The Desolate Era

Book 24, The Starlord of Fogstone, Chapter 16 – Entering the Ruins

Three days later.

“So this is the Windsource Ruins?” Ji Ning stood atop a cloud, staring downwards at the vast world before him. He saw an unfathomably large area that was completely covered by clouds. It must be understood that the Windsource Ruins was one the Immortal estate of that ancient power, and as such it took over nearly half of the space of the entire chaosworld. One could imagine how enormous it was!

“Time go to in.”

Ning flew deep into the cloud-shrouded world.

Whoosh.

He could sense space twisting around him. Suddenly, Ning’s legs went soft. Ning’s face changed and he hurriedly try to fly back up.

Whoosh…

An enormous bloody maw suddenly appeared below him, delivering a fierce chomp towards him. Fortunately, Ning was able to fly quite quickly and thus was able to dodge the bite.

“I was actually teleported straight towards the swamp.” Ning glanced downwards as he continued to fly high up in the air. The region below him was an incredibly vast swamp, and there was a mud-covered beast below him that was staring straight at him. The creature had a savage look in its eyes at it slowly crawled out from the muck, revealing a lizard-like body.

“According my records on the Windsource Ruins, as soon as you enter you’ll be teleported to the swamp. It doesn’t matter where you enter from; you’ll still be sent straight here. The swamp is filled with countless bugs and beasts, some powerful and some weak. The weak ones might be merely as powerful as a True God, while the most monstrously powerful ones might be as powerful as a World God.” Ning glanced downwards once more at the beast who was now tracking him.

It was normal for powerful cultivators to rear bugbeasts within their estates.

The ancient power who had build this estate had intentionally created an enormous swamp within it for the sake of rearing certain bugbeasts. In fact, he had established a breeding loop that would ensure that the bugbeasts would continue to kill and eat each other, becoming stronger and stronger without him even needing to worry about them. Thus, even though the estate’s owner had died countless years ago, there were still a shocking number of bugbeasts in the swamp.

These bugbeasts were reared for the purpose of becoming the guardians and protectors of the estate. Thus, all outside invaders would suffer attacks from these bugbeasts.

Growl…

The lizard-shaped creature opened its mouth even wider as it suddenly soared into the skies, its body coiling upwards for many hundreds of meters as it ‘crawled’ upwards through the air.

“Die.”

A dazzling streak of sword-light slashed through the bugbeast’s army.

Snick! The bugbeast’s body was chopped into two halves. Blood sprayed everywhere as it died, and as the blood came crashing back down to the swamp it kicked up a few small muddy waves.

[Brightmoon] sword art, Shadowless stance!

Ning held a Darknorth in his hand, shrinking it from being three thousand meters in length to merely three meters.

“There are way too many bugbeasts in the swamp. I need to get out of here.” Ning immediately transformed into a black lightning serpent and began to fly away.

The Windsource Ruins’ outermost region was the swamp region. Everyone had to start from the swamp and work their way in if they wished to reach the other regions of the ruins. Even Ning found it difficult to tell north from south after he had entered the ruins. All he could do was just choose a random direction and begin flying at maximum speed.

“Eh?” Ning could sense some ripples of power from afar. He immediately began to stealthily fly in that direction.

A short while later, Ning was able to see what was happening in the distance. There was a desolate hill off in the distance, and atop the hill coiled a two-headed serpent whose body was more than ten kilometers long. Its head was raised as it stared upwards at an enormous winged scaly monster that was right above it. Both creatures had auras of tremendous power.

“I have the feeling that in raw strength alone, both have reached the World-level of power. Still, they are fairly weak in terms of technique. It’d take me a bit of effort to kill them, but it wouldn’t be too hard.” Ning mused to himself, “I’ll wager these two are two of the bosses of the swamp.”

“GRWAAR!” The two-headed serpent let out a thunderous roar as it suddenly charged upwards.

As for the scaled monster, it plunged downwards as it attacked as well.

The entire swamp seemed to shake. Thankfully, spacetime in the Ruins was incredibly stable; even if World-level experts fought here, they wouldn’t be able to shatter it. If these two creatures were battling in the outside world, they would probably cause entire chaosworlds to shatter in their wake.

“Is that…?” Ning suddenly saw a filthy looking boat appear in the distance. The boat was filled with sabers, swords, suits of armor, pearls, banners, and all sorts of other magic treasures that emanated powerful auras.

“So many treasures? And almost all of them are Chaos treasures!” Ning was delighted.

