Desolate Era

Although the Sithe heartlands had been completely sealed off, they continued to represent a disaster waiting to happen to the cultivator civilizations! Thus, Autarch Mogg eternally stood watch over this place, as did his avatar and the avatars of all five other Autarchs.

Riiiip! Space twisted, resulting in a dazzling tunnel of light appearing. Two figures emerged shoulder-to-shoulder from this tunnel of light, with one being the bald red-robed avatar of Autarch Titanos, and the other being a Tall, skinny, azure-robed man who had some scales on his cheeks. The second man was Autarch Mogg, and his eyes were flecked with azure light.

The two stepped out of the tunnel of light and entered normal space. “Darknorth, we’ve already arrived. Let Mogg and I investigate this place first.” Autarch Titanos glanced at the distant region, filled with a billowing black fog which surrounded many pocket dimensions that floated in the air. This was the place where the Paragon of Pills had been trapped previously.

“Alright.” Ji Ning waited from the separate dimension he had been teleported to. Now that the two Autarchs had arrived, he felt a sense of hope.

The reason these two had arrived was because of the specific Daos they followed. Autarch Mogg walked the path of the Space Daobirth Essence and was the Autarch with the greatest amount of control over space. This was why he was responsible for standing guard over the Sithelands; if anything happened, he would be able to sense it thanks to his dimensional mastery.

As for Autarch Titanos, his path was that of the Karma Daobirth Essence, an even more incredible Dao! He had met Ning twice, and as a result the two were connected by karma. It was possible that he would be able to sense Ning’s location thanks to the karma which bound them together.

The avatars of Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos scanned the area vigilantly. “Mogg, what do you think?” Autarch Titanos asked.

“Wait a moment,” Autarch Mogg said, his azure eyes scanning the void around them. Although the grand dimensional formation was now dormant, there were still some traces of its previous activation which allowed Autarch Mogg to calculate some of the secrets behind it.

Space trembled and rippled before his gaze. Suddenly, he stared off into the distance, then turned to look at several other locations as well. Frowning, he said, “Darknorth was right. This formation was activated from nine separate locations, each of which is incredibly far away. This formation is marvelously intricate, and its usage of dimensional mastery far surpasses my own.”

“I cannot find the dimension Darknorth and his team have been teleported to.” Autarch Mogg shook his head. “What about you, Titanos?”

“Darknorth’s too far away. I can’t find him via just karma alone.” Autarch Titanos frowned as well.

……action

Clouds lazily drifted nearby. Ning’s group remained atop the clouds, not daring to move about rashly.

“Darknorth, we’re unable to find the exact place you have been trapped,” Autarch Titanos replied. “Our only option is to have your Primaltwin come over here as well. Your Primaltwin should be able to sense your true body, allowing it to find you.”

“Alright.” Ning nodded.

“Mogg will head straight to the Flamedragon Realmverse and bring your Primaltwin over here,” Autarch Titanos stated. “The place you have been imprisoned in is most likely an extremely important Sithe nexus point. Given that we didn’t even know it existed, it has to be an incredibly dangerous place to be in. Don’t move about rashly; just stay there and wait for us.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not so rash as to run around wildly,” Ning sent back. The two sides then broke off the connection.

Ning was starting to feel rather grim. Autarch Titanos was skilled in karma, while Autarch Mogg was skilled in space, yet neither was able to locate him. This meant the formation which teleported him here was truly incredible!

“How did it go, Darknorth?” The Paragon of Pills looked at Ning.

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine. We’ll wait right here. The Autarchs are already on their way, but the place we’re in is fairly stable. It’ll probably take them a bit of time,” Ning said.

Hegemon Tia, Hegemon Flameleft, and the others were all secretly astonished. Daolord Darknorth truly was incredible; as soon as he was trapped here, Autarchs hastened over to help him out. The words ‘the Autarchs are already on their way’ clearly indicated that more than one Autarch had come. Since when were Autarchs so amenable to helping out ordinary cultivators?!

“Why did the Sithe establish this secret location?” Ning glanced at the surrounding area. Thanks to his incredible insight, he was able to vaguely see a vast sea off in the distance. He was quite curious as to what this realm contained, but he knew that if he indulged it too much it would be the death of him. He couldn’t be rash; it was best to wait for the Autarchs to come.

……

It took Autarch Mogg a mere month to find Ning’s black-robed Primaltwin, then bring it all the way over to the Sithelands.

The black-robed Primaltwin Ning was currently standing next to Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos in the air.

“My true body and the other cultivators were teleported away from that location right there.” The black-robed Ning pointed to an area of space, then pointed towards nine different directions. “The nine different sources of that dimensional formation came from those nine directions. All of them were located extremely far away.”

“That’s exactly what I sensed as well.” Autarch Mogg nodded. He had been in a rather contemplative state ever since he had discovered the dimensional formation. Clearly, he had been pondering over this formation.

“Darknorth, where is your true body?” Autarch Titanos asked.

