The Desolate Era - Volume 38 - Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Book 38, Daomerge, Chapter 36 – Easily Accomplished

“Yes, Master . ” Ji Ning’s command was perfectly suited to the Flamewing God’s temperament . It immediately unleashed an earth-shaking howl as it flapped its wings, leaving behind a jagged scar in the air as it soared towards the limits of this astral world .

The black-robed Sourcewalker simply watched calmly: “The forceful response, eh?”

BOOM! The ‘membranes’ of this astral world rumbled as the charging Flamewing’s giant fleshy claws slammed into them, with the explosion filling the entire starry realm . However, this astral world remained quite stable; it didn’t even budge in the slightest . Instead, it was Flamewing who was knocked flying backwards by tens of thousands of kilometers .

“Sithe war machines truly are impressive,” Ning sent mentally . “This black-robed Sourcewalker may be far more powerful than most Hegemons, but there’s no way it can possess limitless power like you, Flamewing . Ignore all else and just launch repeated attacks . A hundred attacks, a thousand attacks, ten thousand attacks… I want to see how long the Sourcewalker can resist you!”

“Fine . ” Flamewing’s confidence was soaring thanks to its master’s words, and it once more sent itself slamming into the edges of the realm .

Boom! Boom! Boom! Flamewing used all of its power to slam into the edges of the realm, moving in a fairly rhythmic manner . Seeing this, the black-robed Sourcewalker slowly shook his head .

Whoosh . The Sourcewalker willed it, and the strange energy that had covered this area of a trillion kilometers instantly dissipated, flying back into the globe in front of the Sourcewalker . The world around them once more reverted to the normal icy world .

“He gave up . ” Ning felt a sense of delight .

“Don’t misunderstand . I’m not afraid of you . ” The black-robed Sourcewalker’s voice boomed out, echoing through the skies: “The dimension formed by this Sithe war machine is incredibly stable and is not easily breached . I, Daoist Towerdawn, have wandered the Chaosverse for countless years and have many tricks up my sleeve . Even if I cannot kill you, it would be very easy for me to keep you trapped here! If you wish to leave this place, you must go through the tempest region . Even if no one is bothering you, it will take you a hundred million years to fly through it! If I chose to interfere, you might be able to stay alive but you’ll never be able to escape . ”

Ning’s heart sank . Indeed, the only way out was to slowly fly out rather than warp through spacetime . The black-robed Sourcewalker was probably telling the truth . However, thanks to Flamewing’s power it wouldn’t be that easy for him to trap them either .

Whoosh . The realmship appeared next to the Flamewing, with Ning, Azurefiend, and Whitethaw inside of it . They didn’t dare to leave it, for fear of being ambushed .

“You talk a big game,” Azurefiend called out . “Why did you put away that Sithe weapon, then?”

“Haha…” Daoist Towerdawn actually let out a rare laugh . This caused the armored Sourcewalker to stare at him in astonishment . His big brother almost always had an icy look on his face, and he rarely laughed .

“You were able to defeat my formation with ease . I refuse to believe this Chaos Primordial learned the art of formations! That means one of you two has to be a formations expert . ” Daoist Towerdawn’s gaze was cold and calm as he stared at Ning’s realmship . “That’s why I feel that there’s no need for us to fight . ”

“All you want is a Daomerge Firecloud Flower, right? Those things are of no use to us at all . I want your help in breaching a formation . If my guess is correct, you need the flower for the white-robed Daolord inside the realmship, yes? So long as you help me breach that formation, I’ll gift the flower to you! Not just that; I’ll give you other Daomerge treasures as well, like the Spirit Incense-Fruit . I’ll give them all to you!”

“But big brother! The Spirit Incense-Fruit is delicious!” the armored Sourcewalker couldn’t help but interrupt . Daoist Towerdawn cast him a cold gaze, causing him to instantly shut his mouth and fall silent .

“Breach a formation?” Ning and Azurefiend were both intrigued as they considered this from within the realmship . If they could avoid a fight, they would prefer to do so . Clearly, this Sourcewalker wasn’t easy to deal with! Azurefiend sent mentally, “Darknorth, the Daomerge Firecloud Flower and the Spirit Incense-Fruit are only useful to Daolords; they aren’t all that valuable to Sourcewalkers or Eternal Emperors! He probably won’t try to cheat you . ”

“This works for me . However, you must swear a lifeblood oath on this,” Ning said .

“Very well . However, I do want to let you know something; the entire Icewind Sea only holds a single Daomerge Firecloud Flower, and it is still growing . I estimate that it’ll take tens of thousands of chaos cycles before it ripens! Even if you accelerate time, you’ll only be able to accelerate it by a ratio of 1000x; otherwise, you’ll impact its growth cycle . In other words, you’ll have to wait a minimum of a few dozen chaos cycles before you can actually obtain it . ”

“That’s fine . ” Ning had suspected this would be possible, as Daomerge Firecloud Flowers had to be used within a thousand years of ripening . Thus, any ones he encountered were likely to be unripe . These marvelous flowers needed extremely long periods of time to grow . A few dozen chaos cycles… this was a fairly long period of time, but he needed to make other preparations for his Daomerge as well . Once the flower bloomed, he would need to immediately begin the Daomerge .

