Book 30, Ancient Cultivator, Chapter 29 – Golden Sand

The shattered planet still emanated an aura of exalted might, but it would never be able to pose a threat to anyone ever again.

“How could it have been shattered?” The Ninedust Sectlord was in disbelief. “Not even an Eternal Emperor could’ve destroyed something like that. Only a Hegemon would’ve been able to do it. Could a Hegemon have come here and destroyed this planet?”

“Let’s land on the surface and take a look,” Ji Ning said.

“Alright. Maybe there are some leftover treasures,” the Ninedust Sectlord agreed. Both of them were very curious; what type of power could’ve shattered such a planet? It must be understood that first planet had a similar aura of power and had twenty to third Daolords at any given point in time, as well as a terrifying number of earth devils. There was no way such a powerful planet could be destroyed on a whim.

Swoosh. Swoosh. The two quickly flew closer to the planet.

“Careful.”

“Let’s halt here.” The two of them simultaneously noticed the danger up ahead and issued warnings to each other as they halted.

“The rainbow light…” Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord both stared at the rainbow light before them. The rainbow light spanned an area of a hundred billion kilometers, including the planet. “It… it actually is the remaining presence and aura of someone else.”

“How terrifying.” Ning felt stunned. They hadn’t noticed anything from far away, but upon moving closer they were able to sense and be shocked by the highly withdrawn and reserved aura of the rainbow light.

“That’s not light at all. Those are waves of energy.” After taking a careful look, Ning realized that this was a stream of diffused energy waves that would never, ever dissipate.

“Some inconceivably powerful figure must’ve struck through space and smashed the planet apart, causing it to shatter and crumble. The remnants of the power left behind by that strike have taken the form of this rainbow light and been here ever since.” The Ninedust Sectlord took a careful look, then pointed towards a certain part of the rainbow light. “The rainbow light is denser over there. Most likely, that major power must’ve launched his attack from that direction.”

Ning nodded in agreement. This was indeed a killing blow from a major power, and it had the scent of eternity about it.

“The major power in question was very possibly a Hegemon, or close to it,” the Ninedust Sectlord said. “However… given how much time has passed, there shouldn’t be much power left in the remnants of his strike. Let me try it out first.” As he spoke, he stretched out his right arm, which extended more than a thousand kilometers and passed through the rainbow light.

Crackle, crackle, crackle. The remnant energy within the rainbow light instantly began to crush down towards the Ninedust Sectlord’s arm! This caused his face to tighten slightly.

“How’d it go?” Ning asked.

“Not too bad. It’s just a bit of leftover power, after all; I feel like it is merely on par with our secret arts,” the Ninedust Sectlord said. “The two of us can take it.”

Ning let out a sigh of relief, then said with amazement, “The remnant power of a single strike that was launched countless aeons ago is still on par with our secret arts… what power is this?!”

“Let’s go take a look at the planet. Although it’s been shattered, we might still find something nice here,” the Ninedust Sectlord said with a smile.

“Let’s go.” Both Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord flew carefully into the rainbow light. The energy within the rainbow light was folded in layers and contained hidden undercurrents to it. Ning activated his nine novessence arts and used them to form the Yin-Yang Sword Domain to protect them, while the Ninedust Sectlord used his own Ripplewater secret art. Together, the two managed to just barely resist the suppressive might of the rainbow light.

“These two shattered halves are both enormous,” the Ninedust Sectlord said with a sigh. One of the two halves was eight hundred million kilometers long, while the second half was over five hundred million kilometers long.

Ning and the Ninedust Sectlord landed upon the tattered planet. It was in absolutely dire shape, with no living creatures on it at all, nor did it have any flame demons or earth devils or other strange creatures.

“How desolate. Let’s go underground and take a look at the core.” The planet where Skywind lived had a core that could give birth to worldsplitter stones, Dragonfish Ki, and other similar items. The two were naturally quite interested in the core of this planet as well.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Given that the entire planet had actually had essentially been smashed into two giant pieces, one could imagine what bad shape it was in. As a result, the two were able to fly directly into the core of the planet.

“The planet’s core is shattered as well. There’s nothing here capable of giving birth to new treasures,” Ning said. He swept the area with his gaze, unable to discover any treasures akin to worldsplitter stones or Dragonfish Ki.

“Darknorth, this time you are wrong. The planetary core itself is a treasure. Look!” The Ninedust Sectlord pointed towards ad istant 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.