The Desolate Era

by S.H.A aifu

Fate had never been kind to Ji Ning. Wracked by illnesses and infirm his entire life on Earth, Ning knew early on that he would die as a teenager. What he didn’t know was that there really was such a thing as life after death, and that the universe was a far larger place than he thought. A lucky twist of fate (one of the few in Ning’s life) meant that Ning was reborn into a world o

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 9 – Sweeping the Loot

Ji Ning, the Paragon of Pills, and Azurefiend flew over together. All eight floors of the tower had already crumbled apart, with the shattered remnants of the tower forming a pile of rubble atop a foundation of dirt that hovered there in space.

"Darknorth, why is it that the Daoguard Tower crumbled without you even attacking it?" The Paragon of Pills was puzzled. "I distinctly remember that it collapsed on its own."

"This Daoguard Tower wasn't all that strong; I expect that its owner was just a Hegemon," Ning said. "It would be too difficult for him to personally subdue a nagapede like that, and so he used the entire Daoguard Tower to keep it sealed and suppressed! So long as the tower was in good shape, the creature would be unable to break free… but once the tower began to crumble, the nagapede would appear and massacre everything around it."

The Paragon of Pills nodded slowly.

"Now, if this was an Exalt's Daoguard Tower, we really would've been in much more trouble." Ning let out a sigh. "Still, we're merely in the outer perimeter of the Sithelands. Almost all of the Daoguard Towers owned by Sithe Exalts are located in the heartland."

"The Sithe heartland?" The Paragon said, "I've visited the Sithelands on many occasions. I could sense that spacetime was in a state of complete disorder and that there were many places that were unexplored."

"Those places were never meant for cultivators to challenge," Ning said. Very few knew the true details and secrets behind the Dawn War. The Paragon of Pills naturally didn't know the secrets either. Yes, she had learned a few things thanks to her crazy, repeated adventures within the Sithelands, but the heartland was a place which not even the Autarchs would dare trespass lightly.

Rumble… as Ning flew towards the toppled tower, his Sword Dao Domain rippled outwards, brushing away the pieces of rubble as he closely inspected the remains of the tower.

"Now this is a fun little toy." Ning removed a dark red globe which had been affixed to one of the top floor. This globe was the object which had unleashed that terrifying attack of light.

"Once it accumulates and stores enough energy, it can unleash an attack of incredible power." Ning chuckled. "This is a decent Sithe weapon, Mistress. Azurefiend, help me search through the rubble. I want to sweep this place clean."

"Heh heh, my pleasure! Master, perhaps you would be willing to bestow some of the treasures you are uninterested in upon me," Azurefiend said, a look of utter shamelessness on his wizened old features.

"Depends on my mood." Ning chuckled. He wasn't just going to give this shameless old man what he wanted.

"I never encountered a Daoguard Tower before. In fact, I never even heard of it before you mentioned it." The Paragon of Pills was filled with curiosity as well. The dangers she had experienced here, especially the terrifying nagapede, had all served to ensure that she understand that this site was very different from the other Sithe ruins she had visited in the past.

The previous ruins she had scoured had been unoccupied. This time, she ran into one with a controller. If it hadn't been for Ning, she truly would've been doomed this time.

Boom! Bang! Rip! Ning, Azurefiend, and the Paragon of Pills happily dismantled the remainders of the Daoguard Tower, taking out all usable Sithe artifacts and even a few unusable ones.

Daoguard Towers were exclusively employed by extremely powerful Sithe, who placed many of their treasures inside the towers. Some of the weapons could even come together in incredibly powerful combinations.

During the previous battle, Ning hadn't even entered the Daoguard tower. As a result, many of the powerful internal defenses hadn't even been used! None of the external weapons were capable of killing Ning from a distance of a billion kilometers. At this distance, Ning was able to dodge with ease even the quickest of attacks. Otherverse Lords might not be able to dodge, but Ning was a different story.

"Not bad."

"This one is decent."

"Now this hammer is scary powerful." Ning and the other two continued to loot the tower, with Azurefiend and the Paragon of Pills occasionally testing out the items they found.

The Paragon of Pills was fairly blasé, as she had adventured through the Sithelands many times and already owned multiple Sithe weapons. Azurefiend, however, didn't own any Sithe weapons at all. Even the suppressive black chains were merely on loan from Ning, who had yet to actually 'gift' them.

After spending a full hour combing through the runes, the team completely looted the area clean. They even took many fragments which were completely unusable. They found a total of twenty-one usable Sithe weapons, and they all had different effects. Some were actually used to scry and scan.

"That is a lot of fine weapons," Azurefiend said excitedly.

"We found so much treasure from this one site." The Paragon of Pills was delighted as well.

Ning, however, was rather disappointed. "Is this it? This is much less than what I expected. We didn't find a single major artifact at all."

Realmslord Windgrace's 'Blacksun', the castle that was used to defend the Three Realms, the city of Houwu in the Blazesun Domain, the Blazesun Ruler's giant warship… all these counted as 'major artifacts'. In contrast, the treasures which Ning had acquired after combing through the tower were all quite mediocre. There wasn't even a single major artifact. All of the treasures combined were probably just barely on par with the Blacksun in value.

"This is already a good haul," the Paragon of Pills said.

"No. According to the Autarchs' records, even the most ordinary of Daoguard Towers would have more than this," Ning said. "I suspected early on that the original owner of the Daoguard Tower had slipped away long ago. Now, I'm sure of it. The original owner must have taken the most valuable treasures out of the Daoguard Tower, leaving behind just the ones he was unable to physically remove from the tower itself."

The Paragon of Pills cast a puzzled glance at the armor and items left behind by the deceased short creature. "Isn't that dead Sithe the owner?"

"Probably not," Ning said. "A mere roar from the nagapede was enough to transform him into dust. He probably wasn't at the Hegemon level of power! Mistress, you might not know this, but amongst the Sithe only Hegemons can build Daoguard Towers. And, to be more precise, only an incredibly small fraction of Hegemons are qualified to do this."

In the Sithe Chaosverse, weak Eternal Emperors were all permitted to build their own Daoguard towers… but here, they were invaders! They had invaded Ning's Chaosverse, and their resources were extremely limited. Building Daoguard Towers was extremely difficult, and erecting a weak one was pointless. Thus, only the most supreme of Sithe Hegemons as well as the Sithe Exalts were permitted to build Daoguard Towers, which they used as focal points for massacring unsuspecting cultivators.

"Azurefiend, go and bind the estate-world that Sithe left behind. Let's see if there are any interesting treasures inside of it," Ning said.

"Right on." Azurefiend excitedly flew over and began to bind the estate-world. Right now, he was on his absolute best behavior in front of Ning. This was partially due to Ning's overwhelming power, partially to convince Ning to give him more pointers, and partially because he hoped that he might be lucky enough to receive a Sithe treasure reward from Ning.

"Whoah." Azurefiend's wizened old face suddenly twisted in shock, his eyes bulging out. "That is a LOT."

"Wipe that freaky look off your face. What treasures does it hold?" Ning laughed.

"So all the treasures were hidden here! Master, take a look at all these treasures!" Azurefiend waved his hand, causing a series of treasures to appear and levitate in the air before them. Light shone from the Paragon of Pills' eyes, and even the formerly-calm Ning revealed a look of shock.

Twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two… a total of twenty-nine treasures appeared before them. There were even TWO realmships in this cache!

"So all the good treasures were here." The Paragon of Pills let out an amazed sigh, then turned to stare with shock at a gray spear that was covered with a fiery red floral pattern. "Isn't that the Exterminatus Spear of the Almighty Seeker of Defeat?"

"The Exterminatus Spear?" Azurefiend was shocked as well. He stared intently at the spear, then said, "Paragon, are you sure? Is it possible that this is another, similar weapon?"

"There's no way I'm wrong about this. When the Almighty Seeker of Defeat first acquired this spear, it didn't have that red floral pattern on it. The Seeker added it later on. Supposedly, he put that fiery red floral pattern on every single weapon he used. The floral pattern probably had some sort of special meaning for him." The Paragon of Pills shook her head. "He died long ago, and I heard he died in the Sithelands. I never would've thought that he actually died here."

Ning nodded. "That explains it all. Most of these treasures were probably left behind by the cultivators who invaded this place over the course of many aeons. That short Sithe collected all of their treasures after killing them. I was wondering why there were TWO realmships in that estate-world. It seems that they came from slain cultivators."

The Paragon of Pills let out a sigh.

"Mistress, take whatever you need," Ning said with a laugh.

"To be honest, these are of no use to me." The Paragon of Pills looked at Ning. "Darknorth, I think you know what I want above all else. As for these treasures? Even if I took all of them, they probably still wouldn't be enough to convince an Autarch to help me out."

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 10 – Space Sword Dao

"I have a request to make. I know it is a bit excessive, but I truly am out of options." The Paragon of Pills looked at Ji Ning. "I have no choice but to shamelessly ask you to help me out, Darknorth. Please ask an Autarch to revive those three brothers of mine."

The Paragon of Pills rarely begged others. She was, by nature, an extremely proud person. However, reviving her three brothers was virtually her entire reason for existence, something which she wanted above everything else. It was much like how Ning desperately wished to be able to revive his wife Yu Wei!

The Paragon of Pills had repeatedly risked her life in diving into the Sithe ruins, but she still wasn't even close to having as much treasure as the Autarch had demanded for his aid. The Autarch had asked for a thousand realmships worth of treasure! This was an incredible request, so high as to cause her to feel despair. This was why she had become even more crazed in her pursuit of treasure.

Now, she was able to sense hope when she looked at Ning. She viewed Ning as she would a son, and in her heart she truly didn't want to ask this of him. However, she really was out of options. Thus, she had 'shamelessly' begged him for help.

"Mistress." Ning knew how the Paragon of Pills felt. He smiled. "Mistress, don't worry. I'll definitely go ask the Autarchs to help out. I can't speak on their behalf, but I can say that there is a 90% chance they'll agree."

"90% chance?" The Paragon's heart swelled with indescribable excitement. Even her face turned ruddy.

She had been waiting for far, far too long. For the sake of this goal, she had nearly driven herself insane. In pursuit of this goal, she had accomplished many things which were viewed as miracles. When she had first gained eternity, she was an ordinary Eternal Emperor, not a Hegemon… but she had managed to slowly train to the Hegemon level, then reach incredibly high levels of skill in many different Daos. All of this was for the sake of reviving her three brothers.

Ning smiled upon seeing this. The reason why he had said there was a 90% chance was merely because he hadn't actually asked any of the Autarchs yet. In truth, Ning knew that the Autarchs were desperately looking for ways to help him out in order to express their gratitude. Bring something back to life? This was a fairly minor ask. So long as it was possible, the Autarchs would definitely agree!

"Once we leave the Sithelands, I'll immediately ask the Autarchs to help out," Ning said.

"Darknorth." The Paragon of Pills' entire aura seemed to have transformed. In the past, she was incomparably cold and remote… but now, a hint of lively fire seemed to course through her.

"Haha. Now, Mistress, can you go ahead and choose the treasures you want?" Ning said.

"I already have multiple Sithe weapons. A few more won't make much of a difference," the Paragon refused. She felt that she had already taken too much advantage of Ning. She couldn't accept any further gifts.

Seeing this, Ning nodded. "Ah, but you don't have a realmship yet, right?"

The Paragon blinked.

"Realmships make life much more convenient. Take this one." Ning waved his hand, sending a realmship to float in front of the Paragon of Pills.

The Paragon of Pills no longer held back. She immediately said, "Fine, I'll accept this." She truly did feel as though destiny was a marvelous thing. When she had led Ning to the Trileaf Realm, he was just a child… and now, this child had completely changed her destiny.

"This suit of armor can be used to cover your entire body. It is highly defensive, but it'll also increase your attack power dramatically. It's quite multifunctional. With this by your side, you should be able to survive even an enraged Otherverse Lord." Ning waved his hand, choosing a heavy suit of coppery red armor and sending it over to Azurefiend.

Azurefiend was rather stunned. He truly did badly desire a Sithe treasure, but he himself felt that he had done too little for Ning to warrant one yet. He felt a bit embarrassed to be given one.

"Master, I'll accept it." Azurefiend had a solemn look on his face. "I've been alive for so many years, but I never had a Sithe weapon to call my own. I, Azurefiend, shall never forget your benevolence, Master."

In his heart, Azurefiend silently decided that although his master would one day perish, he would continue to safeguard his master's family and friends.

"It is just a toy to me. No need to get too emotional." Ning waved his hand, collecting all of the other treasures. He didn't really care about them, because his original plan had been to wait until the later stages of his truesoul's disintegration before doing a bit of adventuring in the Sithelands. Since he was already here, he was going to continue wandering through the Sithelands after asking the Autarchs to revive the Paragon of Pills' three brothers.

In other words, he would have plenty more treasures coming his way! Hegemons might have to risk their lives to acquire Sithe treasures, but Ning was able to acquire them with ease.

After fully looting the Daoguard Tower, Ning turned to stare at the many dimensional hallways barring their path. "These dimensional hallways have been completely sealed off. For now, there's no way out. If I used all my power, it would take me ten or twenty sword-strikes to carve a path open for us, but it really isn't worth it. Now that the Daoguard Tower has been destroyed, they no longer have a power source and will quickly use up the little energy they have."

Rumble… his awesome Sword Dao Domain descended and began to furiously smash against the distant dimensional hallways. The criss-crossing hallways were able to endure the assault, but flickers of light began to appear on their surfaces. Clearly, they were using up a great deal of power to resist.

"Master, how long will it take?" Azurefiend asked curiously.

"How should I know?" Ning laughed. "Less than a chaos cycle."

Ning was able to keep his Sword Dao Domain continuously activated. It drew from the power of the Chaosverse itself; not one iota of Ning's own energies were consumed. It would last for as long as he wanted it to last! While doing so, Ning began a period of silent meditation and cultivation, as did the Paragon of Pills and Azurefiend.

Time flowed on, one year after another. The dimensional hallways continued to hold firm; clearly, they had been infused with quite a bit of power. Over eight million years went by in the blink of an eye.

Rumble… a ripple suddenly spread out with Ning at its center. The Paragon of Pills and Azurefiend were seated in the lotus position atop boulders within the tower ruins, and they both opened their eyes as the ripple washed past them. They both felt a thrill of fear go down their spine, and both sighed at how incredible Darknorth was! One was Ning's retainer, while the other was essentially one of Ning's teachers, but both marveled at how unfathomably powerful he had become.

At their level, they couldn't even truly understand how terrifying Ning's Sword Dao was. Just the tiniest bit of leakage from its aura was enough to cause them to feel fear. When that invisible ripple washed past them, they felt as though invisible blades were slicing at their bodies.

"The Space Sword Dao." Ning opened his eyes, then reached out with his hand. Whoosh! An ethereal sword appeared above the palm of his hand, emanating ripples of dimensional power.

Prior to coming here, Ning had spent three thousand chaos cycles wandering the Chaosverse with his daughter and had nearly finished infusing his Dao of Space into his Eternal Omega Sword Dao. After seeing the dimensional hallways, he gained new insights into the Dao of Space. This sped up the infusion process, allowing him to break through and master his Space Sword Dao.

The Space Sword Dao was highly suited for dimensional travel, allowing him to tear through space like it was nothing more than tofu.

From this day forth, the amount of distance he could travel when he used his sword to tear through space would skyrocket. The Autarch of Annihilation, 'Autarch Ekong', was not particularly skilled in the Dao of Space, and so he wouldn't be able to travel as far or as fast as Ning!

Ning had reached the Hegemonic level in the Dao of Space long ago, after all. Now, he had infused it all into his Sword Dao and formed the Space Sword Dao.

"Mastering the Space Sword Dao clearly took much more time than the Lightning Sword Dao or the Five Elements Sword Dao." Ning shook his head to himself. "But the further down this road I go, the more time will be needed. I just don't have enough time."

With each improvement, Ning could sense that his foundation was broadening and that he was getting slightly closer to success. Ning felt certain that if he had enough time, he had a very good chance of reaching the ultimate pinnacle via this route.

Another half-million years went by after Ning mastered the Space Sword Dao.

Finally… Crack! Crack! Crack! The dimensional hallways that had been for many years just barely able to endure Ning's sword-light finally began to twist, shudder, and crack.

Looks of delight appeared on the faces of Ning, Azurefiend, and the Paragon of Pills.

"Haha, we've finally broken through!" Azurefiend grinned. "I thought that we'd actually spend an entire chaos cycle here."

"I'm impressed it managed to last as long as it did. I kept my Sword Dao Domain active this entire time, assaulting them without pause, but they still managed to last for many years. Honestly, if I used the brute-force method, I don't think twenty blows of the sword would've been enough. I probably would've had to kill myself," Ning said with a laugh. As he spoke, some of the dimensional hallways began to completely break apart and collapse.

Countless dimensional hallways began to break apart and crumble. The Dimensional Hallway Lock was an extremely complicated technique which not even Ning could solve, despite his mastery of the Space Sword Dao… but now that its energies had been exhausted, it was still going to crumble.

Soon, all of the dimensional hallways vanished without a trace, leaving behind just a few pocket dimensions which hovered in the skies like lonely little islands.

Thanks to the karmic lines tying them together, Ning knew exactly which pocket dimension Lord Annihilation was in.

"Let's see what the other dimensions hold," Ning said with a laugh. With but a thought, he sent out countless streams of sword-light to surround and assault the hundreds of pocket dimensions, piercing through them to reveal what lay within.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 11 – Tamed

Ji Ning, the Paragon of Pills, and Azurefiend all stared at the pocket dimensions as the streaks of sword-light pierced through them. They instantly saw that two of them held the two companions of the Paragon. One held Lord Annihilation, whose eyes were filled with murderous bloodlust. The other was filled with a gray-robed woman who had silvery hair.

Lord Annihilation raised his head to stare at the outside world, a murderous look in his eyes. The gray-robed woman turned to stare at Ning as well.

"Annihilation!" the Paragon of Pills barked coldly. "Wake up!"

Lord Annihilation's gaze slowly returned to his normal calm. Swoosh! Swoosh! Both he and the gray-robed woman immediately flew out of their pocket dimensions.

"Thank you, Paragon of Pills. Thank you, Daolord Darknorth." Lord Annihilation had a delighted look on his face and behaved with tremendous respect.

"What was going on just now?" Ning was rather surprised.

"Annihilation was being constantly assaulted by illusions. Every so often, he'd be drawn into a berserk state," the Paragon said. "However, each time he would eventually regain his clarity of mind after giving vent to his rage."

Lord Annihilation said in a rather embarrassed manner, "But the amount of time I was able to remain clear-minded was slowly shrinking. If I was trapped for a few hundred more chaos cycles, I probably would've completely lost myself to the madness. I only escaped that fate because you saved me, Daolord Darknorth."

Ning continued to keep his Sword Dao Domain active, using it to scan through the secrets of that dimensional pocket. He couldn't help but secretly sigh in amazement at what he found. The illusions had been set up in a truly intricate and marvelous way which would allow them to silently and soundlessly penetrate a prisoner's defenses, then affect his mind. However, Ning suspected that many of the formations in this Daoguard Tower had not been personally set down by the master of the tower.

The Sithe had major powers who specialized in formations or artificing. They would mass produce these things, then auction them off. The 'Dimensional Hallway Lock', for example, was something which only a Sithe Exalt could create.

"Tia greets you, Daolord Darknorth." The silvery-haired gray-robed woman flew over and bowed respectfully.

Ning knew that this woman was viewed by many as being just as 'crazy' as the Paragon of Pills. She often went adventuring in the Sithelands. However, she was different from the Paragon, who was more distant and cold. Hegemon Tia was calm and tranquil, as though nothing could cause a stir in her soul. She was someone who would react calmly to anything and everything. Even if she herself was about to die, she would respond with this calm equanimity.

"Master, look over there." Azurefiend pointed towards a distant pocket dimension.

Ning, the Paragon, Tia, and Lord Annihilation all turned to look. This was a dimension filled with black mist. Inside, there was a towering mountain that had a beautiful palace located at the very peak. There were even a few servants in front of the palace.

"It seems rather lavish. I imagine that's where the Sithe normally resided," Ning said. "Come, let's go take a look." Ning's group quickly flew through the air towards that floating pocket dimension.

The palace was quite beautiful. Some servants were busy keeping it clean, while others were standing watch. As soon as Ning's group landed, they all bowed respectfully and called out: "Masters." All of them, however, seemed rather puzzled.

"They are all Daolords." The Paragon of Pills was rather startled. She asked, "You've never met any of us. Why do you call us 'Masters'?"

The servants exchanged glances, rather nervous. The Paragon of Pills frowned. "You were able to become Daolords. How is it that you are this spineless?" She pointed at the old Daolord who seemed to be the most powerful. "You. Answer my question."

The old man said respectfully, "Everyone who comes here is a 'Master'. We are eternal servants."

Ning stared intently at them, scrying the pasts of these servants. These Daolords all felt rather terrified when they saw Ning staring at them like this. They felt as though this white-robed Daolord was able to completely see through them. This sensation caused their hearts to quiver.

"They all used to live within the estate-world." Ning sighed. "Afterwards, they were chosen by the Sithe to come here and serve. All of them have been trained to be incredibly obedient."

"Since when were Daolords so easily tamed?" Azurefiend was rather surprised. Most Samsara Daolords would rather die than submit.

"Not just Daolords. Even Hegemons have been tamed." Ning couldn't help but sigh. When he scried the pasts of these Daolords, he was also able to see some other information regarding this palace.

"All of you, come out!" Ning barked, sending out his Sword Dao Domain to press down upon every inch of the palace. The formerly-quiet palace suddenly changed, with five figures flying out of it like streaks of light. All of them had awesome auras of power. They were all either Hegemons or Otherverse Lords, and their eyes were completely dead and devoid of all emotion.

"This is Master's estate. How dare you trespass here?" The five figures were filled with malevolence.

"Are you… Lord Starbearer?" The Paragon of Pills was able to recognize one of the Otherverse Lords.

"Brother Skypillar?" Hegemon Azurefiend called out in shock, "Y-you… do you recognize me?"

"Azurefiend?" A red-haired man replied coldly, "Of course I recognize you. However, this is my master's territory. Now that you have come here, you must die."

"Kill!" All five figures quickly charged forwards, seeking to slay Ning and the others.

"Freeze!" Ning commanded softly. Instantly, four of the five charging figures were completely paralyzed by the suppressive might of Ning's Sword Dao Domain. Only the Otherverse Lord who the Paragon had called 'Lord Starbearer' was able to continue his charge towards Ning, thanks to his entire body being covered by the power of his otherverse. However, Ning was able to send out incredibly powerful blows of sword-light to keep him at bay with ease.

"Azurefiend, chain him down," Ning commanded.

"Yes, Master!" Azurefiend had been patiently waiting for a good opportunity. When he saw Ning knock down Lord Starbearer with a streak of sword-light, Azurefiend immediately attacked with all six black chains. He quickly bound Lord Starbearer in layers of chains, ensuring that he was no longer able to move at all.

"Brother Skypillar, what's wrong with you? We journeyed together and adventured together. Have you forgotten?" Hegemon Azurefiend couldn't believe that this good friend of his would attack him. He had wandered through many places, and Hegemon Skypillar was someone he counted amongst his life-and-death friends.

"All who offend Master must die!" the bound Hegemon Skypillar said through clenched teeth, a frenzied look on his face. As for the others… their eyes remained completely dead, but they also had berserk looks on their faces. They truly wanted to kill Ning and his team.

Ning suddenly understood what was going on. He let out a sigh. "Although they kept their memories, they've already lost their sense of self. They've been tamed and transformed into a type of special Sithe golem."

"Golem?" The Paragon of Pills and the others didn't understand.

"Their bodies were unchanged and they kept all their powers and memories… but they've completely lost their id, their ego, their sense of self. They are like golems in that they will simply do whatever their master commands. They will obey any order their master gives them," Ning explained. "They might be 'alive', but in reality they are like golems. Those two stone pythons who attacked me earlier were also living creatures who were transformed into golems."

Most golems were created via magic treasures. The Sithe, however… they were able to convert living beings into golems.

"For all intents and purposes, they died long ago." Ning looked at the five powerful cultivators, sighing at the savage, murderous look on their faces. "Let us grant them rest at long last."

Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash.

All five were ground to dust by Ning's sword-light. Even Lord Starbearer was slain, due to the black chains suppressing his power and preventing him from fighting back.

A look of heart-ache and grief was on Azurefiend's old face.

"Hegemons and Otherverse Lords can be transformed into golems?" The Paragon of Pills shook her head.

"It is extremely difficult to convert powerful creatures into golems, and the stronger their Dao-heart is the better. For these five to have been converted is a sign that their Dao-hearts simply weren't strong enough. In addition, the conversion process requires an extremely long period of time. The process has to be slow and gradual, without the cultivators even noticing anything. If the cultivators knew that their terrifying fate was to be transformed into golems, they would probably commit suicide instead. That's why the process has to be gradual; not the slightest bit of haste is acceptable! By the time the cultivator realizes what has happened, it is already too late," Ning said. This was part of the information which the Autarchs had provided to him.

Lord Annihilation was greatly shocked by this. "Then when I was being repeatedly assaulted by those illusions… was that part of the taming and transforming process?"

"Most likely, yes." Ning nodded.

"I could sense some charming spells aimed at me in my pocket dimension as well," the Paragon of Pills said. "But I just stayed there without daring to move anywhere. It didn't seem to affect me much."

"Given how strong your Dao-heart is, Mistress, there is no way the Sithe would've been able to convert you." Ning glanced at the palace. "I can sense that this palace holds quite a few prisoners inside. Almost all of them are Daolords who refused to obey orders, which is why they were imprisoned and tortured by that short Sithe. I can also sense that a Hegemon has been imprisoned there as well. Most likely, the taming process failed with him."

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 12 – Grand Dimensional Formation

Ji Ning waved a finger from afar. Rumble… Ning's Sword Dao Domain actually forcibly excavated the entire prison beneath the palace, causing it fly outwards before settling upon the ground with a boom. The prison cages all shattered apart, revealing the imprisoned Daolords who were inside, all of whom looked to be in terrible shape.

The largest cell had been used to imprison a black-haired man who had a single horn on his head. His hair was tousled, and his entire body was covered with a spiderweb of countless scars.

The black-haired man raised his head and stared towards Ning. His gaze was cold and resolute, as though nothing could shake his will at all.

"Eh?" A puzzled look appeared in his eyes. "The Paragon of Pills? Hegemon Tia?" the black-haired man said in a low, hoarse voice. He recognized these two 'madwomen' who often visited the Sithelands.

"Brother Flameleft?" Hegemon Tia was startled.

"Flameleft, you are still alive?!" The Paragon of Pills was shocked as well.

Ning glanced at the mechanisms and barriers used to chain the black-haired man. He immediately sent out streaks of sword-light that quickly shattered them to bits. With those barriers gone, Hegemon Flameleft regained his power and the wounds on his body quickly vanished. Black robes appeared over his body, and he turned to stare at Ning in a rather puzzled manner.

He could sense that this white-robed Daolord in front of him was incredibly terrifying; the sword-light the Daolord had created was capable of slaying him with ease. And yet, the man was clearly just a Daolord who had failed the Daomerge!

"Hegemon Flameleft, this is Daolord Darknorth," Lord Annihilation said hurriedly. "We all owe our very lives to Daolord Darknorth. He is so strong that he treats with Autarchs as equals; not even the Sithe Exalts can compare to him in power."

Hegemon Flameleft instantly realized just how incredibly powerful Daolord Darknorth was.

"Flameleft thanks you, Daolord, for saving my life." Hegemon Flameleft hurriedly bowed respectfully, a grateful look in his eyes. "Flameleft shall never forget the grace you have shown me today."

No one would ever know how much torment and misery he had suffered. On multiple occasions, he had very nearly broken down. All the others who had been captured had committed suicide early on. Those who didn't commit suicide in time would see their divine power and Immortal energy sealed away, making future suicide impossible! They were imprisoned and suffered countless torments that were truly indescribable.

Suicide was no longer an option, and they had only two options before them. The first was to submit and become a puppet. The second was to continue resisting. In the end, the only one who managed to continue resisting was Flameleft.

The Autarchs who had seen this in the past actually drew from it, using it as an inspiration for their idea of torturing Sithe Exalts in the hopes that they would finally give up and allow their truesouls and souls to be infiltrated. That way, once the Sithe Exalts died, their truesoul fragments would be absorbed and swallowed by Ning's Chaosverse.

The Sithe Exalts had nearly been driven mad from the torture, but they clearly were still capable of enduring it.

"Flameleft, were any of your weapons stolen by the Sithe? I already killed the Sithe who ran this place and have all of his treasures," Ning said. He felt a great deal of admiration for Hegemon Flameleft; the man had been able to endure for so very long, even though there was no visible hope whatsoever! This was no easy feat.

"I didn't have many powerful weapons," Hegemon Flameleft said. "The only good weapon I had was that axe I always used."

Ning immediately waved his hand, causing a series of axes to appear before him. There were six in total, and one of them voluntarily flew over to Hegemon Flameleft. Hegemon Flameleft excitedly grasped the axe. The axe itself was shivering!

"It wasn't easy for you to stay alive," Ning said with a laugh. "Stay safe and avoid the Sithelands unless you have a compelling reason to be here."

"Understood." Hegemon Flameleft was the type of person who always repaid his debts to others. Ning had saved his life, and so he privately swore that he would definitely do everything he could to repay Ning.

"This bracelet is an interesting Sithe trinket. It won't make you much stronger, but it'll be useful to you whenever you need to flee." Ning waved his hand, tossing out a Sithe bracelet. "Don't be shy and just take it. I feel quite a bit of admiration for you, to tell you the truth."

Hegemon Flameleft hesitated slightly.

"Brother Flameleft, just accept it," Hegemon Tia said, as did the Paragon of Pills. Both of them knew that Daolord Darknorth had completely surpassed all other cultivators and was virtually a peer of the Autarchs. Most Sithe artifacts were truly useless to him, while the Three Realms only needed some of the more important ones.

Besides… if Ning really did need Sithe weapons, he could go to any of the ruins and acquire a mountain of them.

"Thank you, Daolord." Flameleft wasn't the wishy-washy type, and so he offered a simple thanks while firmly engraving Ning's kindness into his heart.

"It's time for us to leave." Ning glanced at the surrounding area. Daoguard Towers were absolute nightmares for other cultivators, but they wouldn't be that bad for him if it wasn't for the fact that his truesoul was constantly crumbling. He had been forced to attack several times here, resulting in his lifespan lessening by quite a bit.

Whoosh. Ning and the others immediately soared into the skies, flying into the endless black mist outside the lonely dimensional islands. After flying for a short period of time, they flew out of it and reached the empty void outside of it.

Ding!

An extremely pleasing sound suddenly spread out from very away in spacetime. Ning's face hardened slightly as he swept the area with his gaze. Ever since he had mastered the Space Sword Dao, his attunement towards space had become extremely acute. He saw that far off in the distant, there was a total of nine 'corners' which held enormous hidden regions within them. Now, all nine corners had suddenly begun to emanate dazzling light.

"What's wrong, Darknorth?" The Paragon of Pills, Azurefiend, and the others were all puzzled.

"Let's get out of here right away!" Just as the words were leaving Ning's lips, space began to twist around them.

Whoosh! The nine distant 'specks' of light resonated together to generate a grand dimensional formation that instantly swept across the region Ning was in, forming a black hole that sucked all of them inside.

A heartbeat leater, everything grew calm again. Aside from the fact that Ning's group had just vanished, everything seemed completely ordinary and unpertubed.

Ning's group reappeared within a blurry region filled by clouds and mist.

"Where are we?" the Paragon of Pills said as they all scanned the region.

"My godsense has been suppressed. I'm unable to see anything at all," Lord Annihilation said hurriedly.

Ning scanned the area silently. His face was even more solemn than it had been during their battles at the Daoguard Tower.

"What a terrifying formation, and what a terrifying level of mastery over the Dao of Space!" Ning murmured softly. Just now, he had been able to witness with great clarity how they had been forcibly teleported into this place. Those nine incomparably distant and vast dimensions had joined together into an enormous formation of dazzling profundity. This was a level of mastery over space which left Ning breathless. Nobody in their entire Chaosverse was capable of such a thing!

"Darknorth, where are we?" the Paragon of Pills asked.

"Still in Sithe territory," Ning said heavily. "But this place is probably a hundred times deadlier than the Daoguard Tower we were in." Although they had arrived just a short while ago, the hints which Ning saw allowed him to quickly understand how dangerous a situation they were in.

"Autarch Titanos. Autarch Ekong…" Ning immediately began to reach out through the message-talismans to all six Autarchs.

"Darknorth."

"What's wrong, Darknorth?"

The Autarchs scattered throughout the Chaosverse all immediately responded to Ning, including Autarch Mogg who was responsible for standing watch over the Sithelands. This was the very first time Ning had ever used the message-talisman to contact them.

"There is something I need some assistance with," Ning sent through the talisman. "I am in the Sithelands and broke through a Daoguard Tower to save some cultivators, but just as I was about to leave I was forcibly teleported elsewhere by a formation of incredible power. This formation was established by linking together nine enormous dimensions and was incredibly complex; I believe it has surpassed the limits of what cultivators in our Chaosverse can accomplish. My companions and I are now trapped here, and we are afraid to recklessly move around."

