The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

Ji Ning and the others didn’t dare to cause the slightest disturbance, for fear of drawing the attention of the ‘Daolord’ they suspected of being behind this Sacred Immortal Realm. Right now, they had the advantage of stealth. Once they were discovered, things would become difficult. This Sacred Immortal Realm was someone else’s territory, after all. There had to be many formations protecting it.

For example, that local branch of the Bluegrass Sect in the Brightshore Kingdom was only staffed with weak World-level cultivators, but they were still able to trap Ning thanks to the grand protective formation! A Daolord’s lair was an incredibly dangerous place. There was no such thing as being too careful.

But of course, Ning’s group was fairly confident. Generally speaking, they wouldn’t be worried about weaker Daolords at all.

Swoosh.

Ning’s group of five silently teleported through space to move to the margins of this great continent, the Sacred Immortal Realm. Given Prince Greatjoy’s mastery over spacetime, a spatial teleportation caused no spatial ripples at all.

“Eh?” Ning’s group stood next to some boulders at the rather ragged edges of this continent. When they looked at the chaotic space up in front of them, they saw countless streaks of golden runes flickering and flashing. An enormous, ethereal formation was covering this entire continent.

“What a powerful formation,” Heartlord Solewind said softly. “This formation is so profound that even I find it difficult to fathom. There’s no way an ordinary Daolord was capable of creating it. I wonder if this formation was purchased by this Daolord or if he created it himself.”

“Hopefully, he bought it.” Prince Greatjoy looked as solemn as the others had ever seen him.

Ning nodded as well.

Anyone capable of developing this formation was a Daolord of the Third Step, at the very least. In fact, it might even be a Verge-level Daolord of the Fourth Step! Given this Daolord also had the advantage of being on familiar terrain... they were going to be in serious trouble.

“Then how should we leave this place?” Waterlord Firesurge asked, “You all saw that spatial transfer array. It’ll only allow us to return to the Mortal Realm! Once we activate it to go back to the Mortal Realm, that Daolord will definitely find out and might chase us all the way back. We’ll have nowhere to run.”

“Return to the Mortal Realm through the formation?” Prince Greatjoy shook his head. “Those golems would probably notice as soon as we did anything, which means their master would know as well. Given how powerful Daolords are, this one would probably be able to send his will to span the entire Sacred Immortal Realm in an instant! He would be able to disrupt the transference process. We probably won’t have any chance of going back to the Mortal Realm.”

Ning, Solewind, Skyfire, and Firesurge all had heavy looks on their faces.

A Daolord definitely was an opponent who could prove to be a huge threat to them.

“We’re not going to be able to defeat this formation.” Solewind raised his head to glance at the great formation covering the entire Sacred Immortal Realm. “Even if we go back to the Mortal Realm, it won’t be of any use. Once we go back, we won’t be able to escape.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Ning advised. “Perhaps we might find something useful.”

“No other options.”

......

The five of them began to stealthily search the entire Sacred Immortal Realm.

The Sacred Immortal Realm was much smaller than the Mortal Realm, covering just a few tens of billions of kilometers! The entire continent was covered by this enormous formation, and in the very center of the continent there was a dim, faint green mist. Deep within that mist, there was a towering estate that could vaguely be seen. This was the only place in the entire continent which Ning’s group did not dare to enter.

It was highly likely that this estate was the place where the Daolord lived!

“What a terrifying aura of resentment and hatred.”

Ning’s group was standing atop a barren, black land as they stared towards the enormous black edifice off in the distance.

Above that enormous black edifice was an aura of hatred which was so strong that it had actually become corporeal. Some of the hatred was tinged with red light, while others glowed with a black aura. However, the hatred located at the highest parts of the edifice were transformed into a deep green color, a deep green which was formed as a result of the condensed hatred of countless cultivators over the course of countless years. Every so often, furious faces could be seen appearing within the aura of hatred.

“Even if I destroyed a hundred chaosworld, the hatred and resentment wouldn’t be as strong as it is here.” Greatjoy frowned.

“I can sense that there are countless cultivators imprisoned within. This aura of hatred should be generated by them,” Solewind said. “The reason why it is so dense is possibly because these cultivators are suffering unspeakable torments. We saw early on how many cultivators were lashed to those stone pillars.”

“Let’s go inside,” Skyfire Brightshore urged.