“I can sense its location.” Ning noded. “I’d like to ask you to help me lead the way, Autarch Mogg.”

Autarch Mogg led the way in carving through space, while Ning’s Primaltwin guided him in his path. After spending the time needed to boil a kettle of tea, they had traversed the equivalent of five or six realmverses.

“Halt!”

They had reached a region of empty darkness which held nothing at all. The black-robed Ning stood there in the void, slowly moving forwards and warping through ten billion kilometers of space with each step he took.

Forward. Back. Up. Down. Ning seemed to be walking in circles, while the avatars of Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos watched from afar.

“Now that’s odd.” The black-robed Ning scanned the area. “Autarch Mogg, Autarch Titanos, I can clearly sense that my true body is within a hundred billion kilometers of us! And yet, I’ve discovered that no matter where I go, I cannot move any closer to it. Just now, I even tried to enter other dimensional continuums but still remained unable to move closer to my true body.”

“A hundred billion kilometers?” Autarch Titanos glanced at Autarch Mogg. “Mogg, what do you think?”

A hundred billion kilometers was a very short amount of distance to figures like Autarchs and Ning; a single step through spacetime was more than enough to traverse such a distance. And yet, Ning’s Primaltwin was able to sense his true body’s location but was completely unable to move any closer to it.

“There is an enormous hidden dimension here.” Autarch Mogg scanned the area, his eyes shooting out rays of blurry azure light which caused space to twist and distort. He said calmly, “This gigantic dimension is extremely well-made and perfectly separated from the outside world. No matter what you try, you won’t be able to move a single step closer to this dimension.”

It was similar to mortals walking on Ning’s old world of ‘Earth’. No matter how much time they spent walking on Earth’s surface, they would never be able to move any closer to Earth’s core. By the same principle, Ning was completely unable to move closer to this hidden region.

“It is absolutely perfect. Although I can vaguely sense that it is here, I can’t find any flaws in its creation at all which would allow me to lock onto it,” Autarch Mogg said. “If the teleportation formation was to activate again and bring another outsider here, I would be able to detect its location during the teleportation process and then open a dimensional tunnel to it. Right now, though, it is completely hidden and sealed away from us. There’s nothing I can do.”

“I have to somehow activate it a second time?” The black-robed Ning felt a bit frustrated.

“This dimensional tunnel has completely blocked off karma itself. I can’t locate Darknorth’s true body through karma either.” Autarch Titanos looked at Ning. “Darknorth, I’m ashamed to say this, but neither of us will be able to solve this problem in a short amount of time. I’ll have Ekong and the others come test it out as well. Perhaps one of them will succeed.”

“It’ll be fine even if you cannot. I might be trapped inside, but not just anyone can bring harm to me,” the black-robed Ning said. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Be careful.” Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg felt rather guilty. They knew that if even the two of them were helpless, it was unlikely the other four would succeed; Autarch Skyfeeder was skilled in the Dao of Time, Autarch Ekong was skilled in the Dao of Destruction, Autarch Bolin was skilled in the Dao of the Claw, and Autarch Stonerule was skilled in the Dao of Illusions.

“The reason my true body entered the Sithelands was to save someone; the Paragon of Pills,” Ning said. “The Mistress wishes to revive her three brothers, one of whom is a Hegemon of the Dao of the Sword.”

“Oh, the Paragon of Pills? I know of her.” Autarch Titanos nodded. “She sought me out, and I told her to come back after she had a thousand realmships worth of treasure.”

Ning said, “Autarch Titanos, I’d like to ask you to help the Mistress complete this dream of hers.”

“A minor matter,” Autarch Titanos said. “But the otherverse she resides in was created by Autarch Skyfeeder. I’ll have her handle this personally. It’ll be much easier for her to keep that otherverse safe while reversing spacetime to revive those three.”

This task was indescribably difficult for Hegemons, but to Autarchs it was nothing more than a bit of extra effort.

“Darknorth, you have to be careful inside there,” Autarch Mogg said solemnly. “We originally thought that we had taken full control over the Sithelands’s perimeter, sealing away the few places we didn’t breach… but clearly, we were wrong. There are hidden areas we were not aware of! I imagine that the Sithe have been watching us in secret, biding their time.”

“Don’t worry. Even if a Sithe Exalt comes, I’ll kill him with a blow from my sword,” Ning said with a smile.

……

Within that blurry, cloud-filled region. The white-robed Ning said to the Paragon of Pills, “Mistress, I’ve already spoken to the Autarchs. Autarch Skyfeeder will personally revive your three brothers.”

Tears appeared in the Paragon’s eyes, and her entire body began to tremble. Finally, two tears fell down… but a smile was on her face.

This solitary, glacially cold woman was actually, finally smiling. Her smile was radiant and beautiful, and even Ning was rather stunned by it. This was beauty that stemmed from the depths of a soul, beauty and joy which was truly infectious.

“Thank you, Darknorth.” The Paragon of Pills looked at Ning.