"Darknorth, stay right where you are."

"Stay there and don't move." The Autarchs quickly began to send their replies. In dangerous places, the more you moved around the quicker you would die.

"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. I could sense danger as soon as I arrived. If I tried to escape on my own, I'd probably end up dying here. I don't really care about my own life, as my truesoul is already breaking down, but someone extremely important to me is here as well as a few other cultivators," Ning sent. He truly didn't wish for the Paragon of Pills to die.

"Our avatars are all standing watch over the Sithelands," Autarch Titanos said. "I'll have my avatar meet up with Mogg's and we'll work together on this."

Autarchs had incredibly powerful avatars, as they were generally outfitted with many mighty weapons. Most Autarch avatars had nearly 80% of the true body's power!

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 13 – The Hidden Dimension

Although the Sithe heartlands had been completely sealed off, they continued to represent a disaster waiting to happen to the cultivator civilizations! Thus, Autarch Mogg stood watch over this place in future, as did his avatar and the avatars of all five other Autarchs.

Riiiip! Space twisted, resulting in a dazzling tunnel of light appearing. Two figures emerged shoulder-to-shoulder from this tunnel of light, with one being the bald red-robed avatar of Autarch Titanos, and the other being a Tall, skinny, azure-robed man who had some scales on his cheeks. The second man was Autarch Mogg, and his eyes were flecked with azure light.

The two stepped out of the tunnel of light and entered normal space. "Darknorth, we've already arrived. Let Mogg and I investigate this place first." Autarch Titanos glanced at the distant region, filled with a billowing black fog which surrounded many pocket dimensions that floated in the air. This was the place where the Paragon of Pills had been trapped previously.

"Alright." Ji Ning waited from the separate dimension he had been teleported two. Now that the two Autarchs had arrived, he felt a sense of hope.

The reason these two had arrived was because of the specific Daos they followed. Autarch Mogg walked the path of the Space Daobirth Essence and was the Autarch with the greatest amount of control over space. This was why he was responsible for standing guard over the Sithelands; if anything happened, he would be able to sense it thanks to his dimensional mastery.

As for Autarch Titanos, his path was that of the Karma Daobirth Essence, an even more incredible Dao! He had met Ning twice, and as a result the two were connected by karma. It was possible that he would be able to sense Ning's location thanks to the karma which bound them together.

The avatars of Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos scanned the area vigilantly. "Mogg, what do you think?" Autarch Titanos asked.

"Wait a moment," Autarch Titanos said, his azure eyes scanning the void around them. Although the grand dimensional formation was now dormant, there were still some traces of its previous activation which allowed Autarch Mogg to calculate some of the secrets behind it.

Space trembled and rippled before his gaze. Suddenly, he stared off into the distance, then turned to look at several other locations as well. Frowning, he said, "Darknorth was right. This formation was activated from nine separate locations, each of which is incredibly far away. This formation is marvelously intricate, and its usage of dimensional mastery far surpasses my own."

"I cannot find the dimension Darknorth and his team have been teleported to." Autarch Mogg shook his head. "What about you, Titanos?"

"Darknorth's too far away. I can't find him via just karma alone." Autarch Titanos frowned as well.

Clouds lazily drifted nearby. Ning's group remained atop the clouds, not daring to move about rashly.

"Darknorth, we're unable to find the exact place you have been trapped," Autarch Titanos replied. "Our only option is to have your Primaltwin come over here as well. Your Primaltwin should be able to sense your true body, allowing it to find you."

"Alright." Ning nodded.

"Mogg will head straight to the Flamedragon Realmverse and bring your Primaltwin over here," Autarch Titanos stated. "The place you have been imprisoned is most likely an extremely important Sithe nexus point. Given that we didn't even know it existed, it has to be an incredibly dangerous place to be in. Don't move about rashly; just stay there and wait for us."

"Don't worry, I'm not so rash as to run around wildly," Ning sent back. The two sides then broke off the connection.

Ning was starting to feel rather grim. Autarch Titanos was skilled in karma, while Autarch Mogg was skilled in space, yet neither was able to locate him. This meant the formation which teleported him here was truly incredible!

"How did it go, Darknorth?" The Paragon of Pills looked at Ning.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine. We'll wait right here. The Autarchs are already on their way, but the place we're in is fairly stable. It'll probably take them a bit of time," Ning said.

Hegemon Tia, Hegemon Flameleft, and the others were all secretly astonished. Daolord Darknorth truly was incredible; as soon as he was trapped here, Autarchs hastened over to help him out. The words 'the Autarchs are already on their way' clearly indicated that more than one Autarch had come. Since when were Autarchs so amenable to helping out ordinary cultivators?!

"Why did the Sithe establish this secret location?" Nign glanced at the surrounding area. Thanks to his incredible insight, he was able to vaguely see a vast sea off in the distance. He was quite curious as to what this realm contained, but he knew that if he indulged it too much it would be the death of him. He couldn't be rash; it was best to wait for the Autarchs to come.

It took Autarch Mogg a mere month to find Ning's black-robed Primaltwin, then bring it all the way over to the Sithelands.

The black-robed Primaltwin Ning was currently standing next to Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos in the air.

"My true body and the other cultivators were teleported away from that location right there." The black-robed Ning pointed to an area of space, then pointed towards nine different directions. "The nine different sources of that dimensional formation came from those nine directions. All of them were located extremely far away."

"That's exactly what I sensed as well." Autarch Mogg nodded. He had been in a rather contemplative state ever since he had discovered the dimensional formation. Clearly, he had been pondering over this formation.

"Darknorth, where is your true body?" Autarch Titanos asked.

"I can sense its location." Ning noded. "I'd like to ask you to help me lead the way, Autarch Mogg."

Autarch Mogg led the way in carving through space, while Ning's Primaltwin guided him in his path. After spending the time needed to boil a kettle of tea, they had traversed the equivalent of five or six realmverses.

"Halt!"

They had reached a region of empty darkness which held nothing at all. The black-robed Ning stood there in the void, slowly moving forwards and warping through ten billion kilometers of space with each step he took.

Forward. Back. Up. Down. Ning seemed to be walking in circles, while the avatars of Autarch Mogg and Autarch Titanos watched from afar.

"Now that's odd." The black-robed Ning scanned the area. "Autarch Mogg, Autarch Titanos, I can clearly sense that my true body is within a hundred billion kilometers of us! And yet, I've discovered that no matter where I go, I cannot move any closer to it. Just now, I even tried to enter other dimensional continuums but still remained unable to move closer to my true body."

"A hundred billion kilometers?" Autarch Titanos glanced at Autarch Mogg. "Mogg, what do you think?"

A hundred billion kilometers was a very short amount of distance to figures like Autarchs and Ning; a single step through spacetime was more than enough to traverse such a distance. And yet, Ning's Primaltwin was able to sense his true body's location but was completely unable to move any closer to it.

"There is an enormous hidden dimension here." Autarch Mogg scanned the area, his eyes shooting out rays of blurry azure light which caused space to twist and distort. He said calmly, "This gigantic dimension is extremely well-made and perfectly separated from the outside world. No matter what you try, you wno't be able to move a single step closer to this dimension."

It was similar to mortals walking on Ning's old world of 'Earth'. No matter how much time they spent walking on Earth's surface, they would never be able to move any closer to Earth's core. By the same principle, Ning was completely unable to move closer to this hidden region.

"It is absolutely perfect. Although I can vaguely sense that it is here, I can't find any flaws in its creation at all which would allow me to lock onto it," Autarch Mogg said. "If the teleportation formation was to activate again and bring another outsider here, I would be able to detect its location during the teleportation process and then open a dimensional tunnel to it. Right now, though, it is completely hidden and sealed away from us. There's nothing I can do."

"I have to somehow activate it a second time?" The black-robed Ning felt a bit frustrated.

"This dimensional has completely blocked off karma itself. I can't locate Darknorth's true body through karma either." Autarch Titanos looked at Ning. "Darknorth, I'm ashamed to say this, but neither of us will be able to solve this problem in a short amount of time. I'll have Ekong and the others come test it out as well. Perhaps one of them will succeed."

"It'll be fine even if you cannot. I might be trapped inside, but not just anyone can bring harm to me," the black-robed Ning said. "I'll figure something out."

"Be careful." Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg felt rather guilty. They knew that if even the two of them were helpless, it was unlikely the other four would succeed; Autarch Skyfeeder was skilled in the Dao of Time, Autarch Ekong was skilled in the Dao of Destruction, Autarch Bolin was skilled in the Dao of the Claw, and Autarch Stonerule was skilled in the Dao of Illusions.

"The reason my true body entered the Sithelands was to save someone; the Paragon of Pills," Ning said. "The Mistress wishes to revive her three brothers, one of whom is a Hegemon of the Dao of the Sword."

"Oh, the Paragon of Pills? I know of her." Autarch Titanos nodded. "She sought me out, and I told her to come back after she had a thousand realmships worth of treasure."

Ning said, "Autarch Titanos, I'd like to ask you to help the Mistress complete this dream of hers."

"A minor matter," Autarch Titanos said. "But the otherverse she resides in was created by Autarch Skyfeeder. I'll have her handle this personally. It'll be much easier for her to keep that otherverse safe while reversing spacetime to revive those three."

This task was indescribably difficult for Hegemons, but to Autarchs it was nothing more than a bit of extra effort.

"Darknorth, you have to be careful inside there," Autarch Mogg said solemnly. "We originally thought that we had taken full control over the Sithelands's perimeter, sealing away the few places we didn't breach… but clearly, we were wrong. There are hidden areas we were not aware of! I imagine that the Sithe have been watching us in secret, biding their time."

"Don't worry. Even if a Sithe Exalt comes, I'll kill him with a blow from my sword," Ning said with a smile.

Within that blurry, cloud-filled region. The white-robed Ning said to the Paragon of Pills, "Mistress, I've already spoken to the Autarchs. Autarch Skyfeeder will personally revive your three brothers."

Tears appeared in the Paragon's eyes, and her entire body begin to tremble. Finally, two tears fell down… but a smile was on her face.

This solitary, glacially cold woman was actually, finally smiling. Her smile was radiant and beautiful, and even Ning was rather stunned by it. This was beauty that stemmed from the depths of a soul, beauty and joy which was truly infectious.

"Thank you, Darknorth." The Paragon of Pills looked at Ning.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 14 – The Island Battle

Many people knew of the 'Mad Paragon of Pills', including Azurefiend, Hegemon Tia, Hegemon Flameleft, and Lord Annihilation. They all knew how frenzied she could be in the pursuit of her dream… and now, it was finally going to be realized. They could imagine the emotional upheaval she felt! This was a happier moment for her than succeeding in the Daomerge had been. The joy she felt surpassed even life and death!

"Congratulations, Paragon of Pills!" Lord Annihilation said with a laugh.

"Congratulations, congratulations." Azurefiend chortled as well.

Hegemon Tia smiled as she looked at them, but a hint of sorrow flickered in her eyes. The Paragon's brothers were about to come back to life, but her beloved, the one who she viewed as more important than life itself? It was completely impossible for that person to be brought back to life. Grief had killed her heart long ago, and the only reason she hadn't killed herself was because she had promised to keep living. Ever since that day, however, she had no longer truly cared about life, and thus she had dived into one dangerous location after another, earning the nickname of 'Mad Hegemon Tia' in the rest of the Chaosverse.

"I'm feeling a bit excited." The tears quickly dried on the Paragon of Pills' face, and she smiled brightly. "I was so worried. I feel much better now that I know Autarch Skyfeeder has agreed."

"Haha, Mistress, once we manage to leave this secret dimension, Autarch Skyfeeder will go with you to the otherverse and reverse spacetime to revive your three brothers," Ning said.

"Once we leave?" The Paragon suddenly frowned. "Darknorth, didn't you say this place is incredibly dangerous? Not even the Autarchs will be able to enter here."

Ning nodded. "Don't worry. I'll do everything in my power to get you out of here, Mistress."

"No, that's not what I meant. I trust you. But, it's not guaranteed that we'll be able to escape this place," the Paragon said. "If I die here, my avatar will die immediately as well. I'll never be able to see the three of them again. Even though I know Autarch Skyfeeder will still reverse spacetime to revive the three of them, if I'm not able to see it in person… I really can't accept this."

"I understand." Ning nodded. "Then what are you suggesting, Mistress?"

"My avatar is alongside Tia and Annihilation's avatars. I can give you the location. I'd like to ask Autarch Skyfeeder to go find my avatar, then take it with her when she revives my three brothers. Is that acceptable?" the Paragon asked.

"Might as well." Ning didn't refuse, because he himself wasn't completely confident that they'd be able to escape this place. He had been forced to use his own sword-arts multiple times in the Daoguard Tower area, and they were now in a place that was so mysterious the Autarchs couldn't even locate it. This was definitely a far more dangerous place than the first Daoguard Tower.

Ning immediately sent a message to Autarch Skyfeeder, asking for her help. She agreed, her true body exiting the Quintessence. However, the Chaosverse was so very large that it would take a bit of time for her to go find the Paragon of Pills.

"Let's scout the surrounding area for now, but make sure to be careful. Let's not take any risks just yet. We'll save that for after your three brothers are revived," Ning said with a laugh. The Paragon of Pills, Hegemon Tia, and the others all acknowledged.

Whoosh. Ning flew into the skies by himself, quickly reaching an altitude of over a hundred million kilometers.

"Eh?" The skies above him were like an enormous azure bowl. Ning frowned when he stared into them, and he released his Sword Dao Domain to apply some pressure to the heavens. Alas, the heavens were incomparably resilient, and they actually pushed back and down against Ning.

"It really is quite stable. It seems there is no chance at all that I might be able to tear through this place through raw force." Ning quickly came to this determination. As soon as he had arrived here, he had suspected that this might be the case. This was because even the 'Dimensional Hallway Chains' formed by a single Daoguard Tower had been incredibly stable. This place was clearly much more dangerous; there was no way he would be able to break through this place with ease. Indeed, his test confirmed his suspicions.

Whoosh. Ning flew back down, descending to rejoin Azurefiend, the Paragon of Pills, Hegemon Tia, and the others.

"What should we do, Daolord?" Lord Annihilation asked.

"There's no way to break through via brute force," Ning said with a chuckle. "We'll need to find some weaknesses in this dimension and then break through via them. For such a large dimension to be so stable means that it has to have an internal energy source of some kind or a formation keeping it together. We'll be able to escape by destroying either of them.

"I can vaguely sense some living creatures off in the distance." Ning pointed towards the horizon ahead of them. "Very weak creatures. Let's go take a look."

"Very weak?" Azurefiend was startled. "How could a terrifying place like this have weak creatures within it?"

"But they really do seem to be extremely weak. I could probably wipe them out by breathing on them," Ning said.

Since he had already promised that they wouldn't do anything dangerous before reviving the Paragon of Pills' brothers, Ning was going to play it safe for now. Given his current level of insight into the Dao, he was able to sense and avoid danger while seeking out good fortune! However, the central controls or other critical points in a hidden realm like this would generally be extremely dangerous, and so there was no way to 'avoid danger' here.

Sometimes, you knew the road ahead of you was dangerous but you still had to take it, because only then would you have a chance at survival!

Whoosh. The group quickly flew into the air. Below them was a vast sea of water that seemed to be truly boundless and without end.

"Right here!" Ning quickly came to a halt and stared downwards. Beneath him was an 'island' that was tens of millions of kilometer in size. Actually, in most places it would been described as a 'continent', but this dimension and the sea it held was so incredibly vast that this island was nothing more than a tiny little speck. It wouldn't be wrong for major powers like Ning to refer to it as an 'island'.

This island had countless living beings thriving within it. Ning stared downwards, his gaze quickly locking onto the most powerful being in this entire island.

Within a wilderness region, three humanoids were battling against a vilefiend who was dressed in long black robes. He was fairly handsome and exuded an aura of charisma, but in battle he was indescribably ferocious and savage.

"You humans have killed me many times, but you'll never be able to kill me permanently. I'll come back to life time and time again! Ahaha! I can fail any number of times, but you cannot fail even once… because if you do, I'll butcher every living person on this entire continent. Ahahaha! Want to know a little secret? I've actually already done it on five different occasions in history!" The vilefiend's voice was sharp and shrill. "This will be my sixth time. If you want to survive, you should bow down to me. I need a few lackies, after all. I don't like you, but you are fairly strong."

"Forget about it! This continent belongs to us Sithe! We would never allow a vilefiend like yourself to run rampant here!" The leader of the three was a six-armed man who was furiously attacking with six giant warhammers. Alas, the vilefiend was far too fast and nimble; if it wasn't for the other two party members, the leader would've been defeated long ago.

The second member of the party was a red-haired man who wielded a warblade and whose entire body was bathed in flames. He howled furiously, "The valiant men of the Sithe shall never succumb to a vilefiend like yourself!"

The final member of the party was a gray-robed woman, and she had an icy look on her face as she controlled her magic treasures to attack from afar. She said in a frozen voice, "We Sithe would rather all die in battle than submit to a vilefiend like yourself."

Ning, the Paragon of Pills, Azurefiend, and the rest all watched from high up in the skies, rather shocked by all of this.

"The 'valiant men of the Sithe'?" Ning blinked. "Why does that phrase feel so… odd?"

"The 'Sithe would rather all die in battle than submit to a vilefiend'?" Azurefiend mumbled to himself, "That's a pretty determined statement! I had no idea the Sithe were so intrepid."

The three humanoids below them were merely of the Elder God/Ancestral Immortal level, while the vilefiend was an extremely weak member of the vilefiend race. There was an enormous degree of difference between it and the vilefiends Ning encountered near the Daoguard Tower.

This was nothing more than a battle at the Elder God level. To the likes of Ning, the Paragon of Pills, Azurefiend, Lord Annihilation, Hegemon Flameleft, or Hegemon Tia, these four were all very puny! And yet, they were the most powerful beings on this island. Ning was telling the truth earlier when he said that they were 'very weak'.

"Haha!" Lord Annihilation laughed as well. "To us cultivators as a whole, the Sithe are a calamity, a nightmare, a blight on existence! The Sithe, however, also have weak members of the race who are akin to our mortals. Perhaps they find pride in being Sithe."

"They call themselves Sithe, but they aren't actually true Sithe," Ning said.

"They aren't true Sithe?" Everyone present stared at Ning, puzzled.

"Master, how is it that you know this?" Azurefiend asked.

Ning didn't explain any further, because this involved many hidden secrets that would only cause Azurefiend and the others to feel unnecessary consternation.

If they were true Sithe, they would be rejected by all the prime essences of the Chaosverse, making it impossible for them to use the power of the Dao! However, all three of the humans below them were infusing the Dao into each and every strike. They weren't rejected by the prime essences!

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 15 – Filthy

"Did you hear that? That little vilefiend just said he's wiped out all life on this island several times," Azurefiend said.

"Unsurprising," Ji Ning replied. "This hidden dimension is within the Sithelands, which means that vilefiends can arise here! Although they are fairly weak without the power of a Daoguard Tower behind them, they are still enough to be absolute catastrophes for islands like this. In addition, vilefiends have essence springs located in other places. I can kill them with my sword and then locate and destroy their essence springs via karma, but the living beings on this island can only use all their strength to fight and kill the vilefiend time and time again without being able to truly exterminate it. Given enough time, the vilefiend will rise to power once more and then cause yet another calamity to descend upon this island."

The Paragon of Pills sighed. "Vilefiends are nothing to us, but they represent apocalypse to the countless beings on this island."

Hegemon Tia said, "Perhaps this is a method the Sithe use to train and temper the members of their race."

"…Yes, that's extremely possible." Ning's eyes lit up. Applying pressure via vilefiends could result in more powerful experts arising more frequently.

As they spoke, Ning and the others descended onto the island.

"Attack!"

"Let's launch an all-out assault!" The three humans were beginning to unleash their desperation attacks.

"Hahaha… desperation attacks? I'll give you one final blow and annihilate any hope that you might still harbor. I'm looking forward to those looks of despair on your face, the despair that stems from the very depths of your soul… I can't help but feel excited when I see those looks!" The vilefiend was so actually shaking from anticipation.

Suddenly… slash! A streak of sword-light sliced through the vilefiend.

The vilefiend's face still had that look of twisted joy on it, but a heartbeat later it completely disintegrated into dust. Ning's sword followed the karma lines attaching it to its essence spring, destroying that as well. From this day forth, the vilefiend which had troubled this island and its many living beings for countless generations was no more.

"Helping you kill that vilefiend is a form of recompense for rifling through your memories." Ning began to search through the memories of those three 'Sithe' humans. The fact that their attacks were infused with the power of the Dao meant that they were also natives of this Chaosverse, and so Ning treated them as humans rather than as Sithe. This was why he wished to 'repay' them for what he was doing.

"Master, now that you've killed that vilefiend, this island won't suffer any more attacks. Doesn't that mean that the tempering trial the Sithe set up is over?" Azurefiend asked.

"I don't give a shit," Ning said casually.

Azurefiend blinked. The Paragon of Pills, Hegemon Tia, Hegemon Flameleft, and Lord Annihilation all stared at Ning in shock. 'I don't give a shit'… how could words like this have come from the mouth of the peerlessly dazzling 'Daolord Darknorth'?

There were many Emperors and Hegemons with foul dispositions and even fouler language. However, to the people present, Darknorth was a person of incomparably exalted stature, someone who was very nearly a peer of the Autarchs. They couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable when they heard Ning say this.

In truth, Ning had a completely perfect Dao-heart. He'd say whatever he felt without needing to disguise it.

"Um. So what have you discovered?" the Paragon of Pills asked.

"They are just Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals. They know very little… but their memories do contain information regarding a legendary and 'invincible' figure who controls all sixty-three islands in this vast territory. That person is known to them as Archfiend Huabo, and he is so 'unfathomably powerful' that he has never been defeated and can wipe out an entire island with a wave of his hand." Ning snickered. "Their memories indicate that Archfiend Huabo should know more about this place than them."

Ning and the others left, and as they did the three humans regained consciousness.

"What just happened?"

"What's going on?"

"Where's the vilefiend?" All three of them were completely puzzled. When Ning had rifled through their memories, it hadn't had a negative impact on them at all. It was like a brief moment of unconsciousness.

Archfiend Huabo was the ruler of sixty-three islands, and in truth he was a Daolord of the Fourth Step. In this era and amongst these weak cultivators, he truly was 'invincible'! But to Ning and his team? A Daolord of the Fourth Step was still extremely weak, so weak that he could be exterminated with just a breath!

Archfiend Huabo was seated on his royal throne. Below him was a large number of beautiful women who were dancing for him, while at each side of the hall there were many chained beings who were being tortured and tormented.

He had an extremely strange personality and temperament. He was the undisputed hegemon of these sixty-three islands, and countless living beings had been tortured to death by him. He delighted in torture, in hearing their final screams and cries. This was what made him smile, and was the reason why he was known as the 'Archfiend'.

A smile on his face, he watched the beautiful women dance while listening to the viperous curses and blubbering wails of his prisoners.

"Those fools. All of them ran off to the Sacred Realm, and for what? The Sacred Realm has many powerful experts there; we'd be nothing more than the crust on their boots," Archfiend Huabo mused. "Staying behind is a much better decision. I'm virtually invincible here and can do whatever I want. Isn't that wonderful? As for the Daomerge… hmph! Did they really think they would succeed in the Daomerge just because major powers in the Sacred Realm will provide them guidance? I hear that their success rates remain pitifully low."

"Staying behind is definitely the better choice, ehehe… tomorrow, I'll go capture a few more people. The ones in the prison have almost all died out by now." Archfiend Huabo was in a superb mood. As for the beautiful dancers, all of them were quivering in fear, even if none of them dared to reveal it. They did their best to please the almighty Archfiend, for fear of being tortured to death as well.

Suddenly, a total of six people walked into the hall. The dance came to a halt, and the smile on Archfiend Huabo's face suddenly froze. Even the steam coming from the cup of mulled wine by his side froze in midair. Time itself seemed to stop.

The six figures walking in were Ji Ning, the Paragon of Pills, Azurefiend, Hegemon Tia, Hegemon Flameleft, and Lord Annihilation.

Ning's Sword Dao Domain had sealed down spacetime itself, causing time to freeze completely. The dancers and the Archfiend would have no recollection at all of what happened in this moment.

"Let's take a look at their memories." Ning was able to easily rifle through this Daolord's memories. He finished after a few moments, then fell completely silent.

"How does it look?" The others all looked at Ning.

"This is going to be troublesome," Ning said, then chuckled. "But we knew that from the beginning. Simply put, this Daolord's memories indicate that this hidden dimension has a total of six 'realms' where mortals live, as well as an exalted 'Sacred Realm' and an evil, desolate 'Purgatory'."

"Together, the six mortal worlds, the Sacred Realm, and Purgatory form this entire hidden dimension," Ning said. "At least, that's what he believes and his memories indicate."

"The six mortal realms are all extremely vast and are filled with countless mortals and many cultivators. However, only cultivators who become Samsara Daolords are qualified to enter the Sacred Realm! Of course, there are many Samsara Daolords who choose to stay behind in the six mortal realms instead, but if they DO succeed in the Daomerge and become Eternal Emperors, they are required to enter the Sacred Realm," Ning said. "If they do not, then major powers shall descend from the Sacred Realm to capture and then punish them."

The Paragon of Pills frowned: "It seems as though the 'Sacred Realm' is where all the major powers of this hidden dimension are gathered. What of this 'Purgatory', then?"

"The Purgatory is the place where extremely evil people and people who are being punished by the major powers shall be exiled to! That place is both dangerous and desolate," Ning said. "My guess is that the most important parts of this dimension reside within the 'Sacred Realm'!"

The most powerful people present in the six mortal realms were Daolords of the Fourth Step. The Sacred Realm was where the true major powers had gathered, which meant that there was a 99% chance that the core control mechanisms of this hidden dimension were located there as well.

"Are the countless living beings of this dimension truly Sithe progeny? And what is the history of this place?" Hegemon Flameleft asked.

"That's not information a Daolord of the Fourth Step like him would know," Ning said with a chuckle. "What we need to do is to head into the Sacred Realm!"

The Sacred Realm… it was undoubtedly filled with many major powers and terrifying Sithe traps. Ning wouldn't be surprised if it had ten Daoguard Towers within it! Once they headed off to the Sacred Realm, a war would probably break out.

"How can we get there?" Azurefiend asked.

"Through the 'Realmgate'," Ning said. "However, now is not yet the time. Let's wait for the Mistress' three brothers to be revived before we head off to the Realmgate and enter the Sacred Realm."

The Paragon of Pills smiled.

"Let's go." Ning glanced at Archfiend Huabo, who was still seated on his throne with a frozen grin on his face, then waved a finger. A streak of sword-light shot out, passing through the Archfiend's skull and destroying his soul and truesoul. From this day forth, Archfiend Huabo, who had been the hegemon of these sixty-three islands for countless years, died as a result of people who literally came out of nowhere. Even as he died, he had no idea what was happening or who was killing him.

"M-master… you already looked through his memories. Why'd you kill him?" Azurefiend stared.

"It was precisely because I looked through his memories that I killed him." Ning shook his head and muttered, "Absolutely filthy. I really couldn't help myself."

Ning's group quietly slipped away, leaving behind a palace in a state of chaos.

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Book 41, Chapter 16 - Spacetime Reversal Resurrection

Roughly five months after Ji Ning's group had first been sent into this hidden dimension, Autarch Skyfeeder brought the avatars of the Paragon of Pills and Lord Annihilation to the otherverse they resided in. It was time to begin the process of reversing spacetime and reviving those three Emperors.

Lord Annihilation's otherverse. The Archaeus Region. The Prime Reaches of the Genesis Lands.

This was a place filled with corpses, all of whom had failed in the struggle over the control of this otherverse.

The gentle-eyed and slightly plump Autarch Skyfeeder glanced at the various Emperor-class corpses within the Prime Reaches as the avatars of the Paragon and Lord Annihilation stood respectfully to one side.

"Looks like this was quite a bitter battle," Autarch Skyfeeder said. "This is an otherverse which I created extremely, extremely early on. I didn't put it within the Eight Domains, which is why only a few Hegemons took part in this struggle."

The Blazesun Domain and the rest of the Eight Domains had so many experts present that the members of most squads were usually at the Hegemonic level. Every so often, you would also see an Otherverse Lord or someone in control of a powerful Sithe weapon. Thus, when two competing teams found an otherverse to fight over, the battle would involve ten or so Hegemons!

However, the Prime Reaches here only held three Hegemonic corpses, as well as quite a few ordinary Eternal Emperors. It was indeed a bitter battle, but the power of the combatants involved was somewhat lower than what would be seen in the Eight Domains.

"Otherverses are incredibly rare outside the Eight Domains," the avatar of the Paragon of Pills said softly. "The appearance of this otherverse caused everyone to go wild. The four Hegemons who were the first to arrived each brought subordinates and were willing to risk everything for the sake of this otherverse. A great battle broke out, and in the end Hegemon Dustfall was the one who won. My three brothers covered me, letting me escape, but the ones who were left behind were all suppressed and bound by the power of this otherverse, which now had a master. Nothing awaited them save death, and they knew it. Hegemon Dustfall was kind enough to allow each of the Emperors a chance to leave behind a legacy, and he also let their corpses remain intact."

An Otherverse Lord who was inside of his otherverse would be dramatically more powerful than when he was outside in the 'normal' world. The otherverse was his territory, and the overwhelming power of the otherverse ensured that he himself would also be incredibly strong! This was why the Lonely King instantly became famous after chasing someone into an otherverse, then destroying it.

As for Hegemons? When directly suppressed by the power of an otherverse, they wouldn't even be able to move a finger!

"However, shortly after Dustfall acquired this otherverse, he died while adventuring in a dangerous place. You ended up lucking out, Annihilation." The Paragon of Pills glanced at Lord Annihilation.

"It was just a matter of speed, but I admit that my luck wasn't bad." Lord Annihilation smiled.

"I'm going to begin now," Autarch Skyfeeder said. "Just stand there and watch."

"Understood." The avatars of Lord Annihilation and the Paragon of Pills both nodded respectfully, with a look of excitement appearing in the eyes of the latter.

Rumble…

Autarch Skyfeeder stared towards the Sword Hegemon, still leaning against his enormous dark-blue greatsword. Behind him was the white-robed man who had three swords on his back as well as the azure-armored man who had planted nine blood-colored swords into the ground before him. Time quickly began to slow, stop, and then reverse in the area around them.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Countless images went past, including the images of Ning's arrival within this region. Just a short while later, it had reversed all the way to the earliest and most ancient days of this otherverse. This was when the three had fallen in battle.

"My beloved friends all died in this battle. There is no way I will pardon you or release you." In the temporally inverted images before them, they were able to see a valiant old man dressed in silvery-white armor who stood high up on a mountain. "However… I don't blame you for doing what you did. All of us were trying to take this otherverse. I simply was the one to win. I'll give you all some time to make your final preparations; make sure you don't waste this time. I'll also set down barriers to ensure that your corpses will not be disturbed in the many eons to come."

None of the Hegemons or Emperors tried to argue with him. This truly had been a bitter battle with many deaths; it was already quite magnanimous that the victor was giving them time to pass down legacies for themselves.

"Big brother… second brother… we were so close! I still can't believe this," said the azure-armored man who had planted those nine blood-colored swords in the earth before him.

"It doesn't matter how close we were. We lost. At least we three brothers will be able to die together." The white-robed man had a smile on his face. Clearly, he had already accepted his fate.

"This was all my fault." The muscular greatsword-bearing Hegemon let out a sigh, but his eyes were quite peaceful as well.

When the Paragon of Pills saw and heard this, her eyes turned moist. She tightly clenched her hands together, continuing to watch.

"Freeze!" Autarch Skyfeeder stared at the image before them, causing time to freeze before her. In this frozen moment, the three of them were still alive.

"Spacetime, reverse. Truesouls, return!" Autarch Skyfeeder turned quite solemn as well. The truesoul fragments of this Hegemon, along with the truesoul fragments of the other two Emperors behind him, had all been swallowed by the prime essences of this otherverse and hidden at its very core. They had become one with the otherverse itself! What she was doing right now was akin to tearing out part of a stone tower's foundation; if not done correctly, it was quite possible that the tower itself would crumble.

It was easy to swallow something and digest it, but very hard to drag it back out. Not even Lord Annihilation, the master of this otherverse, would be able to accomplish it.

Thankfully, Autarch Skyfeeder had been the person who created this otherverse. Even if she did wreck it, she would be able to repair it. Right now, all she needed to do was to keep it stable.

"Gather!" Autarch Skyfeeder barked out a second time. This time, countless truesoul fragments began to fly out from the deepest part of the Prime Reaches, then levitate into the air. The Prime Reaches was the location where the prime essences of this Otherverse were located.

Visually, the truesoul fragments looked like tiny little motes of light. These countless little motes of light all flew towards the three standing Emperors. As more light appeared and as spacetime continued to advance, the bodies of the three formerly-illusory figures quickly began to solidify.

Rumble… the earth throughout the Prime Reaches began to shudder. In fact, the entire massive otherverse began to tremble slightly. Lord Annihilation turned pale as he continued to watch nervously. This was his otherverse; if it collapsed, he would be doomed. But all he could do was look at Autarch Skyfeeder, not daring to make a sound.

Autarch Skyfeeder herself remained quite calm.

