Desolate Era

Chapter Book 21, 37 - The Bloodlotus Blooms

Some True Gods and True Immortals were much weaker than Ji Ning. They only had the power of an ordinary Daofather, and so Ji Ning was able to easily defeat them. He didn’t even gain many insights from battling them, only spending a few hours in meditation afterwards.

After battling the more powerful ones or the ones who had some special abilities, Ning might spend seven or eight days carefully reflecting on their battle.

Twelve months after Ning began his sweep through the prisonworld. He was within a region filled with dark fog where a True Immortal was kept prisoner. Boom! Boom! Boom! The sounds of a major battle could be heard booming out from within the fog, causing the fog itself to roil and roll about.

Within the fog.

“Go!” The seemingly berserk violet-eyed woman pointed towards Ning, causing a sky filled with black light to shoot towards Ning

Ning held his twin swords in his hands, slowly stepping through the air and advancing.

He was in no rush to attack his opponent. He just slowly advanced through the air, giving his opponent plenty of time to attack him.

Although collecting enough treasures to repair Violetjewel was important, his own personal skill and power was his true foundation of strength. He had to treat every battle against these True Gods and True Immortals seriously.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Ning’s sword-light fluctuated in an unpredictable manner. He even used his attacking stance, ‘Shadowless’, to defend against all the enemy’s attacks. From this, one could tell how transcendent his sword-arts had become and how vastly superior he was compared to his foe.

“Is that your ultimate attack?” Ning continued to stroll forward as he spoke.

The violet-eyed woman’s face was ashen. She growled out, “Come back.”

Whoosh. Instantly, the countless streaks of black light flew back to her and entered her body. Only then did her face recover a bit of color.

“You are far more powerful than me. If you want me to submit, I’ll submit.” The violet-eyed woman came to this decision in a straightforward manner.

“A hundred and ninety-two.” Ning nodded and murmured softly to himself.

The violet-eyed woman was stunned. What did the Overseer mean by mumbling that number?

“Alright.” Ning pondered for a moment. “I’ve swept through a hundred and ninety-two of the True Gods and True Immortals of the prisonworld. That’s more than half of them. That should be enough treasures to repair the surface layer of Violetjewel.”

All the treasures he had acquired from the Celestial Immortals and Empyrean Gods here, combined with a few treasures from True Gods and True Immortals, had only been able to repair a fifth of the surface damage to Violetjewel.

This time, he had collected far more treasures. It was most likely enough.

“Time to give it a try.” Ning immediately made the decision to temporarily stop his campaign and instead go give repairing Violetjewel a try.

But of course, before he went to repair Violetjewel, he still had to finish what he came here to do.

Ning reached out with his hand, letting it rest upon the head of the violet-eyed woman. Ning was going to search through the memories of every single True God and True Immortal. Perhaps he might some information which might be of some help to him.

……

Next to a beautiful lake.

The white-robed youth, Ji Ning, landed on the ground next to it. With a wave of his hand, he caused the jade shrine to appear on the grassy banks of the lake. The enormous stone sword-steles landed next, followed by the 3600 enormous Goldstar Beads of the Heavens that surrounded everything.

Ning then stepped into the jade shrine, seated himself on the prayer mat, then began his meditations.

After each battle, he would carefully reflect on every single thing he had seen.

Although he had decided to go repair Violetjewel after this battle, he still chose to first calmly meditate on the battle he had just experienced.

Time slowly flowed on…

Ning just sat there quietly in the lotus position. A full day later, he opened his eyes, rose to his feet, then walked outside the shrine.

He was in quite a good mood right now. In the past year or so, his sword-arts had continued to slowly improve a bit, and he had now acquired enough treasures to be able to repair Violetjewel. With Violetjewel in hand, he would probably be at the overlord level of power. Even though he might a bit lacking compared to those elder figures who had long ago reached this level of power, the difference wouldn’t be as great as it had been in the past.

“The Nine chaos Seals.” Ning’s gaze fell upon the nearby goldstar beads, each roughly ten meters tall right now. The goldstar beads were covered with the complicated flowing runes of the Nine Chaos Seals, which continued to change and transform with every moment in a pattern which was never repeated.

Ning had a smile on his face, and he continued to look at the beads in quite a fine mood.

“Eh?” Suddenly…

Ning felt a tremor in his heart. He stared closely at the constantly changing runes.

He stared unblinkingly at the runes for a full hour…and then he sat down on the grass and immediately shut his eyes.

After sitting there meditating on the grass for nearly a day, Ning opened his eyes.

