The Desolate Era

An ancient temple was hovering above an island located within the outer perimeter of the Sithelands. There were six figures seated in the lotus position within this ancient temple. They were Autarch Titanos, Autarch Mogg, Autarch Stonerule, Autarch Skyfeeder, Autarch Bolin, and Autarch Ekong. They were here either in person or in avatar form, and they were all seated meditating. In front of Autarch Mogg, there was an illusory image which displayed what was happening within the Annihilation Hive.

“The insides of the hive are completely filled with countless spacetime bubbles which are linked together in an extremely complicated formation.”

Autarch Mogg pointed at the images and explained, “There is a vortex at the very center of the hive, and it holds a total of 106 layers of astral clouds which surround a black tower. The black tower is the energy wellspring for the entire hive. That’s essentially what we’ve managed to discover thus far. Try and help us come up with an idea, everyone.”

“Hm.”

“Got it.” The other five Autarchs all nodded slowly.

Time flowed on. Autarch Skyfeeder’s avatar kept time accelerated at a rate of 500x for the Autarchs, buying them time to slave away at this problem! The Annihilation Hive was constantly devouring energy, after all. The more time they took, the more harm would be done to the Chaosverse.

“No, that won’t work.”

“Anything else?”

“We have to reach the nexus and destroy the black tower if we wish to break the hive apart, but a hundred layers of astral clouds? It’s too hard.”

The Autarchs pondered continuously. Every so often one of them would voice a suggestion, but the others would quickly point out the flaws!

Time passed, one day after another. The Autarchs spent more than three years painstakingly analyzing the problem. Thankfully, the 500x temporal acceleration meant that only two days went past in the outside world.

“What a marvelously constructed weapon.” Autarch Titanos stared at the illusory images in front of him. An illusory black tower took form, followed by a vortex which took control over spacetime to generate an even more powerful sucking effect. This effect resonated across the entire behemoth hive, giving birth to that terrifying force which was devouring everything around the hive.

“I’m far from being a match for the person who was able to create this weapon.” Autarch Titanos shook his head slightly, then murmured: “But if all I have to do is cause some damage, I should be able to do it.”

“Eh?” The other five immediately turned to look at him.

“Titanos, do you have an idea?”

“What did you come up with?” All of them grew excited.

Autarch Titanos had been alive for an extremely long period of time, and he had spent much of it analyzing Sithe weapons. The other five Autarchs held great faith in his abilities in this regard.

“I’m fairly confident in my idea,” Autarch Titanos said, “But I need to enter the hive first and inspect it personally before I can be sure if it would work or not.”

“Titanos, take the route which Darknorth and I used. The two of us will be there to welcome you,” Autarch Mogg said.

……

Rumble…

The bald Autarch Titanos was staring at the Annihilation Hive from afar, watching as it swallowed and destroyed everything in an extremely wide area around it. Time quickly began to accelerate around him until it reached 100x the rate of normal time. He then waved his finger, causing a black cauldron which was 300 meters long to appear next to him. He then tossed many precious ingredients into the black cauldron.

Just six days later, a streak of light shot out from inside the black cauldron. It was a white-robed avatar of Autarch Titanos.

“Go on.” This freshly created avatar of Autarch Titanos had just 20% of his true body’s strength. It quickly flew towards the distant Annihilation Hive.

For now, he was just going to use this weak new avatar for exploring the Annihilation Hive. As for his first avatar in the Sithelands, it would begin to weaken now that Autarch Titanos was focusing his energies on maintaining the second avatar, but the weakening was a gradual process. If he didn’t spend too much time maintaining the second avatar and quickly abandoned it to turn his efforts back to his first avatar, the first avatar would quickly reach peak power once more.

The white-robed Titanos dove into the tunnel which Ning and Mogg had entered, flying into the hive. The tunnel was unfathomably dark and deep.

“Titanos.” Two figures hailed him from afar.

“Darknorth. Mogg.” The white-robed Titanos revealed a smile.

“This new avatar of yours is really puny,” Mogg’s avatar said teasingly. “You’d probably get wiped out in an instant if you got into a fight with those Autarch-class void dwellers.”

“It’s just a temporary body. We’re in a rush for time, so I just used a quick and dirty method to get this thing up and running,” the white-robed Titanos said.

The three continued to fly forwards as they chatted together. Ning led the way, warping through spacetime and moving them towards the vortex of astral clouds.

“How beautiful.” Autarch Titanos stared at the astral clouds from afar, an amazed look on his face. He then turned to look at the countless spacetime bubbles off in the distance. “Impressive. Truly impressive. Now that I had the chance to witness these things operating in person, I feel even more admiration towards the Sithe who set this all up. It had to have been the Sithe Lord of Chaos who personally created this thing. This place’s creator is far more talented than I am.”

