Book 41, The Daoguard Tower, Chapter 5 – Hope of Release

The short creature was unable to disguise the excitement in its eyes. Each time he took control of the Daoguard Tower and used it to deal with powerful figures, he felt extremely happy.

This was because if he truly engaged in a ‘fair fight’ against those powerful cultivators, he would probably be annihilated with ease. But with the Daoguard Tower at his disposal, he was able to toy with them instead! By now, this was the only bright spot in his life, the reason for him to keep living. The Sithe had been defeated, after all, and his master’s orders meant he had to stay here forever. His life was one of solitude and despair. If he didn’t have the occasional bit of entertainment, how could he have possibly been able to stay alive? His Dao-heart probably would’ve crumbled long ago, resulting in suicide.

“Those two are the most powerful cultivators I’ve ever encountered. I have to be careful. They won’t be beaten as easily as other cultivators.” The short creature took control over the Daoguard Tower’s powers, watching the scenes of Ji Ning and Azurefiend advancing at high speed.

……

After dealing with the Silver Goldhorns, Ning and Azurefiend continued to advance at nearly maximum speed.

“What’s that?” Ning soon saw some scattered weapons and armor.

“Master, is this connected to the Paragon of Pill’s team?” Azurefiend asked.

“This belonged to their slain comrade.” Ning scanned the area, his gaze causing time to flow backwards. Soon, Ning was able to see the scene of the Paragon of Pills, Lord Annihilation, a short, fat old man, and a silvery-haired woman fight against a total of four Silver Goldhorns.

The four Silver Goldhorns were overwhelmingly powerful. Although the Paragon of Pills and the others had many tricks up their sleeves, their techniques were blown away in the very first exchange. The short and fat old man was the closest to the four and the first to die, while the other three scattered and fled.

The four Silver Goldhorns were about to pursue, but all of a sudden they gave up the pursuit and left. Ning narrowed his eyes. “As I thought. This Daoguard Tower has someone controlling it.”

The Dawn War had ended long ago, and the barrier sealing the Daoguard Tower had also been breached quite some time ago. Logically speaking, the powerful Sithe who owned this Daoguard Tower had probably slipped away long ago, and so Ning had harbored the faint hope that this Daoguard Tower was now unmanned! However, he knew that even if the Sithe who owned this tower had fled, he might’ve arranged for a servant or a golem to control it in his stead.

Ning knew that chances of this Daoguard Tower being unmanned were slim… and now, his hopes were crushed entirely.

“I hope the controller of this Daoguard Tower is a wise man.” Ning shook his head slightly, then waved his hand and collected the armor and weapons lying on the ground.

“Master, where should we go next?” Azurefiend asked.

“That’s odd.” Ning suddenly frowned. “The Mistress and Annihilation clearly fled in two different directions. Why, then, are my karmic senses indicating that they are in the same region right now?”

“Follow me.” Ning trusted his karmic senses, and so led Azurefiend in a high-speed advance towards the Paragon’s location.

A short while later, Ning came to a sudden halt because a series of ripples had appeared in the air before him. The world around him was beginning to twist and contort as well.

“Master of the Daoguard Tower,” Ning said with a frown, his voice echoing within the world around him, “I am simply adventuring in this place and do not intend to enter the Daoguard Tower itself! There is no need for us to fight against each other.”

“Ehehehe…” A low, hoarse laugh rang out and echoed within the air around Ning. “What a formidable Daolord. I am truly rather mystified by you! But this is my territory. Now that you have dared to trespass here, your fate is under my control. Ehehehe… but let’s not be impatient! We have plenty of time. Let’s take it slow and have some fun together.”

“Is this about those two Silver Goldhorns? I can give them back to you,” Ning said.

“Hah! Once I capture you, they’ll become mine again regardless. All the treasures you carry shall be mine! Even you yourself, you diverting Daolord, shall become mine.” The voice was filled with a hint of wicked glee.

Ning’s face hardened slightly. He barked coldly, “So you are a madman. It seems you’ve been alone for so long you’ve gone insane.”

Daoguard Towers were used by powerful Sithe to protect their lairs. Generally speaking, so long as you didn’t try to attack the towers they similarly wouldn’t expend too much effort in attacking you! This was why Ning had tried to be fairly low-key and hadn’t caused too many problems. He had come here to rescue his friends, not to defeat the Daoguard Tower! He had thought that if he didn’t cause a fuss and didn’t infringe upon the Daoguard Tower itself and threaten its controller, the controller wouldn’t start a life-and-death fight against him. Clearly, he was wrong. The controller of this Daoguard Tower was a madman.

The madman by himself wasn’t that frightening, but the Daoguard Tower was!

“Eheheh… no one who has come here has ever been able to escape and survive. You won’t escape either.” As the voice fell silent, the surrounding dimensional ripples quickly began to reach out towards Ning.

“Master?” Azurefiend was a bit worried.

“I’m done playing nice!” Ning’s face hardened and a sharp look flashed through his eyes. “Sword Dao Domain!”