“Arise.” Ning willed it.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The 3600 goldstar beads all rose into the air in a massive, dazzling, dense array. They hung high in the air like the stars in the sky. Ning’s powerful Immortal energy quickly filled every single goldstar bead. Then, he imposed his will upon them, causing them to rapidly transform. The aura of every single goldstar bead began to grow in power. In fact, every single goldstar bead seemed to grow to become more powerful than top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasures before the strengthening process ceased.

“I’ve finally completely mastered the third chaos seal,” Ning murmured softly to himself.

“Eh?”

His subconscious had suddenly connected to a place that was infinitely distant from Ning. It was beyond space, beyond time, beyond distance itself. In the past, Ning had never sensed this place before. Now that he had mastered the third chaos seal, his powerful heartforce, assisted by the chaos seals, was allowing him to vaguely sense it.

“Kill.”

“Kill.”

“Kill.”

This was a place that was filled with an aura of boundless murder and death. It was infinitely far away from him, but just sensing the place caused Ning’s heart to shudder…and at the same time, the aura seemed to stir that killing intent that Ning had buried deep in his own heart, the killing aura that stemmed from his hatred of the Seamless Gate and his desire to kill the Godking.

Ning’s eyes turned completely red upon being struck by this surge of killing intent. His veins began to protrude out from his body, which was trembling. Even with Ning’s skill in heartforce, it took a long time for him to calm down.

What he didn’t know was that different people would experience different things upon mastering the third chaos seal. For example, when Ning had been roaming the mortal world, he had mastered the second chaos seal and gained insight into the workings of fate, causing him to become much more attumed to it. Now, his heart had become filled with a desire to kill, and his heartforce was also extremely strong, which was why he became attuned to the essence of slaughter.

“Huff. Huff.” Ning panted as he slowly calmed down…but as he did, he became even calmer than before.

He stared at the 3600 goldstar beads hovering in the air. At present, the goldstar beads…had already transformed into many closed blood-colored lotus buds.

The thirty-six hundred blood-colored lotus buds hung there in the air, so beautiful as to inspire terror.

“Condense.” Ning willed it. Instantly, the 3600 lotuses began to merge together, soon transforming into a total of thirty-six enormous blood-colored lotus buds.

“Bloom,” Ning ordered.

The thirty-six beautiful blood-colored lotus buds slowly began to bloom. Previously, they were absolutely beautiful, but once they bloomed…a boundless aura of murder and slaughter instantly spread out ine very direction.

“The bloodlotus blooms only for the sake of slaughter.” Ning could sense how tremendously powerful the goldstar beads would be in the form of these bloodlotus flowers. The Goldstar Beads of the Heavens now had three ideal forms they could assume. The first was the ‘bead’ form which was the most ordinary and well-rounded. The second was the ‘mirror’ form which was well-suited for defense. The third was this ‘bloodlotus’ form which was perfectly suited for slaughter.

The way in which the bloodlotus slaughtered was different from that of ordinary weapons.

“These goldstar beads…although they were formed from valuable materials, the crystals that form from the energy left over after stars perish, it is the Nine Chaos Seals which gives them their true power and makes them truly valuable.” Ning understood this. The reason why he became more attuned to fate and could even sense that distant place of endless slaughter was because of these Nine Chaos Seals.

“Daoist Three Purities’ ‘Immortal Slaying Sword Formation’ was derived from the seventh chaos seal. No wonder it is known as the number one killing formation of the Three Realms.”

Ning stared at the bloodlotus flowers. His heart was filled with bellowing rage and murder, but he also felt strange, unnatural calm that he had never felt before.

“Hm?” As he was absorbed in the special mental state that came with controlling the bloodlotus flowers, Ning could suddenly sense something special happening within his divine body. His divine body was absolutely perfect and flawless, with every single cell in his body being completely without blemishes. However…right now, Ning could vaguely sense that every single part of his body was filled with desire. An extremely powerful desire.

It was…as though his body was starving.

This sensation was very vague, and Ning could just barely feel it. But suddenly, a thought entered Ning’s mind. He murmured softly, “It is said in the [Solitary World God] that one needs to find a spark of inspiration from your own body in the midst of solitude. If you find it, you’ll be able to step into the True God level.”

“It seems that my body was ready long ago. It has been starving…but in the past, I simply couldn’t sense it. I had no idea as to what I should do.”

“But now…I’ve found it.”

“I’ve found that spark.”

Ning revealed a smile as he softly said these words to himself.