Desolate Era

“H-he actually did leave the Three Realms.” The Mindlord’s heart was shaking, but he quickly came back to his senses. “Why should I fear him? I’m a member of a Minor Thousand Elder Gods Formation. Not even World-level experts can do anything to me right now. Me, fear him, an Elder God? It’s actually good that he’s here. I’ll find a chance to kill him.”

“Him! It’s him!” Ji Ning had been quite calm, but upon seeing the Mindlord Ning’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot.

Those memories began to play through his mind…

The death of Human Sovereign Suiren, whose body had transformed into those petals of kindlefire…

The self-detonations of Daoist Three Purities, Lord Tathagata the Buddha, Keeper Everwood, and Buddha Jueming…

Senior apprentice-brother Houyi, who had died right in front of Chang’e…

And those countless other Immortals and Fiendgods of the Three Realms who had sacrificed their lives in self-detonation…

Ning could hear the sounds of those detonations ringing within his memories. He could hear those furious roars, those frenzied screams.

Murderous rage began to swell in his heart, rage which he was unable to suppress. It quickly filled his entire being.

Countless comrades had died in the Endwar…all because of this man!

“Old Man Yuan! DIE!” Ning immediately charged straight towards the Mindlord.

“Eh?” When the Mindlord saw Ning transform into a streak of light and fly towards him, he let out a cold smirk. “He’s just an Elder God. How can he possibly shake our formation of a thousand Elder Gods?”

……

“He’s too powerful.” Chaos Immortal Owlsoar had an ugly look on his face. He gritted his teeth, summoning the ritual tower closer towards himself. He was just barely able to set up a defensive perimeter of roughly thirty meters around himself. “How is the Starlord this powerful? Aren’t they only powerful because they can rely on the power of Fogstone itself? But the planet of Fogstone is outside the city! The Starlord is relying on just his sword-arts yet is still incredibly powerful!”

Thanks to this mighty sin-weapon, Chaos Immortal Owlsoar was a very formidable figure even amongst World-level experts, and the ritual tower was actually meant for defense.

And yet…even though he had a thousand Elder Gods helping him to divert his enemy’s attacks, he had still been beaten back to the point of only being able to keep a defensive perimeter of just thirty meters. If he didn’t have the thousand Elder Gods, he probably would’ve been slain in just one or two strokes.

“Second Uncle, this formation is a pain in the ass,” the Starlord sent frantically. He was using his seven formations to suppress the protective formations and defensive spells of the imperial capital, but now two such enemy formations were causing him problems as well.

“Yes, they are quite troublesome. I’m not able to breach their defenses either.” World God Blackmist had gone all out as well.

However, World God Blackmist was a bit weaker than the Starlord to begin with. He was roughly on par with Chaos Immortal Owlsoar.

“With this formation present, it’ll be very hard for us to kill Immortal Owlsoar.” The Starlord was growing frantic.

“This formation…” World God Blackmist was frantic as well. He had transformed to become a titanic figure who was thirty thousand kilometers tall, and he furiously launched attacks in every direction, but the thousand Elder Gods just absorbed his strikes as if they were made of soft taffy.

“Eh? Ji Ning?” The Starlord noticed Ji Ning suddenly charging towards them from afar.

Sword Immortal Darknorth, Ji Ning. The leaders of the Fogstone Dominion all knew who he truly was.

“Ji Ning, hurry up and go help World God Blackmist tie down the Minor Thousand Elder Gods Formation!” The Starlord ordered.

“Yes, Starlord.” Ning immediately flew towards World God Blackmist.

“Ugh, what’s the point of him coming here?” The Starlord couldn’t help but secretly sigh to himself. “Even though he has the formation strengthening him, and even though he is the core of the formation, he will still be at most comparable to an ordinary World God. He’s probably a bit weaker than even my second uncle! Even if he does help out, it’ll be hard for them to completely tie down that enemy formation.”

Ning was wielding Violetjewel in his hands. His gaze was ice cold, and the azuremist energy had quickly begun to flow out from the azureflower seal on his forehead, permeating his entire body.

The reason why Ning had come to the Badlands Territory…was to kill the Mindlord!

And now, the Mindlord stood right before him!

Kill!

The power of the azureflower mist energy was strengthening him!

The World energy generated by the formation of Elder Gods was strengthening him!

He had an Eternal weapon…Violetjewel!

“KILLSWORD STANCE!”

Ning raised Violetjewel up high, assuming a stance reminiscent of Pangu cleaving Heaven from Earth. In this instant, Ning was using the ‘Heavenbreaker stance’ of the [Brightmoon] sword-art to unleash the essence ‘Killsword stance’.

All the stances of the [Nameless] sword-art, be it the Heartsword stance or the Killsword stance, represented a certain realm of enlightenment regarding the Dao of the Sword. Ning’s own [Brightmoon] sword-art was completely capable of unleashing the full extent of his insights into these realms.

Whenever the Minor Thousand Elder Gods Formation suffered an attack, it would first divert 99% of the energy of the attack into the World energy surrounding it, with the remaining 1% being spread across all thousand World Gods. This was why Ning had immediately used his most overpowering and dominating strike, the Heavenbreaker stance!

Rumble…

A strand of power was also extracted from the quintessence core within the Eternal sword and infused into the surface of the sword.

