The Desolate Era

The Sithe Exalts could sense Ji Ning’s murderous intentions. None of them hesitated as they all immediately transformed into streaks of light, charging inside the formation. The difference in power between them and Ning was simply too great. They had no chance at all of winning a frontal clash; their only chance was to hide within the formation!

“Heartworld projection, descend! Sword Dao domain, manifest!” Ning instantly used all of his most powerful domain-type techniques, sending both his heartworld projection and his sword domain crashing down upon them. The Sithe Exalts felt as though they were swimming through molasses as their flying speeds dropped dramatically. They were very close to the formation and should’ve been able to enter it in the blink of an eye, but they were now moving a thousand times slower than before.

“Hurry up and run! Hurry!” the Sithe Exalts continued to do their best to escape.

“Good luck, everyone. There’s no way he can kill all eight of us at once.” The Sithe Exalts were quickly able to judge the situation. The eight of them were scattered in eight different directions around the vast temple! They were all physically flying towards the center of the temple because spacetime in the area had been suppressed, making warping through it impossible. Ning was very fast, but the eight Sithe Exalts were all very close to the formation. They’d be able to enter it soon, and Ning wouldn’t be able to kill all of them before the rest made it inside.

“Die.” Ning instantly charged towards the closest Sithe Exalt, a female whose eyes were filled with terror.

“Don’t kill me!” the female Exalt screamed, her voice filled with a strange cadence that tried to seep into Ning’s soul and truesoul. This was an illusory technique! action

“Playing around with illusions in front of me?” Ning smiled coldly. When he had been in the failed Daomerge state, his cracked truesoul might’ve been weak enough to partially succumb to such a technique... but now that he had succeeded? His truesoul was far more powerful than ever before, and he had also gained a high level of mastery over the Dao of Illusions. How could this Sithe Exalt possibly shake him?

“Die.” Sword-light howled past him in the form of countless dimensional blades. Ning knew that these Sithe Exalts all had such powerful bodies that one or two blows probably wouldn’t be enough to kill him, and so he unleashed all six Northbow swords in a windmill of rapidfire attacks. Given Ning’s power, twenty strikes was all that was needed to completely annihilate her! Ning then began to fly towards the other Sithe Exalt close by.

“N-no...” The fiery-armored Sithe Exalt had a look of despair and resentment in his eyes as he stared at the eight revolutions formation in front of him. It was just inches away, but Darknorth’s terrifying domain pressed down upon him with such might that he was only able to fly very, very slowly.

Ning, in contrast, was able to fly at maximum speed. He arrived in just a moment, and his terrifying sword-light descended as well. Once again the most terrifying offensive Dao in all the Chaosverse, the Eternal Omega Sword Dao, revealed its deadly brilliance. Strengthened by Ning’s perfect mana, it had only become even more powerful than the past. This Sithe Exalt was tougher than the previous one, but it still only took Ning a total of twenty-six strikes to slay him.

Ning turned his gaze towards a bald and muscular Sithe Exalt off in the distance. That Sithe Exalt instantly started to panic. “Run, everyone! Run!”

Whoosh! Ning quickly sped towards the man. Slash! His sword-light hammered the Sithe Exalt from afar, and the heavily-wounded Exalt just barely survived it and charged into the formation. By now, the other five had all entered the formation as well.

“Thank goodness we made it inside.” The six lucky survivors all felt a sense of fear wrack their hearts. The Exalts glanced at each other, their eyes filled with joy at having survived. That had been utterly terrifying! They were supposed to be Autarchs, but here in this Chaosverse they had been weakened so dramatically that they were at most comparable to the Blazesun Ruler in power. This was the natural disadvantage all invaders faced – they would be suppressed and prevented from using even a wisp of the Dao’s power.

“He won’t be able to break through the formation so easily. We’re safe inside here.”

“For now, we’re saved.”

“We did our best, but we weren’t able to carry out Iyerre’s orders,” the Sithe Exalts said to each other.

“Look over there!” the black-haired Sithe Exalt suddenly cried out fearfully.

Two of them had perished, but the six of them were still more-or-less in control over the entire temple and were able to keep the eight revolutions formation active. Their control over the formation allowed them to clearly see what was happening outside... and they saw Ning transform to become absolutely towering in size, on par with the entire temple itself.

The titanic Ning was now far larger than many chaos planets. He was in three-headed, six-armed form, and his six Northbow swords had increased in size to match.

