The Desolate Era

Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 24 – Struggle

“Is the very first master of an Eternal Omega Dao their Chaosverse has given birth to going to die by my hands today?” The blue-haired Exalt watching the battle from the Sacred Realm felt excited as well. “Both of the Apocalypse-class treasures I gave those exiles in Purgatory are aimed squarely at that Daolord’s weaknesses. The castle had area attacks which that Daolord should’ve been unable to dodge; by all rights, it should’ve exhausted him to death! Who would’ve thought that he would possess such incredible speed. Now that we’ve trapped him within our spacetime formation, I refuse to believe he’ll be able to break free.”

Last time, Ji Ning had indeed very nearly died within that castle. Thankfully, the combination of the Wind Sword Dao and the Lightning Sword Dao had granted Ning a level of speed which surpassed what the Sithe Exalt had expected, rendering all of those attacks useless.

This time, however, Ning wouldn’t be so lucky. He had been trapped within a separate spacetime continuum, and breaking free would be extremely difficult.

……

The Sithe Exalt in the Sacred Realm and the Hegemons in Purgatory were unable to contain their delight at Ning’s impending death.

Within the formation itself, the field of blurry spacetime remained completely separated from the outside world. Ning was still trapped within, and his Sword Dao Domain strained against the continuum to no avail at all. There was nothing he could do.

Far away from him, a spacetime ripple suddenly appeared, followed by a fiery red bird screeching as it shot towards Ning. Even as it attacked, the distant spacetime hole quickly healed and vanished.

Boom! Ning used his Storm Sword Dao to dodge once more. “I’m going to die if this continues.” Ning couldn’t find any flaws to exploit at all, and so all he could do was wave his hand and produce a precious pagoda in front of himself. This was one of the many Sithe treasures Ning had acquired.

Swoosh! Ning instantly entered the tower. “I hope it can last for a fairly long period of time.” For now, Ning’s only option was to rely on the tower’s defenses to buy him some time.

Ning waved his hand, causing Azurefiend’s avatar to appear next to him. “Master?” Azurefiend’s avatar looked at Ning.

“Hurry up and take control over this tower, then put your Immortal energy into it. Focus all your efforts on defending,” Ning barked mentally. It wasn’t worth it for him to waste his own Immortal energy on activating Sithe weapons.

“Understood.” Azurefiend’s avatar didn’t hesitate at all. He could sense from Ning’s grim expression how much danger they were in, and he immediately poured his Immortal energy into the tower, causing the many runes and barriers on its surface to light up.

“He hid inside a tower.”

“The tower won’t be able to dodge effectively. Just destroy it.” The Hegemons and Emperors were out for blood. They weren’t going to give Ning any chance to rest at all.

Slash! A dazzling streak of golden light flew out and appeared in front of the tower, delivering a vicious blow to it.

Although Ning was able to control the tower and use it to fly around, the attacks were simply too fast. Ning himself had to rely on using evasion-arts to dodge. There was no way this type of tower-type treasure would be able to do the same. Even if it could… he would still be using up his energy, right? The entire point of Ning hiding inside the tower was to save as much power as possible.

Boom! The surface of the tower erupted after being struck by golden light, causing a series of ripples to appear. The barrier remained unbroken, even though it looked a bit damaged. These were attacks that could threaten even Ning, after all; they were more than powerful enough to wreck ordinary Sithe artifacts.

“Hurry up and bind this treasure as well!” Ning tossed Azurefiend’s avatar another treasure, one that looked like a star. It seemed somewhat similar to the Blacksun, but it was a bit weaker.

……

“It isn’t breaking apart? Hit it simultaneously at two different places!” The Hegemons and Emperors quickly decided to launch two simultaneous attacks against it.

As these two apocalyptic attacks landed, the barrier covering the tower was finally unable to endure any longer. The runes of the barrier collapsed, followed by the surface of the tower exploding into countless shards that blasted everywhere. Even the insides of the tower began to collapse and fall towards Ning, but before actually managing to hit him they would all be pushed to one side by his Sword Dao Domain.

Ning lifted his head, staring at the many cracks that had appeared to his left. “Release that star,” Ning instructed.

“Yes, Master!” Azurefiend knew that this tower wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer, and so he immediately waved his hand, producing a jade-green star that the two of them instantly entered.

BOOM! Soon, the Sithe attacks completely destroyed the tower, causing it to explode and revealing the undamaged jade-green star inside of it.

“He has more treasures? Keep attacking!” The Hegemons and Emperors continued to fight fiercely.

