Desolate Era

The almighty Hegemon, the most exalted figure in all the Brightshore Kingdom.

Because of him, the Brightshore Kingdom sprang into existence. Because of him, there existed the Brightshore Imperials and the Twelve Palaces of Brightshore. Because of him, the kingdom was qualified to stand alongside the Dao Alliance and the Aeonian Kingdom as one of the most supreme powers of the Endless Territories. In front of him, even the most unruly of ancient powers would have to bow their heads.

“How is the latest batch of newcomer kids doing?” The six-horned, white-bearded old man slowly saunted towards them. Spacetime began to congeal and condense in the area around him. Although he wasn’t intentionally flaring his aura, the tiny bit of it that was naturally leaking out of him was more than enough to make all the members of the imperial clan or the Twelve Palace to feel as though they could barely breathe.

“The newbies? That kid named Waterwalker has superb innate gifts. The others are a bit lacking by comparison.” An incredibly muscular golden-armored man spoke out. This man was a bit excessively muscular. Even though he had already shrank down from his true size, his arms were still thicker than his head. There was clearly a bit of a mismatch in proportions. “Bertulu himself said that Waterwalker’s innate gifts are comparable to the gifts of us Imperials or those Ancient cultivators.”

“His innate gifts are indeed quite good. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really understand anything.” The white-bearded elder nodded slowly.

“As for those geniuses which Bertulu just battled against, he was able to defeat them all with ease. None of them can even compare to him.” The muscular golden-armored man laughed. “Hegemon, Bertulu truly is quite talented in the Dao of Light. Let him enter our Palace of Radiance! I can promise that I’ll take him on as my personal disciple and provide him personal guidance.”

This muscular man was an incredibly famous figure in the Endless Territories known as Daolord Thousand Waves. He was one of the two Palace Lords of the Radiant Palace, a figure who was capable of causing tremendous waves within the Endless Territories.

“There are so few Heartforce Cultivators. Thousand Waves, why must you fight with me over one?” A figured covered in black robes spoke out in an ancient voice.

“Your Palace of Heartforce barely has any Daolords in it.” Daolord Thousandwaves spoke in an utterly indomitable fashion.

“Although we are few in number, each of us has the power of ten or a hundred men,” the illusory, formless figure underneath the black robes said.

“Oh? The power of ten? Then why don’t you have someone in your Heartforce Palace come spar with me a bit?” Light began to gather within the eyes of Daolord Thousand Waves.

The black-robed figure was instantly rendered speechless.

Daolord Thousand Waves was one of the top ten experts of all the Twelve Palaces. If the Palace Lord of the Heartforce Palace was around, he might give Thousand Waves a run for his money, but he was out wandering the endless primordial chaos and hadn’t returned in more than ten chaos cycles. At present, there really was no one in the Heartforce Palace who was a match for Daolord Thousand Waves.

“When the time comes for Bertulu to make his choice, the two of you can do your best to recruit him.” The white-bearded elder smiled. “I won’t get involved. Enough. These two kids are about to start their duel.”

Rumble…

A series of moving images appeared in the air next to them. This was what was occurring within the dueling island. Ji Ning and Bertulu had just met each other.

“Darknorth isn’t bad either. Unfortunately, his opponent is Bertulu.”

“I wonder how long he will be able to hold on for?”

“That entirely depends on how long Bertulu wishes to play around for.”

This was what all the major powers were saying.

They truly had very high opinions of Bertulu. It must be understood that the Astral Islands had helped train many groups of geniuses over the course of countless years, but it had been an extremely long period of time since someone had excited them as much as Bertulu. This was because Bertulu simply had an incredible level of insight into the Dao. It could be said that as soon as he broke through to become a Daolord of the First Step, he would instantly become capable of matching Daolords of the Third Step.

If he spent a little bit of time training and became a Daolord of the Second Step, he would be capable of battling Verge-level Daolords!

