The Desolate Era

Chapter 18 – The Ba-Serpent and Ji Ning

“A Ba-Serpent?”

“Ning, son!”

Immortal Fivecraze and Uncle White were both shocked, especially Uncle White, who knew exactly how powerful Ji Ning had become. And yet, even he had been unable to resist that devouring force, and he had been swallowed by the Ba-Serpent in one gulp!

Although Ning’s Primaltwin was safe, they all knew that in terms of long-term potential, the true body was far superior to the Primaltwin; after all, the Primaltwin was merely a Ki Refiner, and so it was much weaker comparatively.

“What a terrifying Ba-Serpent!” The Scion of the Blood God, located within the cabin of the small black warship, was able to see what was going on outside. The heaven-shaking Ba-Serpent in particularly caused him to feel completely stunned. “The power of this Ba-Serpent…its aura is even more powerful than that of that old bastard Hunchmont. Why has a force suddenly emerged to act against Ji Ning? Is this a force that comes from outside the world of the Grand Xia?”

The Scion knew his own limits; clearly, these twelve white-robed figures that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere were far more powerful than him! That Ba-Serpent alone…it was capable of suppressing Celestial Immortal Patriarchs!

“A peerless genius of this generation, Ji Ning, has most likely just perished,” the Scion murmured to himself. “Hmph. Hmph. It’s for the best. Now, I shall let your master join with you.”

……

As the Scion of the Blood God began to charge towards the grand sealing formation. Within the ‘body’ of the Ba-Serpent.

Whoosh. An incomparably ferocious devouring force, one which Ning was completely unable to fight back against, had drawn Ning into the giant bloody maw of the serpent.

After being swallowed…the entire world turned dark. Ning just felt that he was constantly sinking downwards…

“Transform.” As he began to sink, Ning immediately executed the [Three Heads, Six Arms] divine ability. Six Immortal swords appeared within his hands as well; they were the Thousandbull Sword, three of his Darknorth swords, and two of the Wavebreaker Godshark Swords! This was primarily because Ning no longer had other Immortal-ranked flying swords on him; the Wavebreaker Godshark swords were top-grade Heaven-ranked flying swords he had acquired from the Treasure Hall of the underwater estate, and so they weren’t that much weaker than low-grade Immortal-ranked flying swords.

“Hahaha, Ji Ning, now that you’ve entered the body of the Ba-Serpent, you are dead for certain.” A wild laughter could suddenly be heard.

“Hahaha, you are dead.”

“Stop struggling.”

“Even Celestial Immortals will perish in here.”

Voices rang out from every direction. At the same time, quite close to Ning, a long awl suddenly shot out from a meaty ‘wall’. The awl flashed with a sinister light and moved lightning-fast. It even manifested the faint illusion of an azure hornet as it stabbed towards Ning.

Clang!!!

One of Ning’s six arms which wielded a Darknorth sword knocked the awl flying away.

Immediately afterwards, other types of magic treasures and secret arts attacks began to fly towards Ning from every which way. Because Ning was within the body of the Ba-Serpent, and the attacks were suddenly coming from the fleshly ‘walls’ within the body as well as the bones of the serpent, the attacks came from a very short distance, repeatedly catching him off guard. This caused Ning to find things quite difficult for now.

“Waters of Heaven!” Ning’s six swords struck out simultaneously, and illusions of water streams began to appear, one after another. A large amount of water began to swirl around Ning, causing the world around him to seem to change into a world of water.

This technique also came from the ninth floor of the Divinities Palace, and it was also created by a Daofather. This was a sword-art on par with the [Heavenraker] – the [Waters of Heaven]!

[Heavenraker] was well-suited for group attacks, and also against single-target foes.

[Waters of Heaven] was most suited for defense.

“No, I won’t be able to block this way.” Ning found defense to be incredibly difficult. As the saying went, two fists found it hard to fight against many hands. Although Ning currently had six arms, he was facing twelve opponents right now! The opponents each controlled many magic treasures, and every single attack was quite fearsome. The fact that the attacks were launched from such close range also made it so that Ning had very little reaction time.

