The Desolate Era

“He’s courting death!” The skinny, jade-haired elder seated atop the cloud of beds was absolutely stunned and enraged.

Whoosh.

Black energy swirled in the air beneath his cloud, coalescing into the form of a black-robed man. The black-robed man raised his head to look at the skinny elder. “Uncle-master Helljade.”

“Godking.” Daofather Helljade glanced at the black-robed figure below him. He addressed him respectfully as ‘Godking’, as this man was still the nominal leader of the Seamless Gate. Although in power, Daofather Helljade was a bit more powerful than the ‘Godking’, the Godking was the sole heir to their true ‘king’, who every single True Fiend and Daofather of the Seamless Gate venerated.

Naturally, this veneration extended to the ‘Godking’ as well. Normally, Daofather Helljade stood guard over the Third World, but it was still the Godking who was usually in charge of deployments and army movements. In fact, all of the Seamless Gate’s matters throughout the Three Realms were the responsibility of the Godking.

The Fifth World, for example; there was actually a different Daofather who stood guard over it, but at important moments the ‘Godking’ would make the arrangements and deployments. He had learned the techniques of the ‘king’ of the Seamless Gate, the Lord of the Demonheart, allowing him to silently and soundlessly communicate in secret with any living creature of the Three Realms. This made it so that the Nuwa Alliance found it very hard to uncover the deployments and schemes of the Godking.

“Don’t panic. My true body is already beginning to summon our generals.” The Godking chuckled, but his eyes were filled with ice. “No matter what, we aren’t going to let Ji Ning escape again.”

“Right. We absolutely cannot let him escape again,” Daofather Helljade said angrily. “He killed nine of our Empyrean Gods and True Immortals just now. We’ve fought with the Zhuanxu Realm for so long, but we had only lost a single True Immortal to date. Now, all of sudden, we’ve lost this many! This Ji Ning is simply far too brash and wild. He actually dares to sneak attack us? He’s looking to die! We have to wipe him out. He cannot be allowed to escape!”

“Agreed.” The Godking nodded as well. He, too, felt pain in his heart at what had happened.

They had already lost dozens of Empyrean Gods and True Immortals during their defeat at the Crimsonbright Realmwar. Now, Ji Ning had suddenly struck out of nowhere and wiped out nine more. How could he not feel pain? How could he not feel anger?

“Don’t worry. The army is already assembling. Just give me a bit of time, and he’ll definitely die.” The Godking’s voice was filled with a murderous intent.

......

“Quick, assemble.”

“Assemble!”

“Quick!”

The Fifth World held a truly shocking number of Empyrean Gods and True Immortals. Once they received the Godking’s order, they immediately began to assemble together.

......

The Skylands major world of the Zhuanxu Realm. There was a towering golden structure in this world within a region surrounded by mountain peaks. It was quite dazzling and eye-catching. This was one of the two major bases of the Seamless Gate on the Skylands world, and it held a total of four Empyrean Gods and True Immortals within it.

“Quick, let’s go.”

“Withdraw.”

The four of them had been relaxing, but upon receiving their orders they began to panic. One had been training quietly, one had been teaching disciples, and the others had been eating as the Godking’s orders had suddenly come.

Space shattered apart, and a three hundred meter boat crashed in through the Void, appearing outside this towering edifice. Two massive Fiendgods appeared simultaneously. The Seven Planets God simply willed it, and the surrounding space became completely sealed and locked. Ning’s Heaven Punisher and the Seven Planets God simultaneously struck out with their weapons.

An explosive collision could be heard, as though the heavens themselves had been shattered. In the blink of an eye, the extremely tough and tenacious formations surrounding the structure had been shattered.

Ning and the Seven Planets God simultaneously charged forward.

“Quick, flee!”

“Let’s go!”

If they were one step ahead, they would survive. If they were one step behind, their souls would die.

The four Empyrean Gods and True Immortals had received the order to withdraw...but alas, only one of them was able to just barely escape. The other three were slaughtered by Ning and the Seven Planets God.

“Manorlord.” The Seven Planets God looked towards Ning.