Although others such as Gorho were also capable of becoming Daolords whenever they wished, no one in the Twelve Palaces really cared about him, even though they knew that he was an Aeonian! So what if he was an Aeonian? Even Eternal Emperor Melobo of the Aeonians had been severely beaten and chased around by Daolord Allgod.

Gorho’s level of enlightenment was far inferior to Bertulu’s.

“Bertulu really is at the point where he should be breaking through to the Daolord level soon.” A look of anticipation was in the white-bearded elder’s eyes.

All the major powers were staring at the midair images, watching as the battle was about to begin.

……

The oceanic island.

A white-robed youth who carried a sword on his back was staring off into the distance. He saw a white-robed, white-haired youth off in the distance, a youth whose eyes seemed to contain the all the stars of the cosmos. When Ning saw those eyes, he couldn’t help but be affected by their power.

“Incredible.” Ning was secretly speechless.

“Darknorth, my name is Bertulu.” The white-haired youth spoke out.

“Bertulu. I’ve heard of you, and I’ve been waiting for this battle for quite some time,” Ning said. For some reason, although they had yet to fight Ning already felt a sense of tremendous pressure. “The stronger he is, the better. I want to see how powerful a World-level cultivator can become.”

“You should be the strongest individual in the group of newcomers.” Bertulu smiled. “I hope you won’t disappoint me.”

“Then take out your weapon,” Ning said.

“Take out my weapon?” Bertulu smiled. “Let’s see if you are strong enough first.”

Although this was Ning’s first time meeting Bertulu, he had heard long ago that Bertulu generally used his bare palms when fighting in close combat. The only time he had ever used his weapons was in his battles against Kilostar! This was Kilostar’s evaluation: “Only once you fight him yourself will you truly understand how powerful he is. He is powerful enough to drive a man into despair. Only by using my thousand bodies formation am I able to make it so that he can do nothing to me.”

Whoosh.

Ning stood there atop a mountain boulder. His body momentarily blurred as he manifested three heads and six arms, a sword in each of his six hands.

“Hahaha…” Bertulu laughed, then began to stride through the air towards Ning. As he did so, he delivered a punch from far away.

Boom! His punch seemed to strike out with the power of a meteor as its power crushed through Heaven and Earth, slamming down towards Ning from the air.

Ning’s face tightened slightly, the desire to do battle growing even stronger in his heart. His opponent was fighting empty-handed, while he himself was using six Eternal swords. He had a huge advantage in this fight. “I have to force him to take out his weapons.”

Whoosh. Ning’s sword moved, transforming into a streak of absolutely dominating blood-colored light as it struck out against that fist.

Although it seemed to merely graze Bertulu’s fist, it instantly was able to have an impact on his fist technique.

“Oh? Interesting.” Bertulu laughed as he continued to stride forwards. He manifested six arms as well, then began to rain down blows with his fists like countless meteors shooting through the skies. His palms were like massive screens that blotted out the skies, and his fingers seemed to tear through everything in the world. Even though he still merely used his bare hands, his six hands were still strong enough to put pressure upon Ning with each strike. As for Ning, his pride prevented him from using his Elementum Waterflame Gourd.

Although Bertulu was strong, he was fighting empty-handed. Ning was already using six Eternal weapons against Bertulu’s bare hands; how could Ning possibly take out the gourd as well? If he lost in a situation like this, he would be thoroughly convinced of the latter’s superiority.

Rumble…

Bertulu circled around Ning at high speeds as he attacked, his aura flaring out and filling the heavens with each strike.

……

“Each time I watch Bertulu fight, I enjoy myself immensely.”

“Right. I truly would never have imagined that a World-level cultivator could reach such a high level of insight.”

The ancient powers in the dark abyss all sighed as they watched this battle go on.

The white-bearded elder nodded slowly. “When Dawnstar was at the World level, his saber-arts were comparable to Bertulu’s fist techniques. However, Dawnstar was merely a dual refiner who did not train in heartforce.”

“Dawnstar?”

“Palace Lord Dawnstar?”

“He was this powerful as well?”

“No wonder Palace Lord Dawnstar is so powerful now.”

