The Desolate Era

The shockwave from the roar blasted outwards from the vast creature, causing space itself to tremble and shudder.

This roar alone was capable of heavily injuring Hegemons, but it was still a bit weaker than Ji Ning’s Sword Dao Domain. Long before it even got close to Ning, it was blocked off by those endless streams of sword-light.

“What is that freak?” the Paragon of Pills asked.

“Many dangerous areas in the Sithelands have been sealed off, and some of those areas are places with Daoguard Towers,” Ning said. “Daoguard Towers vary in power; there’s obviously no way that a Hegemon’s Daoguard Tower would be as strong as an Exalt’s Daoguard Tower. This Daoguard Tower we ran into wasn’t all that strong; the owner definitely wasn’t a Sithe Exalt. However, all Daoguard Towers contain a multitude of attacks, ranging from long-distance strikes, traps to capture foes, close-range attacks, and a final kamikaze attack.”

“A kamikaze attack?” The Paragon of Pills was surprised.

“For example, this Daoguard Tower was used to suppress a creature known as a nagapede,” Ning said with a laugh. “Even back during the Dawn War, our side only encountered a total of nineteen such creatures. I didn’t expect to run into one of them today.”

It was quite rare for a Daoguard Tower to be hiding such a powerful creature beneath it, which was why Ning had mocked himself as being ‘lucky’.

The Autarchs and the cultivator civilizations all lived in a single enormous celestial entity known as their ‘Chaosverse’, while the Sithe hailed from a different Chaosverse. Chaosverses were the largest celestial bodies in the Infinite Void, but the Void did hold some other creatures within it as well. On the whole, these creatures were generally less intelligent than beings who lived within the Chaosverses, as only the vitality of a Chaosverse could give rise to truly perfect beings and the incredible figures who would become the Lords of Chaos.

The creatures who lived within the Infinite Void were somewhat inferior... but many of them were born with incredible strength! However, their low level of intelligence made it easy for them to be manipulated and made use of. The Autarchs had once slain two strange creatures who were comparable to Autarchs in power. Both of them came from the Infinite Void.

When the Sithe invaded Ning’s Chaosverse, they not only lost the benefit of having the Dao empower their strikes, they were also suppressed by the ‘foreign’ Chaosverse itself! This was why the local cultivators were able to make their invasion so difficult. But in the Infinite Void? There, they weren’t strengthened by the Dao but also weren’t suppressed. As a result, they were much more powerful and able to capture many of the strange beings which lived in the Void.

“This creature is fairly powerful. It is probably on par with Sithe Exalts,” Ning said.

“On par with Sithe Exalts? What are we supposed to do, then?” A look of worry appeared on the Paragon’s face.

“Leave it to me,” Ning said.

......

The titanic creature’s lower centipede-body slithered forward slightly, its giant head focused straight towards the area Ning was in. The Silver Goldhorns, Ning, and the Paragon of Pills were all there.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” the nagapede growled.

“Can you tell me your name?” Ning said, his voice transmitting directly into the ears of the creature.

The nagapede stared back at Ning with a savage, maddened look in her eyes. Suddenly, she let out a fierce howl and shot forwards, her centipede-like body scuttling forwards like a crawling streak of light that shot straight towards Ning.

“Yet another one which has been driven mad. Many of these creatures caught by the Sithe end up being driven mad by them.” Ning shook his head. These powerful creatures weren’t very intelligent, but they were at least comparable to ordinary mortal adults. This one, however, was more like a madman.

Whoosh! She scuttled forwards at incredible speeds. Ning and the Paragon of Pills were far away, with countless streams of sword-light barring the nagapede’s path towards them. Thus, she turned her attention towards the Silver Goldhorns.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” She flew next to the nearest Silver Goldhorn, then reached out towards it. Her giant alabaster fingers took a firm grip over the Silver Goldhorn, which howled and struggled fiercely. Alas, it was like a toy that had been firmly gripped by a pair of alabaster pincers. The nagapede clenched her fingers, causing cracks to appear throughout the surface of the Silver Goldhorn’s body.

Clack! Clack! Clack! BOOM! The Silver Goldhorn was crushed to death!

Ning raised an eyebrow when he saw this. “She’s strong.” The Sithe had brought only the most terrifyingly powerful creatures they had found and enslaved in the Infinite Void outside the Chaosverse. Every single one of these creatures possessed absolutely apocalyptic levels of power. Judging from the clench, this nagapede was clearly much stronger than even the Flamewing God. She might be able to rival even the Sithe Exalts!

“Kill! Kill!” She continued to growl this single word as she reached out once more, her fingers moving like a blur to latch onto yet another Silver Goldhorn. Her long, slender white fingers once more clenched tightly, shattering that second Silver Goldhorn.

She was going to kill and destroy everything she saw. By now, she no longer had any clarity of mind; she had gone completely mad. In fact, she had been driven mad and transformed into a creature that only lived for murder even before she had been sealed away by the Daoguard Tower.