“It seems I’ll have to rely on the Thousandbull Sword.”

Ning had been wanting to keep this supreme technique of the Thousandbull Sword hidden, so as to suddenly annihilate all his enemies in a surprise attack. However…these wild, chaotic attacks from his foes were already enough to force him to unleash this attack, an attack which Ning’s true body had only grown capable of unleashing after reaching the late Void-level.

“Primordial Nightriver…emerge!”

Savagery filled Ning’s eyes, and the pure, late Void-level elemental ki within his body flowed into the Thousandbull Sword, completely activate the formation-diagram within the sword! Instantly, the sound of waves could be heard as an enormous, wide river suddenly appeared in the area arounding him. When the river appeared, part of it manifested within the body of the Ba-Serpent, while part of it manifested outside of the body!

This was because the entire Nightriver was fully ten thousand kilometers long!

Activating the Nightriver effect required a very high amount of elemental ki…but its might was similarly powerful to the extreme.

Rumble…

The waves of the river bellowed forth, sweeping across the entire region. The twelve white-robed members that made up squad ‘Earthnine’, hidden deep within the body of the Ba-Serpent, were all shocked. As the waters of the primordial river known as the Nightriver crushed upon them, and as the river water outside the body of the Ba-Serpent ground down upon it, their Ba-Serpent Formation began to creak and crack.

“Don’t panic. This is the power of a formation-diagram of an Immortal sword; it only has the power to constrict and suppress. A single formation-diagram won’t be able to do anything to the Ba-Serpent!” The leading white-haired man immediately sent mentally to the others.

……

The outside world.

The Scion of the Blood God had been trapped within the formation. Although he could see the distant Immortal Diancai and Whitewater Hound, he wasn’t able to draw any closer to them!”

“That whitewater hound is merely using the Fuxi Staff Formation; how is it that his formations are this powerful?! I’ve trained for hundreds of thousands of years, and I have some insight into the art of formations, but I haven’t been able to find a single flaw in this formation at all.” The Scion of the Blood God was completely stymied.

Right at this moment, the sound of massive explosions could be heard from afar.

The Scion turned to look in that direction. He could still see the giant Ba-Serpent in the outside world; he was simply unable to fly over there.

“The Ba-Serpent?”

“A river?”

Uncle White and Immortal Fivecraze turned to look as well.

From afar, a three kilometer Ba-Serpent had been completely swept up into an enormous, awe-inspiring river that was more than ten thousand kilometers long. The waters of the river were furiously churning around the body of the Ba-Serpent.

And then, the massive river began to rapidly shrink, from ten thousand kilometers to a hundred kilometers, then down to ten kilometers.

The ten kilometer river was now roughly comparable in size to the three kilometer Ba-Serpent. The power of the river grew as it shrank, and it continued to coil and churn around the Ba-Serpent. There was even water flowing in and out of the Ba-Serpent’s body, nose, and mouth.

ROAR!!! The Ba-Serpent raised its head, letting out a furious growl as it twisted and turned, struggling to free itself. But the river didn’t budge in the slightest.

……

“Captain, the pressure from the waters of the river is too great, and it has covered every single part of the Ba-Serpent’s body. We’re using up far too much elemental ki in maintaining this Ba-Serpent Formation.”

“Captain, what should we do?”

They were beginning to grow nervous. Normally speaking, once a foe entered the body of the Ba-Serpent, there was no way the foe would be able to find the twelve of them. They could attack as they pleased at a close distance from the ‘flesh’ and ‘bones’ of the Ba-Serpent, with attacks that would be very difficult to defend against. Thus, the enemies would usually be quickly dominated and destroyed! However, despite being trapped within the Ba-Serpent, this Ji Ning actually had a method to deal with the entire creature at once!

“A formation-diagram? A formation-diagram?! Generally speaking, only Pure Yang treasures have formation-diagrams. Even if this Ji Ning does have a Pure Yang treasure…logically speaking, he has to be at the Celestial Immortal level to use it. How could a formation-diagram have appeared?!” The captain was puzzled and frantic as well.

