Desolate Era (Book 22 - Book 24)

“Violetjewel…” Ning stared at the sword for a moment, then waved his hand. Whoosh! A large amount of treasures came flying out of nowhere, every single one emanating astonishingly powerful auras. The treasures almost instantly formed a small mountain in size. These were virtually all of the Protocosmic spirit-treasures Ning had acquired from the hundred-plus True Gods and True Immortals.

And after sweeping through so many True Gods and True Immortals, Ning had also acquired a Chaos treasure. The Chaos treasure was a great warhammer that sparked with countless flickers of lightning.

“So many Protocosmic spirit-treasures…well, no point to having too many of them.” Ning pointed to the distant Five Elements Cauldron. “Activate.”

Rumble…

The Five Elements Cauldron instantly began to emanate an aura of power and might as its handles radiated with five blinding colors of light.

“In you go.” Ning released a thin sliver of sword-attribute divine power that immediately swept all those Protocosmic spirit-treasures up. The sabers, swords, axes, beads…the various Protocosmic spirit-treasures continuously flew into the mouth of the Five Elements Cauldron, which furiously ground them apart and extracted the Five Elements essence from within them. In just ten seconds, Ning had thrown nearly thirty Protocosmic spirit-treasures into the cauldron, transforming them into tiny bits of debris. The amount of Five Elements essence inside the cauldron’s storage region had increased by quite a bit as a result.

The many Protocosmic spirit-treasures flew in, batch by batch.

Any major power of the Three Realms would’ve been terrified by this sight. Ning himself felt pain in his heart as well, but for the sake of repairing Violetjewel…it would all be worth it.

Crackle…hiss…pop…

Sounds of treasures being broken down rang out continuously from within the Five Elements Cauldron. The mountain-sized pile of treasures that had been next to it was shrinking rapidly, at a pace that could be detected with the naked eye. Soon, almost all of the treasures were completely used up.

“So much essence?” Ning looked at the Five Elements Cauldron. The storage region within it now contained an enormous amount of Five Elements essence.

A large amount of debris and rubble flew out from within the mouth of the cauldron. As it flew out, it was merely the size of a sphere that was roughly a few meters in radius, but once it completely exited the cauldron it quickly expanded to become a massive mountain of debris that was thirty thousand meters high. Ning ‘pincered’ the rubbish with his divine power, then gave them a casual toss. Swoosh! The massive pile of debris flew hundreds of kilometers away, and where it landed a giant mountain was born.

“Let’s see if it works, this time. Based on my previous experiences…this amount of essence should be enough.” Ning turned to look at the blood-colored sword atop the stone dais. Swoosh! The sword instantly flew into the air and came to hover in front of Ning.

“Emerge.” Ning pointed at the sword.

Five streams of colored energy surged out from the Five Elements Cauldron; the gold of Metal, the blue of Water, the green of Wood, the crimson of Fire, and the black of Earth. They swirled around the blood-colored sword in circles, and Violetjewel instantly began to shudder. It was like a starving beggar who had suddenly encountered a scrumptious feast. It instantly began to furiously devour the ‘food’ surrounding it. The five streams of energy completely surrounded it, but one could still vaguely see that the surface of the blood-colored sword was slowly beginning to heal. Some cracks were visibly growing smaller and smaller before disappearing entirely.

Time slowly passed.

More and more of the energy streams flowed out of the cauldron and into Violetjewel. The speed at which the sword was being repaired at was noticeably much faster now than when Ning had been using Pure Yang treasures.

It spend more than two hours swallowing the energy of the Five Elements essence before the cauldron finally ran empty.

“Eh?!” Ning stared at the beautiful blood-colored sword hovering in the air, a slight frown on his face. The sword was breathtakingly, terrifyingly beautiful, but two tiny cracks could still be seen on the body of this beautiful sword. These two were the two final cracks that remained.

“It actually isn’t repaired yet.” Ning frowned. “What should I do? I’ve used up almost all the Pure Yang treasures and Protocosmic spirit-treasures. I only have a single Chaos treasure that I don’t need, but there’s a limit to how strong this cauldron is. It wouldn’t necessarily be able to destroy a Chaos treasure,” Ning mused to himself.

The Five Elements Cauldron was just a Protocosmic spirit-treasure. It would be extremely difficult for the cauldron to destroy a Chaos treasure and extract essence from it.

“Oh, right.” Ning suddenly thought of another treasure. With but a thought, he instantly caused an ape-shaped golem to appear in the air. It was the Envoy of All Things.

“The critical components to this Envoy are all destroyed. There’s no point keeping it around. The Seamless Gate paid an enormous price to create each of these Envoys; when a Daofather is in command of them, they are all capable of unleashing power close to that of an overlord-class figure. This treasure is far more useful than a Chaos treasure, and it is made from more valuable materials as well.” Ning secretly nodded to himself. “It has to have a great deal of Five Elements essence within it.”

Although the Envoy was powerful, the physical makeup of the Envoy itself was merely comparable to top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasures. For such an enormous, powerful golem to reach the Chaos treasure level in its entirety was far too difficult.

“Go.” Not hesitating at all, Ning threw the Envoy into the Five Elements Cauldron as well.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The Envoy instantly began to be ground apart. It was extremely hard to forcibly break apart a top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasure, but the Five Elements Cauldron was able to accomplish it easily. It operated on the basis of principles that were completely antithetical to the existence of treasures such as the Envoy! After a long while, the entire Envoy had been completely harvested. Nothing was left but some debris, with a large amount of Five Elements essence having been extracted.

“A single Envoy contains far more essence than a hundred Protocosmic spirit-treasures. No wonder the Seamless Gate, despite all of its vast resources, was only able to produce a few of them.” Ning’s eyes lit up. He immediately guided the extracted Five Elements essence outwards, sending those five streaks of energy to once more swirl around Violetjewel.

Rumble!

Violetjewel began to emit a ringing soon as it quickly absorbed the Five Elements essence. Ning carefully stared at those two small cracks, watching as they quickly shrank in size and depth, then completely disappeared. Next, some of the shattered rune-lines on the inside of Violetjewel began to be repaired as well. However, repairing the internal structure of Violetjewel was far more difficult.

A short while later, all of the Five Elements essence was used up. The amount of internal damage that had been repaired, however, was almost negligible.

“World God Northrest’s words were correct.” Ning sighed softly. “Repairing the surface layer is easy, but repairing the internal damage…it’ll be thousands of times more difficult.”

“Fortunately, the most critical and precious part of the sword, its core, remains perfectly intact. Even though my sacrifice of the Envoy and all those treasures only allowed me to repair the surface layer, the sword can still once more unleash some of its true power.” Ning stretched his hand out and the blood-colored sword fell into his hands.

As soon as the blood-colored sword entered Ning’s hands, he could sense the inconceivable power held within it.

However, because the internal structure of the sword was badly damaged, only a portion of its full power could be unleashed at present.

“What a terrifying sword.”

Ning gently swung the sword.

Whoosh.