The Desolate Era

“Darknorth, what should we do?” Ninedust was anxious as well.

“Seize every moment and try to beat these three crimson-armored warriors as soon as we can,” Ji Ning said immediately. “Winesage’s actions have probably driven all of the supreme Daolords into a panic. Seven, eight, or even more of them might well work together to blow through the first world as soon as possible. Once they reach the second world, we probably won’t be able to deal with these three in peace.”

“Alright.” Ninedust agreed with this assessment.

In the Endless Territories’ rankings of Daolords, there were over twenty publicly acclaimed ‘supreme’ first-tier Daolords! If you factored in the low-key ones that very few had heard of, there had to be at least thirty or more.

Although the warriors in the dimensional walkway of the first world were tough to deal with, they were still just equivalent to second-tier Daolords. If seven or eight supreme Daolords joined forces against them, they’d be able to burst past with ease.

“We don’t have much time left,” Ning said anxiously.

“Kill!” Both Ning and Ninedust fought even more frantically.

“Haha, the two of you aren’t bad, but you aren’t strong enough to beat us.”

“It is useless! You should wait for the other Daolords to arrive, then join up with them.” The three crimson-armored warriors continued to crush the Ning-Ninedust combination.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” Ning only grew more and more frantic. He knew that they were running out of time; his only chance lay in mastering the tenth stance of the [Heartsword], the ‘Killsword’ stance. He had already spent many years studying it again and again, but hadn’t been able to master it thus far.

“Haha... Winesage has gone to Palace Lord Dawnstar’s dimensional walkway. However, five supreme Daolords including Dawnstar have joined forces against him. My guess is that Winesage is going to give up. He’ll be coming straight for your walkway instead,” the three crimson-armored warriors said.

“Palace Lord Dawnstar’s tunnel has five supreme Daolords in it, but the two of you are by yourselves. It’ll be quite tough for you to deal with Winesage. He might actually take the Voidsea Jadeseal away from you.”

The crimson-armored warriors clearly knew exactly what was going on elsewhere as well.

“Are we out of time?” Ninedust grew increasingly anxious.

“Break!” Ning’s streaks of foggy sword-light suddenly transformed. The foggy mist suddenly condensed and solidified into clear streaks of sword-light, and the power of Ning’s sword-arts once more skyrocketed! They became even faster and were filled with even greater power!

“So this is the ‘Killsword’ stance?” Ning finally understood the essence of the tenth stance of the [Heartsword] – the Killsword stance.

It required one to not only feel intoxicated and blissful, but to also feel a sense of incomparable resolve and determination! Only when this determination and resolve reached a certain level of strength could heartforce be woven more perfectly into one’s sword-arts. One’s heartforce would move in a more natural way and achieve a greater level of harmony, allowing the power of one’s sword-arts to increase. This was reflected in the real world by the dense fog solidifying into the shape of a sword!

Slash! Slash! Ning executed the Blood Drop stance. The Omega Sword Dao – Blood Drop! This was Ning’s most powerful attack, as the Northbow swords increased its power fivefold! Now that even more heartforce was infused into it via the ‘Killsword’ stance, its power doubled yet again!

The ninth stance, ‘Blissheart’, increased his power by 50%.

The tenth stance, ‘Killheart’, increased his power by 100%!

Thanks to his [Heartsword] and the Northbow swords, Ning’s Omega Sword Dao – Blood Drop was now ten times more powerful than it had any right to be! It was a technique that focused on obliterating everything in its path with unstoppable speed, and now it had sped up even more and reached an incomprehensible level of might.

Clang!

Slash!

The crimson-armored warrior used his warblade to execute the same stance as he had in the past to block Ning’s sword-arts, but his face suddenly turned pale. He was able to just barely block two strikes from Ning, but he wasn’t able to withstand the third strike. Slash! The tip of the sword stabbed straight into the runic core at the center of his chest.

“I lost?!” The crimson-armored warrior was stunned.

“Big brother!” The other two crimson-armored warriors were stunned as well. Even when the three of them were fighting together, their big brother had been stabbed in his runic core? How were the two of them supposed to hang on?

“How could this have happened?”

“Impossible.”

The two remaining crimson-armored warriors continued to struggle, unwilling to give up.

“Excellent!” The Ninedust Sectlord was delighted and surprised by this. Moments ago, he had been at the brink of despair. Now, he felt as though he had been given a new lease on life. A short while later, the runic core on the chest of a second crimson-armored warrior was pierced through. A heartbeat later, the final crimson-armored warrior was defeated as well.