All the ancient powers nodded.

Without question, the most powerful Daolord of the Twelve Palaces was Palace Lord Dawnstar. He was the Palace Lord of the Palace of the Saber. Although he was ‘merely’ a Verge-level Daolord, on one occasion when he was enraged he had slain an ancient Eternal Emperor with just three strokes of his saber. His reputation was instantly spread throughout the Endless Territories! He was so dominatingly powerful that he was even stronger than Daolord Allgod had been.

For the Hegemon to compare Bertulu to Palace Lord Dawnstar was a sign of how great his expectations were for Bertulu.

…...

Rumble…

Although Bertulu repeatedly circled around Ning and furiously assaulted him, he was unable to injure Ning in the slightest.

“If that’s all you have, you won’t even be able to scratch me,” Ning said coldly.

“You are indeed worthy of making me use a weapon.” A sword suddenly appeared in each of Bertulu’s hands, and each sword was an Eternal weapon. The area around him became filled with endless flickers of light, and Bertulu himself was like the divine lord of the lights as he once more charged at Ning with those six swords at the ready.

His swords struck out in a fierce, dominating fashion. Ning was forced to defend with all his might.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

“What powerful sword-arts! Still, the stronger he is the better.” Ning only grew even more excited. The Thunderlight Wings suddenly appeared on his back, bolstering his footwork techniques. Each flutter of the wings and each step Ning took was like a stance from a sword-art. His movements and his attacks had all joined together into a perfect whole.

Ning struck out with his six Violetjewels simultaneously, transforming them into six streaks of bloody light that slashed out through the skies. Each time, he was able to defend against Bertulu’s swords.

“He was actually able to defend against me?” Bertulu was rather startled. He called out, “What is your sword-art named?”

“During my thousand years here at the Astral Islands, I merged the Unicorn’s Heart stance with my Astral stance and created a defensive technique,” Ning replied. “I named it the Unicorn’s Domain!”

“Unicorn’s Domain?” Bertulu was slightly surprised.

The Unicorn’s Domain represented Ning’s most profound insights into the Dao of the Sword.

The Unicorn’s Heart represented a certain level of insight into the sword that was focused on defense. Much like how the Heartsword stance represented the heart having full control of the sword and the world around it, or the Great Firmanent stance represented the power of an entire world, this stance represented a type of domain that was even more profound than the Unicorn’s Heart. Ning had used the essence of the Unicorn’s Heart and fused it with the even more powerful Astral stance to create this domain, his Unicorn’s Domain!

He was able to defend against any attacks that entered this domain. Each time, his defenses were able to deflect and then counterattack the enemy. The Astral stance was merely a ‘tool’ in that using it with Violetjewel resulted in tremendous gains in power. For him to incorporate it into his Unicorn’s Domain and use it to defend or deflect just made the power of the domain even greater and more effective.

By relying on this technique, Ning had been able to finally defeat the fisherman in the third Mirrorsnow Painting. However, Ning’s sword-arts had since reached a true bottleneck, which was why he had decided to leave the Astral islands.

“This is the most powerful sword-art I have at present,” Ning said. “Bertulu, I’ve already activated my Unicorn’s Domain. If you can defeat this domain of mine, I will admit defeat.”

“Haha, good. Aside from Kilostar, you are the only person in all the Astral Islands capable of forcing me to use my true weapons.” Suddenly, the six swords vanished from Bertulu’s hands. Moments later, two heavy warhammers appeared. One warhammer was black while the other was white, and both were Eternal weapons.

“Judging from the fist techniques you used earlier, I actually guessed that you specialize in something aside from sword-arts. It seems as though my guess was correct. You actually specialize in hammer-arts, using your hands as your hammers, right? Come. Let us see if you can break my Unicorn’s Domain.” Ning had absolute confidence in his Unicorn’s Domain. This was a technique which was perfect for a weaker cultivator to defend against a stronger foe with. It was a defensive sword-art that avoiding facing a stronger foe’s attacks head-on.

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