The Desolate Era

Now that Ji Ning and the other Autarchs were no longer actively maintaining the grand formation which covered this region, it quickly crumbled beneath the strikes of the violet-golden chains.

A short while later, four figures emerged from the grayish clouds which constituted the surfaced of the ovaloid Grassland World. It was Iyerre and his three allies.

“They fled,” the silver-robed woman murmured softly. “Iyerre, this is their homeland. These cultivators can fight or flee as they please. If we aren’t able to trap them, we won’t be able to kill them at all.”

“They are all extremely wily. As soon as the odds turn against them, they immediately flee.” The red-robed man frowned as well.

“I agree with everything you two just said.” Iyerre nodded. Killing Ning and the Autarchs would be very difficult, because they all fled at the first sign of bad news! Iyerre was constantly being suppressed by this local Chaosverse, and so once they fled in unison he wouldn’t be able to chase them down.

He could suppress spacetime to make it impossible for them to flee, then warp through spacetime after them… but as he tried to warp close enough to do this, ripples would be generated. Once Ning and the others sensed this, they would instantly flee far away. Iyerre still wouldn’t be able to catch them.

The reason why he had been able to do this to Mogg was because he had gotten close enough to use something akin to a domain-field to prevent Mogg from escaping. Now that Ning and the others were all together and working in concert, Iyerre’s domain would no longer be able to bind them any longer.

In other words… neither speed, suppression of spacetime, nor domains would work. There was nothing which could actually trap Ning and the others. They could come and go as they pleased! It must be remembered that the native Autarchs were in no hurry to conclude the war right away. The longer it dragged on for, the better. If it somehow dragged on for a few million chaos cycles, their Chaosverse would have given birth to another batch of experts that might include new Autarchs or Omega Emperors!

Now that the cultivators had the ‘Truesoul Everlasting’, the rate at which they produced Autarchs would naturally increase significantly.

“They are slippery and cautious. They won’t give us a chance to catch them,” Iyerre said. “Our plan was to use the sudden appearances of myself and the Grassland World to achieve dramatic successes, but in the end both failed. However… in the end, none of it matters. I’ve fully mapped out all possibilities for this entire war. They won’t be able to escape their fate. In the end, we shall still win this war.”

His three allies were rather puzzled. Such self-confidence… where did it stem from? If they couldn’t even catch or hunt down their foes, how were they supposed to beat them?

“Let me repeat myself. I’ve fully mapped out ALL possibilities for this entire war,” Iyerre said with a smile. “Have you forgotten that I sent out the Annihilation Hive at the very beginning of this war?”

“The Annihilation Hive?” The three were startled.

“Haven’t the cultivators already discovered a way to counteract the Annihilation Hive? It’s no longer functioning, right?” the silver-robed woman asked curiously.

“Imbecile.” Iyerre glanced sideways at her. “I released the Annihilation Hive for two reasons. The first was on the off-chance that I might be able to gain total victory if it succeeded in devouring a great deal of this Chaosverse’s energies and caused it to weaken enough for me to take over. This objective failed… but the second objective was the true objective.”

“I sent it out to make it the most lethal weak point in this entire Chaosverse for the cultivators!” Iyerre’s eyes flashed coldly. “Right now, a single one of their avatars is responsible for maintaining the formation that is tying down the Annihilation Hive. All we need to do is charge towards it and destroy the avatar inside the Annihilation Hive, at which point it will start to function again!”

“The Annihilation Hive will once more begin to devour the energies from the Chaosverse, causing it to weaken! The cultivator leaders will be forced to try and stop us. They can’t just sit back and watch as their Chaosverse wastes away… which means that so long as we wait for them at the Annihilation Hive, they’ll be forced to come to us! They’ll obediently step into the battlefield we have parepared.” Iyerre smiled.

The silver-robed woman and the other two revealed looks of delight. They had thought that the Annihilation Hive was of no further use now that it had been counteracted. They hadn’t fully thought through all the other implications.

“Impressive. So long as the Annihilation Hive continues to function, the cultivators will be forced to come and assault it no matter how reluctant they may be. We don’t need to do anything at all. They’ll come to us!” the red-robed man chuckled.

“Let’s go wipe them out in the battlefield of our choosing,” the black-robed man said grimly.