“Very well . I need you to unlock the restrictive seals covering this shield . ” Daoist Towerdawn waved his hand, causing a bronze shield which was roughly nine meters long to immediately appear before him . This shield had the enormous face of a beast as its motif, and it emanated a mysterious yet dominating aura .

“This is something I came across by accident when I was wandering the borders of the Sithe homelands, but I’ve been unable to defeat the formations sealing it,” Daoist Towerdawn said .

“The Sithe homelands?” Ning and Azurefiend were both surprised .

“Yes, the homeland of the entire Sithe race,” Daoist Towerdawn said . “Don’t ask any more questions; the only task before you is for you to unlock these seals . ”

……

Ning and Daoist Towerdawn both swore lifeblood oaths . Only then did Ning exit his realmship .

Whoosh . Daoist Towerdawn rapidly shrank in size from 540,000 meters to a height equivalent to Ning’s . He glanced at the armored Sourcewalker, who obediently shrank down as well .

Ning, Azurefiend, Whitethaw, and Flamewing all walked over as well .

“What cowards,” the armored Sourcewalker mumbled .

“They are simply being cautious,” Daoist Towerdawn said, then glanced at Ning and the other two . “If you can breach the restrictions covering this shield, it shall be as I swore . If not, you can forget about acquiring those treasures . ”

Ning walked straight over to the shield as he said, “Don’t worry, if I can’t break it we can just keep fighting if that is what you wish . There’ll be plenty of time for that . ”

“Grr…” Flamewing let out a low growl towards the two Sourcewalkers .

“Hah! You really do have a Sithe treasure here . ” Ning nodded . “It is actually covered with seven layers of restrictive seals . This has to be an extremely important treasure . ”

“Early on, one of my friends guessed that since it is shaped like a shield, it is probably meant for defense,” Daoist Towerdawn said . There were many types of Sithe war machines . Some were strong, some were weaker . The chains which Ning had acquired had suppressive effects and could absorb energy, while the one Daoist Towerdawn had just used was able to create a dimension of its own . Realmslord Windgrace’s ‘Blacksun’ was capable of allowing instantaneous teleportation across great distances and also had incredibly powerful attacks . The Realmslord’s single war machine was so powerful that it could influence entire sectors, making it incredibly precious .

Ning nodded, then lowered his head to carefully inspect the shield . He smiled . “Interesting . The person who set down this formation can be considered an expert, I suppose . ”

The formations over the shield served to suppress and seal its power, making it quite similar to the chains which had imprisoned the Flamewing God . However, it was clearly much less complicated . The Flamewing God had been incredibly important to the Sithe; they had sent three Sithe Exalts to capture it, then had fashioned the chains which kept it imprisoned . There was no way this buckler was equivalent to a Chaos Primordial in value, and the person who created the seals over it hadn’t been at the Sithe Exalt level .

The seals over the chains that had been around the Flamewing God? Now those had been complex! If it hadn’t been for the fact that Ning had a detailed library of many Sithe formations, there was no way he would’ve been able to solve them .

He had been at a very high level of insight into the Dao of Formations, and also had many detailed guides . Despite that, he still had to spend hundreds of chaos cycles analyzing the chains before managing to succeed .

In comparison, the formations before him were far simpler . Ning had reached a high level of mastery over Sithe-style formations, and the formation before him was actually something which was written down within that library of Sithe techniques .

“No need to rush things . Let’s take it slow . So long as you can finish before the Daomerge Firecloud Flower ripens, it’ll be fine . You have dozens of chaos cycles,” Daoist Towerdawn said .

“Dozens of chaos cycles? I’m gonna take a nap, big brother . Wake me when it’s over . ” The armored Sourcewalker turned, preparing to go take a nap .

“No need for all that trouble . ” Ning simply reached out and gently tapped the surface of the buckler . Instantly, a unique type of Immortal energy flowed out from Ning’s finger and began to silently break through the layers of formations covering the shield . In just the blink of an eye, all seven layers of formations were instantly breached . The azure shield immediately began to emanate with a terrifying aura that seemed to have the weight of mountains . Ning himself felt as though he could use all his power but still be completely unable to budge the shield at all .

“…big brother, didn’t you say that the formations were really tough?” The armored Sourcewalker stared in shock .

Daoist Towerdawn was rather surprised as well . Moments later, an overjoyed smile appeared on his face, and he actually slapped Ning on the shoulders in a very friendly manner . This caused Ning to feel rather surprised himself .

Daoist Towerdawn said with a joyful laugh, “You aren’t bad, you little Daolord tyke! I thought it was the skinny old man standing behind you who was the one skilled in formations . When I saw that it was you, I actually lost hope . I never would’ve imagined you’d break it almost instantly! You really are incredible . Feel free to take the Daomerge Firecloud Flower and the Incense Spirit-Fruit! Haha . Oh, right . I have a few other Incense Spirit-Fruits here in my estate-treasure . I was planning to serve them to any friends who came calling, but I’ll just give them to you instead . ”