Big brother! The Paragon of Pills watched this all excitedly.

The three figures grew increasingly solid as more and more light poured into them, and their auras became increasingly real as well. A hint of light appeared within their eyes, a light which represented life and sentience.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Finally, all three auras completely stabilized, and a look of shock appeared in the eyes of the Hegemon and his two brothers. Alive! They were alive again!

"Big brother. Second brother. Third brother." Overwhelmed with excitement, the Paragon of Pills charged straight towards them.

Autarch Skyfeeder had made use of their three undamaged corpses to bring them fully back to life. If their bodies were gone, she still would've been able to revive them, but it would've taken more effort; recreating a Hegemonic body was no easy feat, after all.

"Little sister." The greatsword-bearing man looked at the Paragon of Pills, then at his two nearby brothers. "Second brother. Third brother."

The Paragon of Pills wrapped her arms tightly around the muscular man. She had endured many, many things after her three brothers had died.

"Little sister." The muscular man hugged the Paragon of Pills back, a complex look on his face. They weren't true siblings, they just referred to each other that way as a term of endearment. In truth, they were lovers.

"Haha, we've come back to life! Hahaha, we've all come back to life!" The azure-armored man was the most excited of the three.

"Big brother. Third brother. Little sister," the white-robed man sent mentally to them, his gaze focused on the distant Autarch Skyfeeder, "It was the Autarch who brought us back to life, right?"

He was the calmest of the three who had just been brought back to life. The Paragon of Pills quickly came back to her senses. She hurriedly turned and bowed gratefully towards Autarch Skyfeeder, "Thank you, Autarch, for saving my three brothers."

"Thank you, Autarch, for saving our lives," the Hegemon and his two Emperors said.

"Impressive. You were actually able to convince an Autarch to come rescue the three of us… and it looks as though you yourself have become a Hegemon, little sister," the azure-armored man sent mentally.

Autarch Skyfeeder said with a calm smile on her face, "I came at Darknorth's request. Of course I took it seriously! Alright, now that this matter is finished, it is time for me to go."

"Safe travels, Autarch." Lord Annihilation let out a sigh of relief. Autarchs truly were impressive; his otherverse had been barely affected by this process.

"Safe travels, Autarch." The Paragon of Pills and the others all bowed respectfully once more. Autarch Skyfeeder took a single step, then disappeared into the void.

"Haha, congratulations, my friends!" Lord Annihilation smiled as he bowed towards the three brothers. "I imagine there are many things the Paragon of Pills wishes to talk to you about. I won't bother you any further. When you are free, you must come and be my guests at the Church of Annihilation." Lord Annihilation's avatar then took a step away, disappearing into the void as well.

"Little sister, you truly are incredible." The azure-armored man was still extremely excited.

As for the muscular man, he continued to hold the Paragon of Pills' hand in an affectionate display of love.

"Little sister, the Autarch said that she came on the request of 'Darknorth'? Who is this 'Darknorth'? He must be a major power. Is he an Autarch as well?" the white-robed man asked.

"Right. Based on what I know, it is almost impossible to convince an Autarch to help revive a Hegemon." The muscular man couldn't help but ask as well: "Who exactly is this 'Darknorth' fellow? He was able to have an Autarch carry out tasks for him… and apparently, didn't even come in person?"

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 17 – Assaulting the Realmgate

If you were going to ask someone to help you out with something, you would at least show up yourself, right? This was doubly true when you were asking an Autarch to help out. How much face were the Autarchs giving this 'Darknorth' fellow, for them to show up even when he himself did not?

"Haha." The Paragon of Pills laughed. "Darknorth is a Daolord, a Daolord who has failed the Daomerge… but he is extremely close to the Autarchs in actual power."

"What?!" The three were astonished and unable to believe this. A Daolord who had failed the Daomerge? They felt no regard at all for people like that… but one who was close to the Autarchs in power? They couldn't even imagine how this was possible.

"Hegemons are nothing more than ants to him. He doesn't even need to strike them in order to kill them! Only someone like the Lonely King of the Icepeak Army is worthy of him attacking, but he only needed to strike a single time to slay the Lonely King," the Paragon of Pills said. "He is on extremely good terms with the Autarchs, and he was the one who convinced Autarch Skyfeeder to come here."

Her three 'brothers' were truly flabbergasted by this. This Darknorth was truly an incredible figure!

"In fact… big brother," the Paragon of Pills said with a chortle, "He's actually one of your honorary disciples."

"What? Mine?" The muscular man stared at her, his eyes popping wide. "My honorary disciple?"

The hidden dimension.

Ever since Ji Ning and the others had discovered that this dimension was divided up into six mortal realms, a 'Sacred Realm', and a 'Purgatory', they had begun to relax and wander through the mortal realms. The plan was to wait until the Paragon of Pills' three brothers were revived before risking entry into the Realmgate.

"Congratulations, Paragon of Pills."

"Congratulations, Mistress." Ji Ning, Azurefiend, Tia, Flameleft, and Annihilation all offered their congratulations. They even prepared congratulatory gifts.

All of them could clearly sense how the Paragon of Pills' aura had changed. In the past, she had seemed so solitary, cold, and remote. Now, it was like winter had left and spring had come. She had an uncontrollable smile on her face, and her joy was absolutely infectious.

"Now that I've met them again, I truly have no regrets left." The Paragon looked at Ning. "Darknorth, I have to thank you for everything."

"If it wasn't for the insights I gained in the Archaeus Region and the help you provided, Mistress, I might not necessarily have been able to embark upon the path of the Omega Dao," Ning said. "I wouldn't have reached my current level of power either."

If he was allowed to choose again between success in the Daomerge and becoming a Hegemon (via fused Supreme Daos) or failure in the Daomerge but mastering the Eternal Omega Dao, he would probably still choose the latter.

Why? Because… if even the Autarchs were unable to revive Yu Wei, the Omega Dao was the only chance he had! Even though he failed, he would still be an incandescently dazzling figure for over ten thousand chaos cycles. As far as Ning was concerned, this was superior to an eternity of mediocrity.

The Paragon of Pills had no further regrets in life. Now, she was able to face all dangers with complete calmness and equanimity, meeting even death with a smile on her face. Ning, however, was even more determined to ensure the Paragon's safety! She had just reunited with her beloved brothers; if she was to die here, wouldn't that be a truly painful farewell?

Once Hegemons died, it would be virtually impossible to bring them back to life. Her big brother had only been revived because he had died within an otherverse. If the Paragon of Pills died here, there would be no way she could be brought back.

Whoosh! They soared through the air and quickly reached the location of the Realmgate.

"This here is the Realmgate." They had spent several months scanning through the memories of many different Daolords. As a result, they were able to recognize it right away.

"Master, we were teleported directly into this dimension. I imagine the true ruler of this dimension was made aware of our appearance long ago," Azurefiend said. "Prior to this, we were in the mortal realm. There's nothing in the mortal realm which can pose a threat to us, and so the controller of this dimension was unable to touch us from afar, nor would he dare to actually attack you directly. But once we go through the Realmgate and reach the Sacred Realm, things will be different. We'll be surrounded by danger."

"Agreed." Ning nodded. He had long ago prepared for the likelihood that the master of this place was aware of his presence.

"Travelling to the Sacred Realm is our only hope," the Paragon of Pills said. "Darknorth, you are so very strong that the Sithe experts hiding this place would never dare to challenge you to a fair fight. That's why they haven't attacked yet! Our records indicate that when Daolords dare to disobey orders from the Sacred Realm, powerful experts will descend to seize and punish them. This means it is possible for Sithe experts to descend upon this place… but they have not! Why? Because they fear you, Darknorth. But you failed your Daomerge, which means that you will eventually die from your truesoul crumbling away. Once that happens, the Sithe will probably attack and kill the rest of us."

"I'm not willing to spend the rest of my life in these mortal realms either," Ning said with a chuckle. In a fair fight, not even Sithe Exalts were a match for him. Even if four or five Exalts attacked him, given his speed and agility, if he focused on dodging then they wouldn't even be able to touch his clothes. The difference in ability between them was enormous!

But if their opponents were aided by Daoguard Towers? That would make this extremely difficult.

"Let's advance via realmship," Ning said as he produced his realmship. All six of them entered the realmship. They did this not because they needed it to travel, but because they wanted to benefit from the extra layer of protection it provided. Realmships were extremely sturdy, after all; breaching them was no easy task.

The Realmgate was a hundred thousand kilometers high and utterly massive. It emanated dazzling light and was shaped like a giant door, and around it space was twisted and distorted into multiple folds.

Swoosh. Ning and the others flew forwards via realmship, protected and surrounded by Ning's Sword Dao Domain. As they moved closer to the gate, they could sense that the twisted dimensional folds were impeding their advance. To Ning, however, they were like nothing more than a spring breeze, incapable of barring his path in the slightest.

"We're heading in. Be careful, everyone." Ning could sense his subconscious warning him of danger, but there was nothing he could do. This was their only chance to escape and survive this play. Delay and buy time? There was no way he could out-delay the Sithe.

The realmship finally flew into the iridescent Realmgate. It quickly made its way completely inside the gate, only to see an extremely stable tunnel which was formed through many layers of folded dimensional space.

Whoosh. The realmship flew through this stable dimensional tunnel at high speeds. Given Ning's current level of power, he was able to see past all obstacles and make out the awesome aura of the world off in the distance… the 'Sacred Realm'. The aura of the Sacred Realm was noticeably vaster and more powerful, and it held far more experts as well.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Suddenly, the formerly-stable tunnel began to shatter apart as two strange triangular weapons appeared in the sides of the dimensional folds off in the instance. Two more appeared within the sides of the dimensional tunnel behind Ning as well. It was their appearance which caused the dimensional tunnel to begin to crack.

"Not good." Ning's face tightened. He didn't hesitate at all, immediately expanding his Sword Dao Domain dramatically in size, causing a large amount of sword-light to appear and furiously assault the four triangular weapons.

The four triangular weapons all had sharp edges which shot out rays of light. These rays of light were extremely thin and allowed them to easily tear through space. There was no way Ning's Sword Dao Domain could resist the four streaks of light; each streak of light represented an enormous amount of energy and power, and all four of them shot out to Ning's realmship.

"What a terrifying weapon." Ning immediately willed the realmship to move in an erratic pattern as it flowed through the crumbling and chaotic tunnel, moving from one position to another. The realmship itself was like a sword which was being used to display a truly marvelous sword-art.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! All four rays of light shot past the realmship, not able to touch it at all. "Thank goodness I mastered the Space Sword Dao." Ning let out a sigh of relief.

They were within a dimensional tunnel; as the tunnel crumbled, space here became increasingly chaotic. Those four triangular weapons had just launched attacks with extremely thin dimensional blades, and by all rights it should've been nearly impossible for someone to dodge them unharmed in such a chaotic environment. Ning, however, had achieved just that thanks to his Space Sword Dao.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Those four triangular weapons suddenly expanded dramatically in size as they charged towards Ning's realmship. Ning could sense the enormous threat they posed. As for Azurefiend, the Paragon of Pills, and the others within the realmship, they could do nothing save watch. They wouldn't even able to react in time against attacks of this level!

"Get in here." Ning instantly emerged from the realmship, then drew it back into his estate-world. There was no way he could simply rely on the realmship to deal with those triangular weapons.

Snick. New drew a Northbow sword from the sheath on his back. "Hm. I can't let them get close to me. They seem to possess the ability to self-detonate." At Ning's current level, he was able to vaguely see what some future possibilities would be. Thus, Ning suddenly tossed his sword out.

Whooosh! Ning tossed the sword out like a whip, sending a gentle stream of sword-light sweeping out like a beautiful creek. The water glowed in a dazzling manner as it lashed through the air, gently rapping against the surface of one of the triangular weapons. That triangular weapon couldn't help but be nudged off-course to one side, clashing against one of the other triangular weapons.

"No more playing around." Ning glanced at the nearly-collapsed dimensional tunnel around him. Ahead of them was the end of the tunnel and the Sacred Realm. He immediately used his sword-arts to forcibly charge through all opposition and make it outside.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 18 – Dimensional Seams

"Seal!" A cold voice suddenly rang out from the Sacred Realm in front of them. A streak of light shot out from the Sacred Realm, forming a membrane in front of it that denied entry. A moment later, the four triangular weapons surrounding Ji Ning suddenly unleashed a blast of utterly terrifying power.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The four triangular weapons released all of the power held within them in a final explosion, blasting apart and sending shrapnel in every direction and creating a zone of death around them! There was no way one could avoid this zone attack, as the entire area was filled with explosive waves of power. Even the Blazesun Ruler would've been reduced to dust if enveloped by such powerful explosions.

"They actually detonated such incredibly valuable treasures?" Ning held a single Northbow sword at the ready. Swoosh! He suddenly sent out a swirl of sword-light that chopped through the space surrounding him like tofu, causing it to ripple and form into a dimensional barrier which surrounded and protected him.

"Time to go." Ning wasn't going to just stand there like a fool. Swish! Using his Dao of Space, Ning transformed himself into a dimensional shard that fled off into the distance! When any of the explosive power struck him, the dimensional barrier surrounding Ning would simply deflect it with a slight ripple. This level of power might be able to easily breach the defenses of a Sithe Exalt or the Blazesun Ruler, but the defensive power of Ning's Space Sword Dao was far too great.

However… given enough time, the power would still be depleted and exhausted.

Rumble… the dimensional tunnel had been completely disintegrated, while the four terrifying triangular weapons had exploded apart into countless little shards. Ning rapidly flew away from this region, ensuring that the detonations were unable to harm him in the slightest.

A short while later, Ning came to a halt. Northbow sword in hand and Sword Dao Domain surrounding him, Ning scanned the nearby area.

"So this is the seam between the eight realms, eh?" Ning mused to himself. Now that the dimensional tunnel had been destroyed, Ning was trapped within the seam between the realms. Space was incredibly chaotic and twisted here, but given Ning's level of mastery he wasn't impeded by it at all.

Whoosh. Ning used his Sword Dao Domain to separate the surrounding dangers from himself, then quickly advanced towards the front. A short while later, he saw an enormous membrane. Behind it, he could vaguely make out a vast world filled with incredible amounts of power.

"The Sacred Realm." Ning immediately knew that the world beyond the membrane had to be the 'Sacred Realm', but the dimensional membrane was incredibly tough; Ning didn't even need to test it with his Sword Dao Domain to know that there was no chance of using it to punch through.

"Even the membranes surrounding the six mortal realms of this hidden dimension were incredibly tough and durable. If I couldn't break through them, I have no chance at all at this one around the Sacred Realm," Ning mused. "The six mortal realms, the Sacred Realm, and Purgatory have all been completely sealed off. Does that mean I've been trapped here permanently?"

"No, that can't be right. The Sithe wouldn't do such a thing." Ning quickly came to this realization. If the Sithe had merely wanted to trap him, they could've simply sealed off the Realmgate and kept Ning permanently trapped within the ordinary realm he was in.

"Let's go check out the other places." Ning flew through the vast realm-seam, moving towards some of the other realms.

The Sacred Realm.

This was the supreme world which was used to control this hidden dimension. Many powerful Sithe were located here, and at the center of this world was a trio of towering mountains. Each mountain had a pagoda at the peak, and each pagoda was exactly twelve stories tall! They all emanated auras of dazzling light that caused spacetime to ripple and twist within the area of their illumination.

These were the three Elder Palaces which the most mysterious and most exalted denizens of the Sacred Realm dwelt. However, the auras of two Elder Palaces were rather dim and weak; only one of them continued to radiate an aura of incandescent splendor.

Within the brightest Elder Palace. A large group of experts were standing within it, staring through the palace gates to the world outside. At their head stood a youth dressed in deep blue robes. His hair was deep blue while his was face grim and cold. He held his hands behind his back, standing ramrod-straight and emanating an awesome aura.

"We failed." The blue-haired youth frowned. "It really is hard to get rid of someone in control of an Eternal Omega Dao."

"Exalt." Some of the Hegemons and Emperors standing behind him had undergone the Ritual Sacrificium, and one of the Hegemons spoke out: "Exalt, where did this white-robed Daolord come from? We detonated four Calamity-class weapons but still were unable to do anything to him."

"Enough." The blue-haired youth waved his hand, then turned to stare at the Hegemons and Emperors behind him. He said in a calm voice, "We failed our first attempt, which means it is now up to Purgatory to act! If Purgatory succeeds, this matter shall be at an end. If Purgatory fails, we'll have no choice but to draw him into the Sacred Realm and resolve this through battle!"

"Master, why? He's a Daolord who failed the Daomerge. His truesoul is crumbling away! So long as we keep him completely sealed within these eight realms and ensure that he is trapped within the realm-seam, he'll die of natural causes," a red-robed youth said.

"If he really did die of natural causes, that would be an absolute waste." The blue-haired youth shook his head. "I'm not going to explain any further. We have to do everything in our power to kill him, even if it costs us our very lives! No price is too great to pay if it means killing him. This is our responsibility as Sithe."

"Understood," the red-robed youth said.

"Send word to Purgatory," the blue-haired youth said. "Once the white-robed Daolord reaches Purgatory, Purgatory is to send all of the exiles against him. If they can kill the white-robed Daolord, they'll not only be allowed to come back to the Sacred Realm, they'll also be heavily rewarded. As for the person who actually managed to kill the Daolord… I'll give him control over one of the two Elder Halls."

"Control over an Elder Hall?"

"T-that's not appropriate."

"How can an exile be worthy of controlling an Elder Hall?" Everyone in the hall began to speak out in shock.

The blue-haired youth swept them with his icy gaze, quickly silencing them all. He explained calmly, "Tell them that the white-robed Daolord is incredibly powerful; their only option is to kill him through exhaustion and attrition. They also need to remember to keep the Soul-Eating Mantra active at all times! They need to make sure that they swallow all of the truesoul fragments that are breaking off of him."

Exalts were not to be questioned or challenged. Long ago, this hidden dimension actually had a total of three Exalts. Later on, this dimension had sent out a grand army to take part in the war, with two of the Exalts personally leading that army. This Exalt had been left behind to guard the hidden dimension… but alas, those two departed Exalts had never returned.

The blue-haired youth turned and departed. With his departure, the Hegemons and Emperors left in the hall quickly scattered as well.

After leaving the hall, two Sithe Hegemons began to quietly whisper amongst themselves while they walked out side-by-side. "This is a Daolord in control of an Eternal Omega Dao. If we can somehow kill him, we'll be given unimaginable rewards." These two Hegemons were extremely excited. "This is doubly true for the Exalt. Even if he dies, once his truesoul returns home, he'll be rewarded by being brought back to life via spacetime reversal. No wonder the Exalt is so excited over this."

Reviving an Exalt was incredibly difficult, but the Sithe Lord of Chaos was capable of it. However, this would cause a degree of injury to the prime essences of that Chaosverse; generally speaking, a Lord of Chaos would be unwilling to make that sort of sacrifice.

However… if one accomplished great deeds, one had to be rewarded for it! Killing someone who was in control of an Eternal Omega Dao was viewed as a slightly greater deed than even killing an Autarch would be! If they were successful, then the Exalt would not only be brought back to life, he would be given many gifts as well. It truly would be a case of him rising to preeminence.

"Unfortunately, that Daolord is terrifyingly strong. Otherwise, we'd charge out and kill him ourselves."

"Yes, he's absolutely terrifying. Not even the Exalt dares to challenge him. He's in control of an Eternal Omega Dao, and this is his Chaosverse. With the support of the Dao, he's virtually invincible."

"Thankfully, his truesoul is crumbling away! The more he fights, the faster the truesoul will break apart. That's why the exiles in Purgatory have a chance."

"However, the Exalt was quite odd about this. Why did he say that the person who killed the white-robed Daolord would be allowed to take control over an Elder Hall? Many of the exiles were local natives. Is he really going to let a local take control over an Elder Hall? They might be our progeny, but they were born in this Chaosverse, not our own; that makes them native to this Chaosverse, and they are born with power over the Dao. If we let one of them take control over an Elder Hall, that person might become a source of trouble."

"Don't worry, our progeny swore long ago not to betray us. And… in the end, they are our children. They share our blood. Why would they view us as enemies?"

"They are still natives; they aren't true Sithe like us. They belong to this Chaosverse, while we belong to a different one. In the end, this is an insurmountable difference."

"But we Sithe gave birth to them!"

"Enough, enough. Let's not argue about this." These two Hegemons were not native to this hidden dimension. Rather, they had invaded this Chaosverse alongside the grand Sithe army.

Clearly, the true Sithe viewed the 'Sithe progeny' in this hidden dimension as being different from them.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 19 – Inside Purgatory

Purgatory. Many exiled major powers were here, many of whom were Hegemons or Emperors. Although there were many Daolords who would be exiled here, the vast majority of them would fail the Daomerge and die! They might be Sithe progeny, but they were born within this Chaosverse and thus incapable training in true Sithe techniques. The Sithe, in turn, were unable to create a set of perfect training techniques that was suited to this Chaosverse. They were diametrically incompatible with it, after all. They would constantly be suppressed and weakened by the local prime essences, making it hard for them to comprehend the Dao here.

All the Sithe could do was bestow some local cultivator techniques to their Sithe progeny while giving them some advice and guidance.

The skies were dark and gloomy, with some fiery red light off in the horizons. A total of three figures were standing within a wilderness area.

"Haha, our chance has come!" The leader of the three was a black-robed man who had a large amount of grass covering his head, and his 'beard' was formed from grass as well. His eyes were dark, green, and grim. "The Exalt has bestowed powerful treasures upon us. If we can kill that white-robed Doalord, we'll skyrocket in status and even be able to control one of the Elder Halls."

"Big brother… it is clear from the many gifts the Exalt has offered that he truly wishes to kill that white-robed Daolord. But why, then, would he rather give us so many treasures and so many benefits rather than do it himself? None of those fools in the Sacred Realm wish to take part either! There's only one possible answer to this – the white-robed Daolord is so terrifyingly strong that even Exalts fear him and are unable to beat him." An ugly old lady said in a hoarse voice, "We need to treat this white-robed Daolord as we would an Exalt, or perhaps someone even more terrifying than an Exalt."

"Second sister, you speak sense," the chubby man by her side said immediately.

"Of course I know how terrifying he has to be… but in the end, he's still failed the Daomerge. We have a chance! Come, let us first go find that white-robed Daolord," the black-robed man said with a growl. "I've had enough of life in Purgatory anyhow. I'd rather die fighting for this opportunity."

"Agreed." Both his companions turned solemn as well. Life in Purgatory truly was a living hell. There was little life here, and it was a dry, desolate place. The environment was extremely inhospitable, forcing even Hegemons to tread carefully. Worse, even if you stayed in one place and didn't move, some danger would usually descend out of nowhere. Every day spent here was a day spent in fear. This was a miserable life indeed.

Ji Ning continued to fly through the realm-seam, inspecting everything in his path as he flew past the eight realms. Six mortal realms, the Sacred Realm, and Purgatory – by now, Ning had located all of them. However, all seven of the other realms were completely locked; only the gates to Purgatory remained open to him. There was no way to enter the others at all!

"So they left just one door open to me?" Ning chuckled after a moment. "It seems the controllers of this hidden dimension have set up a few traps for me. Fine, fine. I'll go play with you."

Swoosh. Ning flew over to the Purgatory Realmgate, then gave it a glance. Ning was rather surprised: "No living beings are around it?" There was no way his senses could be off; clearly, there really were no living beings next to the Realmgate at all. What he didn't realize was that everyone who had been driven into Purgatory was an exile; they were all extremely crafty and selfish. No one wished to be the first to attack, and so they all hid far away, using various scrying methods to watch the action at the Realmgate.

Completely unmolested, Ning slipped through the Realmgate and arrived at the vast world of Purgatory behind it.

"What an impressive 'Purgatory' this world truly is!" The white-robed Ning descended upon the dark, foul-looking earth. The world around him was covered in darkness, with some flames flickering far off in the distance that were blindingly bright. Around him were many howling tornados that quickly appeared and then dissipated, while space and time were rippling behind him.

"It really is quite chaotic here. This 'Purgatory' is filled with countless natural calamities. Even Hegemons would have to tread carefully here, while Daolords are constantly at risk of imminent death." Ning chuckled. "But it's better than the realm-seam, at least." The realm-seam was even more chaotic, to the point where there was nothing stable there at all. At least this place had an environment.

Flames illuminating the distant horizons… this did make for an eerily beautiful sight. The destructive tornados that constantly swept through this place did as well. As for the evil miasmatic aura of this place that give birth to vilefiends? It was nothing but a bit of amusement to Ning.

"Now this place is rather intriguing. I'm almost finished merging the Dao of Wind into my Eternal Omega Sword Dao. I might as well train here for a time." Although Ning was surrounded by danger, he remained completely relaxed. He immediately sat down in the lotus position.

The white-robed Ning sat down there on the foul ground, his Sword Dao Domain covering the entire area around him, preventing the various types of natural dangers from moving close to him. The place where Ning sat had become sacred grounds, untouched by the filth of Purgatory.

Whoosh. The wind blew past Ning jubilantly, occasionally revealing a few sparks of sword-light which gathered together, eventually transforming back into wind once more.

Ning had reached the Hegemonic level in the Dao of Wind long ago. Now, what he needed to do was to infuse it into his Sword Dao and create his Wind Sword Dao!

Time passed, one day after another.

"What's going on?"

"Why has that Daolord sat down without even moving an inch?" The exiles who were scrying this place from afar were all puzzled.

"I have to say, that Daolord is pretty powerful. He didn't have to do anything; his domain alone was able to block out all the local dangers. The chaotic environment of Purgatory is absolutely nothing to him."

"He's probably trying to buy time."

"If he wants to drag this out, I'm more than happy to oblige. I've already been trapped here for over eight million chaos cycles. Let's see who can last longer! I have plenty of patience."

"Yes, let's wait." The exiled powers were all waiting for the right moment to attack.

The years continued to flow on. In the blink of an eye, over half a million years had gone by. All of the exiled powers continued to wait patiently for a good opportunity. Although they all had powerful Sithe weapons and were confident in their abilities, life in Purgatory had long ago ensured that they had become slippery and crafty.

The local environment here was bizarre but beautiful in a twisted way, and the flames flickering off in the distance caused Ning's face to flicker with reflected light. Suddenly, Ning's lips curved upwards slightly, and he slowly opened his eyes. A smiling look was in his gaze.

Ning took a sudden, deep breath, causing the wind streams around him to begin to howl.

"GRAAAAAH!" Suddenly, Ning seemed to let out an enormous roar.

In truth, this was nothing more than a single deep breath, but the breath was so ferocious that it generated a terrifying howling sound which shook the earth. It sounded like the bellowing of a thousand terrifying beasts, and it unleashed countless twisting tornados that were formed from countless streaks of sword-light. The howling wind was like the waves of the ocean, crashing out every which way.

The howling wind shattered everything in its path like a giant shockwave, crushing mountains to dust and shattering even the distant flames. The wind wave spread out with terrifying speed, moving so fast that even Sith Exalts would be caught offguard by it.

This was Ning's Wind Sword Dao! The terrifying gust of wind caused even spacetime to shudder.

"Flee!"

"Run away!"

Ning's breath was actually aimed at the five Emperors who were located closest to him. They were hundreds of billions of kilometers away from him, but it wasn't enough. The Dao of Wind was a fast Dao to begin with, and the Wind Sword Dao in the form of a howling tempest moved with indescribable speed. Hundreds of billions of kilometers was nothing to it! Although those five Emperors frantically sought to flee, spacetime was suppressed here. There was no way to warp through spacetime, and so they could do nothing save just watch as the terrifying wind howled through the heavens and moved towards them with incomprehensible speed. There was nowhere for them to hide at all.

"Ahhhh!"

"Attack!"

"Impossible."

"Go all-out against him!" The five Emperors felt a sense of despair. Some attempted to use Sithe weapons to fight back, but wind by its very nature is a formless thing. The attacks of the Sithe weapons flew straight through the wind, completely incapable of affecting the wind at all.

The wind swept through the lands like a giant broom, wiping out everything in its path. Those five Emperors were instantly ground to dust, with just a few of their top treasures and Sithe weapons managing to survive.

An area of over three trillion kilometers to Ning's left had been completely swept clean in a fan-shaped manner. The entire world seemed to have become incredibly, perfectly flat.

The other exiles who were watching this from afar were all scared out of their minds. "He did that with just a shout? H-how powerful is he?!" The exiles were starting to tremble with fear.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 20 – Broken One By One

What they didn't know was that Ji Ning didn't actually 'shout'. He had just mastered his Wind Sword Dao, and had given it a little test by blowing some air out of his lungs, but the air had quickly moved at such incredible speeds that all of the exiles were absolutely stunned and terrified by it.

"He's terrifying."

"He was able to slay Hegemons with ease from a distant of hundreds of billions of kilometers. He truly is unfathomably powerful. All the Hegemons and Emperors in Purgatory combined might stand a chance, but if we were to fight separately we would be defeated one-by-one."

"Join forces. Our only chance is to join forces." The exiles were all extraordinarily talented figures; they instantly knew what they had to do. But… it was already too late!

"Now that I have mastered the Wind Sword Dao, it is time to make my move. I certainly can't win a war of attrition against them." Ning rose to his feet, taking a single step forwards and warping forwards to the location where the five slain Hegemons had been at. He waved his hand, collecting all of the fallen treasures and Sithe weapons. These were all fine treasures that he could either leave to the Three Realms or gift to his disciples and friends.

Next, Ning took another step forwards and reappeared next to a lake which was hundreds of billions of kilometers.

Two Emperors were by the lakeside, carefully scrying the area where Ning had been just a moment ago. Suddenly, a dimensional ripple appeared next to them, followed by a white-robed Daolord appearing from it. His appearance terrified the two Emperors so much that their legs went soft. "How is this possible? How did he find us? We set up formations early on to track from very far away if anyone moves close to us. It didn't look like the Daolord made any preparations either. How did he do this?!"

They couldn't understand it at all. In truth, this enormous hidden dimension did put Ning under quite a bit of pressure. Godsense was blocked out; his only choice was to use his eyes. However, his vision was also impaired by many types of invisible energy, limiting the distance at which he could see.

"I spent half a million years training next to the Realmgate mastering the Wind Sword Dao, just for this moment," Ning mused.

If he remained far away from his enemies and was unable to locate them, he would end up in a passive situation where he could only endure attacks from them. This was why he chose to sit down and master his Wind Sword Dao. Ning had previously spent three thousand chaos cycles training in various Daos; if he had chosen to focus on the Wind Sword Dao, he would've completed it long ago. However, he had not; he had let things happen normally, preferring to spend more of his time on the more-difficult Space Sword Dao. There was no need to focus that much on a fairly simple Sword Dao.

In Purgatory, he was completely unable to locate any of his foes, and so he chose to focus on the Wind Sword Dao. The wind was something without form or shape, but it blew across the entire world. Thanks to the Wind Sword Dao, Ning was able to ride the wind with his senses and accurately locate every single one of the Hegemons and Emperors! He might not be able to see them with the naked eye, but he could sense them with the wind!

"Flee!" The terrified Emperors hurriedly sought to flee, but Ning glared at them. His gaze seemed to solidify and transform into two streams of wind. At first, the wind seemed quite gentle, but when it blew past the two Emperors it transformed into a raging gale. The two Emperors tried to flee, but the gale was composed of countless tiny streaks of sword-light that effortlessly ground them into dust.

"Next." Ning didn't even waste time on picking up their treasures. Instead, he immediately warped through space towards the next squad of enemies.

If Ning wanted to actually use some of his energy, he could actually use a Northbow sword to pierce through spacetime and slay them from afar. However, that took up too much of his power. He wasn't willing to resort to this. If he wanted to kill them while conserving his energy, he had to kill them at close range.

This was because this hidden dimension had a suppressive effect on his Sword Dao Domain, preventing it from expanding to its usual size. When Ning had used his Wind Sword Dao to form a Sword Dao Domain that used a howling wind to assault his foes, he had only been able to strike from a distant of a few hundreds of billions of kilometers. At this distance, Ning was able to use his Wind Sword Dao to suppress spacetime and prevent his foes from fleeing.

The problem was, there were other foes who were trillions of kilometers away. Some were even more distant! Ning was unable to suppress spacetime at such a great distance! When his enemies saw him attacking, they would be able to escape via blinking away. That's why he had to get close to them, then attack!

"The white-robed Daolord is attacking us!"

"He's warping through space to attack us. Hurry up and join forces! If we stay separated like this, we're all going to die." The exiles were absolutely terrified by now.

Whoosh. Ning appeared before yet another squad. This squad had a total of three Emperors. When they saw the white-robed Daolord appear, their hearts were filled with terror. They didn't hesitate at all, immediately unleashing their most powerful Sithe weapons to battle against Ning. They knew that escape was completely impossible; they had no chance of successfully fleeing at all.

Two of the Emperors each wielded a strange scepter which glowed with a blurry light that swept out to cover Ning. Not even Ning's Sword Dao Domain was able to block this blurry light, as it was formless and incorporeal. It completely covered Ning.

The third Emperor wielded a longspear. He suddenly threw it forwards, sending it howling through the air like a stream of light that shot through the Sword Dao Domain and stabbed at Ning.

