete Sithe armory… and now, all of it belonged to Ning.

“In other words, even if you used up all your treasures on the Blacksun, it’d only save me less than a hundred million years of flight time via realmship.” Ning shook his head. “This trip to the Blazesun Domain will take billions of years. Saving a bit of time won’t be of much use.”

His lifespan was limited, but it was still calculated in chaos cycles. ‘Short’ was relative to the lifespans of Eternal Emperors and Daolords!

“Thank you, Daolord Darknorth,” Realmslord Windgrace said gratefully. He couldn’t help but feel rather nervous before Ning, who was capable of killing him with ease. He previously had designs on Ning’s Flamewing God, after all!

……

The next day, Ning led Flamewing, Hegemon Azurefiend, Protector Whitethaw, and Su Youji in boarding his realmship and departing from the Flamedragon Realmverse. They were heading off to the distant Blazesun Domain.

Within the endless Great Dark. Hegemon Azurefiend was helping to steer the realmship. There were two ways to ensure that a realmship could continue to proceed at incredible speeds. The first was to use chaos jewels to replenish it’s power; the second was to have a Hegemonic figure use his Immortal energy to keep it activated! This journey would last billions of years, and they’d be travelling every day. It would be quite hard to come up with enough chaos jewels to meet the consumption need.

Hegemons, however, could constantly replenish their Immortal ki and were completely capable of restoring it at a rate which surpassed what the realmship used up.

“Thank goodness we have Azurefiend.” Ning stood there, staring into the endless Great Dark.

“Haha.” Azurefiend squeezed an exaggerated smile onto his withered, gnarly old face. “It is my honor and my blessing to be able to serve the almighty Daolord Darknorth. Other Hegemons would beg for this opportunity on their knees, to no avail. O, almighty Daolord Darknorth, if you were willing to give me just a few pointers, I would benefit endlessly from your wisdom.”

“Knock it off,” Ning said with a light groan.

“Heh heh heh,” Azurefiend snickered.

“Your smile looks ugly as all hell,” Flamewing said, casting a sidelong glance at Azurefiend while eating.

Azurefiend’s old face tightened as he pointed at Flamewing: “You glutton, it’s none of your business if I wish to flatter my master!”

“What’s that?” Flamewing glared at him. “Azurefiend, you wanna go outside the ship and have a little sparring competition?”

“I’m just kidding with you!” Azurefiend immediately shifted tacts and smiled ingratiatingly at Flamewing. By now, everyone had known each other for quite some time. At the beginning, Azurefiend would never have dared to jest with Flamewing like this. By now, they were just teasing each other. Everyone understood everyone else.

Su Youji smiled as she watched from nearby. As for Whitethaw, he stood by Ning’s side with that honest look on his face as always.

“Enough. I’ll give you some guidance on our way over. Focus on controlling the realmship,” Ning said. His mastery over the Eternal Omega Sword Dao had allowed him to reach a brand new level. All other Daos instantly seemed so much simpler to Ning! Ning’s insights into the other Daos were continually increasing. He didn’t have to train like crazy; all he had to do was spend the occasional period of time in meditation, and he would begin to skyrocket in his understanding of those Daos.

It must be remembered that Autarch Bolin, as a Hegemon, had to spend an extremely long period of time before managing to upgrade all those other Daos to the Hegemonic level. Ning was now far more powerful than Autarch Bolin had been as a Hegemon, and it could be said that there was now only a small difference in insight between himself and the Autarchs.

The Autarchs were born off the principle of ‘One Dao Births Many Daos’. Ning, in contrast, was a pure ruler of the Dao of the Sword. In terms of the Sword Dao, he was the absolute number one expert in all the Chaosverse. Given enough time, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to reach Hegemony in the Dao of Water, the Dao of Lightning, the Dao of Formations, and his other Daos. Alas, there was a limit to how long he would be alive for and thus there was no way he could study the other Daos as he pleased.

“Don’t worry, Master,” Azurefiend chortled. By now, he also addressed Ning as ‘Master’, and even he didn’t notice the change. Ning was simply so powerful that Azurefiend no longer felt the slightest bit of pride when facing Ning. All he felt was a sense of submission. By now, there were probably many Hegemons who would be willing to serve him. A casual bit of tutelage from Ning would represent an enormous karmic blessing for those Hegemons.

……

Time flowed on. More than 3.9 billion years went past in the blink of an eye. Ning had acquired a detailed star map from the treasures he had taken from the deceased Lonely King, and he had also gotten another star map from Realmslord Windgrace. Although it was impossible for anyone to fully map out the entire Chaosverse, he now had fairly complete records on most of the places cultivators had visited.

On this journey, Ning had continuously used the Dao of Numerancy to divine the most appropriate paths forward, as well as the safest route through some places with distorted spacetime. This allowed them to easily pass through even the most dangerous of environments.

“Master! Master!” Azurefiend said hurriedly, “The Squaremix Realmverse is up ahead. That’s the place Hegemon Goodsong asked to meet with us. He should be in the ‘Grand Void Canyon’ of the Squaremix Realmverse.”

“Hegemon Goodsong?” Ning nodded slowly. “He informed me of Nuwa’s location. I owe him a debt and should go repay it.”

“Hmph. I’m sure he wouldn’t dare to ask for too much,” Azurefiend said with a cold snort.

“If he does, I’ll eat him!” Flamewing called out, his mouth covered with grease.

“Enough, you two. Pipe down,” Ning said. “Let’s go meet Hegemon Goodsong.”

Swoosh. Just a short while later, the realmship arrived in the ‘Grand Void Canyon’ of the Squaremix Realmverse. This was a very unique place with distorted spacetime that came together in layers, forming an enormous spatial canyon that could be seen with the naked eye. The depths of the canyon led to another mysterious realm that was filled with tremendous danger. This was a place that had been created during the Dawn War, and the depths of the canyon were filled with many relics. However, by now Ning didn’t care about such relics or legacies.

“Here they come.” A bald, red-robed man was standing directly above the Grand Void Canyon, scanning the area anxiously. Moments later, a spacetime rift appeared and a realmship came sailing out of it. The red-robed man was overjoyed and immediately flew over to welcome them.

Several figures came flying out of the realmship. The leader was a white-robed youth who had a black sheath on his back. Others could dimly sense that his truesoul was slowly but surely fragmenting apart, generating unique ripples as the fragments disappeared into the void. Next to him was the furry Sithe Protector Whitethaw, as well as a peerlessly beautiful woman. There was also a skinny, shriveled old man and a fatty who was holding onto a haunch of meat.

The fatty was Flamewing. It was a born glutton who was capable of devouring entire realmverses with ease. It truly did have a terrifying appetite… and it suddenly glanced sideways at the bald, red-robed man.

“Eek!” The red-robed man instantly quivered as his subconscious screamed to him that he was in terrible danger. He knew that the fat man was the legendary Chaos Primordial which Daolord Darknorth had tamed, a creature which could kill Hegemons like him with ease.

However, Hegemon Goodsong also knew that the most terrifying member of this team wasn’t the Chaos Primordial. Rather, it was the harmless-looking white-robed youth standing in front of him.

“Goodsong greets you, Daolord Darknorth.” Hegemon Goodsong bowed respectfully, not daring to show the slightest bit of disrespect.

“I have to thank you, Hegemon Goodsong. Thanks to you, I finally know where Nuwa is. If I didn’t find her, I would probably harbor regrets until the day of my death.” Ning smiled. “I promised long ago that I would owe a favor to the first person to help me locate her. What do you wish of me, Hegemon Goodsong? I’ll do anything I’m capable of doing.”