“DIE!” the titanic Ning roared furiously, sending his six gargantuan Northbow swords descending like the punishment of the heavens towards the formation protecting the temple.

After being lucky enough to escape once, Ning wasn’t going to be so foolish as to dive back inside! However, he wasn’t going to let the Sithe off either.

As far as the other Autarchs, Autarch Titanos had been forced to sacrifice an avatar to allow Autarch Ekong to escape, and Ekong himself suffered heavy injuries; he was in no condition to keep tussling against the Sithe Exalts. Autarch Stonerule had merely used his avatar to set up a few formations to seal that temple away, making it impossible for them to escape. Autarch Stonerule didn’t dare to use his avatar to actually enter the temple and fight them there.

Ning was the only exception. He had enough power to continue fighting against and killing these Sithe Exalts! This was because he was actually capable of defeating even the most powerful formations they had thrown at him.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Ning sent the six colossal Northbow swords crashing down with all his power. The outermost dimension protecting the eight revolutions formation was destroyed in just three seconds, but the formation quickly began to regenerate and rebuild the destroyed dimension.

“Not good. He already knows how to solve the eight revolutions formation, and there are only six of us left. It’s hard for just six of us to keep the entire thing active. The formation is going to be much less stable than before!”

“Hold on for as long as we can!”

“Keep it stable, men!”

“The eight revolutions formation has many different worlds within it. It will take him time to destroy them one-by-one, while the six of us can continue to remake new ones. After attacking for a while, Emperor Darknorth will probably give up.” The Sithe Exalts clung onto this faint hope as they struggled to defend.

......

There was no way Ning would spare them. He continued to use all of his power to furiously assail the formation with his six Northbow swords, destroying one world after another. New worlds were quickly reborn, but this was costing the Sithe an enormous amount of energy!

A short while later, a figure flew over towards Ning from afar. This was Autarch Mogg’s avatar.

“Darknorth.” Autarch Mogg’s avatar had actually arrived long ago, but he hadn’t dared to intervene by going inside.

“Haha, Mogg! Perfect timing,” Ning laughed. “Give me a hand. It doesn’t matter what techniques you use, just hammer away at the formation with all your power.”

“Sure.” Autarch Mogg’s body transformed to become absolutely towering in size, and he manifested a total of six arms as well, each of which wielded a long and slender saber. He began to furiously assail the temple’s formation alongside Ning! Ning understood the flaws within the worlds and so his attacks had already put the formation under incredible stress. Now that another Autarch-class combatant had joined him, the stress was further amplified. The worlds began to crumble even faster than before.

Now, a world was crumbling every two seconds. One world after another shattered before their blows...

“We’re almost at the point where we can’t keep up with how fast they break our worlds.”

“Our energy stores are almost gone.” The Sithe Exalts were filled with despair. If they were at full power, they could at least use the spacetime formation or other formations to protect themselves once the eight revolutions formation broke apart, but they had virtually exhausted their energy stores in their attempts to first trap and then kill Ning. Now, Ning and Mogg were forcing them to use up their final bits of energy.

“We’re finished.” Their faces were filled with despair.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The final worlds were broken apart, causing the six Sithe Exalts to abandon all hope. As the remnants of the eight revolutions formation began to crumble, they shared a final glance.

“If almighty Iyerre succeeds, those of us who died in battle might have a chance to be revived.”

Boom! Boom! Boom! A series of explosions rang out, followed by the complete collapse of the remnants of the eight revolutions formation, which now lacked any controllers.

“Self-detonation?” Mogg’s avatar gritted its teeth. “Why are the Sithe so loyal? None of the Sithe Exalts we captured and tortured after the last war have surrendered either.”

“Destroying one of their temples counts as a victory in my book,” Ning said. He waved his hand, drawing the remnants of the temple into his own estate-world. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s leave.” Mogg nodded. Riiip! The two tore through spacetime and left side-by-side.

......

Iyerre was still flying through the Great Dark at maximum speed. He looked calm, but flames could be seen flickering deep within his eyes. He was eagerly looking forward to the moment where he could kill Emperor Darknorth. By killing Emperor Darknorth, his victory over this war would be secured!

Whoosh. The barefoot Iyerre came to a sudden halt within the empty darkness of space... He stared off into the distance. He could sense the deaths of each and every Sithe Exalt under his command, and his face gradually grew increasingly unsightly to behold.