Desolate Era

Ji Ning continued to train, and nearly 6 million chaos cycles went past in the blink of an eye. Autarch Skyfeeder continuously maintained a rate of 1000x temporal acceleration for the Azureflower Estate.

One day, the gates to the estate suddenly swung open. The white-robed Ning walked out, black sheath over his back, and Autarch Skyfeeder halted the temporal acceleration process.

“You’ve finished?” Autarch Skyfeeder left her wooden cabin and walked barefoot through the air towards Ning.

“Thank you for everything, Autarch Skyfeeder,” Ning said gratefully.

“A minor matter. The stronger you become, the better off the entire cultivator civilization shall be,” Autarch Skyfeeder said with a smile. “And besides, it only took me 6,000 chaos cycles of real time. That’s nothing to me.”

“It was 6,000 for you, but to me it was 6 million,” Ning said with a sigh. It truly had been an extremely long period of time for him, and he had experienced it in its entirety. He had completely focused on cultivating, having emptied his mind of all other thoughts.

In the end, he had successfully mastered everything he wanted to master. The most time-consuming had been the Karma Sword Dao, and it had taken him nearly 3 million chaos cycles to complete it. Next was the Numerancy Sword Dao, which should’ve been just as difficult, but since he had already mastered the Karma Sword Dao he had managed to speed up the process a bit and had completed it in roughly 2 million chaos cycles.

Karma and Numerancy… both were extremely difficult to master. All the other Daos were simpler, with some taking a few dozen chaos cycles at most.

“How did your training go?” Skyfeeder asked.

“I’ve advanced as much as I can,” Ning said. “Based on my theories, I should be able to merge all the other Daos into the Autarch-level Omega Dao, but as of right now I still don’t know what that breakthrough would look like.”

“Going from Emperorhood to Autarchy has always been a difficult task,” Skyfeeder said with a smile. “Everything shall be as fate wills it. Based on what I know, the Sithe Chaosverse actually has quite a few Omega Emperors of the Sword, but all of them have remained trapped at that level.”

“Makes sense.” Ning nodded. He had reviewed the memories of many Sithe Emperors, and so he had come to learn quite a few things. All information regarding the Omega Daos themselves had been sealed, but there had been a few memories regarding the Omega Emperors. This was why he had come out of cultivation. It was probably impossible to become an Omega Autarch through secluded meditation. In fact, it was actually more likely that this breakthrough would come naturally as one lived an ordinary life! The Dao could be found in all things, after all, as all things were linked together.

It was true that putting yourself in a life-or-death situation could be even more effective, but then you ran the risk of failing and dying. The Autarch’s generally wouldn’t put themselves in such great danger without a very good reason, because their deaths could destabilize the entire cultivator civilization. In fact, it would impact the entire Chaosverse itself!

“Oh, right. I used Autarch Awakener’s original energy-cultivation technique to create an even more profound one,” Ning said. “Anyone can train in the new [Azureflower] technique and use it to convert divine power, Immortal ki, and heartforce into a new type of energy! This will greatly strengthen both body and soul. Give it a try, Skyfeeder. Let’s see if the technique is capable of transforming Autarch-class divine power and Immortal ki.”

“Autarch-class?” Skyfeeder felt rather excited at the prospect.

“I’m not sure if it’ll work,” Ning admitted with a chuckle, “But it was able to transform mine, so perhaps it’ll be able to transform yours as well.”

“Let me give it a try,” Skyfeeder said eagerly. At their level, it was extremely difficult to become even a tiny bit more powerful than before.

Ning handed over a jade slip. Skyfeeder accepted it, then memorized the information within it. This technique was extremely profound, but it only encompassed ten seals and so the amount of information needed to express it wasn’t too excessive. It was truly a highly refined and distilled technique. The Ten Chaos Seals were capable of transforming into countless other seals, but so long as you memorized the ten basic seals themselves, you would have memorized the entire technique.

Rumble… the awesome energy of the Quintessence suddenly parted, avoiding the area around Autarch Skyfeeder as her aura gradually began to change. Her very skin seemed to flicker with light. Clearly, her body was being reconstituted.

A short while later, she turned to smile at Ning. “It can indeed convert Autarch-level divine power and Immortal ki, purifying both to a great degree!” As she spoke, she waved her hand, causing spacetime around her to twist into knots. She nodded slowly. “When I use this new energy to activate my Time Daobirth Essence, the power is increased by 30%. I can also sense that my soul and truesoul are more stable as well, while my body is now comparable to Universe treasures.”

Previously, her body had been created through divine power. Now, her body was created by the far more distilled energy known as ‘mana’, making it just as tough as a Universe weapon. The same was true for Ning’s body as well.

