The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

The deep blue crystal leaf shattered, and a flood of terrifying power that had been hidden inside it was completely unleashed! Although it held only a fraction of a full-force strike from the Sword Hegemon, the power of this blow still vastly surpassed a full-power blow from one of the eight lords of the Sacred Cities. There was no way even the most supreme of Daolords would be able to resist this level of power!

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” Ninedust was now within Ji Ning’s estate-world, and he continued to scream in pain. His face remained a rictus of agony as those dark red lines continued to spread throughout his body. Clearly, the terrifying pain he was in hadn’t lessened in the slightest after entering this estate-world.

“Ninedust!” Ning felt both regret and fury in his heart. “All of you can go die!!!” Ning was filled with a murderous intent as he activated that flood of incredible power. Instantly, an enormous, horrifying illusion of a greatsword appeared in the area around Ning!

The illusory greatsword lay horizontal, causing spacetime to freeze and severing karma itself. Its incredible, terrifying presence caused the Kingfreak, Daolord Shaka, Daolord Snowjoy, and even Sectlord Timedream to turn pale.

“How is this possible?! He used up one of those things when he killed Kongsan. How does he have another one?!” This was the second time Daolord Shaka had ever encountered this terrifying illusory greatsword. Gritting his teeth, he immediately produced the most powerful protective treasure he had purchased prior to entering the Waveshift Realm, causing a palm-sized black seed to appear in his hand.

“Brother Snowjoy, don’t move!” Daolord Shaka sent mentally. Crack! The black seed shattered into tiny pieces of dust as the power within it was released. Vine-like tendrils furiously sprouted out the shattered black seed, spreading out in every direction and quickly covering both Shaka and Snowjoy from head to toe, forming a vine cube that was roughly thirty meters in diameter! Shaka and Snowjoy were completely covered and protected by this rattan vine cube.

……

“Ninedust has been poisoned by our redscatter venom and is no longer a threat. After we kill him, the Voidsea Jadeseal will be ours.” Sectlord Timedream had begun to move closer towards Ninedust’s direction as well as Shaka, Snowjoy, and Kingfreak had charged forward. All of them knew that the Voidsea Jadeseal was about to fall into someone’s hands; if he moved closer, his chances would be much greater.

“What?! Darknorth actually pulled Ninedust into his estate-world?” Sectlord Timedream smirked. “He’s courting death. We were completely focused on Ninedust earlier and couldn’t be bothered with him. We should be able to wipe him out in a few seconds.”

Although Ninedust was suffering indescribable torment, the fact that he was able to mouth out the words ‘kill me’ showed that he was able to maintain a modicum of consciousness. Ning was on his side, and so he wouldn’t resist being drawn away into Ning’s estate-world. The others, however, wouldn’t have that chance.

“Die, then.” Sectlord Timedream followed the Kingfreak, Shaka, and Snowjoy in charging straight towards Ning. Much like how Solewind was decent in close combat, Sectlord Timedream was a first-tier Daolord in close combat as well.

BOOM!

The heavens turned dark. The world went silent. Time and space froze. Karma itself was severed.

An overwhelming, awe-inspiring aura of power manifested as a giant illusory greatsword appeared out of thin air. Sectlord Timedream was shocked, his earlier confidence gone. Both he and Kingfreak were vile men who had wandered the Endless Territories for many years. As a result, they had battled against a number of mighty major powers in the past, and had encountered a number of terrifying Dao-seals. However, the illusory greatsword in front of him gave him a sense of terror that was greater than anything he had ever felt before!

The Sword Hegemon’s field of expertise lay in annihilatory attacks, after all!

“FREAK!!!” Sectlord Timedream screamed mentally as he reached out, producing a dazzlingly beautiful snow flower in his hands.

“Sectlord.” The terrified Kingfreak was frantically retreating as well, seeking to reunite with Sectlord Timedream.

Whoosh. The snow flower bloomed, expanding to cover the surrounding area and protecting both Sectlord Timedream and the Kingfreak.

Generally speaking, the most valuable would be kept in Sectlord Timedream’s hands! Only if they found a second copy would the treasure go to the Kingfreak. Treasures like the redscatter venom that had to be used in close combat, Timedream would let the Kingfreak hold on to, as the Kingfreak was responsible for charging into the fray as the vanguard. This flower, however, was a protective treasure that would cause a formation to appear once activated. The formation could be used to trap foes, but it could also be used to resist outside attacks. This was the most powerful tool Sectlord Timedream at his disposal.

The beautiful flower wrapped itself around the Kingfreak and Sectlord Timedream, protecting them in multiple layers of formations.

