Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

“Darknorth, this time you are wrong. The planetary core itself is a treasure. Look!” The Ninedust Sectlord pointed towards a distant rift in the core. “That rift there is leaking a large amount of golden ‘sand’. There’s no way anything leaking from the core of this planet could possibly be anything but extraordinary.”


Ning chuckled, then nodded. The main issue was that there was simply far too much of the golden sand. The entire core was cracked, resulting in much of that golden sand having spilled outside of it. The region of spilled quicksand filled an area of over a hundred million kilometers.

“I still can’t tell what this golden quicksand is.” The Ninedust Sectlord made a grabbing motion towards a handful of quicksand on the ground. Moments later, his face turned pale. He tugged viciously, causing all of the golden sand within the hundred million kilometer region to tremble slightly… but alas he wasn’t able to pull it to him.

“Ninedust, you can’t even pick up a handful of this sand?” Ning was startled by what he saw. He then chuckled teasingly, as he himself was beginning to realize how special and unusual the golden sand was.

“Why don’t you test it out yourself.” The Ninedust Sectlord gave Ning a hard look.

Ning reached out as well. It was quite easy for him to insert his fingers into the sand, but when he tried to pull out a handful of it he felt as though the sand was part of a complete whole.

BOOM! Although Ning used all the power he had, he was only able to cause the sand in the area to slightly tremble. He wasn’t able to pull any out at all.

“Can’t do it either, right?” The Ninedust Sectlord smirked.

“It reminds me of the stone passageways,” Ning said. “When we tried to hack the stones apart, we felt a counter-force emanate from the entire passageway.”

“Right.” The Ninedust Sectlord nodded. “When we try to grab a handful of the sand, all of the sand in this entire area is fighting back against us.”

The Ninedust Sectlord suddenly reached out once more. “Let me try a single grain of sand.” These grains of sand were roughly the size of a fingernail, much larger than ordinary ‘sand’. The Ninedust Sectlord let out a grunt as he pulled with all his strength. Boom! He managed to pull a single grain of sand into his hands.

“Now, let me try two.”

……

Both the Ninedust Sectlord and Ning were analyzing the sand of the planet’s core with interest. Since this sand had filled the entire core, it had to be the core’s primarily element. When undamaged, the planet’s core should’ve possessed enough power to wipe out the two of them with just the slightest of shockwaves. It was almost unbelievable that they managed to find a core of such power that was completely defenseless; there was no way the two would just pass such an opportunity up.

After a period of time, they verified that the more sand they tried to pull out at once, the stronger the resisting power from the rest of the sand would be. The difficulty level would quickly skyrocket.

“If we slowly pick this stuff up one grain at a time, it’ll take us forever. Let me see if I can perhaps hack it apart with my sword.” Ning pulled out a Northbow sword.

“Yes, if you can hack it apart into smaller pieces it’ll be much easier.” The Ninedust Sectlord stood back to watch.

“Chop!” Ning manifested [Three Heads, Six Arms] and gripped a single Northbow sword with all six arms, then unleashed his most powerful attack: Omega Sword Dao – Heavenbreaker. BOOM! The sword slammed into the defenseless sand, but when it moved deeper and sought to sever a piece of it, an invisible source of power suddenly arose to stop it. The power of Ning’s sword seemed to have sunk into a quagmire, having been completely absorbed by the endless sand and causing just a few vibrations.

“Won’t work.” Ning shook his head. “I can’t cut it apart. I’m not even close to being strong enough.”

“Master!”

“Master!”

“Hey, Master!”

One clear, child-like voice rang out after another as six adorable children appeared. All of them stared wide-eyed at Ning.

“Why have the six of you come out?” Ning chuckled. These six were the sword-spirits of the six Northbow swords. They were Lifeblood weapons, and so they were connected to Ning’s spirit and essence. Ning almost viewed himself as their father.

“Master, the golden sand…” The first Northbow sword, ‘Boss Northbow’, hurriedly pointed to the flows of golden sand. “That golden sand is very important to us. We can sense it! Can you give it to us?”

“Very important ot you?” Ning immediately understood. Lifeblood weapons needed to grow, but ordinary materials would be of no use to them. Clearly, the golden sand had attracted their interest.

“Yes.” The six children nodded simultaneously.

The nearby Ninedust Sectlord watched with amusement. “You actually have SIX of those Lifeblood swords? Not bad, Darknorth.”

Ning couldn’t be bothered to banter with him for now. He said to the six children, “But there’s no way for me to harvest or mine the golden sand.”

“No need. Master, just insert us into it.”

“Yes, insert us into it. Let us absorb it into us.” All six of the children continued to stare at Ning.





* * *





Book 30, Chapter 30 - The Growing Northbow Swords


Ji Ning was delighted when he heard this. He waved his hand, causing all six black swords to fly out from the sheath on his back and into the sea of flowing sand.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! They all plunged deep into the sand.

“Haha!”

“Here we go!”

“Oh, this is lovely.”

“Mm…”

The six children let out excited cries as they flew back into their respective swords. The six Northbow swords began to glow with a layer of golden light as the sand around them began to lose its luster, quickly changing to become a grayish-white color before then completely disappearing without a trace.

“In the future, if you encounter anything you like you can just let me know,” Ning sent mentally to his six sword-spirtis.

“We don’t know what we like either. We can only sense something we want from a close distance.”

“Right! Master, if you find anything powerful in the future, give it a few whacks with us first and we’ll get a good sense of it,” the six sword-spirits replied in chorus.

Ning laughed, a smile on his face as he watched the six Northbow swords furiously devour the essence of the golden sands around them. A large amount of golden sand was being rapidly converted into white dust and then vanish. In the twinkling of an eye, more than half the golden sand in a thirty meter area had completely vanished.

The nearby Ninedust Sectlord was rather jealous when he saw this. He hurriedly lifted up his longstaff, then plunged it into the golden sand.

“Ugh.” The Ninedust Sectlord shook his head, putting away his longstaff. He glanced at Ning. “Congratulations, Darknorth. It seems your Lifeblood weapons are able to absorb the golden sand quite rapidly. Why is it that my own Lifeblood weapon can make no use of it?”

“I guess they aren’t a good fit for each other,” Ning laughed.

The Endless Territories were filled with countless marvelous curios, but only a few of them would be suitable for each person. Ning’s six Northbow swords had been personally forged to perfection by Emperor Gonflame, as perfection was needed in order to match Ning’s own Dao. They were already nigh-flawless and thus very picky; thus far, they had shown no interest in anything Ning had encountered.