“Hurry up and inform Titanos and the others about this amazing technique,” Autarch Skyfeeder said hurriedly.

“I was planning to, I just wanted to let you try it out first, Skyfeeder.” Ning smiled, then immediately notified the other five Autarchs through the message talisman.

……

Soon, all the other Autarchs came rushing over. Autarch Mogg, of course, only sent over his avatar. Ning provided them each with a complete set of the [Azureflower] technique, and they all found that after their energies were converted, they were now 30% more powerful than they had been in the past.

“Awakener had slaved away at this technique for so long… and now you, Darknorth, have finally completed it.” Autarch Titanos let out a sigh. “All of us have grown stronger thanks to this technique. Now that we also have a ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique, the cultivator civilizations shall be able to produce far more Emperors and Hegemons in the future. Given enough time, we’ll probably see many new Autarchs as well.”

“Time is exactly what we don’t have,” Autarch Mogg said. “If we had another ten million chaos cycles, sure; we’d probably have a large number of new Hegemons and maybe even ten new Autarchs. But I doubt we’ll be given that chance.”

The ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique would allow some truly talented figures who had failed the Daomerge due to having made the tiniest of errors a second chance at the Daomerge. If they succeeded the second time, they would become Hegemons. The more Hegemons the Chaosverse had, the more Autarchs would eventually be born as well.

“There’s no way the Sithe would just sit idly and watch our Chaosverse grow that much.” Autarch Stonerule frowned.

“Screw them. We’ve locked them all away!” Autarch Ekong said. “Sure, we suspect that they might be able to escape our seal, but even if they have, the fact that they have still been biding their time instead of attacking means that they are planning something else. Let’s start teaching these techniques to as many deserving cultivators as we can. If we can produce more and more powerful experts, the Sithe will grow restless and might end up launching their attacks ahead of schedule, before they are truly ready.”

“I agree. Let’s force their hand,” Autarch Titanos said. “If they really are sealed away, we’ll have nothing to fear and can use this opportunity to grow stronger; if they aren’t, we’ll disrupt their plans. Either way, we win.”

It didn’t matter if the Sithe were truly sealed away or not. They could not delay the teaching of the ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique any longer.

“For Daolords who have failed the Daomerge, the sooner they begin using the ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique the better,” Ning said. “If they wait until their truesoul actually breaks apart before trying to fuse the pieces together, it’ll be extremely difficult.”

Ning was the creator of the technique and understood it better than anyone else. He also had a perfect Dao-heart. This was why he had been able to reverse even the complete collapse of his truesoul! The vast majority of Daolords, however, had far weaker Dao-hearts than Ning. If their truesouls collapsed, not even the [Truesoul Everlasting] technique would necessarily be able to save them.

“Haha, I don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to actually wait until their truesoul collapsed before using the technique, right?” Autarch Titanos said.

……

Ning and the others eventually went their separate ways, returning to their various residences. Ning went back to the Three Realms, living a life of ease and comfort. He didn’t spend too much time analyzing the Dao of the Sword. Instead, he emptied his mind and purified his soul, spending his time on calligraphy, art, and gardening.

After 1,200 chaos cycles… Ninedust attempted the Daomerge. He succeeded on his very first try! He didn’t even need to use the ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique Ning had prepared for him. Ninedust had built up an incredibly deep and stable foundation before attempting the Daomerge. Not only had he used a Voidsea Jadeseal, Ning had also given him many techniques and an Incense-Spirit Fruit!

Ning quietly went to visit Ninedust by himself, offering his congratulations. The fact that he was still alive remained a secret! Ning’s success meant that their Chaosverse had just gained two new Autarch-class combatants due to Ning having such a powerful avatar. More importantly, Ning was different from the other Autarchs in that he was skilled in many different areas. He had his Spacetime Sword Dao, his Karma Sword Dao, his Cycle Sword Dao, his Numerancy Sword Dao, and more.

This made Ning practically flawless, able to cope with any situation. Two new Autarch-class combatants who had no flaws at all… once they were unleashed, they would definitely give the Sithe a nice big ‘surprise’.

After congratulating Ninedust, Ning went back to the Three Realms and continued his relaxed life. The Otherverse Lords and Hegemons in every single realmverse were all granted the ‘Truesoul Everlasting’ technique, and they were told to secretly teach the technique to deserving Daolords who had failed the Daomerge. Without exception, they were admonished to try and keep this hidden as best they could. The longer they could hide this from the Sithe, the better!

Time slowly continued to flow on… but roughly 3,100 chaos cycles after Ning’s return to the Three Realms, the peace within the Chaosverse was shattered at last!