“Let’s go.”

They needed more information. None of them dared to be arrogant in dealing with the Daolord that might be living in seclusion within this continent.

The enormous black edifice was a jail of utterly titanic proportions, and countless cultivators were imprisoned within it. It must be understood that the Mortal Realm’s formation would activate once every century. It was only natural that many cultivators had been imprisoned here.

“This place...” Waterlord Firesurge’s face paled as he continued to walk forwards. “This place is even more terrifying than the terrible Nightmare Lands which the legends of my homeland spoke of.”

“And more terrifying than the Eighteen Hells of my own homeland.” Ning was equally somber.

This enormous prison was filled with various implements of torture and punishment. This entire prison was in reality designed strictly for the torture of cultivators. It must be understood that the Eighteen Hells of the Three Realms were designed to punish great sinners, but this place had only one purpose... to torture and torment as much as possible. This made it a thousand times as frightening, causing even the faces of these five to turn pale.

“AHHH! All of you will die one day! You demons! You devils! All of you will DIE!”

“Nooooo...”

“Spare me! Spare me! Spare me!”

“No begging. Begging is pointless.”

All sorts of voices could be heard. Some were filled with hatred, some rambled, some were frenzied, some were screaming.

The entire prison was being used to furiously torment all of the hundreds of millions of newly imprisoned Nascent Soul and Apotheosis cultivators. Some of the new abductees were still begging for mercy, but they soon realized that this was completely pointless.

Whoosh...

Ning’s group of five continued their journey through the prison. Nobody was able to see them, not even the golems responsible for torturing the prisoners.

Most of these golems were at least at the Elder God level. Some were at the True God level, and a few were even at the Empyrean God level. There had to be millions of golems within this prison.

“Who would’ve thought that the ‘Sacred Immortal Realm’ so many dreamed of was actually a hell such as this?” Ning murmured softly.

“Indeed. However, there are very few Elder God-level golems. Most are weaker... perhaps the Daolord of this land is fairly weak as well,” Solewind said.

“Hopefully.” A murderous look was in Greatjoy’s eyes.

If the Daolord was a weak one, the five of them would join forces to kill him! That would end all their worries at one go.

Whoosh.

Although there were restrictive formations scattered throughout the prison, they were meant for weaker cultivators and were completely ineffective against Ning’s group. Ning’s group was able to easily enter one of the jail cells.

This jail cell held over a hundred cultivators, all shackled in chains. One of them was a skinny old man who was seated silently in the lotus position, a terrifying look in his eyes.

“I can’t accept this. I can’t accept this!” The skinny old man growled mentally, “I have to ascend and escape. If I can escape, in the future I’ll come back and kill these devils.” To this very day, he had yet to realize that his tormentors were actually golems.

“Eh?” The skinny old man suddenly felt that something was off. Five figures had suddenly appeared before him.

“You-...” The old man was stunned. This was absolutely bizarre. These five figures were simply too clean and pristine, and none of them were wearing shackles. What’s more... the doors to the prison hadn’t even opened.

“I have some questions for you,” the skinny, bald, red-robed youth said.

“Yes,” the skinny old man said obediently. He felt a sense of absolute devotion to the man before him. If the man ordered him to commit suicide, he wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest.

As for other manacled cultivators in the jail cell, they weren’t able to see a thing.

......

As Ning’s group infiltrated the enormous prison, a figure suddenly flew out of an ancient, towering estate which was surrounded by faint green mist that was located in the very core of the Sacred Immortal Realm. This figure was dressed in light green robes, had a stooped form, and just a few green scales on his forehead. His eyes looked quite cold and insidious, and his ancient face was covered in wrinkles.

“Master.” An Elder God golem standing outside the estate, waiting respectfully.

“Mm.” The stooped old man nodded. “The new batch of cultivators have arrived?”

“Yes, they just arrived. We’ve already sent them all into the prison,” the Elder God golem said respectfully. Golems were a type of magic treasures, but when they gained sentience they would be just as intelligent as actually living beings. The difference was, they would be unswervingly loyal and would do whatever their master ordered them to do.

“Mm. Let’s go take a look.” The stooped figure nodded slowly. The Elder God golem followed behind him respectfully, and the two quickly flew into the skies. In the blink of an eye, they moved more than ten billion kilometers and arrived at the enormous prison, wreathed in an aura of baleful energy.

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