"What a powerful illusion! My Dao-heart is perfect and I have reached a high level of mastery over illusions, but I was still slightly affected by it. It seems I need to upgrade my Dao of Illusions to Hegemony as soon as possible. When I ran into that Sithe Exalt Dauber, I was slightly affected by him as well." Ning couldn't help but sigh. The Sithe truly had reached incomprehensible heights in every single Dao.

Although Ning was slightly affected by the illusions, his remained extremely clear-minded and his will was resolute. As for the powerful longspear shooting towards him? Ning simply stood there, not even moving. He took control over his Sword Dao Domain, transforming countless streams of sword-light into streams of water and gusts of wind that blasted at the longspear. Although the spear was able to tear through the obstruction of the sword-light, its trajectory was slightly changed.

Given the distances at which they were fighting, even the tiniest of adjustments would result in a wide miss. By the time the longspear flew past Ning, it missed by over thirty meters.

"If many of them attacked me at the same time with a variety of attacks, I might be in a bit of trouble. Just three of them? Nothing to fear at all." As Ning dealt with the enemy attacks, he launched attacks of his own as well. He sent a howling wind towards his foes, and by the time he dodged the longspear his wind had already ground those three Emperors into dust.

Only then did Ning reach out to grab the now-ownerless longspear. "Next." Ning immediately warped through space, moving towards the next squad.

The Sacred Realm. The iridescent Elder Hall. The blue-haired youth and his two disciples were standing before a giant illusory image which was currently displaying the scene of Ning slaying the exiles. As the controller of this entire hidden dimension who was also responsible for keeping an eye on the outside world, he had the complete ability to watch over everything which happened within this dimension. Every action Ning took was witnessed by him.

"Those fools." The blue-haired youth's face tightened, and he focused his gaze on the image as he sent his godsense out of the Elder Hall and into Purgatory. "Spacetime, freeze!" The blue-haired youth immediately suppressed spacetime, seeking to block Ning's advance.

After Ning warped forwards to kill two different squads in Purgatory, the Exalt in the Sacred Realm was finally incited to action, suppressing spacetime in the region around Ning. The exiles, however, did not suffer from spacetime suppression. Thus, they were able to quickly warp through space to join together, while Ning was noticeably slowed down.

"I haven't even picked up any treasures yet. The major power behind this hidden dimension has already chosen to suppress spacetime around me, eh?" Ning chuckled. "But do you think suppressing spacetime will be enough to bar my path?"

Whoosh. Ning once more tore a forcible hole through the void before him, creating a rippling spatial tunnel which sent him hurtling more than six hundred billion kilometers away.

This was the power of his Space Sword Dao! Compared to the might of his Space Sword Dao, even the Autarchs who didn't specialize the Dao of Space such as Autarch Titanos or Autarch Ekong were slightly inferior when it came to tearing through space. The Sithe Exalt was using the power of the Elder Hall to suppress spacetime around him, but Ning conserved his energy and used just the power of the Dao itself to tear through the frozen spacetime and teleport a fairly short distance!

After teleporting more than six hundred billion kilometers, he was already outside the region of suppressed spacetime. As a result, he was able to quickly teleport towards yet another squad, which he dispatched with ease.

This sight truly shocked the Exalt in control of the Sacred Realm. "I knew that I wouldn't be able stop him if he went all-out… but he was actually able to warp through spacetime just by using the power of his Sword Dao Domain?" The Sithe Exalt was scarcely able to believe it. "He's already completely surpassed me in terms of mastery over the Dao of Space? But his Dao is that of the sword… how could he have reached such heights in the Dao of Space as well?"

He didn't want to believe it, but the display before him was showing him images of Ning dealing with one squad after another. The various squads of Emperors began to flee frantically, and slowly some were beginning to finally join forces together.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 21 – Thirty-Six Stone Pillars

"Master, what should we do?"

"If we let things continue like this, the Hegemons and Emperors in Purgatory will be so terrified and ineffective that half of them will be massacred before they manage to join forces!" The two disciples next to the Exalt were all rather anxious.

The blue-haired youth calmed down again. He stared at the images within the illusory 'painting' and said in a cold voice, "You underestimate the exiles. They might be useless in all other respects, but one thing they are good at is staying alive. That white-robed Daolord will at most be able to wipe out 30% of the Hegemons and Emperors. By then, the rest will have banded together. I've bestowed two precious Apocalypse-class treasures to Purgatory. I wouldn't be surprised if the Daolord died there."

"Alright." The two disciples next to him nodded in agreement. Apocalypse-class treasures were the most powerful treasures the hidden dimension had at its disposal, aside from Daoguard Towers. Previously, they had used four triangular Calamity-class treasures against Ning; those were a bit weaker, but they were also easier to control. Apocalypse-class treasures were much more complicated to control.

The skies were dark. Flames continued to blaze at the ends of Purgatory, and spacetime remained completely suppressed. Ning tore through spacetime, repeatedly blinking forwards and slaying the Hegemons and Emperors at high speed. However, this process took time. The Hegemons and Emperors who were not destroyed during Ning's first wave of assaults were quickly fleeing towards each other and banding together.

A short while later.

"They fled quite fast." The white-robed Ning stood at the peak of a tall mountain. He swept the land with his gaze. Although he wasn't able to see the anything, he was able to rely on the wind to determine that the remaining Hegemons and Emperors had already banded together into two large squads. They had begun to activate the power of their Sithe weapons and had set up many traps as they awaited Ning's arrival.

"These two groups will be a bit hard to deal with." Ning could sense how dangerous these two groups would be, and so he chuckled: "Time to go pick up those treasures first."

Whoosh. Ning leisurely warped through space, going to the places where he had previously slain Hegemons and Emperors, then picking up their fallen Sithe treasures.

"What's that terrifying Daolord up to?"

"Has he come yet?"

"Not yet."

"I found him!" The exiles all had their own special techniques, and some were actually able to monitor all of Ning's actions thanks to aid from the Sacred Realm. "He's… actually looting our treasures?"

The exiles were all rather speechless as they watched Ning leisurely saunter from place to place, picking up all of the treasures. He hadn't done so earlier, as the battles had been very fast and he didn't want to waste the time. The surviving exiles had all been focused on running for their lives, and they similarly didn't stop to pick up treasures.

"Nineteen Sithe treasures, each with their own marvelous properties. All of them are quite strong, and some are really powerful." Ning couldn't help but grin. The Sithe had naturally prepared many powerful weapons to use against him.

After picking up all the weapons, Ning gracefully warped through space to arrive before the first squad of Hegemons and Emperors.

"Only two squads are left in all of Purgatory, but each squad has a large number of Hegemons and Emperors as well as special weapons. They are actually quite dangerous." Ning stared towards the desolate wilderness before him, which held an enormous dark-red castle that looked almost like some sort of monstrosity.

The castle had a total of nine towers, and a total of thirty-six strange stone pillars were scattered around it within an area of roughly 1.8 billion kilometers. These stone pillars all had different weapons hovering above them.

"Come over!"

"Come and die!" There were twenty-plus Hegemons and Emperors within the castle, and they all stared murder towards Ning.

This castle was an enormous fort that was meant for war. Thirty-six Emperors were needed to unleash its full power. Although there weren't enough Emperors present, many had avatars who could help out, and so they were still able to make full use of this castle's power.

"Hm. Now how should I deal with this castle…" Ning stared at the castle from afar, not daring to move too close to it. He could sense that if he moved within ten billion kilometers of the castle, he would suffer a terrifying attack.

"I wonder what type of attack this castle can unleash. Those thirty-six stone pillars seem to be quite dangerous as well," Ning mused. He currently had no information at all regarding what type of attacks those castles could unleash; if he wanted to know, he'd have to go test it out. Once he did, however, he might fall to their fury.

"Ahahaha… you there! White-robed Daolord! Aren't you supposed to be a real badass? Why aren't you moving?" A loud, mocking, angry shout rang out from within the castle, spreading out tens of billions of kilometers and shaking the world beyond it.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking! I'm trying to decide how I should deal with this castle of yours," Ning replied with a laugh.

Ning continued to scrutinize the castle as he spoke. He could sense that an invisible field of energy was surrounding the castle up to a distance of ten billion kilometers. Spacetime was completely suppressed within this region, and those thirty-six stone pillars were rippling with power as well.

"You can stare at this castle for ten or a hundred chaos cycles, but you still won't be able to see the mysteries which my castle contains," the angry voice replied. "Just keep watching!"

Ning was neither irritated nor impatient by this response. As for the other squad of Hegemons and Emperors, they watched from afar without moving towards him.

Both Apocalypse-class treasures needed a large number of Hegemons and Emperors working together to control them. There was no real way for them to work together; it was better for them to fight against Ning individually.

Ning spent over half a month analyzing the castle and ruminating over the mysterious runes covering the stone pillars. He also carefully attuned himself to the various auras and ripples emanating from the castle. Finally, he was able to come to a simple, preliminary conclusion.

"This castle's attacks should be of the area-attack variety, while the thirty-six stone pillars will all focus their attacks on me, trying to make it impossible for me to dodge." Ning nodded to himself. "The Sithe have probably come to a rough estimation of my power and abilities. This castle might actually be a perfect counter for me."

Ning was extremely fast, but the Sithe Exalt had specifically chosen this castle to counter Ning's speed.

"Even so, I really don't have any other choices. I have to advance and break through all obstacles." For Ning to die was one thing, as his truesoul was already disintegrating. Dying here, however, meant that the Paragon of Pills wouldn't be able to escape either. Ning was unwilling to see this.

Time to go all out and destroy everything in his path!

Whoosh. Ning suddenly moved, transforming into a streak of light that shot towards the distant castle. He soon entered the range of ten billion kilometers.

"Attack!" The Hegemon inside the ugly castle immediately issued the attack order, and the nine castle towers lit up simultaneously, shooting out nine semi-translucent beams of light that cut through space. The nine beams of light shot out at nine of the stone pillars, then turned and also shot through other stone pillars. The beams of light continued to pass through the various pillars, quickly forming an enormous spiderweb of light. As this happened, the weapons above the thirty-six stone pillars slowly began to build up power.

Ning watched silently as he approached the castle. Six billion kilometers. Five billion kilometers. Four billion kilometers. Three billion kilometers…

Right as Ning moved within three billion kilometers of the castle, some sort of mechanism seemed to be activated.

Hiss! The top of a stone pillar shot out a ray of deep azure light that transformed into an enormous azure serpent which was three hundred thousand meters long. The serpent immediately flew towards Ning.

Crackle! The top of a second stone pillar manifested a giant eyeball with a strange vertical pupil. The vertical pupil shot out a streak of blood-colored light towards Ning.

All sorts of attacks filled the air, including attacks of bone-chilling cold, a miasmatic black mist, a vast and evil palm, and layers of folded spacetime waves. These attacks shot out at Ning from every direction, clearly seeking to surround and submerge Ning, giving him no chance to escape as they sought to annihilate him.

Ning immediately understood what a deadly situation he had just stepped into.

Powerful Sithe weapons were able to attack at incredible speeds. When he was attacked by the Daoguard Tower which had trapped the Paragon of Pills, he had actually been forced to use his own energy to utilize evasion-arts to dodge! In terms of raw speed, these attacks were actually even faster than Ning's own speed. Dodging just one of them would require energy. Dodging thirty-six attacks of incredible accuracy and which were all coordinated with each other? How hard would that be?

As for destroying the attacks with raw force? If he tried to do so, his own speed would be affected and he would suffer one attack after another. Ning wouldn't dare to use his own body to resist all these attacks. He would have to rely on his sword-arts, which meant he would have to strike out dozens of times. If even the outer perimeter forced him to strike this many times… this single castle alone would be enough to exhaust him to death.

"Wind! Lightning!" Ning raised his two arms, pulling out a pair of Northbow swords from the sheath on his back. He now had a Northbow sword in each hand, and he sent out two streaks of sword-light at the same time, employing his Wind Sword Dao and his Lightning Sword Dao.

Boom! Boom! Ning's speed suddenly skyrocketed while two streaks of light appeared behind him. The first streak of light crackled like lightning, while the second was as ghostly as the wind. They seemed to form a pair of wings, with one being of lightning and the second being of wind.

Ning had gained certain insights when he had mastered the Wind Sword Dao. The Five Elements were all able to work together as they were part of a set, and the Wind Sword Dao and the Lightning Sword Dao were also able to work together. The wind and the lightning worked in concert, propelling Ning to the maximum level of speed he was currently capable of.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 22 – The Storm

Whoosh. Ji Ning moved forwards at a terrifying speed, instantly avoiding two attacks that swished right past him.

It really was like dancing on the edge of a knife. Ning himself had never been in such an incredibly dangerous situation, and he wasn't certain that he would survive it. All he could do was to do his best. His wings of electric sword-light and wind sword-light had granted him incredible speed, allowing him to dodge repeatedly.

Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash! Suddenly, the semi-translucent rays of light began to swing over and shoot towards Ning. This caused Ning to immediately grow a bit nervous. Aside from the attacks from the thirty-six stone pillars, he also had to deal with the semi-translucent rays of light. Dodging became even more difficult for Ning now, and the light in this area had long ago transformed into an enormous web.

"Dodge. Dodge. Dodge." Under tremendous pressure, Ning continuously dodged at incredible speeds and moved in extremely unpredictable, bizarre ways.

"He's actually dodging?" The Emperors and Hegemons in the castle were all stupefied by this. As they saw it, these attacks were so ridiculously fast that none of them would even be able to react in time. Ning, however, was somehow about to continuously find an empty spot and avoid the furious attacks, evading and dodging past the attacks. Not a single one of them managed to hit him!

"Mixing the Wind Sword Dao and the Lightning Sword Dao together feels absolutely wonderful." This was Ning's first time using two different Sword Daos together, and as he continued to dodge the thunder wings and wind wings on his back became increasingly agile and nimble.

He was both fast and unpredictable. The two pairs of wings worked together in an increasingly marvelous way, allowing Ning to become increasingly faster and nimbler as well.

"Wind can support the lightning's momentum, while lightning can reinforce the wind's strength." Ning suddenly transformed into two howling streaks of lightning and wind as his two sets of wings merged together. Now, there was lightning in the wind and a gale in the lightning.

Fast, savage, dominating, unscrutable, mysterious.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! The blurry light of wind and lightning flashed past the semi-translucent rays of light. It avoided the attacks from the thirty-six stone pillars with ease as it repeatedly found the openings in the attacks, and it continued to advance towards the castle.

"How is this possible? How is he able to completely dodge all of our attacks? This is impossible!" The Hegemons and Emperors in the castle were growing increasingly nervous. If they were fighting ordinary cultivators, this castle alone would be more than enough to stop their opponents in their tracks. However, Ning was comparable to an Autarch in power! If he managed to get close to their castle, they would lose! This was because Ning was more than strong enough to use his sword-arts to pierce through the castle, and he could also blink straight inside of it.

During the Dawn War, this was exactly what Autarch Bolin and the others had done; they had blinked straight inside the various warships, with the external defenses of no use against them whatsoever. Thus, the only way the castle could be a threat to Ning was by using external attacks against him. The problem was, they could clearly see that those attacks were completely incapable of stopping Ning.

"Go out, go out! All of you, go out! Use every Sithe weapon you have to assault this Daolord!" the Hegemon in charge commanded. "We have to stop him and prevent him from getting close to the castle. If he gets close to us, we're finished!"

"Everyone, head out!"

"All Hegemons and Emperors on standby must head out immediately."

"If you can disrupt his tempo even slightly, we'll be able to land an attack on him. One attack will lead to another, and he might even die by our hands."

"Let's do this!" In truth, the Hegemons and Emperors inside were beginning to panic as well. Alas, most of them were needed to control the castle. Even though they had avatars, in the end the castle was only able to send out a total of three Emperors. These Emperors each had two or three powerful Sithe weapons. They stood on the surface of the castle, staring at the distant storm-shaped Ning. Gritting their teeth, they began to attack and attempt to knock Ning off his rhythm.

Swish. A chain flew out towards Ning, seeking to wrap itself around him. Alas, before it even reached Ning it was struck by a semi-translucent ray of light and sent tumbling to the ground.

Clearly, the rays of light could not differentiate between friend and foe. The castle was using many different types of attacks to assault Ning, and these attacks were harmonized with each other to a tremendous agree, ensuring that they wouldn't cancel each other out. Unfortunately, it was hard for these three Emperors to fully avoid the semi-translucent attacks from the castle.

"Damnit!" The three Emperors were being driven mad with rage.

Alas, their rage was of no use. Ning continued to advance at high speed as he gained more and more familiarity with mixing his Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao together. None of the attacks were able to land on him at all. The three Emperors did their absolute utmost to disturb Ning's movements, but although an occasional attack managed to get close to Ning, none of them were able to actually threaten Ning at all.

One billion kilometers… nine hundred million kilometers… eight hundred million kilometers… Ning moved closer and closer to the castle, and as he did so a full-blown panic began to erupt amongst the Hegemons and Emperors inside. They all knew that once Ning reached the tower, they would die.

"Let's run!" When Ning reached a distance of two hundred million kilometers from the tower, the Emperors inside began to break down. None of them harbored any further hopes of being able to stop Ning.

Boom! The entire castle transformed into a streak of light that hurriedly began to fly away. At the same time, the castle deactivated its spacetime suppression field as it begin to teleport away.

"Do you really think you'll be able to escape?" As soon as the castle began to flee, the semi-translucent rays of light all completely vanished. Now completely unimpeded, Ning instantly appeared in front of the castle. He reached out with one hand, touching the castle's exterior.

"Blink." Ning used just a tiny amount of Immortal energy to command the Dao to envelop him, instantly blinking him inside. The tough external shell of the castle seemed to have transformed into a gentle curtain of water which Ning easily passed through, arriving inside.

The Hegemons and Emperors inside all revealed looks of despair.

Slash! A streak of sword-light howled outwards, slaying two of the Emperors on the spot.

"Put down all of your treasures and accept capture. I'm willing to spare your lives for now," Ning said.

"Huh? Spare our lives?" The Hegemons and Emperors were all rather shocked. Ning had pursued them with such ferocity and had instantly slain two Emperors upon entering the castle. This had truly scared them out of their minds.

Ning frowned. "It seems you would rather die than live, then?"

"No, we want to live! Live!"

"All of us want to live!" The Hegemons and Emperors immediately divested themselves of all their treasures and Sithe weapons, then obediently lined up in front of Ning.

Ning waved his hand, pulling them all into his estate-world. He then waved his hand a second time, pulling the treasures into a different estate-world.

"These so-called 'Sithe progeny' are still members of our own Chaosverse. I hope that they aren't absolutely loyal to the Sithe," Ning mused. When Ning had first arrived at Purgatory, his goal was to weaken the enemy as much as possible; there was naturally no way he would show mercy. But now that he already gained victory and entered the castle? Ning wasn't going to just murder these people unless necessary.

Ning had been able to immediately recognize two of the Emperors as true Sithe. They were being ignored and suppressed by the prime essences of the Chaosverse, which was proof of their identity! The others, however, were actually 'Sithe descendants'! They were creatures of this Chaosverse who had been born and bred here.

Ning put away the entire castle, then collected the thirty-six stone pillars as well. He was in a superb mood. "I defeated those Hegemons and Emperors, broke into the castle, and managed to avoid using too much power."

Ning was feeling absolutely wonderful. During this battle, the only thing he had done was use his wind sword-light and lightning sword-light to dodge and evade. Evasion-arts consumed much less of his energy than full-force blows; all that flying which Ning had engaged in was perhaps at most on par with what would be consumed by a single sword-blow. Blinking into the castle used up very little energy as well.

He had been able to achieve his goals with a minimum amount of effort. How could he NOT be happy? He began to warp through space, arriving at somewhere else where the other Hegemons and Emperors were gathered.

"Eh?" Ning stared forwards, rather puzzled. There were a series of palaces off in the distance, with the central palace being the largest one. It was surrounded by a scattering of smaller palaces, and they were all connected into an enormous palace complex. Ning could vaguely sense the auras of many Hegemons and Emperors within the palace complex; there had to be more than twenty of them scattered throughout that place.

"I have the feeling that this palace complex is even more dangerous than the castle." For some inexplicable reason, Ning shivered. He knew that this was his subconscious warning him of the danger. "Judging from how the palaces have been laid out, this should be some sort of enormous formation."

Ning couldn't help but feel a bit of wariness when faced with such a formation.

"There's no rush." Ning sat down in the lotus position. "Let me first spend some time meditating on my Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao." When he had been flying forwards at high speed earlier, he suddenly had the feeling that he could merge his Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao on a deeper level.

It was similar to how Ning was planning to perfectly join his Space Sword Dao and Time Sword Dao into a Spacetime Sword Dao. Ning now felt certain that he could also perfectly join his Lightning Sword Dao and his Wind Sword Dao together into a 'Storm' Sword Dao.

"Perhaps I might find an unexpected surprise from this." Ning immediately closed his eyes, allowing his awesome Sword Dao Domain to spread out around him as he began to meditate.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 23 – Dire Straits

Ji Ning remained seated in the lotus position. Gusts of wind howled past him, occasionally coming together into a mighty storm which was filled with flickers of lightning.

Time passed, one year after the other. The Emperors and Hegemons in the palace complex were all beginning to grow rather anxious and impatient.

"Why hasn't the Daolord attacked yet?"

"I can't believe he's actually in the mood to train." The Hegemons and Emperors were all panicking. The calmer Ning was, the more panicked they felt. It wasn't that their Dao-hearts were weak, it was that Ning's performance in battle had been absolutely terrifying.

"Gentlemen, will our formations be capable of stopping this Daolord? The castle was also Apocalypse-class, but the Daolord managed to defeat it with ease. Although these formations seem quite profound and powerful to us, this Daolord might be able to solve them with ease. If that happens, we'll be in serious trouble." Many Emperors were worried.

"Relax. The Exalt himself bestowed it upon us. I imagine he did so for a very good reason."

"But the Exalt bestowed the Apocalypse-class castle as well, right?"

"Enough, enough. It's far too late for worrying about things like this. Either we'll win or we'll die in battle. There are no other options! Besides, as all of you are aware, the castle was something meant for head-on battles, while we are relying on profound formations. If he can't solve the formations, he'll be trapped and perish."

"You aren't him. Who knows what tricks he might have up his sleeve?"

"Even if he DOES manage to solve the formations, it isn't as though you have better ones that can be used! Remember, we're exiles! This might be extremely dangerous, but it is also our only hope of survival."

This was absolute torture for the Hegemons and Emperors, and the Sithe Exalt in the Sacred Realm wasn't feeling much better. Ning, however, focused all of his efforts on his training. This time, he meditated for an extremely long period of time. Over half a chaos cycle went past before he finished.

BOOM!

One day, the the anxiously waiting Hegemons and Emperors suddenly heard a loud, rumbling sound appear in the area around the seated white-robed youth. Lightning howled like wind through the skies, while the wind itself flickered with crackling electricity. This awesome storm of lightning and wind possessed incredible momentum and ferocity.

Under the watchful gazes of the nervous Hegemons and Emperors, the white-robed youth finally opened his eyes.

"The Storm Sword Dao." Ning nodded in understanding. It had been easier than he had expected to master his Storm Sword Dao, even easier than it had been to simply master the individual Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao. "Perhaps they are innately meant to be used together," Ning mused.

The Dao of Space and the Dao of Time were naturally meant to be together. When used simultaneously, they would easily and naturally come together to form the Dao of Spacetime. This was because time and space were indelibly linked together like two spokes on a wheel that fit together perfectly.

The Dao of Lightning, the Dao of Metal, the Dao of Water, the Dao of Space, and Ning's Eternal Omega Sword Dao were all completely irrelevant to each other. They weren't really a good way to link them together, making it extremely difficult to join them together.

However, the Five Elements, the Storm, and Spacetime were all 'sets' that contained highly compatible Daos.

"It is time." Ning rose to his feet and stared at the distant palace complex. The entire palace complex was absolutely teeming with formations that were both complex and abstruse, but Ning held no fear of them.

Clink! He reached out to draw a Northbow sword from the sheath on his back, then began to walk towards the distant palace complex.

"He's coming!"

"He's headed straight for us."

"That white-robed Daolord is coming. Quick! Everyone, make your preparations! When he's trapped in our formations, we need to immediately launch all of our attacks against him and hold nothing back. If we give him enough time to breach our formations, we'll be finished."

"It'll definitely take him some time to defeat this formation. We need to do our best to kill him." The Hegemons and Emperors all stared at the white-robed Daolord walking towards them, sword in hand. It was as though they were looking at an absolutely terrifying monster. The only thing giving them some confidence was the fact that they were protected by an ancient and powerful Apocalypse-class formation.

Ning slowly sauntered forwards, the power of his Sword Dao Domain on full display as he used it to cover the region before him. It quickly spread out to cover the entire palace complex, which was hardened into a single entity. Ning's Sword Dao Domain alone wouldn't be enough to shake it in the slightest. The smaller palaces remained quietly rooted in place, not releasing any of their power at all.

"I want to see just how powerful they are." Ning suddenly moved, transforming into an illusory shadow that shot towards a pathway which he felt was critical.

BOOM! As soon as Ning stepped into the palace complex, the earth began to shake beneath his feet while the skies began to change. The awesome might of the complex was fully unleashed, and the scenery in front of him completely transformed into a field of blurry light.

Ning was the only person flying through the region of blurry light. Whoosh! He instantly accelerated to fly ten billion kilometers through the light, but found himself still trapped within it.

"Hm. I feel as though I'm flying in place, as though I haven't actually moved at all." Ning unleashed his Sword Dao Domain, sending out countless streaks of sword-light but was only able to extend them to a distance of a million kilometers. Beyond this distance, there was no way for them to advance any further!

"What an incredible formation. It actually created its own spacetime continuum." Ning began to ponder on his next step. Given his mastery over the Space Sword Dao, he was able to see some traces of how spacetime worked here but wasn't even close to actually being able to solve it.

This place was already a spacetime continuum unto itself, and he was trapped inside it, unable to leave. "So they plan to simply trap me here?" Ning shook his head and chuckled. "If the Sithe truly wished to just trap me, they would've kept me locked within the dimensional realm-seam. There would've been no way for me to escape on my own."

Thus, there was no way the Sithe would simply leave him trapped here. If they wanted to do that, they had plenty of other tools at their disposal.

"Eh?" Ning turned his gaze to one side. He could sense that spacetime was changing a bit there.

Boom! A streak of dense and dark astral light shot out, filled with malice and wickedness. It was as though endless amounts of sin had been concentrated in this attack, and it was flying towards Ning at terrifying speeds. Ning could sense that this dark astral light posed a threat to him. If he wanted to actually block it, he would have to use his sword.

The black astral light was simply too fast. Ning's form suddenly flickered, emitting a thunderous boom as a wild storm behind him which almost instantly pushed him out of the trajectory of the dark astral light aside. The astral light flew past Ning, burying itself deep into the edge of this spacetime continuum and then completely disappearing.

Swoosh. Ning immediately charged towards the place where the black astral light had come from, which was also the place he had sensed spacetime changing.

"Spacetime was temporarily parted there." Ning charged towards that area with his Northbow sword at the ready, but halfway there he came to a halt because spacetime had gone back to normal. No further fluctuations could be seen.

Just one heartbeat later… riiiiip! Another spacetime ripple appeared somewhere else, followed by yet another attack. This time, the attack was an extremely gentle-looking alabaster finger that shot straight towards Ning, almost instantly appearing right in front of him. Ning once more used his Storm Sword Dao to evade the attack, moving with almost ghostly speed.

"Damn!" Ning's face paled slightly. He knew what his opponents were intending. He was trapped within this tiny spacetime continuum and unable to escape, while his Sithe opponents were able to use their many powerful weapons to assault him time and time again at extremely close range. His only choice was to use his divine power to execute evasion-arts to dodge these attacks! Thankfully, he had just mastered the Storm Sword Dao, which specialized in speed and agility. As a result, he was able to dodge while using just a tiny amount of energy… but it would still add up.

If this continued, his energy supply would continuously deplete while his truesoul began to crumble apart at an increasingly fast rate. Each time he used any of his power, the cracks across his truesoul would widen and his lifespan would grow shorter!

"How should I handle this? What's the best way to break through this continuum?" Ning was beginning to grow anxious. He scanned the area around him, but it remained a blur of light. There were no flaws or openings at all for this spacetime continuum. An opening might appear when an attack was launched from the outside world, but that opening would quickly close up and be sealed away. Each time, just a single attack was launched, and so the opening was extremely small in size. The Hegemons and Emperors in the outside world could simply wait for the right moment to attack, giving Ning no chance to flee through the openings at all.

All sorts of attacks began to fly at Ning from within this spacetime continuum, and each time they launched from far away. Ning was forced to repeatedly use his evasion-arts to dodge. This was the most conservative use of his energy possible.

His power continued to deplete. Ning couldn't help but feel a sense of urgency as he pondered over the solution for breaking apart this formation. He never would've imagined that Purgatory would be enough to force him into such dire straits.

Just like that, Ning was actually in mortal danger.

"Ahahaha! He has no answer for our formation! He can't solve it!"

"If he can't solve it, he's doomed." The exiles were overjoyed, all their earlier concerns having vanished like the wind. Apocalypse-class formations truly were incredible. The white-robed Daolord was completely unable to overcome this formation, which meant that killing him would be simplicity itself.

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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.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 25 – Remaining Lifespan

Their attacks were completely ineffective against this castle, and each time they attacked they had to temporarily create an opening in the membrane surrounding this field of spacetime. The fluctuations generated by these brief openings was enough to let Ji Ning analyze the composition of the formations. Alas, the fluctuations disappeared so very quickly that he couldn't actually go close and take a look in person. His only option was to scry them and their secrets from afar.

"Damn." The Sithe Exalt was watching everything from the Sacred Realm, and he was so angry that his teeth hurt. He never would've imagined that the castle he bestowed upon the first group would prove to be so troublesome now.

"He has to die!" The Sithe Exalt knew that they wouldn't necessarily have another chance like this. He instantly sent down eight more attack-oriented treasures which were strong counters for this castle.

"Here is a diagram of the barriers surrounding the surface of the castle. There are a total of twenty-one critical points in total. If you attack eight of them at the same time, you'll have a chance to destroy it," the Sithe Exalt ordered. The reason why he handed out eight was because he only HAD eight of these dark corrosive treasures. These were the only treasures which were strong counters against this particular castle.

The exiles began to launch another wave of attacks, while Azurefiend, the Paragon of Pills, Lord Annihilation, Hegemon Tia, and Hegemon Flameleft used all of their power to fight back!

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Suddenly, a series of illusory black longspears shot into the area, slamming against the castle. This time, the barriers of the castle began to tremble and break apart, but thankfully the castle itself was so incredibly thick and sturdy that the attack only blasted out a small crater on its surface.

"Eh?" Ning's face tightened slightly.

"Master, the barriers were breached!" Azurefiend's avatar said rather nervously.

"It is fine," Ning said calmly. "The Sithe created this castle. They know the weaknesses of the barriers, which is why they were able to breach them with ease. However, the castle's outer layer remains incredibly thick. It won't be easy for them to pierce through it."

The strongest defensive strength of this castle lay in the materials it was made from. The Tigerhill, for example, was sheathed in a thick layer of deepfire blackstone! Breaking through via raw power would naturally be extremely difficult.

As for this castle? It was even more powerful than the Tigerhill. Its surface was created from a strange, dark-red metal that seemed to be alive. Ning didn't really know how to describe it, but what he did know was that it was harder to damage than even deepfire blackstone! Those longspears had been filled with a strange type of corrosive energy, which was why they had managed to erode a small crater onto thesurface of the castle. If it wasn't for that, the castle probably wouldn't have even been marked.

"Attack!"

"Attack!" One longspear after another flew towards the castle, breaking through its barriers repeatedly and gouging out more and more craters on its surface.

Ning cast a sidelong glance at the black mist which clung to those craters. The corrosive black energy was continuing to slowly melt through the surface of the castle.

"Those offensive weapons are applying the Dao of Darkness to a truly incredible degree." Ning couldn't help but sigh at this. The Sithe truly had reached the apex in virtually every single Dao.

However, Ning didn't really care. His attention was primarily focused on analyzing the ripples in spacetime which appeared with each attack.

Time continued to flow on. The Hegemons and Emperors attacked nonstop, using up a large amount of Immortal energy. Thankfully, they had prepared a large amount of spirit-pills to replenish their power.

They attacked nonstop for nearly an entire hour. By now, the entire castle was covered with a layer of incredibly dense and corrosive black mist. Everyone inside the castle looked quite nervous, because they all knew that this powerful castle was at the verge of collapse.

"Darknorth, we can't hold on much longer. What should we do?" The Paragon of Pills felt both anxious and guilty. She blamed herself for this, because Ning had only fallen into this Sithe trap due to having come here to rescue her.

"Master, do you have any ideas?" Azurefiend's avatar was worried about Ning as well.

"At least it bought me an hour," Ning said. "Don't worry about the rest." As he spoke, he waved his hand and drew away the Paragon of Pills and the others. As they disappeared, a look of worry was visible in theireyes. Some were worried about Ning, while others were only worried about themselves! Once Ning died, all of them would die.

To be precise… the Paragon, Azurefiend, Flameleft, and Tia were not afraid of death. They were worried for Ning. Lord Annihilation, however, very much wanted to stay alive!