After three attacks, the star destroyed… revealing a realmship! The realmship was even weaker; it was completely destroyed after just two two attacks. Azurefiend couldn’t help but feel aggrieved at how fast these priceless treasures were being used up, but Ning simply frowned. There wasn’t enough time; treasures on this level simply couldn’t hold for long ago.

“No other options.” Ning had Azurefiend’s avatar activate and take control over that Apocalypse-class castle.

This was the most powerful Sithe treasure Ning had acquired to date! It was more powerful than the Blacksun, the Tigerhill, and even the castle which was protecting the Three Realms! Ning had been planning to give it to the Three Realms once he left this place, but he was out of options. His other treasures were too weak; they weren’t able to withstand more than just a few attacks. This meant he wouldn’t have any time to analyze the flaws of this place… and once he died, all his treasures would be lost. Even the Paragon of Pills would die here. Now wasn’t the time to hold back!

BOOM! A strange, monstrous-looking dark-red castle appeared. Ning and Azurefiend’s avatars were located securely within the castle, while Azurefiend was burning up his Immortal energy at a rapid place to maintain the castle’s most basic defenses.

“That’s an Apocalypse-class castle!”

“Wait, that’s the castle from earlier.”

“Attack! Attack! Break through it!” The Hegemons and Emperors continued to attack furiously, raining down blows upon the castle. However, the barriers and runes flowing over the surface of the castle were completely undamaged! An Autarch-level attack would have a chance at breaking through the castle’s defenses, but these Sithe weapons weren’t quite at this level; at most, these attacks were comparable to the Blazesun Ruler’s attacks.

The only reason these attacks were dangerous to Ning was because of how brittle his body was. He was extremely powerful, but attacks from the likes of the Blazesun Ruler would still consume some of his energy. Apocalypse-class castles, however, were extremely stable; they could easily endure the blows head-on.

“Whew.” Ning let out a sigh of relief.

“Master, if you had such a powerful treasure, why didn’t you take it out right away? We lost so many valuable treasures, including a realmship!” Azurefiend couldn’t help but feel some pain at the thought of all that lost wealth.

“They don’t matter.” Ning didn’t explain, as he was still under tremendous pressure. He knew that hiding inside the Apocalypse-class castle would merely buy them a bit of extra time. There was no way the Sithe would just give up like that.

Ning waved his hand, causing the Paragon of Pills, Lord Annihilation, Hegemon Tia, and Hegemon Flameleft to appear. The four of them instantly sensed how grim the atmosphere seemed to be, and the Paragon of Pills looked towards Ning in a rather puzzled way.

Ning immediately explained, “Please take turns in launching area attacks with the castle.” The castle technically had thirty-six stone pillars as well, but Ning didn’t have the time to slowly lay down all of the stone pillars into formation. Moreover, this Apocalypse-class castle’s most powerful attacks were actually those rays of semi-translucent light! However, those incredibly powerful attacks consumed a similarly incredible amount of power.

Azurefiend’s avatar was enough to maintain their defenses, but what about their attacks? Ning was forced to ask the Paragon of Pills and the others to help out. This castle needed a total of thirty-six Emperors to fully activate it, but it could also be used with a lower number.

“All you need to do is make sure you focus your attacks in the same direction,” Ning instructed.

“I’ll go first.” Lord Annihilation instantly began to pour an enormous amount of Immortal energy into the castle. On top of his natural energy regeneration, he also began to make use of the many Immortal pills he carried with him.

The nine towers of the ugly, dark-red castle all lit up. Nine semi-translucent rays of light began to shoot out, tearing through the surrounding space even though they were unable to tear through local spacetime.

Slash! The nine towers shot out rays of light everywhere, causing the spacetime membrane of this dimension to ripple slightly. Alas, the membranes remained stable and unharmed.

“These rays of light are more powerful than the attacks most Sithe weapons can unleash,” Ning mused. “The problem is that as a type of area attack, the power is diffracted. There’s no way to use them to breach this dimensional space.” This spacetime continuum was extremely stable. Ning had an Autarch’s power, but he had the feeling that there was no chance he could break through via raw power! If all nine rays of light managed to concentrate their power on a single location, they might just barely come close to the necessary power level.

“Continue,” Ning instructed. The ugly, dark-red castle once more began to launch thos repeated attacks. As for Ning, he carefully watched as those distant holes appeared in spacetime with each enemy attack. He was trying to understand the mysteries inherent to this place.

“We can’t break through! The castle is too powerful. We aren’t able to breach it at all.” The exiles were starting to grow anxious.