Ning stared at the rubble before him. His coresense had long ago spread out to cover the entire Skylands world, and he sent mentally to Redsnow, “We’re not going to have any more opportunities. We were incredibly fast, tearing straight through the Void to travel from Winterherald to this place, but were just barely able to kill three of them. The other headquarters here on Skylands has already been evacuated. I imagine the other major worlds have been evacuated as well.”

“They’ve spread multiple headquarters across many major worlds. I refuse to believe they’d be willing to withdraw from all of them,” the Seven Planets God sent mentally.

“Let’s go to the other major worlds and take a look. Even if we can’t kill many of them, we can destroy their bases.”

It wasn’t easy to build up a headquarters like this. Ning had paid a significant price to set up the grand formations around Swallow Mountain, and the formations that were protecting these Seamless Gate headquarters were powerful enough to receive nine successive strikes from Ning’s Heaven Punisher, which had the power of a Daofather. Every single headquarters had been very expensive to build up.

Whoosh.

The Voidboat flew out from the Skylands world, once more tearing through the Void and hastening to another major world.

......

“Withdraw.”

“Withdraw.”

“Withdraw.”

The Godking’s true body was sending the orders and redeploying his soldiers. “The six of you, stand guard over Divine Goldlight Mountain. The eight of you, stand guard over the Seamless City...”

Various individuals were being ordered to withdraw, but the Godking was also sending some Empyrean Gods and True Immortals out to gather together at some special locations, such as the Seamless City or some other citadels. Once ten of them hid inside these war-citadels and joined together...even Ji Ning would find it difficult to breach their defenses.

Of course, if they didn’t have any war-forts protecting them, Ji Ning would find it much easier to deal with them. But those war-forts were very hard to breach.

This was why, during the Realmwar against the Crimsonbright Realm, once one side retreated into its war-citadel, the other side would halt its attacks. Both sides understood that unless there was an enormous disparity in power, it would be very hard to breach the defenses of a war-citadel.

“You guys, go draw Ji Ning’s attention and tie him down.”

“Go draw his attention.”

“Buy some time.”

The Godking’s orders came in rapid succession.

......

Whoosh!

The Voidboat tore through the Void, arriving at yet another major world.

“There are eight Empyrean Gods and True Immortals hiding within the Seamless City here.” Ning’s heartforce instantly discovered the black, levitating Seamless City. He immediately sent a mental message to the nearby Seven Planets God.

“Hiding inside a Seamless City? Hmph. If they are hiding inside a war-citadel...even if we attack, it’ll be hard for us to break through,” the Seven Planets God sent mentally. “If there were eighteen of them standing guard within a Seamless City, we’d have no chance at all...but there are only eight of them. If we join together, we still have a chance. The Seamless Gate is intentionally giving us false hopes; they want us to attack and waste time here. I imagine that they are currently deploying their armies against us. Soon, their armies will arrive.”

“Agreed.” Ning understood this as well.

“Next world.”

Boom! The Voidboat once more departed, heading towards yet another major world.

In fact, Ning actually decided to leave the entire Zhuanxu Realm and head to a different realm, the Xingtian Realm. Wargod Xingtian, the Heaven Punisher, was a tremendously powerful figure. How could anyone who was proclaimed as a ‘God of War’ during the Primordial Era be weak? And given that he was a member of the Primordial Imperial Clan, the realm under his control was definitely not weaker than the Zhuanxu Realm at all.

“Damn.”

“Withdraw!”

Ning’s sudden assault against a completely different realm resulted in him reaping the rewards he wanted.

.......

In one realm after another, the forces of the Seamless Gate fell into chaos.

These were all supreme, top-tier realms...and so the entire Seamless Alliance was filled with commotion.

“He’s just running around randomly.”

“Ji Ning really moves quite quickly.”

“Damn him.”

The True Gods and Daofathers of the Seamless Gate were so angry, their teeth hurt. In fact, all of them wanted to personally intervene...but they could sense coresenses of the major powers of the Nuwa Alliance clashing against their own coresenses. The Nuwa Alliance was watching all this happen as well. The major powers of the Seamless Gate could sense the coresenses of terrifying figures such as Lord Tathagata the Buddha, Daoist Three Purities, Subhuti, Fuxi, Suiren, and others. Instantly, they all calmed down.