"Nothing for it. Life and death shall be determined by this!" Ning suddenly cracked a smile. Both his true body and his Primaltwin had spent this period of time analyzing the mysteries of this dimension, seeking a way to destroy it. His Primaltwin had even made use of 100x temporal acceleration! Alas, this sort of spacetime formation would not be easy to deconstruct; even if Ning had 10,000x more time, it still probably wouldn't be enough.

"We broke through!" The Hegemons and Emperors outside were excited at their successes. BOOM! The dark-red castle's outer shell was finally corroded through by that dark mist.

"DIE!" A dazzling streak of sword-light suddenly lit up. In the middle of that sword-light was a white-robed figure whose eyes radiated a towering desire to do battle. Ning had discarded all other thoughts save for one – stay alive! He had to make it out of this place alive! Only if he made it out would the Paragon of Pills and the others survive as well.

"Break! Break! BREAK!" Ning manifested three heads and six arms, simultaneously wielding all six Northbow swords for the first time since his Daomerge. He seemed to have gone completely berserk, and every single attack he used was that of the Space Sword Dao. The destructive yet ephemeral sword-light began to skyrocket in power as all six swords stabbed out at the same time.

Ning attacked using maximum power with each sword, and his swords were the Northbow Swords, the preminent offensive swords in all the Chaosverse. Every single strike he unleashed had power comparable to those of the most powerful of Autarchs! It must be remembered that although Ning had fought for quite some time, he generally didn't strike with full-force on his attacks, while very little energy was used up when he merely used evasion-arts. The amount of energy consumed when he went all-out was quite shocking!

Sword-light flashed again and again and again.

BOOM! Finally, a hole appeared in one corner of this dimension, revealing the dark world outside. Swoosh! Ning immediately charged outside.

As soon as Ning charged outside the formation, he instantly appeared in front of a palace within the palace complex. He blinked inside the palace, slaughtering all of the true Sithe within it! As for the Sithe progeny, he took confiscated all of their treasures and then locked them up for later testing. If they were truly loyal to the Sithe, they would be put to death in the future.

"Whew." Ning's face was rather ashen after he finished mopping up everyone in the palace complex. "Now that sucked. I only have six hundred chaos cycles left," Ning said with a self-mocking chuckle. He had been forced to use too much power, using maximum-force blows each time as he rained a total of eighteen consecutive blows upon the formation in order to escape it.

And this was after Ning had spent a full hour analyzing the dimension, discovering some of its critical points. Although he wasn't even close to being able to solve it, by focusing his attacks on those critical points he was able to make his attacks ten times more effective than they otherwise would be. This was why he had chosen to take the risk of launching eighteen full-strength attacks with his Space Sword Dao.

An Autarch who was trapped in a similar situation would've been able to escape much more easily. He could've simply launched nonstop attacks! An Autarch would not run out of energy, and so after ten thousand attacks the formation would be unable to withstand it any longer and collapse.

"Six hundred chaos cycles," Ning mused to himself. Based on his original estimates, he would probably die after another hundred full-force strikes… and based on his actual energy usage, the ten-plus full-strength blows he had launched had resulted in his lifespan being reduced from ten thousand chaos cycles down to six hundred!

This was because a Daolord's crumbling truesoul was like a cracking dam! The more he attacked, the greater the cracks would become. When he first started to fight, the crack would double in size and the truesoul crumbling speed would double. As a result, his lifespan would shorten by half, from around 12,000 chaos cycles to just 6000 chaos cycles!

As he continued to attack, his lifespan would drop by yet another half. The second time, it would 'merely' drop from 6000 chaos cycles to 3000 chaos cycles.

After that, 1500 chaos cycles. After that, 750…

It only took four or five 'rounds' of attacks for his lifespan to drop from 12,000 chaos cycles to 600 chaos cycles, and it would continue to drop from there on. After another ten or so rounds, his lifespan would be reduced to just half a chaos cycle. Technically, however, those ten rounds would 'only' have consumed around 599 chaos cycles, whereas the first few rounds consumed over 10,000 chaos cycles.

Clearly, the more he fought the smaller the absolute value of the effect on his lifespan would be. Alas, once his truesoul crumbled to a certain degree it would completely fall apart! Much like a dam which was riddled with cracks would eventually collapse, Ning would die after roughly a hundred full-force strikes.

"Six hundred chaos cycles… it'll be enough!" Ning revealed a smile. "At least I'm still alive. It was all thanks to that extra hour that I managed to survive and escape."

His truesoul was now crumbling at a far, far faster rate than it had been in the past. Ning raised his head to stare towards the skies. "Next will be the Sacred Realm."

Aside from Ning, Purgatory no longer held any other living beings at all.

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Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 26 – Daoguard Tower

Although Ji Ning very much wanted to bring the Paragon of Pills out alive, he knew that there was a high chance that he would die on this trip to the Sacred Realm.

"Before going there, I need to first take a look at the cultivation methods these Sithe descendants used." Ning had always been curious as to how the Sithe had trained their progeny! Their descendants were born and bred within Ning's Chaosverse, making it impossible for them to train in true Sithe techniques. How, then, did the Sithe teach them? Did they just hand over normal cultivator techniques, or did they use other retrofitted techniques?

Whoosh. Ning willed his Sword Dao Domain to expand outwards, preventing anyone from scrying him. At the same time, he caused a dazed-looking blood-robed Emperor to appear next to him. This was one of the several Emperors and Hegemons Ning had captured.

"Greetings, Daolord," the blood-robed Emperor said hurriedly with respect.

"Mm. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Be a good boy and answer them for me," Ning said.

"Go ahead, Daolord. I'll tell you everything I can," the blood-robed Emperor replied obediently. Moments later, his gaze turned rather muddled as an illusion took hold of him. He didn't even try to resist it, and even if he did Ning had reached a far higher level in the Dao of Illusions. The tiny strand of sword-intent which Ning had sent into his consciously was enough to completely suppress his mind, ensuring that the following illusions worked without fail.

It was much like how ordinary mortals might find themselves going totally blank when they saw something that left them absolutely awestruck. They would briefly lose all capability of rational thought.

Autarchs who didn't specialize in the Dao of Illusions were still able to take advantage of their overall overwhelming superiority to ensure that Hegemons would be unable to resist them. Trapping Hegemons within illusions was extremely simple… but of course, the stronger one's Dao-heart was, the less effective this mind-suppressive technique would be.

"The Sithe truly are vicious." Ning continued to flip through this Emperor's memories. "They actually have forced all of their descendants to swear lifeblood oaths to obey all orders the Exalt gives them. That way, it'll be extremely difficult for the descendants to break free from the Sithe, even if they wanted to."

"Huh. They actually train in the exact same types of techniques that we cultivators use." Ning shook his head. "Even the teaching methods are the same."

He flipped through some of the memories he cared about the most, but didn't find any pleasant surprises. Ning then began to review the many memories of the life which this Emperor had lived. This Emperor had been alive for so long and had so many memories that even Ning would need quite a bit of time to process them all. Ning primarily kept his focus on finding hints which would give him a better chance to develop a perfect cultivation path like the one the Sithe used. He wanted to find something that could let him continue to live.

If he could live, why should he seek death? Hope was reserved for the living alone, and so Ning had never given up hope.

He spent a total of three days flipping through this Emperor's memories at high speed. Suddenly, a look of delighted shock appeared on Ning's face. "So this is…"

Long, long ago, the Sithe had transmitted certain special cultivation techniques for their progeny to try out! However, many Sithe descendants encountered problems during the testing process. Some self-detonated and died, while others saw their truesouls destroyed. The Sithe tested out a total of nine different types of techniques, but all of them ended up in failure. Even though the ninth and final technique allowed one to become a Daolord of the First Step, upon actually becoming a Samsara Daolord the cultivator's body would crumble and their truesoul would shatter apart.

From that day forth, the Sithe gave up their research into those nine unique techniques and started to pass down cultivator techniques to their children instead. Much like Ning, they trained in divine power and Immortal energy.

"Nine unique techniques?" A look of delight was on Ning's face. "The ninth one in particular… it actually allows divine power, Immortal energy, and all other types of energy to join together, strengthening both body and soul. Only, it would fail once the practitioner actually became a Samsara Daolord."

"Only the most supreme of Sithe could've created something like this. I wager it came from their Lord of Chaos, who repeatedly attempted to create a perfect cultivation technique suited for our Chaosverse." Ning felt rather excited.

"Nine techniques in total, with each cultivator swearing an oath not to pass it down to anyone else? I have to find them."

Ning felt a sense of excitement and desire for these techniques. The Sithe had failed in their nine special techniques, because they couldn't truly and directly connect to the Dao of this Chaosverse. Ning, however, could! He might not be at the same level as the Lord of Chaos, but if he acquired those nine Sithe techniques… maybe, just maybe, there would be a chance.

He knew that the chance was extremely low, but he still wanted to give it a shot.

The Hegemons and Emperors who Ning had captured had all been alive for an extremely long period of time. They all knew of the nine secret techniques, but they had all painstakingly followed the normal route to becoming Emperors. Most of them hadn't even been taught those special techniques! Three of them did know the techniques, but they had sworn oaths not to transmit them; if they attempted to do so, their truesouls would shatter and they would die.

Outside the hidden dimension.

The black-robed Ning was alongside the avatars of Autarch Titanos and Autarch Mogg. They had been searching for many years for a way to break into the hidden dimension. During this period of time, all the other Autarchs had also come over to give it a try, but none of them were able to lock onto the exact location of that hidden dimension.

"Autarch Titanos. Autarch Mogg." Ning asked hurriedly, "Autarchs, have you heard of nine special techniques which the Sithe once bestowed upon their progeny?"

"We know of this, yes." Autarch Titanos nodded slowly. "During the Dawn War, we actually fought against a number of Sithe descendants during our war against the Sithe. All of them were completely loyal to the Sithe and they fought like rabid dogs. Most of us were filled with bloodlust at the time and showed them no mercy at all. The only one who actually held back and captured a few of them was Autarch Skyfeeder. When she reviewed their memories, she came to learn that the Sithe had once transmitted nine special techniques to them, but all of those techniques were failures."

The nearby Autarch Mogg nodded. "Most likely, the Sithe wanted to mass-produce a large number of Hegemons or perhaps even Autarchs! They could have their descendants swear lifeblood oaths to never rebel against them, after all. If they succeeded, they would be able to draw power from our Chaosverse… at which point, they could murder those descendants and steal their power, weakening our Chaosverse."

Ning nodded.

"But they failed. As for those nine techniques, we wanted to find them to see if there was anything which might inspire us," Autarch Titanos said, "But after the Dawn War concluded, we were unable to find any traces of Sithe descendants, and so we had nowhere to start."

"What about the ones Autarch Skyfeeder captured?" Ning asked.

"All of them swore lifeblood oaths to never transmit those techniques. When we tried to forcibly rip the techniques out of their memories, their truesouls crumbled apart." Autarch Titanos shook his head. "Given that we were unable to find any more Sithe progeny after this, we let the matter rest."

Ning quickly understood. Sithe progeny were quite rare, and it was also fairly hard to recognize them at a glance. They looked just like ordinary cultivators, after all! The Autarchs couldn't just spend their time wandering the cosmos and flipping through the memories of cultivators at random, right?

"The Sithe descendants." Ning knew that many of the weaker Sithe descendants in the hidden dimension had never even heard of those nine techniques, much less studied them! The only ones who might truly know those techniques were the high-status Sithe who had been along for a long period of time. Those were generally at the Emperor level.

"I have to spend some time searching this hidden dimension and do my best to find those nine techniques," Ning mused.

The Sacred Realm. The Elder Hall.

The blue-haired Exalt remained seated upon his throne, with a large number of Emperors and Hegemons gathered before him. Some of them were true Sithe, while some had been raised and trained over the course of countless years within this enormous hidden region. The Sithe had put quite a bit of effort into rearing these descendants, and their success rates were significantly higher than what the native cultivators were used to.

"Ever since the Dawn War ended… I, Exalt Bowenya, have been stationed in this dimension. I have been here for a very, very long time." The blue-haired Exalt stared downwards, then continued slowly, "I feel a sense of deep attachment to this dimension, and I truly do not wish for trouble to occur here. In fact, I don't even wish for a second war to begin against the cultivators."

"However… that isn't a choice I can make! Nor is that a choice any of you can make!" The blue-haired youth stared downwards at them. "A terrifying Daolord has arisen amongst the cultivators, and we have only one choice available to us… kill him!"

"If we can kill him, even sacrificing this entire dimension would be worth it." The blue-haired youth let out a sigh. "I know that this place is home for many of you Hegemons… and I view it as home as well. I've spent the majority of my long life here. Life here has been peaceful and gentle. I don't want to give it up."

"But once this Daolord came here, our peaceful life came to an end." The blue-haired youth's voice rang out within the Elder Hall, and all of the silent Hegemons and Emperors began to emanate a murderous aura.

Some wanted to kill the Daolord for the great rewards they would be given… but most hated the fact that he had come here and embroiled them in war once more! They didn't want to fight… but not even Exalts would dare to violate the standing orders of the most supreme Sithe!"

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 1 – Hawkfang

"Exalt, who in the world is this white-robed Daolord? Why must we sacrifice everything for the sake of killing him?" One of the many Hegemons below the Exalt, a Sithe descendant, couldn't help but ask this question. To this very day, the Sithe descendants had no idea what 'a Daolord who has mastered an Eternal Omega Dao' truly represented for the Sithe. In truth, the Sithe didn't dare to tell their descendants too much either!

In the end, their descendants were native to this Chaosverse and had grown up here. Strictly speaking, it was destined for them to be unable to walk the same path together, and so they were purposefully kept in the dark regarding many things. As a result, they now felt that this was completely incomprehensible and not worth them losing their lives over!

"Right, Exalt! We had thought that killing him would be very easy, but Purgatory was defeated even after we gave it a pair of Apocalypse-class treasures. This Daolord is too powerful! Aside from the three Elder Halls, we don't have any treasures that are superior to the ones we already sent down, but the three Elder Halls are immobile. If we want to proactively attack him, we'll be at a huge disadvantage. Many of us will probably die."

"We can simply keep him exiled in Purgatory and wait for his truesoul to collapse. He'll still die, right? Why is it necessary for us to pay such an enormous price?"

"Why do we have to fight with him to the death?"

"Is such an enormous price truly worth it?" The Sithe descendants voiced their arguments, one by one. The true Sithe were silent. They knew the details behind this, but they didn't dare to expose them! They had been ordered long ago to restrict the amount of contact between them and their descendants, for fear of their descendants learning the 'truth' and losing faith.

"Worth it?" The blue-haired youth, 'Exalt Bowenya', let out a soft sigh from atop his throne. "Yes… I, too, feel that it isn't worth it." Exalt Bowenya stared downwards. "But I've already told you everything I can. The things I have left unsaid, I have done so because I am not permitted to! If I told you the truth, I would be violating Sithe laws and my truesoul would be annihilated."

"All you need to know is this! Our dimension may seem large, but we are nothing more than a small part of the Sithe race and empire. This is nothing more than a small part of Sithe territory." Exalt Bowenya waved a finger, causing an image to appear in midair of the white-robed Daolord. "As for him… he is of grave importance to the entire Sithe civilization. We have to destroy him and then capture his truesoul. This will be an enormous accomplishment for our race! Sacrificing our entire hidden dimension will be worth it, yes. Even if the sacrifice was greater, it would still be worth it."

Everyone below fell silent. The Sithe descendants also knew that they were nothing more than a small part of the massive Sithe empire as a whole.

"If we go against our orders, our entire dimension will be punished and annihilated. All of us, including myself, will be put to death." Exalt Bowenya's voice was glacially cold, and the Hegemons below him all felt an invisible sense of oppression. If they tried to find a way out, the only result would be death.

"There's no way out. We have to kill him. If we kill him, we'll all be rewarded heavily. If we do not… we will all die! If you must blame someone, blame that Daolord for having come to our home," Exalt Bowenya said. "Now… obey my orders."

None of the Hegemons voiced any further complaints. The true Sithe knew that there was no way to avoid this, while the Sithe progeny all knew that shirking back meant death.

"Jonnbech," Exalt Bowenya called out. An extremely muscular four-armed man with curly hair who was three meters tall had been standing close to the front of the throng of Hegemons. He stepped forward and said respectfully, "Exalt."

"Jonnbech, it is now time for war. We are throwing everything we have into this battle against that Daolord. You have past experience with controlling an Elder Hall, and so from this day forth you shall be the controller of the 'Iceland' Elder Hall."

"Understood." Jonnbech was a true Sithe and was second only to the Exalt in power. He had a perfect Dao-heart and was highly venerated amongst the Sithe.

"Hawkfang." Exalt Bowenya's gaze turned towards another man. Instantly, the entire hall began to stir. Some of the true Sithe began to frown, while others remained quite calm. Most of the Sithe progeny, however, grew excited. Hawkfang was a leader amongst the Sithe descendants and extremely powerful.

"Exalt." Hawkfang bowed respectfully. His face was calm, and he was dressed in long black robes. His eyes seemed to contain an endless universe of space and time within them.

Exalt Bowenya couldn't help but secretly sigh to himself when he saw this. Hawkfang was a descendant he held in high regard, and was the son of a friend. The man was extremely talented and had reached Hegemony in a very short period of time. He stood a very good chance of becoming an Autarch in the future! Even the supreme leader of the Sithe paid a great deal of attention to Hawkfang.

Alas, during the Dawn War, Hawkfang's father (another Exalt) died in battle. Ever since then, Hawkfang seemed to have become filled with many thoughts and worries, resulting in him being unable to progress any further in his path of cultivation. The entire Sithe race sighed at the loss.

It must be remembered that if Sithe descendants became what the locals called 'Autarchs', then as natives to this Chaosverse they would gain full control over the power of the local Dao. An extra 'Autarch' on the side of the Sithe would be of enormous assistance to them.

As the supreme leader of the Sithe once said: "Hawkfang simply hasn't experienced enough. The only place he has ever lived is that single small dimension. The death of his father caused his heart to be filled with turmoil. He is unable to perfect his Dao-heart and he no longer has any chance of reaching Autarchy! If he had been able to spend more time wandering the universe, his father's death wouldn't have dealt such a deadly bow to his psyche. Now that a shadow has been cast over his heart, it will be very difficult for him to perfect his Dao-heart!"

He had been such a promising figure, but now he was destined to be mediocre! Still… in this dimension, Hawkfang remained the most talented member of the Sithe descendants, and he had reached Hegemony in a total of six Daos!

"Starting now, Hawkfang, you shall be in control of the same Elder Hall your father controlled – the 'Flameland' Elder Hall," Exalt Bowenya said. "Your father died a glorious death in battle for the sake of the Sithe. I hope you will prove to be as fearless as your father was and destroy this Daolord for the Sithe."

"Understood." Hawkfang remained completely expressionless as he bowed respectfully.

"Jonnbech, Hawkfang, the two of you should immediately go to your respective Elder Halls and take control over them. Once you do so, the three of us shall decide on a strategy for dealing with this Daolord," Exalt Bowenya instructed. "As for the other Hegemons, await your deployment orders."

"Understood." The throng of Hegemons and Emperors all acknowledged the order.

The three Elder Halls were all glowing with white light. One of them was shining brighter than the other two, which were slightly dimmer. They had lain untouched for many years, after all; they were simply functioning on auto-mode.

Whoosh. The black-robed Hawkfang suddenly flew through the air, moving towards the towering, twelve-storied tower which emanated a scorching aura. When he arrived before it, he raised his head and stared upwards, a lost look in his eyes.

"Father," Hawkfang murmured softly. He still clearly remembered his father bringing him here when he was young. This was his father's Daoguard Tower, and they had played together here. Life back then had been truly carefree, and he had been so incredibly talented that he had succeeded in everything he tried. His father had arranged him to experience a few setbacks to temper him, but they barely slowed him down at all. He had reached the Daomerge with incredible speed, then completed it and reached Hegemony.

"It's been so long, but I've come again." Hawkfang reached out to touch the tower. He could still remember that battle clearly.

During the Dawn War, his avatar had accompanied his father in their grand campaign. Towards the end of the war, they had fallen into dire straits. His father had personally destroyed his avatar, not wishing for his avatar to fall into the hands of their cultivator enemies. If the Autarchs managed to capture his avatar, they were completely capable of using karma to slay his true body as well! In contrast, when his father killed his avatar it would have no impact at all. Avatars didn't matter too much to Hegemons, as they could simply remake them after they were destroyed.

In the end, his father had died during that battle. He had died at the hands of a cultivator known as 'Autarch Bolin'.

"The cultivators…" Hawkfang mused to himself, "Am I a Sithe, or am I a cultivator?" Hawkfang shook his head. "Let us fight, then. If you can't even stop someone like me, then you deserve to die. Even if I really am a cultivator, killing some of them in Father's memory isn't that big a deal." He stepped into the tower.

"Young master." A black golem instantly appeared on the first floor of the great tower, and it bowed respectfully: "I've already received orders to hand the entire Daoguard Tower over to you."

"Mm." Hawkfang nodded. He immediately took control over the entire Elder Hall and began to make plans to deal with the white-robed Daolord based on the various tricks and traps the hall contained."

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 2 – Illusion Sword Dao

Hawkfang and Jonnbech quickly familiarized themselves with their respective Elder Halls. After doing so, they went to meet with Exalt Bowenya again. The three met within a quiet side hall and began to discuss their battle plans.

"Exalt, these are all the tools which my 'Iceland' Elder Hall possesses." Jonnbech waved his hand, causing a scroll to appear. This scroll was covered with dense scribbling which recorded the various offensive techniques the Iceland Hall possessed.

"These are all the attacks which the 'Flameland' Elder Hall can use." Hawkfang also produced a scroll which was covered with a complete record of what his hall could do.

Exalt Bowenya carefully inspected both the scrolls. "Huh. My old friends certainly put a great deal of countermeasures inside their Daoguard Towers." Exalt Bowenya chuckled. "My plans for dealing with this Daolord are simple. Let's fight him openly and use the overwhelming power over our three Daoguard Towers to fight and kill him head-on."

"Fight and kill him head-on? How?" Jonnbech asked, while Hawkfang simply listened without saying a word.

"Simple. Our three Daoguard Towers shall use all the long-distance attacks available to us, as well as treasures that are strong enough to pose a threat to him! Everyone else will swarm him as we do so, and we'll wipe him out at the base of the Sacred Mountains," Exalt Bowenya said.

Both Jonnbech and Hawkfang were startled. This was an extremely vicious ploy! They had been planning on setting down layers of traps to slowly whittle away at the Daolord's longevity until he finally died, but Exalt Bowenya had a far crueler plan in mind.

They were going to send all the Hegemons and Emperors to attack while the Daoguard Towers launched virtually all of their attacks from afar! They would literally focus all of their firepower in one massive bombardment, using all of their tricks and traps and offensive powers at the same time. This was indeed likely to result in the Daolord's death, but the maddened Daolord would probably butcher many of the Hegemons and Emperors swarming him. However, Jonnbech and Hawkfang didn't voice any dissent. The Exalt was the final decision-maker, after all.

"What if he doesn't die at the base of the Sacred Mountains?" Hawkfang asked.

"How could he possibly survive that many attacks?" Jonnbech frowned.

"And what if he does?" Hawkfang repeated.

Bowenya smiled coldly. "Then the only things left to us shall be our respective Daoguard Towers. Even if it costs us our very lives, we have to kill him… because if we can't kill him, we will still die."

"My plan is to have 70% of the Hegemons and Emperors take part in the battle at the base of the Sacred Mountains. The remaining 30% of them will be split amongst the three of us. If it really does come down to a series of final battles involving our Daoguard Towers, we'll need their help." Bowenya chuckled. "He's nothing more than a Daolord whose truesoul is crumbling away. Our three towers should be enough to kill him."

Exalt Bowenya gave the order, and the entire Sacred Realm sprinted into motion. An awesome number of Samsara Daolords were teleported away from it, while some of the most supremely talented Daolords were actually given a chance to take part in the fight as well! They were given Sithe weapons and would be sent out as fodder to exhaust that terrifying Daolord in battle.

Rumble… the levitating Realmgate suddenly activated, once more glowing with the same dazzling light that it had emanated for countless years. The Realmgate was a hundred thousand kilometers tall, and it radiated eye-catching splendor.

Ji Ning was seated in the lotus position on the ground. He raised his head to glance at the distant Realmgate. "The Realmgate has been activated. However… I'm in no rush to go there just yet." Ning then shut his eyes again, once more focusing on the Dao of Illusions.

Ever since he had learned of those nine special techniques, he had scoured the memories of all the Hegemons and Emperors he had captured. However, there had been two Hegemons who had extremely powerful Dao-hearts. Ning had been unable to successfully review their memories! Ning was planning to capture more Hegemons during this trip into the Sacred Realm. He had to improve his mastery over the art of illusions, improving it to Hegemony!

Ever since he had mastered the Eternal Omega Sword Dao, he had been able to quickly master other Daos as well. For example, he had long ago reached Hegemony in the Dao of Space and the Dao of Time. Training to Hegemony was quite simple, but fusing them into his Eternal Omega Sword Dao was fairly difficult.

As for the Dao of Illusions? Ning had yet to upgrade it to Hegemony, much less infuse it into his sword-arts.

Time continued to pass on. He was able to reach Hegemony in the Dao of Illusions after merely eighty thousand years. It could be said that Ning was now at a level where he could easily reach Hegemony in any Dao he desired, even complicated Daos such as the Dao of Numerancy or the Dao of Karma. They might take a bit more time, but he could still do it. To Ning, however, there wasn't much of a point to doing so. These Daos were only useful when he infused them into his Eternal Omega Sword Dao.

Time continued to flow on. A hundred million years. A billion years. Ten billion years…

The Sacred Realm had finished making its preparations long ago. The Sithe were waiting for Ning… and they began to grow a bit anxious.

"Why hasn't that Daolord come yet?"

"It has been nearly half a chaos cycle. How much longer does he plan to train for?"

"If this continues, is it possible that he'll just naturally expire and his truesoul will crumble?" The Sithe were all rather worried.

"Don't worry. He won't. The fact that he is still cultivating is proof that he very much wants to stay alive. He wouldn't be willing to just train until his death."

"Let's keep waiting. That's the only choice we have! He's the only living person in all of Purgatory right now. There's no way for us to set up any formations there, and the power of the three Elder Halls would be dramatically weakened if used in Purgatory. We used two Apocalypse-class treasures which were a perfect counter against him, but both failed. There's no point in sending anyone else with any other treasures to Purgatory. Our only choice is to wait."

Ning was simply too powerful. In the end, even the 'perfect counters' against him had failed. Their only chance was to rely on their Daoguard Towers and wait for Ning to come to them. The Daoguard Towers, however, were in the Sacred Realm! Thus, the Sithe had to remain in the Sacred Realm. They wouldn't dare go to Purgatory!

One chaos cycle. Two chaos cycles. Ten chaos cycles. A hundred chaos cycles…

Ning's Primaltwin in the outside world was training as well, paying no heed to the Sithe who were being driven mad with impatience.

Finally, the day came when a small smile appeared in Ning's face. He had been completely absorbed in cultivating for many years now, and today he finally felt the joy of finding the Dao he sought! He slowly opened his eyes, and his gaze seemed to be filled with illusions of the birth and destruction of all things in spacetime.

Boom! A strange surge of power flowed through the Sword Dao Domain around him, causing countless illusions to appear. Countless living beings were born, lived, and fought against each other. Some of them even possessed rudimentary levels of sentience. It could be said that they already had some of the qualities of actual living beings.

"I never would've imagined that when the Dao of Illusions came together with my Eternal Omega Sword Dao, its power would skyrocket by such a great amount. My illusions are beginning to become reality." Ning could sense that the illusory life forms he had created were all 'real'. They had their own sentience and even some rudimentary emotions; the only thing they lacked was a sense of self-awareness.

Ning now felt rather reluctant to bring this illusion to an end. Once he did, it would represent the annihilation of all the living beings within this illusory realm.

"So the guesses of countless cultivators who came before me were correct. If one can reach an incredibly high level in the Dao of Illusions, one truly can turn illusions into reality," Ning mused. "If I can make another breakthrough and upgrade my Omega Dao to Autarchy, I'll probably be able to make everything within my heartworld projection real."

With another thought, Ning gradually cast the illusory world around him into darkness. The countless beings within that world all fell asleep… and then, the illusion came to an end.

Although he was rather unwilling to part with them, he couldn't just spend all his time and energy maintaining that illusory realm.

"Illusions… reality… I imagine there are many cultivators who would rather live in an illusory realm." Ning's Illusion Sword Dao had reached such a level where many cultivators would willingly allow themselves to be captured by it, because it truly did feel extremely real. Only a tiny little bit of difference remained between it and true reality.

Ning's truesoul was affected by the power of his Illusion Sword Dao as well. Reality and illusion intersected repeatedly, resulting in his truesoul feeling more comfortable than ever before. Even the truesoul's crumbling speed was somewhat lessened! Ning's mastery of the Wind Sword Dao and Lightning Sword Dao had been of negligible benefit to his truesoul, but the Illusion Sword Dao was clearly quite helpful.

"For the sake of this Illusion Sword Dao, I spent a total of 185 chaos cycles in training! However, the Illusion Sword Dao has caused my truesoul to slow down its rate of crumbling. As a result, I still have six hundred chaos cycles left." Ning couldn't help but let out an involuntary chuckle. "I guess you really do win some and lose some."

"Now that I have mastered the Illusion Sword Dao, it is time to review the memories of those two Hegemons." Ning once more summoned the two Hegemons he had captured.

As soon as the two Hegemons looked at Ning, they instantly fell into a dazed stupor. Ning's mastery of the Illusion Sword Dao meant only Autarch Stonerule, the master of the Illusion Daobirth Essence, was superior to him in the art of illusions… and only somewhat superior at that. The other Autarchs were all slightly inferior to Ning in this regard! And so, Ning was able to review the memories of the various Hegemons with ease.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 3 – Wandering the Sacred Realm Alone

This was another testament to how formidable the path of the Omega Dao was. Mastering the Eternal Omega Sword Dao put Ji Ning on par with the Autarchs, and as Ning infused more and more Daos into his Sword Dao, he began to improve in many other areas as well. Given enough time, he would undergo a final transformation and reach a higher level, the level which the entire cultivator civilization yearned for!

"A pity. Once again, no luck with those nine techniques." Ning slowly shook his head. "They are all bound by lifeblood oaths. There's no way to review those techniques at all. Can it really be possible that every single Hegemon and Emperor was bound by a lifeblood oath? Is there really no way at all?"

"No. The probability may be low, but there always is a chance. Mm. Well. Time to go to the Sacred Realm." Ning lifted his head to stare at the towering Realmgate. It had been glowing with dazzling light for many years now.

Ning took a single step forwards and moved towards the Realmgate. After stepping inside, he entered yet another tunnel that was formed from many different folds of dimensional space. This was the dimensional passageway which led to the Sacred Realm.

This time, he didn't suffer any attacks within the dimensional passageway. Sneak attacks had clearly proven to be useless against him, after all, and letting him die alone in exile wasn't worth it. They had been waiting for him for many years now… waiting for him to come to the Sacred Realm.

"The Sacred Realm." Ning stood at the exit to the tunnel, staring at the Sacred Realm around him. "Odd. I thought that this place would be quite dangerous, that there would be many different traps and formations awaiting my arrival. Who would've thought that there'd be nothing here?" Ning was rather surprised. There was no way any ambush could escape his detection. Ning had been planning to rely on his Storm Sword Dao to flee at high speeds if he discovered any traps, but now it seemed as it was all unnecessary.

Swoosh! Ning flew away from the Realmgate and into the skies. He stared down at the vast world around him, quickly seeing the palaces and estates which were located off in the distance. Clearly, there had once been many people who had lived here. Now, the entire Sacred Realm was deathly silent. All the Daolords had been evacuated, leaving their empty estates behind.

Ning took a deep breath, and as he did so a surge of energy flowed into his body, making him feel quite comfortable. An awesome aura of power pervaded this entire place. The energy here was so dense than an entire army of Hegemons could draw upon it and use it to cultivate.

"What a truly wonderful 'Sacred Realm'," Ning said with an approving chuckle.

"Daolord." An icy void suddenly echoed in the skies above the Sacred Realm.

"Is that the Sithe Exalt?" Ning stood there in midair, a smile on his face. "I thought you'd attack me as soon as I exited the Realmgate. I didn't expect you to behave so courteously."

"I, Bowenya, have been waiting for you for many years now, Daolord," the icy void said.

"I, Darknorth, was teleported into this place by you Sithe. Heh." Ning chuckled. "Honestly, I would really rather not fight you. If you just let me go, that would be the best outcome for both of us! Otherwise, our only option is to fight each other."

Many of the Sithe descendants were moved by these words. They knew just how powerful Daolord Darknorth was, and they weren't willing to fight him. If it truly was possible for them to avoid this battle, how wonderful it would be! However, they all knew that this was a fantasy. No one dared to disobey the orders from the supreme Sithe leader! There was no way out of this deadly battle.

"Daolord Darknorth?" The icy voice spoke out once more: "A fine name. There is no need for us to waste time on words. If you wish to leave this place, you must do so through overpowering us. Given how strong you are, I imagine you can tell where the exit path lies."

"The exit path should lie within the Daoguard Tower in the very rear, I imagine," Ning said. Ning was able to sense and scan the entire Sacred Realm through the power of his Wind Sword Dao, and he knew of the presence of those three Daoguard Towers.