Rumble… countless blades of sword-light appeared throughout this entire planet. Clearly, Ning had just expanded his Sword Dao Domain to an incredible size, using it to cover the entire planet!

“Suppress!” Ning held nothing back at all. In the past, he had kept his Sword Dao Domain reigned in to cover a fairly small area because he didn’t wish to cause too much of a problem with the master of the Daoguard Tower… but since they were already at loggerheads, he wasn’t going to show any mercy at all.

Rumble… the terrifying Sword Dao Domain instantly crashed down, bringing a terrifying amount of power against everything within this planet.

“Damnit!” The short creature within the Daoguard Tower instantly turned pale, and his eyes became filled with both terror and excitement. His body began to quiver. “This is the domain of an Eternal Omega Sword Dao! Ahaha, it’s actually an Eternal Omega Sword Dao! All my defenses have to hold!”

A series of membrane-like barriers appeared across the surface of this entire planet, each of which covered part of the planet in an interlocking way. Thus, when the membranes rose together, they were able to block off all of the sword-light.

“The Daoguard Tower’s energies are being depleted at an incredible rate.” The short creature was rather nervous. Defending against this much sword-light was consuming power from the Daoguard Tower at a shocking rate, but Ning’s Sword Dao Domain drew energy from the power of the Dao itself; in other words, it drew from the power of the Chaosverse! Its energies were limitless.

……

In a different part of this planet, where space and time were both distorted. The Paragon of Pills, dressed in black gauze, was seated in the lotus position within a field of light. Ever since she had been trapped here, she assumed the lotus position and didn’t move around.

“I still haven’t been able to see through the secrets hidden behind this place. The more I move about, the closer I will be to death.” The Paragon of Pills weighed the area around her with her gaze. She had traversed many places in the Sithelands and had quite a bit of experience in this regard. She was also extremely patient and had reached extremely high levels in the Dao of Karma, the Dao of Formations, and the Dao of Spacetime. Thus, in most places she was usually able to discover the mysteries behind the various traps and then escape.

The reason why she had reached such high levels of skill in these Daos was because she knew she would have to rely on them and herself to revive her departed brothers. She had invested enormous amounts of effort into studying spacetime and karma, and they had become her secret weapons in ensuring that she was able to survive her trips into the Sithelands. Otherwise, she would’ve died long ago in one of her crazy expeditions here.

Boom! Suddenly, the entire field of light around her shook violently.

“Eh?” The Paragon of Pills lifted her head to stare into the skies. She could sense that outside the field of blurry light, there were two enormous surges of power that were clashing against each other. Both powers were so vast as to cause her to feel shocked.

“Could it be Darknorth?” The Paragon of Pills had a rather complicated look on her face. Her avatar was alongside Lord Annihilation’s avatar, and so she knew that Lord Annihilation had gone against her will and asked Ning to come save them.

……

“Either we stop now, or we continue until you are gone.” Ning’s voice was cold, and it rang out throughout the entire world. The walls of rippling spacetime around him blocked out his senses, but he knew that the Daoguard Tower had to be using up an enormous amount of power.

“Stop now? Ahahaha! Go ahead and try to attack the Daoguard Tower. Just try to kill me! Hah! If you can’t, you’ll be the one to die! Did you really think you are able to contend against me, puny cultivator? Besides, if I can take out someone who is in control of the Eternal Omega Sword Dao, my death would have been worth it!” The short creature had never felt this berserk before, because everyone in his own Chaosverse who was in control of an Eternal Omega Dao would have an extremely high status that was far superior to that of the Autarchs.

This was because Emperors who mastered an Eternal Omega Dao were on par with ordinary Autarchs in might, but the Autarchs had reached the end of the road; there was no way for them to become any more powerful. Omega Emperors, however, still had a chance to take one more step and become Omega Autarchs.

This local Chaosverse was a weak one, and its cultivators were barbaric… which meant that for them, a cultivator who mastered an Eternal Omega Dao would only be even more important!

“If you were a true Emperor, I would probably stand no chance at all. However, your truesoul is crumbling, which means I have a chance to kill you.” The short creature had gone completely berserk, because he knew that if managed to kill an Eternal Omega Sword Dao wielder, he would have rendered incredible merits to his side. Even if he died, his truesoul would return to his homeland, at which point he would almost certainly be revived and brought back to life for his efforts.

He had thought that his only choice was to await death, that there was no longer any hope in his life… that toying with impudent trespassing cultivators was the only thing left. But now? Now he saw hope, hope of release!

“Die! Dimensional Separator!” The short creature no longer chose to be as cautious as he was at the start. His eyes filled with madness, he immediately used a vicious technique that had a serious backlash effect.

Whoosh!

Ning suddenly felt as though this entire planet had suddenly been split apart like a watermelon. It was separated into two parts, which was then separated into hundreds of different parts! The area he was in was just one ‘shard’ of the watermelon, a shard that was in a completely different dimensional continuum that had been completely locked away, trapping himself and Azurefiend within.