“Too fast. His sword is too fast!”

“Winesage is overwhelmingly strong, but at least we could take his attacks head-on. Darknorth’s sword is simply too fast, so fast that we can’t even defend against it.” The three crimson-armored warriors were thoroughly convinced by their defeat.

Overwhelming strength or overwhelming speed... which was better?

These represented two extremes. If your power reached certain heights, you could brute-force through anything you wished and nothing could stop you. However, if your speed reached certain heights, your enemy wouldn’t even be able to touch you while you would be able to launch attacks with ease.

Winesage relied on his Universe treasure to reach incredible heights of power, allowing him to actually send the crimson-armored warriors flying with each blow. However, their defensive teamwork was so tight and perfect that even when sent flying they could avoid giving Winesage the chance to stab their runic cores. This was why Winesage had been stymied for six full years by the three crimson-armored warriors.

As for Ning? When he had battled against Daolord Shaka, his attack speed had already surpassed Shaka’s. Now that he had mastered the ‘Killsword’ stance, his speed once more broke through its previous bottleneck to reach a brand new level!

He was simply too fast, making defending against him an incredibly difficult task. As a result, the three crimson-armored warriors were all consecutively defeated in short order.

“You won.” The three crimson-armored warriors all retreated.

“Impressive, Darknorth. Impressive! Your sword is simply too fast, far faster than Daolord Shaka’s. My guess is that not even the Radiant King is necessarily a match for you in speed. Your attack speed might be the fastest amongst all Daolords,” Ninedust said excitedly.

“To be faster than the Radiant King isn’t all that impressive! Only when I’m faster than Daolord Dreamlore would I be the fastest of all Daolords,” Ning said. Daolord Dreamlore’s usage of the bloodblade had surpassed the Radiant King in attack speed, allowing him to gain victory.

“Let’s hurry up and defeat the final black-armored general.” Ning didn’t have any time to waste, and he immediately charged towards the seated black-armored general.

“Right.” Ninedust hefted his longstaff and charged towards the final challenge as well.

......

Within another hall within the temple.

Palace Lord Dawnstar, Palace Lord Cloudwalker, Ninestone, Snowjoy, and Shaka were here. They had joined forces and had already fought their way to the black-armored general, but the general was simply too fearsome.

“Haha, this black-armored general is roughly on par with the eight lords of the Sacred Cities. Even if the five of you work together, it’ll be virtually impossible for you to stab his runic core,” Winesage said with a laugh.

“Winesage, one Voidsea Jadeseal is enough; don’t get too greedy!” Dawnstar and the others were working together, assisting the three crimson-armored warriors and preventing Winesage from advancing. All newcomers would be assaulted by all of the warriors upon reaching the second world.

“Winesage, you have no chance at all.” The combined forces of Dawnstar, Ninestone, Shaka, Cloudwalker, and Snowjoy brought Winesage a tremendous amount of pressure. Given the situation, there was no way he could defeat the three crimson-armored warriors at all.

“Hmph.” After battling for a short while, Winesage realized that he really had no chance at all. He let out a calm laugh and said, “The black-armored general is far too strong. You’ll need to find more helpers to work with you. As a group, you have to exceed the level of the eight lords of the Sacred Cities in at least one area, be it speed or power or something else, if you wish to have a chance at succeeding.”

In raw power, Winesage was still somewhat weaker than the eight lords of the Sacred Cities, but the Universe treasure brought him up to par. As a result, he was able to battle the black-armored general for a long period of time while seeking out a mistake or error. All he had to do was touch the runic core across the black-armored general’s chest and he was able to claim victory.

There was a big difference between just touching the chest and actually winning, after all!

For example, Ning and Ninedust stood no chance of truly defeating those three crimson-armored warriors. But merely touching the runic cores? Ning, via the speed of his Blood Drop stance, was able to succeed in this mission.

“Haha. I won’t play around with you any longer. I’m going to go see how Darknorth is doing.” Winesage let out a laugh, then gracefully retreated and moved towards the other region at high speed.

In the second world, the three major regions were all interlinked.

“Whew!” Dawnstar, Cloudwalker, and the others all let out sighs of relief.

“Winesage is heading towards Darknorth,” Ninestone said.

“Darknorth’s going to be in trouble, but we don’t have any time to spare with helping him,” Dawnstar said. “We need to try to seize every moment and try to find a chance to strike the black-armored general on the chest. As long as we can touch that runic core, we’ll have won.”

“Agreed.” They all understood that more and more supreme Daolords would begin to arrive, which meant that their chances would grow increasingly slim.

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