All three Daoguard Towers had a total of twelve stories. Based on what Ning knew regarding the Sithe, this meant that these were Daoguard Towers which belonged to Sithe Exalts! There was no way they would be as easy to deal with as the Daoguard Tower he had dealt with some time ago. Ning's acute attunement to space also allowed him to ascertain and verify that the center of the Sacred Realm, the place where all the dimensional controls were located, was within the Daoguard Tower at the very rear.

What he didn't know was that during the Dawn War, all three Daoguard Towers shared part of the dimensional controls! After two of the Sithe Exalts died, the Daoguard Towers had been modified so that the only one which could be used to control this hidden dimension was the one which Exalt Bowenya controlled.

"Impressive, Daolord Darknorth." The icy voice continued, "Then come and fight me, if you dare."

"Hmph." Ning let out an amused snort. "Be there shortly. Relax."

Ning began to leisurely fly through the Sacred Realm, blinking through the various regions within it and inspecting it carefully.

"Huh." Ning stood before a mountain wall which was filed with many carvings as well as some cultivation techniques. "Now that's interesting." Ning was like a tourist, wandering through the various parts of the Sacred Realm and visiting many of the sects it held.

The Hegemons and Emperors had been waiting for battle for many years now, and they all felt rather speechless at Ning's behavior. Still… they had already managed to wait for over a hundred chaos cycles. A bit more time would make no difference at all. They could be patient.

Ning spent a total of fifteen days touring the Sacred Realm.

"A pity. I didn't find any trace of the nine techniques I'm interested in." Ning couldn't help but sigh to himself. The Sacred Realm had been used to train Samsara Daolords for countless aeons. Many techniques had been recorded here, and not all of them had been destroyed during the evacuation. Ning was able to broaden his horizons by inspecting the remaining ones, but he didn't find the ones he really needed.

Whoosh. Ning began to fly closer towards the Sacred Mountains. There were a total of three towering Daoguard Towers at the peaks of three of the mountains, and they were all glowing with dazzling light that caused spacetime to ripple around them. The effect of the light extended to a distance of a trillion kilometers, and the effect was continuous. Not even Autarch Mogg, who specialized in the Dao of Space, would be able to teleport through this region, to say nothing of Ning.

This was one of the things which made an Exalt's Daoguard Tower so incredibly dangerous! Spacetime was completely suppressed here.

"This truly is a beautiful world. A pity that it is about to be torn apart by war," Ning said.

"Even if it is destroyed, we can remake it in the future," that icy voice replied.

Ning said nothing further. He drew a Northbow sword from the sheath on his back, then continued to fly forwards as he carefully inspected the area around him. "I can sense danger within every inch of the Sacred Mountains. It doesn't matter which direction I enter from; I'll still be face incredible danger. I have no choice but to just charge in."

Whoosh. Ning continued to fly forwards. Suddenly, the hills below him began to tremble and shake, followed by rippling ley-lines to appear. A massive formation that was a hundred billion kilometers in size began to activate, and it completely separated the surrounding dimension away from the normal spacetime continuum.

"The Dimensional Separator again?" Ning shook his head and laughed. An area of a hundred billion kilometers around him had been completely separated from the outside world. Ning had suffered a similar attack while rescuing the Paragon of Pills. Ning couldn't help but sigh at how the Sithe seemed to be able to play with space, cutting through it as though it was a cake.

Ning simply stood there in the air, sword at the ready as he calmly glanced at the stand-alone dimension which had been formed around him. He was waiting for them to come to him. If he didn't fight, how was he supposed to capture more Emperors and search for those nine techniques?

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Vile auras began to appear at the margins of this sealed spacetime continuum, and the vile auras began to come together and form vilefiends. These vilefiends were all extremely powerful, the most powerful vilefiends Ning had seen thus far. They were probably all at the Otherverse Lord level of power.

"Exalt-level Daoguard Towers are able to make use of even more of the power of the Sithe energy generator. As a result, they can give birth to vilefiends of tremendous power. Still, for them to produce a total of 105 vilefiends of such power at once… they've probably brought out everything they built up over the course of aeons." Ning remained quite calm. This was all as he had inspected. These vilefiends would at most be able to slow him down a bit.

"GWAAAAR!" "KILL!" "DIE!"

Cracks began to appear in the ground at the margins of this sealed continuum, and various creatures began to fly out of those cracks. Their eyes were all dead, and they were at varying levels of power. Some had auras comparable to Otherverse Lords, while others were noticeably more powerful. Still, they were all somewhat inferior to the likes of the Blazesun Ruler."

"Not that strong, but there are certainly quite a lot of them. If they all attack at once, it'll be a bit troublesome." Ning frowned slightly. It would consume quite a bit of his energy to kill all those vilefiends as well as those poor mind-controlled living golems.

Moments later, a total of nine figures appeared around Ning.

"Eh?" Ning frowned again. "Daolords?" The nine figures were all Samsara Daolords, but all of them were unspeakably powerful.

"Daolord Darknorth, we'll be more than enough to deal with you. You aren't worthy of the Hegemons and Emperors dirtying their hands!" The nine Daolords all had crazed looks in their eyes. Daolords were generally fearless to begin with, and the Sithe Exalt had offered them enormous rewards for this mission. He had also given them control over many vilefiends and living golems. They naturally were going to do their absolute utmost in this battle.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 4 – Successfully Surrounded

Within this sealed continuum, Ji Ning's Sword Dao Domain was only able to extend up to a distance of one billion kilometers. The invisible suppressive power of the Sacred Realm was simply too strong.

"Attack! Once Daolord Darknorth's domain sweeps over us, we'll be dead,"a black-winged Daolor sent mentally. Given Ning's power, even Hegemons and Emperors would fall to his domain unless they were protected by incredibly powerful treasures, to say nothing of mere Daolords. He would be able to toy with them as he pleased.

"You actually want to attack me with such a miniscule amount of power?" Ning made his move, transforming into a streak of light that flew towards the Daolord closest to him.

The nine Daolords were all separated at the margins of this sealed continuum, each in a different direction. That way, if Ning wanted to deal with them he would have to fly to them one-by-one.

"Kill!"

"Kill this Daolord!"

"Kill him!" The vilefiends and the living golems let out crazed roars as they fearlessly swarmed towards Ning, seeking to surround him. As for the nine Daolords, they immediately set up various treasures which were controlled by the power of a Daoguard Tower.

Ning's answer to this mass attack was to continue flying forwards at high speed while manifesting countless streaks of sword-light within his Sword Dao Domain. They sent the vilefiends and the living golems stumbling backwards, falling to the ground, or even go flying into the air. Only a tiny number of them were able to get close to Ning, with the majority unable to approach him.

This was why a powerful domain was so useful in battle. Ning was able to use it toy with anyone at or below the Otherverse Lord level of power.

Clack! Clack! Clack! Strange edifices began to appear in front of the nine Daolords. They looked like miniature castles, with each being 9,900 meters tall and completely golden. Semi-translucent towers could be seen at the very top of the castles. These nine Sithe treasures were controlled by the Daoguard Tower, and they were powerful treasures which could be used to attack from afar.

The main mission for these nine Daoguards was to get in and then put these nine treasures in position. If they managed to do that, they would have succeeded in their task!

"These Daolords truly are fools." Ning flew so incredibly fast that he was already within a billion kilometers of the first Daolord. His Sword Dao Domain instantly captured the Daolord, preventing him from moving at all.

"Get in here." Ning didn't attack, instead choosing to draw both the Daolord and the treasure into his estate-world, separating it from the power of the Daoguard Tower.

Riiiiiiip! Beams of dazzling, destructive energy spat out from the other eight castle towers, moving with incomprehensible speed and striking with nigh-Autarch levels of power! The attacks were incredibly powerful, but in the end they were generated by treasures. There was no way these attacks could compare with attacks from actual Autarchs in terms of profundity; they relied strictly upon overwhelming speed and power.

Swoosh! Ning used his Storm Sword Dao to evade. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! He evaded all eight destructive rays of light. By the time those eight rays of light had flown tens of billion kilometers and reached Ning, Ning was able to brush past them and let them splatter against the distant dimensional membrane, causing it to tremble.

As for the vilefiends and living golems? The ones touched by the rays of light were instantly and easily chopped apart! However, the vilefiends and the living golems were able to quickly recover. Killing them wouldn't be that easy.

Rumble… suddenly, yet another rift appeared at the margins of this sealed continuum. A total of fifty-plus Hegemons andEmperors flew out from within this rift! Ning raised an eyebrow, then immediately transformed into a streak of light as he flew towards those fifty-plus Hegemons. However, as he did so another rift appeared in the distance. Another squad of fifty-plus Hegemons and Emperors appeared from this second rift as well.

"Eight of the nine treasures remain intact. Good enough." The Hegemons began to advance. When they saw that eight of the castle towers were once more glowing with destructive light, they couldn't help but secretly feel a sense of joy.

"This 'Daolord Darknorth' is nothing more than a Daolord whose truesoul is crumbling away. We have over a hundred Hegemons on our side and are supported by treasures from the Daoguard Tower. I refuse to believe we cannot kill him."

"We'll smash him apart with one coordinated strike. We'll be rewarded for our victory and this calamity shall be at an end."

"Attack!" The Hegemons and Emperors were brimming with malevolence. Whether it was because they had to obey orders, wanted to protect their home, or desired the great rewards promised, they had to kill Ning!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! A miniature star began to appear in front of each of the hundred-plus Hegemons and Emperors. The hundred-plus miniature stars manifested runes which began to accumulate different but equally terrifying types of power.

"Flameland Astral Chains!"

"Iceland Astral Chains!"

The Hegemons began to launch their various weapons as well. The nine castle-like treasures were fixed in location and didn't need to be controlled, but the various 'astral chains' were more complicated and needed to be controlled. Thus, the Sithe had sent over a hundred Hegemons and Emperors to man them. Each of the miniature stars was drawing power from the Daoguard Towers, then controlled by a Hegemon or Emperor to launch attacks via a formation that made it hard for Ning to dodge.

Whoosh! The fifty-plus Hegemons and Emperors to the left released streams of icy energy from their miniature stars. The icy energy shot straight towards Ning like rays of frozen light, completely freezing even spacetime. The combined power of the freezing energy was absolutely at the Autarch level of power; even Autarchs would be temporarily suppressed by such an assault.

To the right, streams of fiery golden light appeared as well, joining together and shooting towards Ning at terrifying speeds.

To one side, freezing cold. To the other, blazing heat. These were two diametrically different types of energy, and each was capable of threatening even an Autarch. When used in concert, they became even more terrifyingly powerful, especially now that they came together in accordance with an incredibly profound formation. They flew towards Ning in an intricate manner, making it almost impossible for him to dodge.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! The eight streams of apocalyptic light continued to attack as well, slowing down Ning's movements.

"Hmph." Ning moved like the storm, transforming into a blurry shadow of lightning and wind. However, the 'Flameland Astral Chains' and the 'Iceland Astral Chains' being used by the Hegemons and Emperors had completely locked onto Ning, and they arced in the air as they continued their pursuit of him.

"I can't dodge them?!" A look of shock and anger appeared on Ning's face, while looks of excitement appeared on the faces of the hundred-plus Hegemons and the eight Daolords.

Whoosh! Ning hurriedly retreated backwards, wishing to draw those two terrifying types of energy together and cause them to collide.

"That fool."

"Did he think that our treasures would interfere with each other?"

"When the two astral chains link up, merging fire and ice together, the power shall only increase!" The Hegemons all smirked as they watched the freezing energy swirl together with the golden flames as both continued to shoot towards Ning. Finally, the energies began to clash together. Tink! Each collision was extremely soft, and the only result was a series of strange dimensional ripples being generated as the attacks became even more powerful.

They watched as Daolord Darknorth continued to retreat, his face ashen as he frantically used the Northbow sword in his hand to execute the Water Sword Dao. A stream of watery light circled around him, striving to block the attacks, but some of the destructive power managed to pierce through the water. Of course, this was with Daolord Darknorth doing his best to conserve his energy.

Daolord Darknorth had clearly been caught off-guard by the hundred-plus streams of energy assaulting him. He executed repeated sword-arts, striving to block as his truesoul began to crumble more quickly.

"Hahaha… the Exalt's prediction was spot-on!"

"He might be fast, but the astral chains are a perfect counter for him. When the astral chains from the Flameland Elder Hall and the Iceland Elder Hall merge together, they are his absolute nemesis. It'll be hard for us to kill him outright, but we'll be able to exhaust a large amount of his energy and hasten the collapse of his truesoul."

The Hegemons grew increasingly excited. To kill this terrifying Daolord was unrealistic; all they could do was exhaust as much of his power as was possible! Each time the Daolord defended, his lifespan would be shortened. Eventually, he would die without them needing to do a thing.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

"Again!" The Hegemons and Emperors were all in a wonderful mood.

Ning had gotten the worst of his first clash against them. This time, he transformed into a streak of light and shot straight towards them. Clearly, he wanted to try and capture or kill as many Hegemons as he could. If he succeeded, the astral chains would become ownerless and he could take them away with ease.

"Daolord Darknorth, our Exalt has already predicted your every move!" The Hegemons scattered every which way, but as they flew the miniature stars flew with them, allowing them to maintain the astral chain formations.

Boom! Yet another rift appeared at the borders, resulting in thirty-five more Hegemons appearing. After they appeared, they immediately produced their own treasures and joined together into a formation. Soon, a thick black miasma began to sweep out and cover the entire sealed continuum, causing an ominous feeling to arise in Ning's heart.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 5 – Exhaust Him!

Ji Ning remained quite calm, because this entire time he had the feeling that this sealed continuum had not finished revealing all of the dangers hidden within it. Although none of these dangers were truly lethal, if he didn't handle them correctly he would pay a heavy price for it.

Inside the brightest of the three Elder Halls in this hidden dimension. Exalt Bowenya was looking nervously at the images in the air before him. The images were displaying the chaotic battle going on within the sealed spacetime continuum. Explosions were occurring everywhere as energy blasted about willy-nilly. Even though he was in control of the Sacred Realm, he wasn't able to clearly see what was going on in the battle. Clearly, a chaotic and terrifying war was going on, with all three Exalt-class Daoguard Towers focusing their long-distance firepower against Daolord Darknorth, with all the Hegemons working to assist the towers!

"What's the situation?" Exalt Bowenya barked coldly. He was able to get a vague sense of what was going on from watching the images, and it seemed as though his side held the advantage. They had surrounded Daolord Darknorth and were blasting him with attacks.

"Exalt." More than twenty avatars belonging to the battling Hegemons and Emperors were gathered next to him. True Sithe did not have avatars, as they were constantly being rejected and suppressed by this Chaosverse. It was impossible for them to use their godsense to keep and maintain an avatar.

In contrast, the Sithe descendants were native to this Chaosverse. They all had avatars. Clearly, then, the avatars located next to Exalt Bowenya all belonged to the Sithe progeny. These avatars belonged to the various squads who had been assigned to take part in this battle. Through them, the Exalt was able to quickly issue new orders as well as be updated how the battle was progressing.

"Exalt, don't worry. We have an absolute advantage in this battle. We're definitely going to win," a horned man said excitedly. "The astral chains have completely countered Daolord Darknorth's advantages. Each time, he is forced to use his sword-arts to defend against us. He's constantly using up energy, and his truesoul is crumbling at an increasing pace while we are sending more and more people into the sealed continuum to assault him. He'll only be able to capture or kill one of two of us within a short period of time.

This sealed continuum was a hundred billion kilometers in size. Ning moved much more slowly due to all of the attacks raining down on him, and he was using up a lot of energy. As a result, he had to slowly move from Emperor to Emperor as he captured them.

"With our grand formation having been established, he won't have any chance at all of capturing anyone from our team of thirty-five Hegemons and Emperors," a black-robed elder said confidently.

"He's already used his sword-arts at least ten times by now, and this is just the beginning! We have many tools remaining that we haven't even used yet."

"Exalt, let us use all the tools we have at our disposal."

"Exalt, let us take part in the battle as well!"

"Alright." Exalt Bowenya revealed a look of delight. "Hah! I knew it. He's not going to pull anything unexpected out of his sleeves."

The Exalt was no fool. Each plan he had used against Ning had a very high chance of success. In Purgatory, the Apocalypse-class castle would've stood a good chance of exhausting Ning to death, if it hadn't been for Ning's Storm Sword Dao allowing Ning to move much faster than anyone had anticipated.

As for the spacetime formation, the only reason why Ning had survived it was because the Apocalypse-class castle had bought him an extra hour of time to gain insight into a few of the formation's mysteries. As a result, he had launched eighteen strikes and broke through that formation.

After these past two failures, the Sithe Exalt was actually beginning to lose confidence in himself. This time, however, everything was progressing smoothly in accordance with plan. This caused him to feel quite delighted.

"This attack is much more powerful than the two previous attacks in Purgatory combined." An expectant look was in Exalt Dowenya's eyes. "We have three Daoguard Towers working together to rain attacks on him, after all, and we also have a large group of Hegemons and Emperors going all-out against him. Even if we can't kill him head-on, we can exhaust him to death."

"Send in the Bloodfiend Maze Formation as well," Exalt Dowenya ordered.

"Understood!" Two of the Sithe descendants next to him immediately acknowledged the order respectively, then sent their squad of fifty-two Hegemons into battle as well.

"Have all eighteen of the Death Attendants enter as well!" Exalt Dowenya commanded.

Just a short while later… "Exalt, Daolord Darknorth is completely helpless against the Death Attendants. All he can do is rely on his speed to dodge. The more he dodges, the more awkward his movements become. We're landing more and more attacks from the astral chain formations and the other formations, and he's forced to use more and more sword-arts to defend."

"His truesoul is beginning to crumble faster and faster."

"Exalt, we're definitely going to win!" All of the avatars of the Sithe taking part in the battle were extremely confident.

"Hahaha, I knew…!" Exalt Dowenya let out a laugh as he prepared to issue his final orders, but then he suddenly hesitated. He asked, "How many of our Hegemons and Emperors have been captured or killed?"

"Around sixty-five of them were taken or slain," a black-robed elder said. Their formation was in control of the entire battlefield, allowing them to know the casualties they had suffered.

"Quite heavy." Exalt Dowenya couldn't help but smile, even as he said these words. Even if all the Hegemons died, it would be worth it if they killed Daolord Darknorth. Right now, just twenty percent or so had perished!

"Yes, our casualties are indeed quite heavy, but Daolord Darknorth is extremely important to the entire Sithe race. If we can kill him, it will all be worth it." The Hegemons and Emperors were brimming with the desire to do battle. They had known long ago that this would be a calamitous battle, but at least the situation was better than they had expected, even though more and more Hegemons and Emperors were being slain.

"If that's the case, then send in the final two formation squads as well. All remaining Hegemons and Emperors, use your respective treasures to assist. Don't let Daolord Darknorth focus his attention on any one area in particular," Exalt Bowenya said.

"Yes." Instantly, a large number of Hegemons and Emperors charged forth. This final wave included an enormous number of Emperors; there had to be over two thousand of them!

In truth, there was a limit to how many Hegemons could be used by the three Daoguard Towers. At most, eight hundred Hegemons was enough! More than two thousand of the other Hegemons were simply there to obscure Ning's vision and to distract him. After all, Ning would continuously counter-attack and either kill or capture these Hegemons! If he managed to kill someone who was in control of a Daoguard Tower treasure, the impact would be significant, but if he only managed to kill one of the screeners, it would have no impact on the Sithe combat power.

Of course, even though these Emperors were merely a screening force, they were also provided with formations and Sithe treasures to slow Ning down.

"It seems I'll be able to deal with Daolord Darknorth just by sacrificing a few Hegemons and Emperors." Exalt Bowenya smiled broadly.

Time continued to tick past, second after second.

"We've already lost more than ninety Hegemons and Emperors."

"Daolord Darknorth has used his sword-arts over forty times by now."

"He managed to capture another thirty Hegemons and Emperors, but most of them were useless pawns. It won't affect our combat power much. By now, he's used his sword-arts over fifty times!"

The battle grew increasingly ferocious.

"He's already captured over two hundred Hegemons and should have used his sword-arts at least eighty times by now. His truesoul is crumbling quite rapidly." The avatars continued to make detailed combat reports to the Exalt.

"Over twenty Hegemons belonging to the Iceland Astral Chains have been captured. The formation has been destroyed!" Suddenly, this new report came out. The astral chain formations could still be maintained after suffering light casualties, but at a certain point it would still break apart.

"Keep fighting! Daolord Darknorth won't be able to last much longer," Exalt Dowenya said calmly. "He's used his sword-arts many times… even if he didn't go full-force for most of them, it should still have exhausted him tremendously."

As time continued to flow on, three more of the major formations were breached as well. By now, Ning had either killed or captured over five hundred Hegemons and Emperors, and had used his sword-arts over 180 times.

"Almost. Almost!" Exalt Dowenya was waiting eagerly. "We're going to win." Each strike would consume a significant amount of Daolord Darknorth's vitality, even if the strikes were not full-force. Based on his calculations, the Daolord would die after a total of around two hundred strikes."

"We've lost over six hundred Hegemons and Emperors, while he's already used his sword-arts more than two hundred times. We still have over two thousand people left, but we only have three formations remaining. Daolord Darknorth is quite clever; he's been focusing his efforts on the Hegemons who are in control of the formations."

"Hold nothing back!" Exalt Dowenya ordered coldly. "He'll be dying any moment now, while we have over two thousand Hegemons and Emperors left. We'll be able to exhaust him to death!"

But… for some reason, the closer they came to success, the more uneasy Exalt Dowenya suddenly began to feel. He shook his head, forcing down that uneasy feeling and reassuring himself that it had appeared because he wanted to win too badly.

"Over seven hundred Hegemons and Emperors have been captured, while we only have two main formations remaining; the other formations aren't important and are just meant to screen the real ones. Daolord Darknorth hasn't died yet!"

"Over eight hundred have been captured. He's used his sword-arts over 250 times, but he still hasn't died! We only have one main formation left."

"Why hasn't he died yet?!" Exalt Dowenya was growing increasingly nervous and impatient.

"Not good!"

"Exalt!" Suddenly, half of the remaining avatars turned completely ashen. One of them said frantically, "Exalt, we've been counter-trapped!"

"Counter-trapped?!" The Exalt was completely dumbfounded.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 6 – Putting On a Show

Exalt Bowenya's face tightened. He murmured softly to himself, "Is he actually exhausted, or was he just pretending?"

He was beginning to feel some suspicions. The battle had progressed far too smoothly, causing him to feel a hint of unease deep inside. Each time, however, he had reassured himself that he was simply overthinking things! Upon hearing the remaining Hegemons cry that they had been counter-trapped? Exalt Bowenya's intuition, tempered by countless years of adventuring and battle, screamed that something was seriously wrong with this battle.

"Are all of you trapped?" Exalt Bowenya asked.

"We're all trapped. This entire place is filled with black fog. I can't see the other Hegemons and Emperors."

"We've been trapped as well."

"We're trapped." The various avatars of the Hegemons and Emperors all spoke out frantically, causing Exalt Bowenya to feel increasingly uneasy about this.

Within the sealed spacetime continuum of a hundred billion kilometers.

Ning stood there in midair, relaxed and at his ease. Hundreds of millions of kilometers away, some magic treasures and formations continued to rain down attacks upon a second white-robed Daolord Darknorth. This second Daolord Darknorth was doing his best to dodge and evade while using his Water Sword Dao, Storm Sword Dao, and other techniques, with his truesoul at the brink of collapse.

"What is real is false. What is false is real." Ning murmured softly, "None of these Hegemons are able to see through my Illusion Sword Dao. I'm able to toy with them with ease." Ever since he had been trapped within this sealed continuum, his 'frenzied fighting' and his 'crumbling truesoul' had all been falsified by his Illusion Sword Dao!

Ning's Sword Dao Domain was able to spread out to a distance of one billion kilometers! With but a thought, he caused this entire region to be transformed into an illusory realm. At Ning's current level of insight, the illusory beings within his domain had gained a basic level of sentience, emotions, and intelligence! This was an absolutely terrifying concept. In comparison, simply faking a battle scene within this domain was incredibly simple. The Hegemons and Emperors only saw what Ning wished for them to see!

If Ning was able to use his Omega Sword Dao to become an Autarch, his illusory domain would reach the level of being able to manifest reality itself. By then, his 'illusions' would be real on both the surface and inside. He could create an 'illusion' of a Universe treasure, and it would become a genuine Universe treasure. If he created the illusion of an expert, they would become real experts! But of course, this would require him to constantly consume a large amount of power.

Even now, the beings created by his illusions possessed intelligence, emotions, and sentience. Ning's 'Illusion Sword Dao' had become one of his killer techniques. In a battle against an Autarch, it would be somewhat effective but wouldn't necessarily be the determining factor… but against mere Hegemons and Emperors? The Illusion Sword Dao could toy with them with ease! However, it took Ning time to capture those Hegemons and break their formations, which is why he had continued to put on a show and buy more time.

"Master. We've already taken control of this formation," Azurefiend's avatar reported.

"Good." Ning revealed a delighted look, then waved his hand. A formation-base which was ten million kilometers long suddenly appeared next to him. Azurefiend's avatar, the Paragon of Pills, Lord Annihilation, Hegemon Tia, and Hegemon Flameleft were jointly controlling this grand formation, which was one of the many formations which Ning had taken away. He had let his team choose from the available formations and find one which they could use.

"Assemble the formation and use it to cover everything within a hundred billion kilometers," Ning immediately ordered. "Trap them all. Let none escape!"

"Alright."

"Leave it to us." Azurefiend, Lord Annihilation, and the others were all quite excited. Capture two thousand Hegemons at one blow? They had never done or even seen anything like this before! All of them felt both eagerness and nervousness.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. A large amount of black fog spread out from within the formation. It almost instantly covered the entire sealed continuum, spreading out to a distance of a hundred billion kilometers. This formation had been meant to deal with Ning. It only had a minor effect on him, but it was perfect for dealing with these Hegemons and Emperors.

"I can't see anything!"

"What a terrifying aura of darkness. I've been suppressed!"

"I can't see anything either."

"I can't resist it."

"We've been completely trapped."

"We've been trapped as well!" The two thousand remaining Hegemons and Emperors were all beginning to panic, because Ning had already dealt with the most powerful formations earlier. The remaining Hegemons had just a single powerful formation left, but it was an attack-type formation that couldn't affect this grand darkness formation at all!

Once the darkness spread out, almost 99% of the Hegemons and Emperors were completely paralyzed. The rest were able to fight back a bit thanks to the treasures they possessed, but there were only around ten or so in total. They wouldn't be able to make much of a difference.

"Time to bring it to an end." Ning immediately began to fly towards those remaining Hegemons. His Sword Dao Domain quickly spread out to cover them, completely suppressing them and making it impossible for them to move. With but a thought, Ning drew all the Hegemons into his estate-world and imprisoned them in separate parts of it!

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Soon, all of the Hegemons and Emperors within the sealed continuum had been drawn away.

"Impressive, Darknorth. I never would've dared to imagine a result like this." The Paragon of Pills was incomparably excited, while the nearby Azurefiend, Lord Annihilation, Tia, and Flameleft were stunned as well.

"Now that I've taken part in such a great undertaking, I can die with no regrets. I imagine my old friends wouldn't even believe me when I tell them about this," Hegemon Flameleft sighed with shock.

"More than two thousand Hegemons and Emperors!" Azurefiend sighed as well.

Ning nodded. "More than two thousand eight hundred, to be precise. However, it was all thanks to you helping out. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to activate that formation on my own."

"All we did was use that formation in a very simple manner, nothing else." Lord Annihilation said hurriedly, "In the end, it was all thanks to your unearthly power, Daolord Darknorth. You dealt with the biggest problems, allowing us to sweep up the scattered remnants."

"Stop flattering me," Ning said with a laugh. "Go ahead and enter my estate-world. This was merely our first battle in the Sacred Realm. It is far too early to be celebrating."

"With you by our side, Daolord, we'll definitely make it out alive." Lord Annihilation continued his flattery.

"Be careful, Darknorth." The Paragon of Pills looked at him.

The sealed spacetime continuum was now completely empty. The only person left within this region of a hundred billion kilometers was Ji Ning!

"Now that was a fine show we put on." Ning couldn't help but grin when he thought about what had happened just now. In order to make the performance seem as realistic as possible, he even used up a few of his Sithe treasures, allowing them to take blows meant for him and then explode in dramatic fashion. He actually made use of them as well, as the fragments would clearly be real even after flying out of the range of his Sword Dao Domain.

Illusions… reality… Ning was now an absolute grandmaster in blending the two together, and so all of the Hegemons and Emperors fell into his grasp.

"I'll scan their memories first." He had captured most of them alive, sparing even the many true Sithe he had captured, all for the sake of finding those nine special techniques. This was something which would have an impact on his own chances of survival!

He waved his hand, causing a true Sithe Hegemon to appear before him.

"Daolord Darknorth?" The Sithe Hegemon stared at Ning, shocked. He then gritted his teeth and said, "W-what do you want?"

Ning continued to maintain his Illusion Sword Dao Domain. To the Sithe, it looked as though Ning's truesoul was crumbling away rapidly. It looked as though Ning was at the very verge of death.

"Do you want to live, or do you want to die?" Ning asked.

"Live? Die?" The Sithe Hegemon was stunned. Who would choose death if life was an option? But as he hesitated, Ning secretly lured his mind into the illusory realm, causing a dazed look to appear in his eyes. Ning then began to flip through the memories of this Sithe Hegemon.

"He also swore a lifeblood oath not to reveal anything?" Ning's face tightened. "The Sithe truly are cautious. Even the true Sithe were forced to swear lifeblood oaths."

He wasn't able to find the nine techniques, and so he turned his attention to the Hegemon's other memories, carefully viewing them in the hopes of finding something useful.

Within the brightest Elder Hall. Exalt Dowenya stood silently on his feet, with the avatars of his servants by his side. All of their true bodies had been captured alive! Clearly, they had already lost the first battle. All the Hegemons and Emperors had been captured, with a tiny fraction having been killed.

"Exalt." Two figures appeared next to him. It was the incarnations of Hawkfang and Jonnbech.

It was fairly easy for such high-level cultivators to use divine power to manifest incarnations. So long as the incarnations remained fairly close to their true bodies, the incarnations could be maintained with ease! Hawkfang and Jonnbech's true bodies were both located in the other two Elder Halls, which were quite close. As a result, it was easy for them to maintain incarnations here.

However, incarnations formed via divine power were all extremely weak, negligibly weak when compared to their true bodies! In contrast, avatars were different. Avatars could come close to true bodies in power, with some able to reach 70% or even 80%.

"What should we do next?" Jonnbech's incarnation asked.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 7 – Pity

Exalt Bowenya instructed, "Go ahead and cancel the formations."

"Understood," Hawkfang said. The formation which sealed the spacetime continuum around Ji Ning was under the control of his Flameland Elder Hall. The sealed continuum quickly dissipated, allowing the region at the base of the distant Sacred Mountains to go back to normal and reveal Daolord Darknorth at its center.

"Ahahaha! Sithe Exalt, do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?" Ning called out loudly from the base of the Sacred Mountains.

From afar, it looked as though his truesoul was crumbling quite quickly.

"His truesoul has crumbled to the point where he is on the verge of death. I'm amazed at how calm he is." Jonnbech stared downwards from his Elder Hall to the base of the Sacred Mountains, then let out a sigh: "Truly impressive."

"If I was in his position, I'd probably have gone completely berserk by now," Hawkfang's incarnation agreed.

Exalt Bowenya stared from afar, his forehead creased in a frown. "Do you think Daolord Darknorth's truesoul is truly crumbling that fast? Or is it perhaps a deception?"

"A deception?" The avatars of the Hegemons, Hawkfang, and Jonnbech all stared at him in surprise. They had all reached incredibly high levels of insight. To deceive them would be nearly impossible! They had never encountered something like this after becoming Hegemons and Emperors.

"You haven't experienced enough. The things you see, the things you sense… it can all be a lie. Even your own intuition can be deceived." Exalt Bowenya looked at the distant Ning. "We've lost the first battle, just like that. I can't help but feel that something is wrong. If Daolord Darknorth was extremely skilled in the Dao of Illusions, he would be able to put on a show which none of you could see through."

"A show?" Hawkfang and Jonnbech spoke out at the same time. Both were shocked.

"That's just one possibility. It's also possible that he really is at the verge of death." Exalt Bowenya narrowed his eyes. Unlike these Hegemons and Emperors, when he lived in his own Chaosverse he was an actual Autarch, and his opponents were also Autarchs! In fact, he had even met someone who was even more powerful than the Autarchs. He was much more experienced and knew just how terrifying the Dao of Illusions could be.

Exalt Bowenya said calmly, "I'm just saying that this is a possibility. You have to be wary of it during our upcoming battles."

"What should we do next?" Hawkfang and Jonnbech looked at Exalt Bowenya.

"What can we do? Use our Daoguard Towers to fight back against him as best we can," Exalt Bowenya said.

Their Daoguard Towers had already used up virtually all of their many long-distance offensive treasures in the first battle. Exalt Dowenya's goal had been to focus-fire everything on Ning and destroy him in their first engagement. However, they had already lost that critical battle. As a result, they now had far fewer resources available to him. The only things left were the Daoguard Towers themselves!