The Nightriver Painting of the past was something which required one to first draw the enemy into painting before being able to use the river to suppress and weaken the enemy.

However, after the countless years of refining by the spirit of the underwater estate, the Nightriver Painting had already become the formation-diagram of the Thousandbull Sword. Once the formation-diagram was activated, the Nightriver would instantly appear.

This was what made formation-diagrams so special! And this was also the reason why the Thousandbull Sword could be described as comparable to a Pure Yang treasure!

“This Ji Ning definitely has some sort of powerful treasure on him. However…following that principle, once we kill him, that treasure will become ours,” the captain sent mentally. “We must kill Ji Ning at all costs. Activate the forbidden technique!”

“The forbidden technique?”

“But…”

“Captain, do we really have to activate it?” These were Immortal cultivators, not Deathsworn; they naturally felt a degree of self-interest.

The captain shouted mentally towards them, “This treasure is capable of allowing a Void-level Earth Immortal to command the power of a formation-diagram, which means that it is no less valuable than a Pure Yang treasure in might! Ji Ning definitely has many treasures on him; once we acquire them, then hmph…all of us will benefit from it. Even if you suffer harm to your foundations, it will be worth it. Don’t hesitate; the more time we waste, the more elemental ki we will have wasted. If you continue to hesitate…don’t blame me for being merciless!”

“Fine. Let’s do this!”

“Kill Ji Ning!”

Upon hearing their captain’s threat, they no longer hesitated. They simultaneously executed the forbidden technique.

The ‘Ba-Serpent Formation’ was an ancient, powerful formation which had been passed down by the Bloodcloud Hall that required twelve Immortals to execute. Aside from normal attacks, it also possessed three levels of forbidden techniques.

These three levels of techniques were extremely complicated; given the insights into the Dao which the members of squad ‘Earthnine’ possessed, only the activation of the first level was possible.

However, this first level already possessed nigh-limitless power.

The twelve white-robed men, hidden within the body of the Ba-Serpent, all used the same forbidden technique simultaneously. The runic formations that had been hovering in the air around them slowly began to turn a bloody color, and additional blood-colored runes began to appear as well. These bloody runes hung there in the air, and once the forbidden technique was activated…

“Ba-Serpent Hell – Godslayer!” The white-robed leader with the bloody scar let out a low growl, his voice echoing within every part of the Ba-Serpent’s body.

All of the bloody light and the bloody runes began to suddenly move about at high speed. They flowed forth from those twelve locations within the Ba-Serpent, moving towards the direction of the Ba-Serpent’s abdomen. Immediately afterwards, within the dark abyss of the abdomen of the Ba-Serpent, a region of blood suddenly appeared. The bloody light and the bloody runes all swirled around each other within this region.

Whoosh.

Ning’s three-headed, six-armed form was gripping a total of six mighty swords as he strove to block the suddenly attacking magic treasures. “I have to come up with a way to flee from the Ba-Serpent’s body. If I’m unable to escape…I’ll be like fish meat on the chopping board.”

“Eh? Why have the attacks stopped?” Ning found out to his amazement that the weapons and arts that had been attacking him had suddenly disappeared.

But suddenly afterwards…the devouring force increased dramatically in power, and with a swoosh, Ning once more sank downwards.

Plonk. Ning fell straight into a bloody lake.

This was a lake of blood located within the abdomen of the Ba-Serpent. Above the lake of blood were bloody runic symbols which hovered and shimmered. Upon falling into the lake, Ning immediately struggled to try and fly out, but the sucking power of the lake was simply too great. Ning was firmly trapped within it, completely unable to escape. At the same time…Ning could sense a powerful corrosive force begin to be applied to every single part of his body.

“Captain, is Ji Ning dead?”

“This forbidden technique, ‘Ba-Serpent Hell’, has very powerful corrosive properties. Even ancient Void-level Fiendgods which are legendary for how powerful their bodies are will be corroded and dissolved, then perish. There’s no way this Ji Ning will be able to survive it.”