Over the course of countless years, an equally countless number of Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals had died in the swamps. The bugbeasts weren’t capable of using the treasures the slain cultivators had left behind, and so the more powerful ones simply piled them together as spoils of war!

Ning suppressed his aura and bent light around him, making it so that the bugbeasts couldn’t see him.

“In order to completely repair Violetjewel, I’ll need to acquire an enormous amount of Five Elements essence. I have to get these treasures.” Ning immediately came to this decision. “Ideally, these two creatures will kill or maim each other.”

Slash!

One of the heads of the two-headed serpent was seized by the sharp claws of the scaly creature, but the other head had managed to latch its maw around the scaly creature’s own head. The scaly creature struggled furiously, beating its massive wings and causing waves of mud to kick up around it.

Boom! The scaly creature’s head suddenly exploded. Its aura began to grow weak and its struggling wings slowly began to sink downwards.

One of the two-headed serpent’s heads had been completely crushed, but its remaining head let out an excited roar.

“GRWAAAR!”

Its roars echoed in the skies.

It then lowered its head, beginning to dine on the flesh of the scaly creature. This was how these bugbeasts lived; they would fight each other and consume each other, constantly growing and transforming. As the serpent continued to feed, its destroyed head began to slowly grow out anew.

Swish!

A figure suddenly drew close to it.

The two-headed serpent was enraged, and its undamaged head immediately turned to stare angrily at the white-robed figure.

Whoosh! Its tail suddenly moved, lashing out lightning-fast towards the offender.

“Heartsword Realm.”

Boom!

Sword-light flashed. The enormous tail was deflected towards one side, with the sword-light itself stabbing straight towards the one remaining head of the two-headed serpent. The enraged two-headed serpent opened its giant maw, revealing a pair of crystalline fangs that glistened with translucent venom.

Swish! The venom shot out from its fangs as fast as lightning.

Slash! The sword-light blurred, easily deflecting the stream of venom.

Stab! The sword-light pierced straight through the two-headed serpent’s head. The serpent’s body trembled, then slowly began to turn limp. As it fell down into the swamp, it caused the surrounding mud to tremble violently.

[Brightmoon] sword-art, Blood Drop stance!

“Thankfully, this bugbeast had already been heavily injured and had less than a third of its maximum power. Otherwise, killing it wouldn’t have been so easy.” A look of delight was on Ning’s face. The most dangerous aspect to killing a bugbeast was the possibility of the bugbeast summoning its kin! Once a bugbeast encountered a powerful invader that it couldn’t defeat, it would often let out a loud cry to summon more of its ilk.

Thankfully, the two-headed serpent had been heavily injured and Ning had been very fast. Ning hadn’t brought Violetjewel with him on this excursion to the Windsource Ruins, as that was his most important treasure. If he died within the Ruins…losing the other treasures didn’t matter, but losing Violetjewel would be a tremendous blow. It simply wasn’t worth the risk.

Violetjewel was a sword which even World Gods and Chaos Immortals would go crazy over. So long as Ning had enough Five Elements essence, he would be able to reforge Violetjewel and allow it to reveal its true power.

“The treasures.” Ning immediately shot towards the distant hill. Next to that hill was the large, muddy boat that was filled with treasures. Those were the many treasures which the two-headed serpent had acquired over the years. Some had come from slain cultivators while some had come from slain bugbeasts.

“Twenty-one Chaos treasures. Perhaps the storage treasures will also have fine items within them.” Ning swept through the treasures with his heartforce, then waved his hand and collected the entire boat.

Swish!

Suddenly, a streak of light flew towards Ning from afar.

Ning turned his head to look.

“Well, well. Isn’t this our Sentinel? Ahaha! Hand over those treasures and I’ll spare your life.” A golden-robed man was standing atop the warship, and an entire host of Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals stood behind him.

“Elder God Skysouth?” Ning frowned.

Elder God Skysouth had over a hundred Elder God and Ancestral Immortal slaves, while Ning had left Violetjewel behind. Dealing with him would be a bit tricky.

In the Ruins, only part of the dangers came from the traps and defenses left behind by that ancient power. The other part came from the cultivators who might strike out at you out of greed!

“Hand over the treasures!” Elder God Skysouth’s face turned cold as he stood there at the front of his boat. “Otherwise, die!”

“Elder God Skysouth. I don’t wish to become enemies with you. The Windsource Ruins is a large place. There’s no need for us to fight to the death over these treasures,” Ning said.

“Fight to the death with you? You?” Elder God Skysouth finally ran out of patience. He barked coldly, “Kill him.”