……

Not a single one of the four supreme Daolords were able to escape from Ning’s illusory greatsword. They had instead chosen to produce the most powerful protective treasures they had to resist it. Escape on their own? All of them knew this was impossible!

“Die.” Ning stared intently at Sectlord Timedream and the Kingfreak, as well as that enormous flower around them. He wanted to kill the two of them most of all, because they were the ones who had poisoned Ninedust!

BOOM! The illusory greatsword chopped directly against that enormous flower. The flower instantly began to tremble as it swiveled, its layers of petals furiously shifting aside the force of the attack. As the petals continued to spin, waves of terrifying might began to blast outwards in every direction.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The nearby Daolord Snowjoy and Daolord Shaka were protected within their vine globe, and the waves of power smashed against them as well. The vines, however, were incredibly tough and managed to resist the force.

“Absolutely terrifying. We’re facing just a tiny amount of its full power that’s been diverted in our direction. How can it still be this strong?” Protected by the vine globe, Snowjoy and Shaka had ashen looks on their faces.

“How can this be?” Sectlord Timedream’s face turned ashen as well from his position within the flower formation. He was in command of the formation and thus could clearly sense what was happening to it.

The flower formation possessed incredible powers of endurance, and it operated on the principles of shunting aside power and enduring the rest, with more than 90% of any attack being diverted away. And yet, the chopping attack of this illusory greatsword was clearly still unleashing more power than the flower formation could endure. Its petals were already beginning to rip and tear.

“It’s about to crumble.” Finally, one petal completely crumbled apart. A second then crumbled, followed by a third… and as it did, the amount of power that was being shunted to the nearby vine globe began to gradually lessen as well.

“Not good.”

“Quick!”

The Kingfreak and Sectlrod Timedream almost simultaneously produced a pair of unique protective treasures to protect themselves. Although this formation was the only Hegemon-level treasure they had, they did have several treasures that were comparable in might to the eight lords of the Sacred Cities. As for the weaker treasures, those were merely on par with the Kingfreak and Sectlord Timedream themselves and thus were of no use to them.

Rumble… whoosh… whoosh… Finally, the flower formation completely burst apart and shattered apart into small pieces. The remaining power of the illusory greatsword chopped straight towards the Kingfreak and Sectlord Timedream!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The barriers erected around them immediately began to break apart as the two of them were both knocked backwards.

Thud! Sectlord Timedream slammed into the snowy ground, kicking up a wave of snow around him. He spat out a mouthful of blood, but a look of wild joy was on his face. “Survived. I survived!”

“Survived. We both survived.” The Kingfreak was filled with joy as well.

Only those who had faced that strike personally would understand how terrifying it had been. The illusory greatsword of the Sword Hegemon was a frontal, head-on, crushing attack! Even the remaining fragments of its energy had been enough to terrorize and terrify the Kingfreak and the Sectlord.

“It first destroyed a Hegemon-level formation, then destroyed four other protective treasures… and it still had enough power to injure the two of us! What a terrifying treasure.” Sectlord Timedream glared at the distant Ning, his eyes filled with murder. “He destroyed quite a few of our treasures. Kill him, Freak.”

“I will.” The Kingfreak was enraged as well. How could he not be? The puny Daolord Darknorth had brought him to the brink of death! He immediately unsheathed his great scimitar and charged straight towards Ning.

Sectlord Timedream watched from afar, not following this time. In truth, he really had been badly frightened by Ning’s usage of that Hegemon Dao-seal. “He probably doesn’t have a second one… right?” For a person to have a single copy of such a treasure was already incredible. Two? Two would be inconceivable. Three? What, was it as common as dirt?

In truth, given Ning’s level of power it would’ve been extremely difficult for him to acquire such treasures through adventuring. The Sword Hegemon had only chosen to give him two due to taking him on as an honorary disciple! This was because the Sword Hegemon had known that his death was impending and unavoidable, which was why he was willing to spend an enormous price to create these Dao-seals. In normal situations, not even figures like the Brightshore Hegemon would be willing to gift Dao-seals of such terrifying power to mere honorary disciples.

The more power a Dao-seal packed, the harder it would be to craft. In ordinary combat, the Sword Hegemon would’ve been able to unleash ten or twenty full-strength blows with ease, but to compact and compress all of that power into a Dao-seal was incredibly difficult. If he merely put in a small portion of his full power, perhaps the same level of power as the eight lords of the Sacred Cities possessed, things would be much easier… but infusing a full-force blow into a Dao-seal truly required an enormous amount of effort and expense!