“Poor woman.” Ning watched silently from afar as he continued to use his sword-light to keep the Silver Goldhorns at bay.

Time flowed on. Some of the Silver Goldhorns began to flee, but the Sword Dao Domain gave them nowhere to run. Ning drove each and every one of them towards the nagapede, which crushed all of them! There was no point in him subduing and collecting them, after all, to this very day, the cultivators were still unable to find a method for controlling the Silver Goldhorns.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! One of the stone pythons was captured by the nagapede, which latched onto it with both hands and tugged at it fiercely to no avail. The nagapede then lowered her head to bite the stone python. CRUNCH! This time, the stone python was broken into two halves.

After roughly the time needed to boil a kettle of tea, all of the Silver Goldhorns and both of the stone pythons had been slain by the titanic nagapede. As for Ning, thus far he had merely maintained his Sword Dao Domain without actually exchanging blows against the creature.

“Kill!” The nagapede focused her full attention upon the distant Ning and the Paragon of Pills. They were the only living creatures left in the region.

“Mistress, please enter my estate-world for a short while,” Ning said.

The Paragon knew that she couldn’t afford to be a distraction to Ning. She immediately said, “Be careful.” This was definitely the most terrifying creature she had ever seen. She had thought that the Silver Goldhorns were tough, but this giant ‘nagapede’ had crushed them like bugs.

“Don’t worry.” Ning waved his hand, collecting the Paragon into his estate-world.

“Kill! KILL! KILL!!!” the titanic nagapede howled, charging towards Ning. There was simply no way for the Sword Dao Domain to hold her back.

Clang! Ning drew a Northbow sword, then murmured softly to himself, “I hope I’m lucky enough to be able to get rid of her within three strikes.”

The giant nagapede scuttled forwards towards Ning, emanating an aura of earth-shaking power that was far more baleful than even the Blazesun Ruler’s. In the Infinite Void outside the Chaosverses, she had annihilated an entire celestial body in just this manner. She definitely stood at the very apex of power amongst the creatures that resided in the Infinite Void, but upon being captured she had been converted into an insane beast that lived for slaughter.

Unfortunately for Ning, being in this Chaosverse hadn’t lessened her power at all! This was because her power came from her own body, rather than the power of the Dao. As a result, there was virtually no difference in power between when she was in the Infinite Void and when she was in a Chaosverse.

Swoosh! A streak of dazzling golden sword-light appeared, swiping forwards in a completely unblockable manner. It pierced straight into the titanic nagapede’s body, which was unable to impede it despite being extremely tough.

Slash! Slash! Slash! Sword-light appeared a total of six times inside of her body. Finally, she trembled and her eyes turned dim. Her gigantic body quickly began to shrink as it came to a halt in midair. A streak of light flew out from the injury to her chest. It was Ning, Northbow sword in hand.

“I had to attack a total of six times before I was able to land a fatal blow.” Clink! Ning resheathed the Northbow sword back into the scabbard.

“Every part of this creature is an absolute treasure and has many uses.” Ning waved his hand, pulling the giant body of the nagapede into his estate-world. Next, he released Azurefiend and the Paragon of Pills.

“Darknorth, just now I believe I saw the nagapede’s corpse appear within your estate-world.” The Paragon of Pills had a look of surprise and delight on her face when she appeared. She immediately inspected Ning carefully. “You disposed of it quite quickly. It seems you truly have reached an unfathomable level of power.”

“Long ago, the Autarchs informed me of the weak spots these creatures possess. That made it much easier for me to deal with this one,” Ning said. Only a fool would’ve engaged the creature in a ‘proper’ battle. These creatures all had weak spots inside their bodies, but their outer shells were so tough that only Ning and the Autarchs were able to dispose of them with ease.

The short creature who had been in control of the Daoguard Tower had hoped that the powerful creature would be able to exhaust Ning and cause his death in such a manner. In truth, he couldn’t be blamed for this belief. Amongst the Sithe, he was a low status servant who had never before encountered a Daolord who had failed the Daomerge yet was in control of an Eternal Omega Dao. He was operating on guesswork when he believed that the nagapede would be able to exhaust Ning, and indeed if Ning knew nothing at all about the nagapede then she really would’ve proven to be rather troublesome. The nagapede had been the short creature’s only hope of dealing with Darknorth... but it had fallen far short.

“Darknorth, is it time to rescue Annihilation?” the Paragon of Pills asked.

“Not just yet. Right now, it’ll be quite hard to break through those dimensions to rescue them,” Ning said. The sealed dimensions had been rearranged to form the Dimensional Hallway Chains, which were extremely difficult to break through. “These dimensions were all extremely stable because they drew power from the Daoguard Tower. Now that the Daoguard Tower has been destroyed, they will be like rivers which are running dry. They won’t be able to replenish any of the energy which they have used up. Eventually, they’ll transform back into ordinary space which can be torn through with ease.”

“Now... let’s go take a look at what’s inside the ruins of the Daoguard Tower.” As Ning spoke, he began to fly towards the shattered remnants of the toppled Daoguard Tower.

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