“No rush.” Iyerre smiled. “A war must be carried out step-by-step. You might see an occasional setback, but if you fully planned for all possibilities then you’ll still end up the ultimate victor.”

“Right now, what we need to do is strengthen our forces! Let’s go rescue those trapped Exalts first,” Iyerre said.

Slash! Violet-gold chains began to fly out towards the still-trapped Nine Cicadas Temple. The sealing formation surrounding it was nothing more than a joke to Iyerre. A mere heartbeat later the seemingly-complicated formation had been completely undone, granting the nine Sithe Exalts freedom once more.

The nine Exalts immediately flew over. When they saw Iyerre standing atop the distant gray clouds, they hurriedly bowed: “Almighty Iyerre!”

“Come here. We shall head to the next location.” Iyerre nodded. The Sithe Exalts immediately put away the Nine Cicadas Temple and flew into the Grassland World.

Moments later, the Grassland World once more tore through spacetime and vanished. As soon as it did, a group of figures suddenly appeared off in the distance. It was Ji Ning, Autarch Titanos, and the others. The seven of them hadn’t fled too far through spacetime. They had quickly warped back in secret to scry this place from nearby.

Their movements didn’t cause any disturbances, because they were protected rather than rejected by the Chaosverse. In fact, they were even able to borrow the Chaosverse’s energies to ‘watch’ their opponents from afar!

It was Ning’s primary responsibility to ‘watch’ them, as he was extremely skilled in spacetime and well-rounded in many other areas. Given that he was within his own Chaosverse, simply keeping watch on someone from afar was quite simple.

“We were ambushed by them previously. There’s no way we’re going to let them just disappear again. We have to keep tabs on their location at all times,” Autarch Titanos said. “All of our avatars have been destroyed, which means we have no choice but to simply send our true bodies to carry out this task. Darknorth, for now we’ll have to trouble you to carry this out as the rest of us work on remaking our avatars.”

“Alright.” Ning nodded. The others had all lost their avatars, while his was still in the Annihilation Hive and in peak condition.

Ning could still sense them from afar. He could follow the ripples generated by the Grassland World warping through spacetime and ‘see’ where it was heading.

Whoosh! Ning began to warp through spacetime with the other six in tow, maintaining a distance of roughly a realmverse from the Grassland World. To Ning, a realmverse of distance was nothing at all. His godsense alone vastly outstripped this, and when he relied upon the powers of the Chaosverse and his link to the prime essences he was able to ‘watch’ from an even more ridiculously great distance.

So long as the two sides maintained a distance of just a realmverse away, Iyerre wouldn’t be able to easily detect Ning thanks to the Chaosverse constantly suppressing his powers.

While Ning continued to pursue the Grassland World, Titanos and the others created their new avatars. These avatars merely had 50% of their true power, which was the best they could do on such short notice.

“Judging from the direction they are taking, they should be going to go rescue another temple,” Ning sent.

“Then let us destroy it in advance,” Autarch Titanos said. “Given our power, we are completely capable of working together to destroy the temples in a short period of time.”

Previously, they hadn’t considered the temples to be much of a threat. They didn’t want to attack the temples and reveal the techniques they could use when fighting together, as this would give their opponents a chance to prepare for them in the future. The reveal had to be reserved for the Grassland World… and in the end, they had successfully destroyed one of the conduit formations and forced the ignition of its quintessence core!

“Let’s keep following the Grassland World. Whenever it tries to rescue a temple, we’ll fly up ahead and destroy that temple,” Autarch Ekong said with a cold smile. “We warp through spacetime far faster than that thing does.”

Ning and the others held a significant advantage in both flying speed and warping speed. Even Iyerre was able to just barely meet Autarch standards of speed in warping through spacetime, but of course this was because he was being heavily suppressed by the local Chaosverse.

……

The cultivators spent nearly a month travelling at high speed. In about six or so days, the Grassland World would reach a new temple.

“Skyfeeder, Mogg, the two of you should have your avatars continue to track the Grassland World’s movements. Make sure you know where it is at all times. Don’t lose sight of it!” Out of an abundance of caution, Autarch Titanos gave this task to Skyfeeder and Mogg. The two of them were skilled in time and space, respectively. “The rest of us will head out and move towards the nearest temple at maximum speed and use all our power to destroy it.”

“Alright.” The avatars of Mogg and Skyfeeder were both extremely confident.