The enormous sword chopped straight towards Ning’s most hated foe, the Mindlord.

“Ahahaha, it is useless! I’m now a member of an Elder God Formation. No matter how strong you are, you won’t be able to do anything!” The Mindlord watched as that terrifying sword descended towards him. Although his heart shook a bit as he knew he wouldn’t be able to survive it without the formation…the fact was that right now, he DID have the formation. What did he have to fear?

BOOM!!!

The blood-colored Violetjewel crashed down upon the Mindlord with absolute fury.

The concussive power of the blow was instantly dissipated into the surrounding region as well as across the bodies of all thousand Elder Gods. All of the Elder Gods trembled, their bodies coming to a brief halt.

“Eh?” World God Blackmist was both shocked and delighted by this.

To cause a thousand Elder Gods to come to a halt required an incredibly powerful attack. When World God Blackmist himself used his most powerful killer moves, this was the exact same result.

“What?!” The distant Starlord was also completely shocked and overjoyed by what he was seeing.

“Impossible. He’s just an Elder God. There’s no way he could’ve done this.” Immortal Owlsoar’s heart turned so cold that it was like a block of ice, and his eyes were filled with shock and rage.

“Ahahah…excellent, Darknorth, excellent! I didn’t expect that with the formation strengthening you, you would actually be as powerful as I am!” World God Blackmist sent mentally, “Join with me and attack these Elder Gods. Let’s make it impossible for them to help Immortal Owlsoar.”

“Acknowledged,” Ning said.

With the support of the azureflower mist energy and the formation, Ning was probably slightly more powerful than even World God Blackmist. He also had an Eternal weapon! And yet…Ning understood that his fatal weakness lay in his insights.

His sword-arts were still merely at the level of the Killsword stance, while World God Blackmist’s sword-arts were at a far higher level. This was why the two of them remained on par with each other in strength. In addition to that, Ning was still unable to unleash his Eternal weapon’s true power.

Eternal weapons were valuable because they had quintessence cores. It was the power that lay within their cores which was truly terrifying! If Ning was able to unleash just thirty or forty percent of that power, he would probably be able to chop apart the enemy formation with just a single blow! Alas, actually unleashing that much power from the quintessence core was far too difficult. Ning would probably have to reach the same level of sword-arts as World God Northrest in order to command such power.

In truth, Ning was already quite formidable. World God Blackmist was no ordinary World-level expert, after all.

Generally speaking, World Gods were more formidable than Chaos Immortals. This was because most World Gods also trained as Ki Refiner as well! World God Blackmist in particular was an expert of the Dao of the Sword and incredibly skilled in launching offensive attacks. For Ning to be comparable to him in might was absolutely incredible.

“Kill!”

“Kill!”

World God Blackmist and Ji Ning simultaneously launched their respective killer moves.

The way in which World God Blackmist was fighting was completely different from when he had been sparring with Ning. He had manifested a total of six arms and was striking with six swords in an endless windmill of attacks, sending six streaks of sword-light against his opponents in a constant barrage.

As for Ning, he wielded Violetjewel as he furiously struck out with the Heavenbreaker stance once more.

BOOM!

The simultaneous double attack from two experts of the Dao of the Sword caused all thousand Elder Gods to once more tremble and come to a halt. Although every single Elder God only had to endure a tiny part of their blows, the difference between them and the World-level experts was simply too great. Now that Ning and Blackmist had joined forces, the power of their blows made the Elder Gods feel absolutely miserable. They had been completely suppressed in power.

“These formations truly are incredible. Even when World God Blackmist and I join forces, we’re still merely able to just keep them suppressed.” Ning couldn’t help but sigh to himself.

Ning and Blackmist had joined together to completely shut down this Minor Thousand Elder Gods Formation, making it so that those thousand Elder Gods were completely unable to help protect Chaos Immortal Owlsoar.

“How can this be? How?!” The terrified Chaos Immortal Owlsoar immediately turned tail and transformed into a streak of black light, intent on fleeing.

“Do you think you can actually escape me?” The Starlord’s handsome face was now somewhat twisted by savagery. In fact, he could be described as looking rather crazed. “Owlsoar, I’ve waited for this day for far too long!”

BOOOM!!!!

The Starlord’s entire body suddenly radiated with brilliant light. The astral light swept forward and caught Immortal Owlsoar within it, making it so that his movements became dramatically slower, almost as though he was moving through quicksand.

“N-no…spare me!” Chaos Immortal Owlsoar had learned quite some time ago that there was a huge gap in power between himself and the Starlord.

“Die.”

The Starlord sent six streaks of sword-light straight towards him in a series of consecutive blows.

The terrified Immortal Owlsoar sought to use his ritual tower to defend, even summoning his other two Dao weapons as well…but alas, those two weapons were clearly inferior to the ritual tower.

Clang! Clang! He was able to just barely block the first two sword attacks.

Slash.

The third strike plunged deep into his forehead, and as it did so a terrifying sword-intent erupted forth into the Jindan chaos region inside his body. The Jindan chaos region began to break apart, and the Dao-tree inside of it was also beginning to be obliterated.

“No…” A look of resentment and disbelief was in Immortal Owlsoar’s eyes as his life aura rapidly began to weaken.

The Starlord pulled his sword out of Owlsoar’s forehead. As he stared at Owlsoar’s corpse, he fell silent and said not a word.