The Desolate Era

Only the power of the Chaosverse itself was truly boundless and without limit. When Ji Ning had visited the essence wellspring of the Blazesun Domain, he had discovered that its energies vastly surpassed that of any Autarch’s! And that was just the tip of the iceberg when compared to the Chaosverse as a whole. The Chaosverse was so powerful that just attempting to bind it, even without it fighting back, would result in death to Ning and the other Autarchs. Trying to force something like this would result in the collapse of the truesoul!

Its power was simply unimaginable. Compared to the Chaosverse as a whole, the power over the Dao which Ning or the Autarchs could wield was like a drop of water in a vast sea.

The Daoguard Tower was something which could allow powerful experts to make use of a greater amount of the Chaosverse’s power! Daoguard Towers were exquisitely designed. After the Autarchs had acquired several Daoguard Towers from the Dawn War, they had spent many years analyzing them before finally creating similar treasures known as Golden Bridges of Freedom which had 30% of a Daoguard Tower’s power.

The native cultivators already had the advantage of fighting on home turf. Now that they had Golden Bridges of Freedom, their defensive prowess was dramatically strengthened.

“Come on, Iyerre, oh mighty Omega Autarch! Come and do your worst. Show me just how tough you are! I am in my own homeland and standing atop my Golden Bridge. If you can still kill me, I’ll gladly admit defeat!” Autarch Mogg stood at the entrance to the tower, glaring daggers at the distant Iyerre.

“A Golden Bridge of Freedom which is based on our Daoguard Towers, eh?” Iyerre quickly regained his usual equanimity. He smiled coldly: “Fine. Let’s just see how powerful you are when standing on your Golden Bridge! Goldbridge”

Boom! Iyerre put his palms together as though in prayer, causing an utterly dazzling streak of light to appear between them. The light slowly grew brighter and brighter, as though it was the very essence of all light itself! As for his palms, they had become the sole source of light in the entire area and was far more dazzling than the Solar Star of the Three Realms had ever been.

Iyerre simply stood there calmly in space, his palms folded in prayer while emanating increasingly brilliant levels of light.

“He’s building up power!” Autarch Mogg’s heart was pounding as he stared from atop the Golden Bridge. This strike was clearly going to be far more powerful than the previous one.

This strike could be described as the most powerful strike which Iyerre was capable of. However, it did have a flaw. It wasn’t very agile and could only be used as a devastating frontal assault! Even worse, in this foreign Chaosverse it took him a bit of time to build up power even when he was simply drawing upon his own energy reserves. If he had tried to do this earlier when he had ambushed Mogg, the power build up alone would’ve startled Mogg and sent him fleeing. As for during his pursuit of Mogg, the two were flying far too fast and there was no way he could build up the energies necessary for this technique.

“Damn.” Autarch Mogg frowned. “In the end, the Golden Bridge of Freedom remains a pale shadow of a true Daoguard Tower. Its only advantage is that it is mobile while Daoguard Towers are completely immobile, but even so it moves very slowly.”

The vast golden bridges were slow and not very agile. They were primarily used to keep their occupants alive, which meant that Autarch Mogg’s only choice was to watch as Iyerre built up strength and wait for the attack.

As for putting away the Golden Bridge and then fleeing once more? Without it, he would die even more quickly!

“Exterminate!” Iyerre suddenly roared. His left hand drew backwards while his right hand struck outwards. Instantly, all of the power from those two incomparably dazzling hands of light became concentrated in his right palm, causing it to glow even more brightly than before! The mighty presence and aura of this attack alone was enough to render Autarch Mogg speechless. If he tried to take this attack head-on by himself, he would definitely be crushed to death by it.

The empty void of space itself seemed to shudder and moan in fear as that giant right palm of incandescent light reached out towards Mogg.

“Not happening!” Autarch Mogg immediately summoned his Golden Bridge, sending it flying upwards to block for him. Alas, while the giant palm wasn’t very agile it was still far more agile than the enormous golden bridge. It was easily able to dodge past the blocking bridge and smashed straight past it. The golden bridge had an awesome aura of the Dao protecting it, but the giant palm smashed straight through the barrier like it was nothing and continued straight for Autarch Mogg.