The more accomplished one was in understanding how complicated artifacts and weapons were fashioned, the more one would understand just how incredible this Annihilation Hive was.

“Do you have any ideas?” Ning asked.

“Creation is hard, but destruction is much easier.” The white-robed Titanos smiled. “I came up with an idea after quite a long period of pondering, and I’m sure it’ll be effective.”

“What’s the method?” Both Ning and Mogg were excited.

“Don’t rush me! I need to make some further improvements.” The white-robed Titanos stared intently at the vortex of astral clouds, scrutinizing how it functioned while pondering how to improve his technique further. Of course, it was Autarch Titanos’ true body in the outside world which was doing most of the real work.

Six hours went past. Ning and Mogg had been waiting this entire time, and finally they saw a smile appear on the white-robed Titanos’ face. “I’ve finally completed it. Darknorth, I’ll teach you the technique. You use it.”

“Why don’t you teach me instead?” Autarch Mogg’s avatar teased.

“You are too weak when it comes to the Dao of Formations. You wouldn’t be able to learn it even if I tried to teach you.” The white-robed Titanos glanced sideways at Mogg, then looked at Ning: “Darknorth, you are every bit my equal when it comes to formations. The only reason why you weren’t able to come up with this idea is because you aren’t very experienced in the creation of weapons and artifacts.”

“Take a look at this.” The white-robed Titanos gently waved a finger, causing an illusion fo the black tower to appear before him. “This black tower is the nexus of the entire hive, right?”

Ning and Mogg both nodded. This much, they both knew.

“It is also the energy wellspring for the entire hive,” the white-robed Titanos said. “But merely providing power doesn’t mean that much; its real value lies in how it applies that power! This is why the black tower is covered with countless runes. The energy wellspring uses those runes to form the hundred-layered vortex, causing the swallowing power to be increased dramatically.”

Ning understood this principle. It was akin to using ten percent of your full power to achieve a hundred percent of the effect you desired!

“The vortex, in turn, links with those countless spacetime bubbles to form an enormous formation of even greater power. This formation resonates throughout the entire hive, generating that tremendous sucking power towards the outside world around it,” the white-robed Titanos said.

“In other words, the vortex is an amplifier. The formation employing all those spacetime bubbles is a second amplifier. The way in which the formation resonates with the entire hive is the third amplifier!

“These three amplifiers are the real reason why the black tower’s power has been increased to such an inconceivable level that it can rip away energy from the Chaosverse itself,” the white-robed Titanos said. “If we can disrupt any of the three amplifiers, the hive won’t be able to function properly. Destroying the hive’s structure would accomplish this, as would destroying the black tower or all the spacetime bubbles inside this place.”

Autarch Mogg immediately said, “But we can’t! This hive is a weapon of terrifying power; we aren’t able to even scratch the thing. As for the spacetime bubbles, we were able to destroy some, but new ones would almost instantly be created. As for the vortex, its composed of countless specks of light. There’s nothing to destroy.”

“Hah! You dummy.” The white-robed Titanos glanced at Mogg, then chortled, “It actually isn’t too hard to deal with the hundred-layered vortex. All we need to do is set up an even larger vortex formation around it, one which spins in reverse. My reverse-vortex formation simply needs to weaken the power of the astral clouds vortex. In doing so, it’ll dramatically weaken the effect the hive has on the outside world. Once this happens, it probably won’t be strong enough to plunder energy from the Chaosverse by force.

“A reverse-vortex formation?” Ning began to understand.

“This is the reverse-vortex formation I came up with. Take a look, Darknorth.” The white-robed Titanos waved a finger, causing an illusory reverse-vortex to suddenly appear around the illusory astral vortex in front of him. This was an inwards-focused formation that pushed back against the astral vortex, weakening its power.

“The vortex of astral clouds is an outwards formation which uses the black tower as its energy source.” Ning smiled. “Our reverse-vortex formation will be an inwards formation which uses me as its energy source. My power comes from the Chaosverse itself and is virtually limitless! I don’t need to completely stop the astral vortex; all I need to do is weaken it by 30%, and it’ll most likely be rendered ineffective.”

“Here are the insights I used to create this formation. Take a close look, Darknorth.” The white-robed Titanos immediately began to explain the finer details regarding the reverse-vortex formation to Ning, who listened attentively. Mogg listened as well, but a mystified look was on his face. In the end, he wasn’t even close to being Ning or Titanos’ equal when it came to formations.