Boom! Ning suddenly soared into the skies, then landed down upon the peak of a distant mountain. He then sat down in the lotus position, establishing a Sword Dao Domain that completely separated him from the world beyond. A region of one billion kilometers transformed into a blurry field of light, preventing Exalt Bowenya and the others from seeing anything else.

"He's started to train again?"

"He's about to die. He's still training?"

Everyone, even Exalt Bowenya, felt their hearts clench. When Ning had first entered Purgatory, he had done the same thing. He sat down in the lotus and meditated until he mastered his Wind Sword Dao. After defeating the first castle, he had then entered another lengthy training session which had concluded with his mastery of the Storm Sword Dao! And after breaking through the spacetime formation, he had trained for over a hundred chaos cycles before mastering the Illusion Sword Dao.

Each time Ning concluded a battle, he would begin a training session… and each time, the training session would be quite long. Now that Ning had finished his first big battle in the Sacred Realm, he actually started to train once again. Exalt Bowenya and the others had no idea as to how they should respond!

Ning sat there in the lotus position at a peak below the Sacred Mountains, his Sword Dao Domain severing this peak from the world around him.

"Time to continue." Ning summoned another Sithe Hegemon and began to flip through his memories. Time continued to flow on. Each Hegemon consumed quite a bit of time, ranging from four hours to as long as five days!

Whoosh. Ning willed a Sithe descendant to appear before him. This one was fairly handsome but quite skinny. When he saw Ning, a shocked look appeared on his face. "Daolord Darknorth!" Next, a maddened and hateful look appeared in his eyes.

"Not good." Ning sensed a bit of danger. He hurriedly retreated while taking out a large astral treasure and placing it before him.

BOOM! The skinny Emperor suddenly exploded, causing a terrifying surge of power to blast outwards. This explosion was on par with the might of the Blazesun Ruler, and it smashed directly onto the astral treasure in front of Ning. The treasure was smashed it backwards and sent flying more than ten million kilometers before Ning managed to regain control over it and bring it back.

"He actually detonated a treasure he was carrying on him to launch one final attack. He knew that his chances of killing me were slim, but he was still willing to sacrifice his life?" Ning shook his head, murmuring softly to himself. He had clearly seen the maddened, hateful look in that Sithe man's eyes; the man had truly viewed him as a hated foe! Ning, however, didn't feel any enmity towards them. Strictly speaking, the 'Sithe descendants' were actually natives to this Chaosverse who had been born and bred here, just like Ning himself.

Another half-month went by. Ning continued to summon Sithe descendants and flip through their memories. On this day, he summoned at female Emperor. She was similarly startled when she saw Ning appear before her, then moved to self-detonate without hesitate.

"Freeze." This time, Ning moved much more decisively. Previously, he would chat a bit with his prisoners to shake their willpower. This time, he instantly sent a tendril of the sword-intent from h is Illusion Sword Dao into her body.

The maddened look quickly disappeared from the crazed female Emperor eyes and was replaced by a lost look. Ning shook his head, his mood poor. He began to scan the female Emperor's memories.

This woman was known as Empress Gracevoid. Her path of cultivation had been one filled with setbacks. She had originally been a mortal physician, but a stroke of karmic luck had set her upon the path of cultivation. Her heart was filled with kindness and benevolence, and she chose the Daoist title 'Gracevoid' because her clan's apothecary shop had been named the 'Gracevoid Hall'. The title 'Fairy Gracevoid' or 'Daoist Gracevoid' had accompanied her as she had progressed up the path of cultivation.

She bore love for all life, including even the grass and the plants. Her heart was filled with love for everyone, but most of all she loved the homeland where she had been born and bred.

However… this battle against Ning was a battle which could not be avoided. One side had to die! The Sithe viewed the cultivators as their mortal enemies, and Exalt Bowenya himself had stated that if they lost, this dimension would still end up being annihilated by that cultivator Daolord! Her homeland would be completely destroyed. Empress Gracevoid couldn't accept this, and so she swore she would kill this demon known as 'Daolord Darknorth'! She would be willing to pay any price needed to accomplish this.

"The greater the love, the deeper the hate." Ning let out a sigh. "Hand over all of your treasures," Ning said, and the illusion-trapped Empress obediently handed over all of her treasures.

Ning didn't really care about the treasures themselves, of course. His worry was that this Empress would once more attempt to commit suicide! "Now wake up," Ning said softly.

The Empress trembled slightly, regaining her clarity of mind. When she saw Ning, she once more prepared to launch a desperate assault… but then, she realized she had no treasures on her at all. If she simply tried to self-detonate herself, the resulting blast wouldn't be enough to threaten even a mere Hegemon, to say nothing of this terrifying Daolord.

"Why must you act like this upon seeing me?" Ning shook his head. "Another Emperor tried to do the same earlier. I was a bit slower and wasn't able to save him."

"There's no need to shed crocodile tears," the Empress said angrily. "You cultivators are our mortal enemies. Once we lose the war, our home will be finished!"

"I, Daolord Darknorth, swear on my very life itself that even if I do gain victory in the Sacred Realm, I'll leave without harming any of the six mortal realms here," Ning swore.

The Empress was stunned. There was no way to falsify a lifeblood oath.

"I never wanted to destroy your world," Ning said. "And you aren't even true Sithe. Technically speaking, you belong to the same 'race' as me. The Sithe are the outsiders, not us."

"Huh?!" The Empress couldn't believe it.

"N-no… I'm a Sithe descendant. There's no question about that!" the Empress argued.

"Even so, you are fundamentally different from them on an intrinsic level. Haven't you noticed yet? They treat you as nothing more than a pawn." Ning felt pity for these Sithe progeny. He held both Empress Gracevoid and the man who had self-detonated in high regard, even though they all wanted him dead.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 8 – Battle to the Death

"Different?" The Empress fell silent. As an Eternal Empress, she was no fool; she had realized long ago that there were some differences between the Sithe descendants and the true Sithe! Over the course of many years, the Hegemons and Emperors within this hidden dimension had slowly diverged into two main camps. The first was led by the true Sithe, while the second was led by the Sithe descendants. There were indeed some true Sithe who held their descendants in contempt. Exalt Bowenya ensured that they didn't go too far and that conflict didn't erupt, but everyone could sense the tension.

Still other Sithe managed to hide their contempt, but the more powerful descendants could still sense it. This infuriated them all the more, which was why they ended up following Hawkfang and setting up their own camp.

"We train in divine power and Immortal energy, but they train in a completely different type of energy," the Empress said softly. "We might both be 'Hegemons', but our side completely surpasses them in power. When we strike, the mighty power of the Dao flows through us… but they are dramatically weakened and don't have the power of the Dao behind them."

"We descendants know all these things, and we have many suspicions, but… but without a doubt, they are our ancestors." An anxious look appeared in the Empress' eyes. "Hawkfang, for example. His father was one of the Exalts. We might have some quarrels with them, but we are definitely their children and grandchildren. There's no question about this at all… and so without a doubt, we are Sithe."

"Wrong." Ning shook his head. "The power of the Dao comes from the power of the primordial chaos, which is omnipresent. They have been rejected by it, which is why they are unable to summon the power of the Dao… and only the true Sithe will be rejected!"

"You, however, are part of our Chaosverse. You are completely different types of lifeforms from them. In this battle… ugh. I have to admit, you Sithe progeny are placed in a rather awkward situation." Ning shook his head. "You'll only be truly free once this war comes to an end."

The female Empress had the vague feeling that Daolord Darknorth was not lying to her. "I understand." This was her only response. She said nothing further.

"Go then." Ning waved his hand, sending her back into his estate-world.

Ning continued to rifle through the memories of the Hegemons and Emperors. None of the true Sithe attempted to self-detonate, because they all knew the truth! This was an invasion, while they were the invaders and had lost. They did, however, feel some degree of resentment towards Ning. They were unhappy that Ning had come here and disturbed their tranquil lives, embroiling them into a deadly war once more.

As for the Sithe progeny? Nearly 10% of them attempted to self-detonate or launch some other type of attack! They were willing to sacrifice anything for their homes. As a result, Ning immediately captured them with his illusions when he summoned them, then rifled through their memories to know what they were intending. That way, they didn't have a chance to attack Ning.

"Poor bastards. They'll be in a rather awkward position until the day that this war ends." Even if they wanted to join the cultivators… could the cultivators trust them? Of course not! The mighty cultivator civilizations didn't need a few extra Hegemons or Emperors. They would probably first put them in internment camps somewhere else, not letting them take part in the war to come!

"Once our Chaosverse gains a controller, there will be no more invaders. Only then would our Chaosverse be strong and confident enough to welcome the Sithe descendants without needing to worry about them." Although Ning felt mixed emotions about them, his decisions would not be impacted by those emotions. He knew that this was just one of many sad stories that came as a result of this clash of civilizations.

If they lost this war, all cultivator civilizations in this Chaosverse would be brought to an end. That would be a true apocalypse! Thus, Ning wouldn't show any mercy at all to the true Sithe. He killed almost all of them after flipping through their memories, sparingly only those few who Ning felt were quite benevolent in nature and had been forced to take part in this war against their will.

Ten years later. On this day, Ning finally finished reviewing the memories of the 2800 Hegemons and Emperors he had captured.

"Nothing!" Ning frowned. He had expected this result, but he still felt quite disappointed. Everyone who had ever learned the nine special techniques had been forced to swear lifeblood oaths not to transmit them to any others. There was no way to review the techniques at all.

"Exalt Bowenya, perhaps?" Ning rose to his feet, staring at the three glowing Daoguard Towers off in the distance. "Judging from the memories I reviewed, he should be the one in control of this entire hidden dimension! He seems to have some sort of connection to the Sithe heartlands, as the orders to the Sithe are sent via him."

"But the heart of the Sithelands have been sealed off long ago. How is it that they are still connected to the outside world?" Ning frowned.

During the Dawn War, the Autarchs had commanded countless cultivators to assault and defeat the Sithe. They had occupied the outer perimeter of the Sithelands, then completely sealed away the heartland regions! But this hidden dimension… not only had the Autarchs been unable to discover it, it was even in contact with the Sithe heartlands.

"I wonder if the experts within the Sithe heartlands have a way to escape or not." Ning was beginning to feel a bit of worry. Being in contact was one thing, but if the Sithe army was somehow able to slip out without anyone noticing… that would be a serious problem!

"Time to go to war." Ning rose to his feet, then turned and stared at the three distant Daoguard Towers. He took a single step forwards, quickly soaring into the skies towards the Daoguard Towers. His Sword Dao Domain continuously expanded, while he maintained the illusion of his truesoul crumbling at incredible speeds. He looked just like a Daolord who was on the verge of death.

"He's coming." Exalt Bowenya and the incarnations of Hawkfang and Jonnbech were gathered together. The other Hegemons and Emperors had retreated; it was now up to the three of them to carry out this battle.

"Bowenya!" Ning's voice echoed throughout the heavens as he flew towards the Daoguard Tower located at the very rear.

"He's actually headed straight for my Daoguard tower?" Exalt Bowenya frowned.

"Exalt, what should we do?" Hawkfang and Jonnbech were both rather anxious. Previously, they had been hoping that that Ning would attack their Elder Halls first. The Elder Halls were all Exalt-class Daoguard Towers, and each was filled with countless dangers. They had clung onto the hope that Ning would actually charge inside their Daoguard Towers… but Ning had completely ignored them!

This was because Ning could vaguely sense that the central control mechanisms for this entire hidden dimension were located within the rear Elder Hall.

"If he's heading straight for me," Exalt Bowenya said coldly, "Then just go ahead and give him a proper greeting. Hawkfang, you go first. If you fail, Jonnbech will follow you."

"Understood," Hawkfang said respectfully.

"Don't worry. Although I suspect Daolord Darknorth might be feigning weakness, as a Daolord he probably hasn't been training long enough to reach such a ridiculously high level in the Dao of Illusions! If his injuries are real, then he should be at the verge of death. It'll be easy for you to kill him," Exalt Bowenya said.

By now, Ning was already very close to the Daoguard Tower in the back. Suddenly, a rumbling sound could be heard. The three towering Daoguard Towers were located on the peaks of three separate mountains. The sound of explosions suddenly emanated from one of them, causing the earth to shake as it began to separate from the mountains beneath it.

"What?!" Ning turned to glance at the distant Daoguard Tower, watching in shock as it slowly separated from the mountain beneath it. "Daoguard Towers are incredibly hard to establish. They were actually willing to discard the foundation for that tower?"

Daoguard Towers were extremely stable after being constructed. Daoguard Towers were extremely powerful, partially because of the treasures they held, but also because of the extremely complicated formations governing their foundations. These formations allowed them to draw large amounts of energy through the earth, ensuring that the Daoguard Tower could function indefinitely!

The complex formations also allowed them to maintain control over an extremely wide region, making that region part of their territory. The technique they had used to trap Ning within that sealed spacetime continuum during the previous battle was just one example of that control. Now, however, the three Daoguard Towers had already exhausted all of their long-range attacks. Their only option was to use the towers themselves to fight.

When the situation was truly dire, or when a tower's owner was determined to battle to the death, some truly berserk actions could be taken. For example, when Ning had rescued the Paragon of Pills, the controller of that tower had actually allowed the tower itself to crumble in order to release the terrifying being trapped beneath it.

Every single Daoguard Tower was the home base for a powerful Sithe expert. If they were truly driven to the brink, they could separate the Daoguard Tower from the foundation, choosing to either flee or battle with the foe to the end.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 9 – Dueling Hawkfang

"Once the Daoguard Tower breaks free from its foundation, many of its formations will become unusable, and it'll no longer be able to draw any more energy into itself. It'll only be able to use whatever energy it already accumulated prior to breaking free," Ji Ning mused to himself. "Without the foundation supporting its many formations, the Daoguard Tower will be dramatically weakened and won't last long in battle."

"And… I don't even need to go inside that Daoguard Tower." Ning was brimming with confidence. "I'll definitely win this battle!"

The frenzied war outside the Sacred Realm had been dangerous to him because there had been 2,800 Hegemons and Emperors attacking him, reinforced by multiple formations and treasures from the Daoguard Towers! If Ning had chosen to fight them squarely, he probably would've died in that battle. Thankfully, he was able to rely on his Illusion Sword Dao to put on a fine show without actually using up much energy. Now, things would be much simpler.

The only thing worrying him was the Daoguard Tower controlled by Exalt Bowenya! The other Daoguard Towers would be comparatively easier to deal with.

"I need to conserve as much energy as I can." Ning watched as the distant Daoguard Tower flew through the skies in his direction. "Based on the memories I searched, this Daoguard Tower should be the 'Flameland Elder Hall' which Hawkfang controls. I hear that he's an incredibly talented genius who has a chance of becoming an Autarch!"

After breaking free from its foundation, the Flameland Elder Hall began to fly by itself through the air. This was going to be a battle to the death, a war without quarter. Roughly four hundred Hegemons and Emperors were within the Flameland Elder Hall. The entire Sacred Realm only had a total of around 1,200 Hegemons and Emperors left, and they were divided into three squads controlled by Hawkfang, Jonnbech, and Exalt Bowenya.

The Hegemons and Emperors who followed Hawkfang were all Sithe descendants!

"Hawkfang, Daolord Darknorth is already at the verge of death. There's no need for you to fight personally. Let us go instead! We'll exhaust him to death," a muscular, fiery-armored man said.

"Right! Hawkfang, you have to stay alive. So long as you are alive, the future generations of Hegemons and Emperors here will have someone to protect them and make their lives easier. Let us be the vanguard in this battle. Once we kill that demon, this tribulation will be at an end and we'll all be able to relax."

Hawkfang was silent. His heart was filled with many mixed emotions. He didn't feel much hatred towards Daolord Darknorth, because he had seen too much and knew too much. He had long ago learned the truth when his avatar had accompanied his father in that final battle during the Dawn War.

Is there no way out at all? Hawkfang glanced at his comrades. All of them were native to this dimension. They were powerful experts who had arduously arisen from amongst the countless mortal cultivators born within this realm. He had known them for countless aeons, and they were all linked together by deep bonds of love and affection.

There's no way out. We've all sworn oaths long ago to be loyal to Exalt Bowenya and obey his commands. If we flee, we'll all die. For the sake of my friends and brothers… Daolord Darknorth, I suppose you'll have to die in their stead. Cold light flashed through Hawkfang's eyes.

"Hear my orders!" Hawkfang called out loudly. All of the Hegemons and Emperors turned solemn and let out acknowledging shouts.

"Assemble a total of three Ragnorak Formations! We'll need a total of 192 Emperors to control them." Hawkfang swept the area with his gaze, then waved his hand and sent his Immortal energy flying out towards 192 of the figures present. "You shall control these three formations. Hurry up and take control!"

"Understood!"

"Everyone else, focus on offensive formations. We'll split the remaining Hegemons into six squads which will control these formations." Hawkfang divided up the remaining Hegemons into multiple squads. He had more Hegemons and Emperors than he needed to fully staff the Daoguard Tower's formations, and so he assigned them to control other formations instead.

"Hawkfang, what about our avatars?"

"Our avatars will be able to fight as well!" the Sithe descendants said hurriedly.

Hawkfang replied coldly, "Deploy your avatars as you see fit. Prepare all your treasures and get ready for our final battle."

"Alright."

"Let's go!" The Hegemons and Emperors quickly began to take control over the respective formations.

Ning's Sword Dao Domain was continuously maintaining an illusory field within its reach. To the Sithe, it looked as though Ning was soaring through the skies towards them… but in reality, Ning was more than six hundred million kilometers away from his illusory location!

"The Daoguard Tower. If I refuse to go inside, what can it possibly do to me?" Ning stared as that twelve-storied tower flew towards him from afar. This Daoguard Tower radiated a weighty aura of might, and it did give Ning a vague sense of danger. It continued to move closer to Ning's real location, causing him to frown. He immediately began to retreat, wanting to pull away from it as much as possible.

"Attack!" This cold shout came from the lips of a black-robed man whose eyes were terrifyingly calm. He stood at the entrance to the Daoguard Tower, staring at Ning.

Ning was able to see the opening, but he certainly wasn't going to charge into it and enter the Daoguard Tower!

"Hawkfang?" Ning immediately recognized this person. He had already 'met' Hawkfang numerous times while rifling through the memories of the captured Emperors.

Rumble…

A series of formation-lines suddenly lit up on the ninth floor of the Daoguard Tower, with a large amount of power circulating through it.

Whoosh…

A dimensional wave filled with destructive power swept out towards Ning, moving so fast and covering such a great area that it almost instantly appeared before him.

"Damn! They've actually completely boxed me in." Ning frowned when he saw this. His illusions were so active, but his opponents had launched such a large-scale attack that everything within his Sword Dao Domain was being assaulted, including both the illusory Ning and the real Ning!

There was really nothing Ning could do against such a large-scale area attack. He immediately drew a Northbow sword and lightly sliced the air, causing a dimensional ripple to spread out and surround him. He was going to use his Space Sword Dao to counter these dimensional ripples.

Ning was securely ensconced in a dimensional 'bubble' which resisted the all-encompassing attack. Ning could sense exactly how much power was pushing against him, and he made sure that his bubble held just a tiny bit more power. He also continued to maintain the illusions with his Sword Dao Domain, having the illusory Ning also 'block' with the Space Sword Dao.

"Attack!" Yet another order rang out. This time, the sixth floor of the Daoguard Tower unleashed a terrifyingly large streak of saber-light that shot out in a fan-shape. This fan of saber-light was composed of countless tiny streaks of saber-light that were densely clustered together. Their power was overwhelming, and they also constitute a vast area attack that completely covered the entire Sword Dao Domain, viciously smashing through everything within it!

There was nothing Ning could do except use his sword-arts to defend once again. Fortunately, it didn't require too much energy as these untargeted area attacks were much less dangerous to Ning, in that the force exerted against each individual within the area was much lower than in the case of a targeted attack. It was just barely at the Blazesun Ruler level of power, and so Ning was able to block without too much difficulty.

"Attack!" This time, the attack came from the third floor of the Daoguard Tower. It burst forth with the most powerful attack yet, unleashing a stream of golden flames which covered the skies and blazed away at everything within the Sword Dao Domain.

"Have they already guessed that I'm using illusions? Otherwise, why would they exclusively use such large-scale attacks?" Ning frowned. These large-scale attacks weren't that dangerous, but they still took up some of his energy. Ning couldn't help but feel worried. "Time to change strategies."

Exalt Bowenya and Jonnbech were carefully watching this battle from afar. It was impossible for Hawkfang to fully control the tower while using his godsense to maintain a connection with an incarnation, and so he had dispelled it for now. The only people remaining here were Bowenya and Jonnbech's incarnation.

"Watch carefully, Jonnbech." Exalt Bowenya stared at the distant Ning intently. "I hope Hawkfang can win this battle, but if he loses, you are next! You are one of the most impressive Sithe Hegemons to have come here. I don't care too much if the others die, but I hope you will survive."

"Don't worry, Exalt," Jonnbech said. Jonnbech was the only Hegemon within this entire hidden dimension who had a truly perfect Dao-heart. He was close to becoming an Exalt himself.

True Sithe were only able to become Exalts in this dimension, but their children could become Autarchs! This was why the Sithe had paid so much attention to Hawkfang. In his heart, though, Exalt Bowenya still felt closer to Jonnbech. He couldn't help it; the two were both true Sithe.

"It doesn't matter if Daolord Darknorth really is skilled in putting on a show. We'll find out the truth soon enough." Jonnbech stared from afar. "If he can endure even this sort of all-out assault from Hawkfang's Flameland Elder Hall, we can be all but certain that his 'injuries' were a false front."

"Yes. If he truly is at the brink of death, it's highly unlikely that he will be able to defeat Hawkfang's Flameland Elder Hall," Exalt Bowenya agreed.

"Hawkfang's quite intelligent as well." Jonnbech continued to watch, then let out a cold smile: "He's using up all the remaining power of his Daoguard Tower to launch repeated wide-scale attacks. That was the fifteenth wave of attacks!"

Exalt Bowenya just continued to watch silently. So what if Hawkfang died? So what if even Jonnbech died? He cared, but not that much. So long as he himself survived and managed to successfully kill Ning, he would be a happy man.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 10 – Utterly Exhausted

The white-robed Ji Ning was continuing to dodge and retreat in midair, while the Flameland Elder Hall was continuing to launch frenzied attacks against him.

Rumble…

The Flameland Elder Hall launched attack after attack, using those massive streams of golden fire, the enormous fans of saber-light, and those giant dimensional waves. On top of these wide-ranging area attacks, they also launched quite a number of single-target attacks against Ning! These single-target attacks were more focused, and as a result they were more powerful!

"We've already launched a total of fifteen wide-range attacks, and also launched nineteen waves of attacks with our other formations. How is he still able to keep fighting?" The Hegemons within the Flameland Elder Hall who were in control of the formations were beginning to grow anxious.

"His truesoul is collapsing even more quickly now. He'll probably be dying soon."

"He's so powerful that he far surpasses any other Daolord. His truesoul is probably much stronger as well, allowing him to stay alive for a longer period of time."

"Let's give him another blast."

"He'll die any moment now." Under Hawkfang's direction, the Hegemons and Emperors in the Flameland Elder Hall launched yet another furious wave attacks, while Ning continued to retreat while blocking as best he could.

Time continued to tick away. Hawkfang watched as the rate at which Ning's truesoul crumbled away continued to increase. He was clearly in increasingly bad shape. Any ordinary Daolord would've died long ago! Ning, however, was able to somehow keep fighting.

More time passed. Ning continued to run around the area, blocking and defending. He looked as though he was in his death throes… but he simply wouldn't die! By now, the Fireland Elder Hall had used up the majority of its energy stores.

"It's all an illusion!" Hawkfang suddenly said coldly, a frozen look on his face.

"An illusion?" The avatars of the Emperors next to him were all stunned. As the battle had raged on for longer than they had expected, they too had started to grow increasingly uneasy, but they could tell that the white-robed Daolord's truesoul really was crumbling away faster and faster. It looked as though they were very close to succeeding in their task of slaying this 'Daolord Darknorth'. They really didn't want to believe it was all an illusion.

Hawkfang gritted his teeth. "He was already at death's door before we even started! By now, the Flameland Elder Hall has used up more than half of our energy stores, yet he is somehow still able to keep up the fight? He's just a Daolord! How strong could his truesoul possibly be?"

"Then w-we…." the Hegemons and Emperors all started to panic.

"So it really is an illusion." Exalt Bowenya watched from afar. "He is the first Daolord to master an Eternal Omega Dao in this Chaosverse. He truly cannot be underestimated! Still… while I knew his sword-arts were powerful, I never would've imagined that his illusions would be so incredible as well. Even I cannot see any flaws in his illusions."

Exalt Bowenya remained quite calm. He had been alive for a very long time, and the Sithe Chaosverse was a far more advanced place than this one. Back in his homeland, there had been quite a few who had become Eternal Emperors via an Omega Dao! Thus, Exalt Bowenya was able to accurately judge Ning's power and abilities. However, he felt that since Ning was a Daolord who had failed the Daomerge, by all rights he should've been lacking in areas aside from his primary Dao, as he simply hadn't been alive long enough. Now, it seemed, Daolord Darknorth had reached incredible heights in the art of illusions.

"Then what should I do, Exalt?" Jonnbech frowned.

"Follow our original plan," Exalt Bowenya said. "I'll give you every treasure I can spare! There's no way Hawkfang can win this fight. His Flameland Elder Hall will run out of energy soon, and once it does it won't even be able to continue flying! This battle will be up to you."

"Understood." Jonnbech nodded.

"What a pity." Exalt Bowenya stared off into the distance. "We have had innumerable progeny, but Hawkfang was quite arguably the most talented one to have ever arisen within this Chaosverse. He had a good chance of becoming an Autarch! If he succeeded, his status would've skyrocketed to a level that was much higher than my own. Unfortunately, his Dao-heart was flawed and he has never been able to perfect it."

To become an Autarch, one needed a perfect Dao-heart. The same was needed to master an Eternal Omega Dao.

"He'll probably die here." Exalt Bowenya let out a sigh. Once the power of the Flameland Elder Hall was used up, it would no longer pose a threat to Daolord Darknorth at all, who would be able to capture Hawkfang with ease. Not even Exalt Bowenya would dare to battle Ning head-on without the backing of his Daoguard Tower.

Within the Sword Dao Domain. A glowing castle that was merely thirty meters long was stationed here, with Ning and Azurefiend's avatar located within it. Azurefiend's avatar was pouring Immortal energy into the castle, keeping it active. As for Ning, he was seated off to one side in front of a table that had a flask of wine and a wine cup on it. Every so often, he would lift up the wine cup and take a sip.

He only needed to spare a bit of attention to maintaining the illusions within the Sword Dao Doman, making the illusory Ning's performance more convincing! The single-target attacks were powerful and concentrated, with the ones shooting out from this Exalt-class Daoguard Tower being close to Autarch-level attacks in might. However, they all hit the illusory Ning without harming the real one in the slightest.

As for the large-scale attacks, they dispersed their might across an extremely wide area, making it fairly easy to defend against them. However, Ning wasn't willing to do so and instead took out a Sithe treasure.

It must be remembered that Ning had captured over 2,800 Hegemons and Emperors during the previous battle! They had carried many types of treasures on them, and it could be said that they collectively held roughly over 80% of the total Sithe treasures within this hidden dimension. Now, those treasures were all Ning's! There were actually over ten items that were on the level of the Blacksun. Ning had pulled out one of them and allowed Azurefiend's avatar to bind it, then used it to defend against the attacks.

Ning had selected this castle for its sturdiness and defensive strength. It was able to defend against the large-scale attacks that struck it with ease. This castle was on the same level as the Blacksun, and it was specialized in defense. Attacks like this, merely on par with the Blazesun Ruler, were completely unable to breach its thick walls. The only thing they did was to consume Azurefiend's power.

"Withdraw." Ning watched the battle proceed while causing his Sword Dao Domain to rapidly retreat and disperse.

"Master, why are you having us retreat?" Azurefiend's avatar asked. "These Sithe have extremely powerful attacks, but the wide-scale ones are all being blocked by the castle. Why should we withdraw?"

"That's where you are wrong." Ning laughed. "Warfare isn't as simple as attacking and defending. You need to see beyond the clashes to the nature of the battle itself. There's no need for us to do too much in this battle against the Flameland Elder Hall. Given enough time, they will run out of energy and we will have won."

Ning's gaze went through the walls of the castle, allowing him to see the Flameland Elder Hall which continued to pursue and assault them. "Once they broke free from their foundations, they no longer had any chance to retreat. Their only option was to unleash all the power available to them in a final, desperate assault," Ning explained. "So… why should we actually fight them? I'll just keep running, while they will keep chasing. It actually takes this Daoguard Tower energy to fly through the air as well."

There was another unspoken reason why Ning had them continuously retreat. This was because he wanted to stay as far away from the other two Elder Halls as possible! That way, once he captured all the Hegemons and Emperors in the Flameland Elder Hall, he would be able to review their memories without being disturbed. If he was too close to the other two Elder Halls, they'd probably launch attacks at him and disrupt him. If he stayed farther away, it would be harder for them to bother him.

Explosions of ruinous power continued to ring out unabated, with Ning continuing to fight while fleeing. Every so often, a streak of Autarch-level golden light would shoot out, tearing through the earth and gouging unfathomably deep tunnels in the ground. As for the wide-scale attacks that covered as much as ten billion kilometers, they would terrify even most Hegemons.

Any other cultivator would've perished long ago from a battle like this. Only the Autarchs and Ning were equipped to handle it.

"The Flameland Elder Hall has nearly been utterly exhausted of all its power. It only has enough to keep flying." Hawkfang gritted his teeth after saying these words. His voice echoed throughout the entire Elder Hall, with every single Emperor and Hegemon inside hearing them. "We have lost this battle. The only thing we have left is a final charge."

Hawkfang felt pain and sorrow in his heart, because he knew that this final charge would result in his comrades throwing their lives away. The cultivators… the Sithe… Hawkfang wasn't sure who he truly belonged to, but he knew that the people he cared the most about were his comrades, the other Sithe descendants. And yet, his care alone wouldn't be of any use. He couldn't disobey Exalt Bowenya's orders. Every single Hegemon and Emperor had long ago sworn oaths to obey Exalt Bowenya.

"The final charge."

"Attack! Even as we die, let's use up more of Daolord Darknorth's power. Exhaust him!"

"Kill him, and we'll bring hope to our homeland. Once we die, it'll all be for nothing."

"Kill!"

"Hawkfang, you stay back. So long as you are alive, the others will still have a leader!" The Hegemons and Emperors began to charge out of the Flameland Elder Hall, moving like streaks of light towards Ning as they tried to dissuade Hawkfang from joining the battle.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 11 – A Wonderful Surprise

Streaks of light flew out from the Flameland Elder Hall. The Sithe descendants were absolutely fearless, and they charged out with a mixture of both frenzy and despair.

Hawkfang silently watched from afar. He suddenly had the feeling that those streaks of light were utterly beautiful… yet at the same time, they stabbed against his heart like daggers. In truth, the torment he had felt in his heart over the course of many aeons had been utterly excruciating. This was why he had never been able to perfect his Dao-heart!

"Death is a form of release. My friends… if all of you die, what would be the point of me surviving by myself? To continue being a disposable pawn to the Sithe?" A calm look appeared in Hawkfang's eyes, and he began to release the two monsters trapped within the Flameland Elder Hall. Clack clack clack clack… the prison cells located within the deepest depths of the Elder Hall began to swing open, awakening two mighty creatures that had existed since antiquity.

Boom. Boom. Boom. The entire Flameland Elder Hall began to shake. After awakening, the two strange creatures instantly entered a berserk state. It was extremely hard to control these creatures, but somewhat easier to drive them so berserk that they would attack all foes before them.

The Sithe generally treated these creatures as their final trump cards. The creatures were sent out to fight only when the Sithe were on their last legs.

"They've all gone." Hawkfang watched those hundreds of streaks of light shot from the Flameland Elder Hall towards the distant region covered by the Sword Dao Domain… but those who entered it disappeared without a trace.

"I'll go as well." Hawkfang could sense those two creatures beginning to awaken and cause destruction. The power within his Daoguard Tower had finally been used up. Without any energy to power its artifacts and formations, the Daoguard Tower was completely incapable of restraining these two mighty beasts any further. The two were beginning to tear it apart… and in truth, Hawkfang didn't care.

He had already committed himself irrevocably to this path once he had split the Elder Hall away from its foundation. Even if the depleted tower wasn't destroyed, it would be of little use; at most, he could detach a few weapons and use them.

"Attack!" Hawkfang shot out like a streak of light, charging with determination towards the distant Ning. He was the last of the Hegemons and Emperors in his group to attack.

Exalt Bowenya and Jonnbech all watched as those hundreds of streaks of light shot out towards Daolord Darknorth, followed by the final streak of light which represented Hawkfang. Both of them were silent.

As for Ning, he was absolutely delighted. He had long ago put away his castle and was actively manipulating his Sword Dao Domain instead. He flew through the air, moving towards those attacking Emperors as his domain moved with him as well. As soon as the Emperors entered his reach, they were trapped by illusions and captured with ease.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The Hegemons and Emperors continued to launch frenzied attacks, but none of them landed on Ning at all. At most, Ning would have to exert a tiny bit of power to use evasion-arts to dodge. And so… all of the Hegemons and Emperors, Hawkfang included, were captured in one fell swoop. He drew all of them into his estate-world.