“Golden Bridge!” Autarch Mogg roared loudly. The tower behind him had six corners and six highly noticeable windows. The tower suddenly emitted six rays of prismatic light filled with the entire bridge’s boundless power and Dao, using them to push back at the giant golden palm.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The six ribbons of light did their best to push the palm back, but they were unable to do so. In the end, all they could do was to bind themselves around the giant palm like chains. The giant palm continued to press onwards, but it was clearly much slower than before.

“Without the bridge, I might not be able to withstand you… but standing atop it, you can do nothing to me!” Autarch Mogg manifested a total of six arms, each wielding a long saber, then used all of his power to attack. Countless dimensional ripples filled the air around him, merging together to form a single giant dimensional blade that smashed against the giant golden hand head-on.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Explosions rang out unabated. The giant golden palm quickly dimmed, then retracted backwards.

Autarch Mogg was smashed backwards against the tower. He vomited out a mouthful of blood, but a crazed smile was on his face: “Haha, Iyerre, you aren’t strong enough!” Although he was injuried, he was able to recover before finishing his words.

As for the distant Iyerre, he felt a sense of pity in his heart. He had consumed an enormous amount of power to unleash his most powerful attack. Still, it had been worth it. Now he knew exactly how strong the Golden Bridges of Freedom were.

“Not bad.” Iyerre smiled. Whoosh! He retreated backwards, then disappeared without a trace.

Autarch Mogg finally let out a sigh of relief. Iyerre had put him under a tremendous amount of pressure.

……

Ning and the others were all anxiously awaiting news from Autarch Mogg. All of them were worried about him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Autarch Mogg quickly sent word back to them. Only then did they let out sighs of relief.

“That Iyerre fellow really was powerful. Even though I had the Golden Bridge of Freedom, he was still able to overwhelm me! However, he wasn’t able to actually kill me. When he saw this, he chose to leave instead of continuing the fight,” Autarch Mogg said.

“Tell us a bit about the fight against Iyerre,” Autarch Titanos said.

“Very well.” Autarch Mogg began to narrate the battle in detail. Ning and the others listened attentively, working together to analyze what had happened. In truth, it had been a fairly simple battle. Iyerre had only struck a few times in an effort to conserve energy.

“I can’t believe Omega Autarchs are still this powerful when they are being suppressed and unable to use any of the power of the Dao.” Autarch Titanos let out an amazed sigh. “So the Sithe invaders are definitely led by an Omega Autarch. This is terrible news… and judging from how Iyerre simply left, it’s clear that he has other tricks up his sleeve and hasn’t been driven to the brink just yet.”

“We can’t let our guard down until we win the final battle,” Autarch Ekong said.

“I’m sorry, friends. I had no choice but to reveal the Golden Bridge of Freedom. Now he knows our most powerful defensive technique,” Autarch Mogg said.

They had prepared some trump cards of their own for the final war, but the Golden Bridge of Freedom was their strongest defensive trump card. If even it had been unable to withstand Iyerre’s power, they would’ve been in serious trouble.

In a war, using unexpected trump cards at a critical moment to catch an opponent offguard could produce some truly incredible results! Thus, trump cards generally were saved for the very end. When Ning and Ekong had been trapped within their respective temples, they had faced several dangerous situations but hadn’t been driven to the point of revealing their Golden Bridges of Freedom.

In addition, those bridges had a weakness – they could only be used for defensive purposes! Using them within the temples wouldn’t have helped Ning or Ekong actually escape!

“Mogg, if you didn’t use the Golden Bridge you would’ve died. Our side would’ve lost two Autarch-class combatants! That would’ve been a far greater loss,” Autarch Skyfeeder said.

“Be careful, everyone. Iyerre has failed in his first attempt, but he’ll probably prepare something even more deadly next time.”

“So long as we keep the bridges active, they probably won’t be able to do anything to us.”

……

Within the darkness of space. Iyerre stood there in the void by himself, his body covered with a layer of ripples which blocked the Chaosverse from detecting him.

Whoosh. A blurry pillar of light appeared before him which slowly resolved into a trio of figures. These were the three powerful subordinates he had sent out earlier.

“Iyerre, why have you contacted us?” The two men and the woman looked at Iyerre.

“Have you fought against any of the cultivator leaders yet?” Iyerre asked.

“We’re still searching for them. The Chaosverse is simply too large; just finding them is a task in and of itself,” the silver-robed woman said.

“I need to warn you that they have something akin to a Daoguard Tower they can use,” Iyerre said. “Trap them before attacking them.”

“Alright.” The three were shocked by this news.

Iyerre nodded then broke the connection.