All they could do was watch and do their best to redeploy their soldiers.

......

The Third World.

A total of 289 Empyrean Gods and True Immortals had all been gathered here.

The black-robed Godking and Daofather Helljade stared downwards at the group of Empyrean Gods and True Immortals. The Third World was meant to deal with the Zhuanxu Realm and other top-tier Realms. Emperor Zhuanxu alone had more than six hundred Empyrean Gods and True Immortals under his command, to say nothing of the rest of the Five Emperors and the other realms. He controlled several times as many experts as Daofather Crimsonbright. This was the difference between a powerful realm and a weak realm.

Empyrean Gods and True Immortals all preferred to follow experts, after all. If you could become a disciple to Daofather Three Purities, why would you choose to become a disciple to Daofather Crimsonbright instead? The strong would naturally grow stronger and the weak would naturally grow weaker. The likes of Lord Buddha, for example, had an entire pile of Daofathers under his command.

The Zhuanxu Realm alone had so many Empyrean Gods and True Immortals. The Third World had to simultaneously deal with the Zhuanxu Realm and multiple other realms; naturally, it had a large number of Empyrean Gods and True Immortals. Thus, it didn’t take too much time for it to summon 289 of them.

“Join together into the Seamless Infinity Formation. You have to slay Ji Ning,” the black-robed Godking ordered.

“Yes,” the 289 Empyrean Gods and True Immortals acknowledged in unison.

“Head out!” The Godking gave the order, and the battalion of Empyrean Gods and True Immortals all flew into a black shuttle, then disappeared into the skies.

The Seamless Infinity Formation, when formed by more than two hundred Empyrean Gods and True Immortals, was unfathomably more powerful than the Three Eyed Demon that had been formed by the three Diremonster Gods of Mount Dragoneater. It had the power to battle against even real True Gods or Daofathers! It would indeed be quite easy for it to slay Ning’s Heaven Punisher. One or two Empyrean Gods or True Immortals might not be a match for it, but a large number of them would prove to be a terrifying threat.

In any war, a single person by himself was a puny, unremarkable force.

Unless, of course, you had reached Nuwa’s level. Even the leaders of the Daoist Path and the Buddhist Sangha had a chance of dying in the war, which was why Subhuti hadn’t joined in the first one.

......

A Voidboat continued to frantically travel from one major world to the next. Ning knew that he was taking on tremendous risks, but his decision to incense and incite the Seamless Gate was always a dangerous one. So he would kill, kill, kill! Kill as many as he could! His heartforce was spread around him in a giant bubble; as soon as something happened, he would immediately flee.

After killing those nine on Winterherald, he had killed six more in his dangerous lightning strikes. Ning, however, wanted to kill even more.

“Hurry, Ji Ning! The Seamless Gate’s army has arrived. You need to flee! Subhuti’s voice suddenly blasted out within Ning’s mind.

“What?!” Ning was shocked.

BOOM!

Far off in the distance, space itself blew apart as a black shuttle suddenly appeared.

When the 289 Empyrean Gods and True Immortals had assembled on the Fifth World, the Godking had personally cast a spell to completely prevent any outside force from scrying on it! Subhuti’s [Dream of the Three Worlds] was formidable, but the Godking had been personally been taught by the Lord of the Demonheart, and so his abilities were incredible as well. If he focused on blocking any scrying, he was still capable of preventing Subhuti from detecting what he didn’t want them to detect.

Only after the group of Empyrean Gods and True Immortals left the Third World aboard the black shuttle did Subhuti discover them.

He immediately notified Ning...just as the grand army was about to arrive.

BOOM! Subhuti’s voice transmission caused Ning to feel shocked, but he immediately tore into the Void to flee. Thus, just as the Seamless Gate’s army appeared, Ning began to flee.

“Chase him!”

BOOM! BOOM! As soon as the Voidboat tore into the Void to escape, the black shuttle also pierced into the Void. They were able to trace the spatial ripples to find out exactly which region Ning’s Voidboat was headed towards.