"Now that is that?" Just as Ning was feeling quite satisfied with himself and preparing to review the memories of these Hegemons, he suddenly turned to stare at the crumbling Flameland Elder Hall with a slightly tense look on his face.

BOOM! A giant hole appeared in the side of the Flameland Elder Hall, followed by a creature that looked like a giant fish flying out of the opening. The giant fish quickly expanded in size when it flew out, expanding to become thirty thousand kilometers long. It had long whiskers around its mouth, and those whiskers were all ten thousand kilometers as well. It also had a total of eighteen sets of claws located alongside its flank. As for its tail, the tip of its tail was connected to a series of slender threads which chopped through space with terrifying power as they swished back and forth.

"What an incredible beast." Ning felt a sense of threat. "I have the feeling that it is even tougher to deal with than the last beast I encountered."

Squish. Squish. Squish. Right at this moment, another strange creature that looked something like an earthworm began to slowly ooze its out of the main gates of the Flameland Elder Hall. The creature emanated a halo of golden light, and when Ning saw it he immediately had the feeling that its body was incredibly tough. Even if Ning chopped it into ten pieces, it probably still wouldn't die. Killing it would be no easy task.

"I need to find their essence cores before I can kill them," Ning mused. "But both are extremely hard to deal with. It'll probably take me ten or twenty strikes to kill them… but why should I have to?"

Ning exert his will as he landed upon the ground beneath him. He had already flown out of the Sacred Mountains and into an empty plains, and when he landed on the plains he exerted the power of his Illusion Sword Dao, vanishing without a trace. He was using his illusions to blend into his surroundings, completely masking his aura and revealing no traces of his presence at all.

"Kill… kill… kill…" These two creatures came from outside the Chaosverse, and they were born with incredibly powerful bodies. Their eyes were filled with savagery as they scanned the area, searching for living beings to kill. And yet… after doing so, they ended up turning and charging towards the two remaining Elder Halls instead! Both of those two Elder Halls were easily locatable, and they could sense that both held living beings within them.

"Damn! It really was all an illusion. Daolord Darknorth's illusions are truly…" Exalt Bowenya turned pale when he saw this. These were clearly HIS beasts, but upon being unable to find Ning they chose to charge towards him instead!

They had captured these beasts and driven them berserk. For these beasts to now attack them was a form of karma.

Boom! Squish! The two creatures parted ways, separating as they moved towards the two Elder Hall. They began to launch a frenzied barrage of attacks upon their respective Elder Halls. Their mighty bodies contained an even more massive amount of energy than Flamewing! It gave them all the power they needed to furiously assault the towers to give vent to their hate. They even opened their giant mouths to bite down at the towers… but the two Elder Halls would not be so easily shaken by the likes of them!

Boom! Boom! Boom! The two Elder Halls began to counter-attack with near-Autarch levels of might. The attacks left gaping wounds on the bodies of the two creatures. The earthworm creature was able to endure nearly a hundred blows before finally being blasted apart, at which point its essence core was destroyed and it perished. As for the giant fish, when it was on the verge of dying it actually came back to its senses and bored into the earth to flee.

"It regained its mind?" Exalt Bowenya was quite shocked. "We had driven it completely insane, but it somehow managed to come back to its senses. Near-death experiences truly can give birth to miracles."

He didn't worry about that giant fish-creature too much, because the Sacred Realm was so stable that there was no way the creature would be able to break free and escape from it. After he dealt with the biggest problem, 'Daolord Darknorth', he would have plenty of time to handle the fish and recapture it.

"Daolord Darknorth." Exalt Bowenya stared off into the distance, his gaze focused upon the plains where Ning had vanished. Daolord Darknorth was a thousand times more dangerous than that giant fish!

Ning had hidden himself via his power over illusions. And upon doing so he had immediately summoned Hawkfang.

Hawkfang had been someone whom the Sithe had held great hopes for. He had a chance of becoming an Autarch, and was the son of a Sithe Exalt. Ning had searched the memories of over 2,800 Sithe Emperors to no avail. By now, he felt certain that his chances of finding those nine techniques in the memories of ordinary Emperors were extremely slim. Hawkfang, however, was special. Perhaps he might have something.

Whoosh. The black-robed Hawkfang appeared before Ning. His gaze was calm, and he even smiled slightly when he saw Ning appear before him. "Daolord Darknorth."

Ning didn't say anything, immediately drawing Hawkfang into an illusion. He was afraid that Hawkfang would try to commit suicide in the hopes of killing him. If that happened, Ning wouldn't have a chance to search his memories. They would have plenty of time to chat later. The nine techniques, however, were absolutely critical to him and his hopes of proceeding further along the path of cultivation. He wouldn't take any risks with that.

"This is certainly a great deal of memories." Ning began to review Hawkfang's memories. Hawkfang's Dao-heart was flawed, and so he wasn't able to resist Ning's illusions.

Ning couldn't help but sigh as he flipped through Hawkfang's memories. Hawkfang was a rather tragic figure. If he had been born amongst the cultivators, he probably would've already become an Autarch.

"What?! He also swore a lifeblood oath not to transmit the nine techniques to anyone?" Ning felt rather speechless when he saw the thought-bubbles surrounding those nine techniques. He had expected this, but he had still been hoping that Hawkfang would be different. In truth, however… every single Sithe given access to these techniques had been forced to swear lifeblood oaths. Hawkfang was no exception.

"Ugh." Ning felt rather disappointed after being unable to access the nine techniques, but he continued to flip through Hawkfang's other memories.

Time slowly flowed on. Two hours. Four hours…

"What's this?" Ning's eyes slowly began to light up as he began to flip through the memories faster and faster. The more he saw, the more excited he became… and towards the end, he was so excited that his entire body was quivering.

"The [Five Truncheon Chapters]!"

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Book 42, Chapter 12 - The [Five Truncheon Chapters]

"Now this is an unexpected surprise!" Due to his repeated failures, Ji Ning was already at the verge of abandoning all hope of finding the nine special techniques. He was simply rifling through the rest of Hawkfang's memories out of a sense of caution. Who would've thought that such an unexpected surprise would pop out!

Hawkfang was the creator of the [Five Truncheon Chapters]. He truly was a genius!

After Hawkfang's father had accompanied the Sithe army in their first invasion of the Chaosverse, he began to live here within this hidden dimension. Later on, the supreme Sithe leaders sent orders for the Sithe to begin to propagate within this land. As for Hawkfang's father, he was an Exalt, but the one and only child he had upon reaching this level was Hawkfang. He began to put all of his efforts into rearing his son.

Hawkfang was incredibly talented in every respect, and he skyrocketed in power with no pause at all! However… he was still just a Sithe descendant. The true Sithe couldn't help but feel a sense of caution towards these descendants, and so they weren't willing to pass down any information or guidance regarding Omega Daos! If one of their children managed to reach Autarchy via an Omega Dao, it would be their children who would become the rulers of this Chaosverse… which meant that it would still be suited for the current cultivators, not the Sithe.

The Sithe descendants were much like the local cultivators, after all. They were born and bred under the current conditions.

In addition, if someone reached Autarchy via an Omega Dao, not even a lifeblood oath would be able to restrain or affect him. The Sithe were afraid that they would no longer be able to control such a person, and so they didn't pass down any Omega daos.

Hawkfang was incredibly talented. Guided by the Sithe away from the Omega Daos, he succeeded in the Daomerge and became a mere Hegemon.

In truth, this was perhaps a lucky thing for Hawkfang. Ning didn't have any guidance as he walked the path of the Omega Sword Dao, but the difficulty of the Daomerge resulted in him failing at it.

Becoming a Hegemon… it was hard to say if it was a 'good' thing or a 'bad' thing for Hawkfang. After becoming a Hegemon, he had quickly reached Hegemony in five other Daos. His speed of advancement was so shockingly fast that it had amazed the entire Sithe race! Even the highest ranking members of the Sithe paid close attention to him.

Later on, the Dawn War began! Hawkfang's father, as an Exalt, was required to lead the Sithe forces into battle! Hawkfang insisted on accompanying his father into battle. As one of the most favored Sithe descendants, he had a somewhat special status, and so the highest level Sithe reluctantly agreed to his request. However, they only agreed to let him send his avatar, as they knew the war would be so fierce that Hawkfang could very well die in it.

The entire Sithe race was eagerly awaiting an Autarch arising from within the ranks of their children!

During the war, Hawkfang's avatar accompanied his father in battling against the cultivators. He saw many things… and slowly, he began to realize the truth!

"You imbeciles! Can't you feel it? Can't you sense the difference between you and the Sithe? It was this vast Chaosverse which gave birth to you, nurtured you, supported you! The primordial chaos of this universe accepts you but rejects the Sithe, because the Sithe are foreign invaders and enemies. You are helping your own enemies!

"You are cultivators! Why do you willingly serve the Sithe?!"

Autarch Bolin had charged towards them, roaring with accusation and fury. Hawkfang had long ago suspected the truth… and on that day, he became certain of it.

"Fang, my son." His father had sought him out that day. "We're quite unlucky to have run into one of the cultivator Autarchs so soon. We're going to die today. I'll destroy your avatar to ensure that this Autarch won't be able to kill you. Every single one of his strikes is filled with the binding power of karma. If he kills you, he'll use karma to destroy your true body as well."

"Father… I am a cultivator, not a Sithe. Right?" Hawkfang asked.

Ning was looking through Hawkfang's memories and could see through Hawkfang's eyes. He saw the look on the face of Hawkfang's father… and that look shook even Ning's own heart.

Hawkfang's father had fallen silent for a moment. He then looked at his son, his eyes filled with mixed emotions. Heartache, love, worry, hope…

These were the pure emotions a dying father would feel when gazing at his son.

Hawkfang's father had then said softly, "I might as well tell you. I was bound by oaths not to reveal this to you, but now you already know the truth. I… I didn't have a choice. I had to take part in this war and just hope for the best. You don't have a choice either. The two of us, father and son… we certainly share a sorry fate."

When Hawkfang's father had said these words, his eyes had become filled with resentment. He had then let out a sigh: "If you can become an Autarch, the Sithe wouldn't dare to mistreat you. You'd be considered one of their important thugs… but if you fail to make that breakthrough and remain a mere Hegemon, you wouldn't even be considered a thug, just a disposable pawn. I was able to protect you, but I'm going to die soon. I won't be able to protect you any longer. If you ever have the chance… flee. Escape and go to the cultivator civilizations."

Hawkfang had been stunned. He never would have imagined that his father would tell him to go flee to the cultivators.

"Alright. We're out of time." Hawkfang's father had then reached out and pressed his hand against Hawkfang's chest, destroying Hawkfang's avatar with one blow... and that was the last memory Hawkfang had of his father.

The end result of that battle… was Autarch Bolin exterminating the entire squad led by Hawkfang's father.

Eventually, the Dawn War came to an end. Hawkfang continued to live within the Sacred Realm inside the hidden dimension. At first, the Sithe continued to pay close attention to him… but the shadow that had been cast over his heart made it so that he would be unable to cleanse his Dao-heart of all flaws.

He was a cultivator, but he was also a descendant of the Sithe. If the Sithe had treated him with sincerity, he wouldn't feel so torn… but in reality, he now knew that they were nothing more than cannon fodder and pawns. Even if he worked extremely hard and became an Autarch, he'd be viewed as nothing more than a useful thug.

What was the point of cultivating?

And… he was forever unable to forget his father's final words: "I didn't have a choice. I had to take part in this war and just hope for the best. You don't have a choice either. The two of us, father and son… we certainly share a sorry fate."

These words tore at his heart. Ever since his mother had died due to her lifespan coming to an end, his father had become the person who he cared about above all others. His father, in turn, had cherished him and loved him.

Only when he heard those words did he realize how miserably unhappy his father had been. His father had the exalted title of 'Exalt', but he had been given no choices either. He had only come to take part in this war because he had to, and his fate had been left up to luck.

"Sithe..."

"SITHE!!!!" Hawkfang began to feel hatred towards the Sithe race, which treated both himself and his father as disposable pawns. This hatred cast a shadow over his heart, preventing him from perfecting his Dao-heart. He knew that he had to become more powerful and become an Autarch, as it would give him a better chance of escaping and taking revenge upon the Sithe… but he could no longer perfect his Dao-heart. In fact, he couldn't improve at all.

After no longer being able to progress on the path of cultivation, Hawkfang eventually began to give up on his hopes of Autarchy. However, he then came up with another idea for taking revenge upon the Sithe!

He knew that the Sithe had long ago transmitted nine special techniques to their descendants, wanting to make cultivation easier for them. These techniques allowed divine power and Immortal energy to be merged together, theoretically ensuring that even Daolords would no longer face mortal danger as they took their various steps. Even if you failed in the Daomerge, you would be able to quickly recover and then attempt it again! This was the reason why the Sithe were able to produce so many Hegemons, Emperors, and Exalts.

"The Sithe continuously improved as they created these nine techniques, with the ninth being much better than the first. But in the end? Even the ninth and ultimate technique remained flawed. It only allowed for one to become a Daolord of the First Step, at which point the body would crumble and the truesoul would vanish.

"I can sense that these techniques are somewhat rejected by the natural 'Dao' of this Chaosverse. If I can retrofit them, I should be able to produce something better."

True Sithe were unable to sense or make use of the Dao of this Chaosverse… but Hawkfang could!

It was absolutely incredible that the Sithe Lord of Chaos was able to create a technique which would allow a local cultivator to safely become a Daolord, even though the Lord of Chaos himself was unable to sense the Dao here. Hawkfang had personally viewed all nine of the techniques in the past, and he had watched as the almighty Sithe Lord of Chaos had slowly improved and perfected them. Hawkfang had gained many new insights as he had watched… and so, he had chosen to make use of those insights into creating his own techniques.

He had felt certain that all nine Sithe techniques contained fundamental, foundational errors. The only reason why those errors weren't apparent early on was because when one was weak, there was a great deal of margin for error.

For example, consider mortal cultivators. 'Foundation level', 'Golden Core level', 'Nascent Soul level'… 'Mortal-ranked', 'Earth-ranked', 'Heaven-ranked'… 'Wanxiang Adept', 'Primal Daoist', 'Void level'… all sorts of techniques and styles could be used, because the weaker you were the less of an impact the Chaosverse's Dao would have upon you. But the closer to the peak you were, the more demanding the Dao would become.

Hawkfang himself was able to sense the Dao of this Chaosverse. He borrowed some of the technical tricks and ideas used by the nine special techniques, then began to recreate them in his own image, devising the [Mortal Chapter, [Fiendgod Chapter, [World Chapter, [Daolord Chapter, and [Deathless Chapter].

This became the technique which he named the [Five Truncheon Chapters]. The reason why he called it the [Five Truncheon Chapters] was because his father's favorite magic treasure had been a wooden truncheon. As a child, Hawkfang had loved to play around with that truncheon, and so his father had given it to him. Hawkfang had always carried it by his side, and it became a symbol of the love he bore for his father.

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 13 – Deathless

Hawkfang had created this technique in order to take revenge upon the Sithe. He wanted to take revenge for both his father's sake and his own sake, and for the sake of the countless deceived Sithe descendants! They were viewed as disposable cannon fodder by the true Sithe, while even his father had been forced to take part in the war.

"The two of us, father and son… we certainly share a sorry fate." These words continued to stab against Hawkfang's heart like knives. He would never be able to forget that look on his father's face. This was why he needed revenge.

He wanted to create this technique, then find a way to deliver it to the cultivators! He felt certain that the cultivators would be able to use it to dramatically increase in power, producing many new Hegemons and even new Autarchs. That way, the Sithe would be defeated.

But of course, if the Sithe found out that he was creating this technique, he would be doomed! Thus, he had carried out all of his experiments upon the beings who resided within his own estate-treasure. As a Hegemon, he had many estate-treasures which were filled with countless living beings. He had these beings test out his cultivation techniques, and many ended up dying due to errors in the technique. He had tested them time and time again, then remade them repeatedly.

His talent was put to full effect here. He quickly mastered the [Mortal Chapter] and the [Fiendgod Chapter]. The first was comparable to pre-Celestial Tribulation levels of the Three Realms, while the second included everything post-tribulation to the Elder God/Ancestral Immortal level.

Although it was different from the way in which the nine techniques operated, it was successful and had a similar effect to Ning's own azureflower seal technique.

The [World Chapter] covered World Gods and Chaos Immortals. It was clearly far more difficult, and it took him a great deal of time… but in the end, he succeeded once more.

The [Daolord Chapter, however, was even more difficult. It must be remembered that even the finest of the nine special techniques only allowed for cultivators to safely train to the World level. Once one became a Daolord of the First Step, the body would crumble apart and the truesoul would be destroyed.

Hawkfang spent untold aeons working on the [Daolord Chapter, and to this very day he was still working on it. Alas, he had only been able to successfully complete the parts for Daolords of the First Step and Daolords of the Second Step. He hadn't been able to succeed for the third or fourth steps!

Due to being stymied by the [Daolord Chapter, he had turned his attention to the [Deathless Chapter] instead. The [Deathless Chapter] was meant to allow Daolords who had failed in the Daomerge to halt and reverse the crumbling of the truesoul, allowing them to then attempt the Daomerge once more.

All nine of the Sithe techniques were also focused on recovering from a failed Daomerge.

"Mortal cultivators who reach a certain level can be reborn from a single drop of blood. Upon reaching the 'Fiendgod' level, they will not die so long as their truesoul remains unharmed. However… if there was a way which would allow a shattered truesoul, the very core of a person's being, to be repaired after already breaking apart? That would represent true deathlessness. The only thing which could end one's life would be when the invisible laws that govern everyone's maximum lifespan in a Chaosverse took effect." And so, Hawkfang had focused his efforts on the [Deathless Chapter].

He allowed the Daolords residing in his estate-treasures who had failed the Daomerge to test out this technique. He had gone so far as to recruit many disciples in the Sacred Realm. After those Daolord disciples failed the Daomerge, he would have them go into his estate-treasure and test out the [Deathless Chapter]… but of course, he would have them swear oaths not to divulge this to anyone else.

He had refined the [Deathless Chapter] over and over again, but to this very day, it remained a failure! Clearly, it was almost completely impossible to allow a Daolord who had failed the Daomerge to repair his crumbling truesoul.

Thus, only the first three chapters of the [Five Truncheon Chapters] were complete. The [Daolord Chapter] and the [Deathless Chapter] were both flawed and imperfect… but in truth, both were significantly superior to the nine unique techniques the Sithe had developed. It wasn't that Hawkfang was more talented than the Sithe Lord of Chaos; rather, it was that he was able to use those nine techniques as a reference, and was also able to sense the Dao of this Chaosverse.

If the Sithe Lord of Chaos was also able to sense the Dao of this Chaosverse, he probably would've been able to easily create a perfect technique which would allow someone to train all the way to the Autarch level.

Ning was extremely excited, especially after reviewing the [Deathless Chapter]. As Ning reviewed the technique, he couldn't help but get the feeling that there were certain similarities to the mysteries of the Nine Chaos Seals which Autarch Awakener had created.

It was like a brand new door had appeared in front of Ning, one which allowed limitless possibilities in a brand new world.

The Sithe Lord of Chaos was at such an extremely high level of insight that he was able to create these nine techniques just based on guesswork and prediction. He had overhauled them and repeatedly perfected them, but they remained flawed. This, however, was because his understanding of the nature of this Chaosverse's Dao was limited. If the Dao had operated in the manner he had believed it to operate, the nine techniques would've been perfect. Alas, the Dao was different and so the nine techniques were unusable. Hawkfang, however, had managed to use them to create his own [Deathless Chapter].

"I can see hope. There are many ways we can continue to improve the [Deathless Chapter]." Ning was different form Hawkfang. He was the master of the Eternal Omega Sword Dao, on par with Autarchs in terms of insight. He had reached an incredibly high level of understanding into the Dao, which was why he was able to reach Hegemony in so many Daos with such ease.

"But the path to perfecting it will be a long one. If I let Hawkfang do it, he probably wouldn't succeed even if he was given ten times as much time as he already had." Autarch Awakener had attempted to complete this path, but he had approached it from a different angle. He had been able to reach an extremely deep level of mastery in his approach, which was why Ning was certain that the [Deathless Chapter] held many flaws.

However… it was a different approach that would provide many new inspirations. In addition, he was able to see a complete 'structure' to the [Deathless Chapter].

"The experiences of Autarch Awakener, combined with the mysteries of the [Deathless Chapter]… if I fused them together and then worked hard on improving them, I might be able to create a perfect technique in my remaining years which would allow my crumbling truesoul to recover." Ning instantly grew excited. If he could heal his truesoul… then if he attempted the Daomerge again, he would instantly become an Eternal Emperor because he was already the master of the Eternal Omega Sword Dao!

But of course… he would first have to create a new technique which would allow the truesoul to become deathless and everlasting.

"I can definitely succeed. I will definitely succeed!" Ning was filled with anticipation.

Prior to acquiring the [Deathless Chapter, Ning had felt that his chances of creating such a 'Truesoul Everlasting' technique to be virtually negligible. Now, however? Hope blazed in front of him like a radiant sun. It was still a distant goal, but it was bright enough to illuminate the path in front of it.

Autarch Titanos and the others had felt that there was no hope because they didn't even know what path to begin embarking on! The [Deathless Chapter, however, was based off the nine special techniques and so it provided an overall framework and 'path', even though this path was filled with many pitfalls and dead ends. This was why the Sithe had forced anyone who ever learned the nine techniques to swear lifeblood oaths not to divulge it to anyone else.

They were afraid that the nine techniques would be disseminated to the cultivators, accelerating their research efforts into this same field.

"Hawkfang, I truly have to thank you." Ning stared at Hawkfang, who was still in a dazed and illusion-bound state in front of him, then smiled. After completely reviewing Hawkfang's memories, Ning felt that this trip to this hidden dimension had been completely worth it!

"Awaken," Ning murmured softly.

Hawkfang trembled slightly. Moments later, his eyes regained their usual clarity. He looked at Ning, blinked, and then smiled slightly. "Daolord Darknorth, was I in an illusion just now?"

"Yes." Ning nodded.

"You've already reviewed my memories?" Hawkfang asked.

Ning nodded.

Hawkfang continued, "I've always felt quite torn between the Sithe and the cultivators. The blood in my veins belongs to the Sithe and comes from my father! And yet, I am indeed a local cultivator myself. Life has been quite agonizing… but one thing is certain. I hate the Sithe! I hate them for forcing my father into war, and hate them for sending all of us, their children, to our deaths. Now you have my [Five Truncheon Chapters, a technique I poured my heart and soul into. In the end, I still wasn't able to truly complete them. However… after you cultivators acquire them, I'm certain that you'll be able to create a perfect technique."

"Thank you," Ning said. "The entire cultivator civilization owes you thanks, and I owe you more than anyone else."

"You?" Hawkfang blinked, then laughed. "Do you thank me because you have failed the Daomerge? But creating a 'Truesoul Everlasting' technique will be extremely difficult. This is the hardest part of the entire set, Daolord Darknorth! You are incredibly talented, but you don't have much time left, while perfecting the technique will be extremely difficult. The Autarchs weren't able to accomplish it, while I was only able to do what I did thanks to having studied those nine unique techniques. Even though you'll be able to learn from what I created… I'm afraid that it'll still take you a million or even tens of millions of chaos cycles before you are able to succeed."

"At least I can give it a shot before I die." Ning smiled. "If I succeed, I'll be able to keep living."

Hawkfang smiled as well.

"Is there anything you want from me?" Ning asked. "I'll do anything which is within my power."

"I don't need much. If you do win, take away all of the descendants from my homeland and give them a safe, remote location which will be far away from the terrifying clash of civilizations. I'll find a quiet place for myself and live out a peaceful life." Hawkfang smiled. "But of course, that's only if you win. If you lose, all of this talk will have been for nothing."

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Book 42, The Five Truncheon Chapters, Chapter 14 – Before the Battle

Although Ji Ning had already acquired the technique he was searching for, the [Five Truncheon Chapters, he still continued flipping through the memories of all the other Hegemons and Emperors he had captured. He wanted to try and find more Sithe secrets that might be of help to the cultivators.

After a full year concluded, Ning once more flew towards the Sacred Mountains…

"He's coming." Exalt Bowenya stared from afar, his gaze ice-cold.

"Daolord Darknorth has already appeared. We cannot shirk back from this fight. Our only options are to win glory for ourselves by killing Daolord Darknorth… or dying in battle." Jonnbach was standing outside the Iceland Elder Hall, radiating the desire to do battle. Behind him were nearly four hundred Hegemons and Emperors, the vast majority of whom were all true Sithe.

"Do you want to die?" Jonnbech's voice was placid, but it echoed throughout the hall. The true Sithe and the Sithe descendants were all silent, but their eyes were filled with berserk looks.

"Good. Let's begin." Accompanying Jonnbech's orders, the towering Iceland Elder Hall began to shake and rumble as it broke free from its own foundation.

The white-robed Ning was soaring through the skies towards them. Now, the vast Iceland Elder Hall was soaring into the air as well.

"At most, they'll force me to waste a bit of extra time." Thanks to his Illusion Sword Dao, Ning would be able to win this fight quite easily. None of them could see through his illusions.

His Sword Dao Domain was able cover an area of over a billion kilometers, and this entire area would be transformed into an illusory realm! Wide-range attacks could hit him, but they would be weak enough that Ning could just hide inside his treasures and defend against them with ease. Focused attacks were powerful, but there was no way they would be able to locate the true Ning within this region of a billion kilometers.

"If I had already mastered the Illusion Sword Dao while I was fighting in Purgatory, I wouldn't have needed to use my Storm Sword Dao to evade those attacks when fighting that first castle. The Illusion Sword Dao would've been enough to make it impossible for my opponents to locate me, much less stop me. Same with that spacetime formation; I still would've been trapped, but the Illusion Sword Dao would've made it impossible for them to injure me."

Ning couldn't help but sigh. During the battle in the spacetime formation, he had sacrificed many precious treasures and had to strike eighteen times before he was able to escape. What a waste! If he had already mastered the Illusion Sword Dao, he could've relaxed within the confines of that formation. His opponents wouldn't have been able to touch him!

Alas, Ning had no idea back then that the Illusion Sword Dao would prove to be so effective. It was of very little use against other Autarch-level experts, after all… but against hordes of weaker Emperors and Hegemons? It was absolutely crushing! They wouldn't even be able to locate him, much less strike him.

"It is nearly time." Ning sipped from a glass of wine as he stared outside of the star-treasure he was in towards the approaching Iceland Elder Hall.

"Master, it seems as though we stand a good chance at escaping," Azurefiend's avatar said excitedly.

"The Flameland Elder Hall and the Iceland Elder Hall both voluntarily abandoned their foundations in order to attack me. That's why they aren't that dangerous. But the remaining Daoguard Tower which is owned by Exalt Bowenya… now that is a different story." Ning shook his head. "The central control mechanisms for this entire hidden dimension are located within that Daoguard Tower, which means I have to actually go inside it. The danger level inside a Daoguard Tower is completely different."

"You have to be careful, Master," Azurefiend's avatar said. The more time he spent with Ning, the more admiration he felt, especially when he saw how almost nothing could shake Ning's Dao-heart and how calm Ning was in the face of even the greatest of dangers. Azurefiend himself was not capable of this.

"Attack! Kill Daolord Darknorth! Kill him and we'll be rewarded heavily. Even if we die, we'll be revived through spacetime inversion and then be graced with many gifts! If we can't kill him, at least we can tire him out a bit. Next, Exalt Bowenya will personally deal with him! So long as the Exalt succeeds, we'll still be brought back."

"ATTACK!" Jonnbech howled. His only hope was to render enough merits to the Sithe that he would be revived via spacetime inversion… because he knew that they were definitely going to die during this battle against this terrifying Daolord.

"Let's go!"

"Attack!" All the Hegemons and Emperors charged forwards madly, including both the true Sithe and the Sithe descendants. If they charged and attacked, at least they would have a tiny chance at surviving this. Anyone who dared to try and flee would be put to death in accordance to Sithe laws, never to be revived again.

"They clearly know that they have no chance against me. They are like mantises waving their arms in front of a cart and seeking to stop it, but they still show no signs of fear at all." Ning couldn't help but feel a slight sense of trepidation when he gazed upon the hundreds of berserk Hegemons and Emperors. "Hawkfang's memories indicate that even Sithe Exalts like his father were all forced to take part in this war. Life amongst the Sithe certainly is brutal."

Whoosh. Ning used the power of his Illusion Sword Dao against the rampaging Hegemons who were charging towards him as the battle began.

Within the final Elder Hall, the brightest one of the three. The blue-robed, blue-haired Bowenya was standing there, calmly watching the battle from afar.

He didn't care about the deaths of the Hegemons and the Emperors. He only cared about one thing… success!

"If they die, they die. So long as we can kill Daolord Darknorth and swallow up his truesoul, I'll have rendered the greatest merit anyone has accomplished since our invasion into this Chaosverse! I'll be given true freedom, and many other gifts as well." Exalt Bowenya stared intently at the distant white-robed youth. "This is in accordance with the rules which our leader personally wrote down. There's no way he would go back on his word."

"We have to kill him." Bowenya's eyes were filled with savagery as well. Hawkfang? Jonnbech? Even if they died… even if this entire hidden dimension was destroyed… he wouldn't care one bit! The only thing which mattered was killing Ning and then swallowing up his truesoul.

According to what their leader had said, the higher your status and the more karmic luck you had, the more the Quintessence of the Chaosverse would dote upon you! The person before Bowenya was the first master of an Eternal Omega Sword Dao this Chaosverse had ever seen. Even though he had failed his Daomerge, he would remain beloved by this Chaosverse and would be blessed with tremendous karmic luck and tremendous power.

Similarly, during the era of the Three Realms, its most talented experts such as Nuwa and Ning would all be blessed and reinforced by the power of the Three Realms. The same was true for the Chaosverse as a whole. The most talented denizens of the Chaosverse would be blessed with tremendous karmic luck. This was true for both the Autarchs and Ning! If any of them were slain and their truesouls devoured, it would be a tremendous blow to this Chaosverse as a whole!

If Ning had died under ordinary circumstances, such as his truesoul naturally dissipating, then his truesoul fragments would make their way back into the prime essences of the Chaosverse. But if he was killed by the Sithe, then had his truesoul fragments devoured in accordance with those secret Sithe truesoul-swallowing techniques, there would be no way for his truesoul fragments to go back to this Chaosverse.

This was why Bowenya had to kill Ning, rather than just trap him and let him slowly die a normal death. And… killing Ning would be an even greater accomplishment than killing an ordinary Autarch!

This was because the Sithe leadership knew that while ordinary Autarchs were unable to improve any further, those who were in control of an Eternal Omega Dao could very well take that final step and become an Omega Autarch, resulting in a new Lord of Chaos being born. The Sithe would stop at nothing to kill Ning! Even though he had failed his Daomerge, they would still be worried that someone as brilliant as him might be able to come up with a way to devise a 'Truesoul Everlasting' technique.

The sooner they killed him, the better.

After capturing Jonnbech and the others, Ning inspected all of their memories. However, the only unexpected surprises came from Jonnbech himself. Jonnbech actually had a perfect Dao-heart, and so the illusions formed from the Sword Dao Domain were not enough to control his mind. Ning was forced to use some of his own power and use a secret art in order to draw Jonnbech into an illusion, then rifle through his memories.

Ning was quite delighted by what he found. Jonnbech, as someone who had a perfect Dao-heart, was a very high-ranking Sithe. He was far more important than the vast majority of Hegemons, and was given the best resources in the hope that he would become an Exalt! As a result, he had viewed many different techniques which were meant to aid Hegemons in breaking through to Autarchy. Some required lifeblood oaths to be sworn not to divulge them to outsiders, while others Jonnbech had found on his own. The latter didn't require any oaths, and so Ning managed to uncover quite a few techniques which not even Autarch Titanos or Autarch Awakener had been able to acquire.

"This is an unexpected surprise. And… it seems that Jonnbech's home truly had many powerful experts within it." Ning found quite a few memories pertaining to the Sithe Chaosverse as well. There, the 'Exalts' were truly Autarchs in power.

But of course, there were differences in power amongst the Autarchs as well. Some reached Autarchy as Heartforce Cultivators, while others reached Autarchy through the Dao of the Sword, the Dao of Spacetime, the Dao of Space, and more. Some reached Autarchy through the Dao of Metal, while other reached Autarchy through the Dao of the Five Elements.

Different Daos would result in different levels of power. Those who reached Autarchy via the Dao of Space, for example, would be a bit weaker than those who reached Autarchy via the Dao of Spacetime. In turn, those who reached Autarchy via the Dao of the Five Elements would be even more powerful.

Alas, all memories pertaining to the secrets of the Omega Daos were sealed by lifeblood oaths. Even so, Ning's horizons were considerably expanded. He actually gained new insights into his own path of cultivation as well.

"I don't have enough time as a cultivator of the Dao of the Sword. Reaching Autarchy via my Omega Sword Dao before my truesoul crumbles is nothing more than a vain dream. I don't have nearly enough time; in fact, I probably won't even be able to finish my Karma Sword Dao! I need to focus all of my efforts on creating the 'Truesoul Everlasting' technique."

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