Book 44, The Dusk War, Chapter 13 – Fatal Trap (1)

“Not good.” A terrifying sense of danger instantly flooded Ji Ning’s mind. “They can no longer hold me, so they are going to try and kill me instead?”

These temples were all manned by Sithe Exalts. They could be used to trap, but they could also be used to kill! Autarch Titanos’ avatar and Autarch Ekong had to work together to survive the one they were in, with Titanos eventually losing his avatar in order for Ekong to escape. These temples were not easy to deal with!

Ning had the vague feeling that staying within this world would be even more dangerous, and so he immediately transformed into a streak of light and shot outwards.

Whoosh! As soon as he exited the world, his face paled. In the past a new world would greet him once he exited the previous one, but this time was different. This time, he was within an empty region which had many enormous pocket dimensions. Above him, below him, to his left, to his right… the entire area was filled with those spinning worlds. Ning was able to see over twenty of the things. They all circled around him, with him being at the very center.

“It really is as I had predicted. These worlds are all mobile, which is why I would always enter a new one after breaking through the old one.” Ning became all the more certain of his hypothesis when he saw this. “Now that I’m breaking through the worlds much more quickly, they aren’t able to keep up and so they’ve chosen to discard the useless trappings entirely.”

“Emperor Darknorth!” a cold voice rang out.

“Are you absolutely sure that I’m Darknorth?” Ning replied, relaxed. His body was glowing with such radiance that the Sithe Exalts were only able to see a glowing figure and were unable to make out his features.

“I can’t imagine anyone save you, Emperor Darknorth, who would be able to so quickly understand and deconstruct the eight revolutions formation,” the cold voice replied. “The eight revolutions formation isn’t just meant for trapping people, it’s also filled with many killer mechanisms! Emperor Darknorth, our original plan was simply to trap you. However, you are forcing our hand. We’ll have to kill you now,” a second deep voice boomed out.

“Hah!” Ning stared at the many worlds revolving around him, then let out a loud laugh. “What a joke! If you were able to kill me, you would’ve done so long ago. In the end, this is my homeland. We cultivators are far more powerful than you in our own Chaosverse. Kill me? Even if you have the assistance of this temple, I’ll wager you aren’t sure of your chances!”

The faces of the eight Sithe Exalt stiffened slightly. It was true. They had to admit that they weren’t 100% sure they could kill Darknorth. Not even Iyerre was confident that they could accomplish this, which was why he had merely ordered them to trap Ning and tie him down. If they could keep Ning trapped until Iyerre arrived, their chances of victory would increase to 100%! Alas, there was nothing the Sithe Exalts could do. Now that Ning had already worked out how the eight revolutions formation operated, he would probably be able to escape within an hour if left to his own devices!

Thus, they had chosen to transform the ‘eight revolutions formation’ from a trapping formation to a killing formation.

All of the temples had terrifying offensive powers built into them. The same was true for the Eight Revolutions Spacetime Temple!

“Hopefully, we can kill him. Even if we cannot, we can still use ‘annihilation mode’ to buy ourselves some more time.”

“It’s already been sixty-nine days. If we can buy another ten-plus days, we’ll have accomplished something great.”

“He’s forcing us to do this. Attack!”

“Attack!” The eight Sithe Exalts immediately activated the offensive functions in the eight revolutions formation.

……

“Eh?” Ning’s face hardened as he stood there in the empty void, staring at the vast worlds which were spinning around him. He could clearly sense that each of the giant worlds were accumulating and preparing to unleash a terrifying amount of power. Freezing energies, flaming energies, watery energies, vital energies, metallic energies… all types of energies were beginning to pour out of the many worlds.

The different types of energy were beginning to build together, and in the end they resolved into eight different types of energy which materialized in the forms of titanic dragons. The vast energy dragons all looked completely different, but they were all around ten million kilometers long and a million kilometers wide. Each energy dragon contained enough power to cause even Ning to feel a sense of shock. These things were definitely on the Autarch level… and in fact, they significantly surpassed Ning in raw might.

However, Ning was able to remain quite calm. These were nothing more than formation constructs which did not possess true sentience. They knew nothing of the Dao.

The eight enormous dragons slowly began to ‘swim’ through the air towards Ning, their ponderous bodies blocking out everything in Ning’s vision.

“Hm.” Ning maintained his three-headed, six-armed form and warily waited for them with his six Northbow swords at the ready.

Finally, all of them joined together to form a series of loops. Some of them formed the ‘inner loops’, while others formed the ‘outer loops’. A dragon that seemed to be formed from stone energies was the first to move towards Ning, and when it did Ning finally struck.

“Break!” Faced with the durable-looking stone dragon, Ning immediately used the Five Elements Sword Dao. In truth, all eight energy dragons were based upon the energies of the Five Elements, and so the Five Elements Sword Dao was the most suitable response for all of them.

Ning’s sword-light was filled with vitality. It drilled hard against the stone dragon, exploding with dazzling light as it sought to tear through it.

The Five Elements Sword Dao truly was a strong counter for this stone dragon, but Ning’s full-force strike was only able to just barely shatter the stone dragon apart. Moments later, the other energy dragons began to swarm towards him while the stone dragon began to reform from its shattered parts.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. The eight energy dragons continuously coiled around Ning in layers. Ning destroyed one after another, but new ones were continuously formed.

“How long is this going to take?” Ning was growing anxious. “Why is it that I feel escape is even more difficult than it was earlier.”

……

The eight Sithe Exalts continued to maintain careful control over the formation, not daring to relax in the slightest.

“Using the formation like this is consuming far too much energy. It is depleting energy many times faster than ‘trap mode’ did. We won’t be able to last too long,” the black-haired Sithe exalts said worriedly.

“We have to. Even if it costs us every last scrap of energy, we have to last until almighty Iyerre arrives.”

“Hold on for as long as you can.”

The eight revolutions formation had many different mechanisms within it. ‘Trap mode’ was just the start, ensuring that any foe would find it difficult to escape. Next would come a terrifying number of attacks! However, the Sithe Exalts weren’t confident in being able to actually kill Ning with those attacks, and so they continued to pour all of their efforts into simply trapping Ning and keeping him tied down. So long as Ning didn’t escape, they would have ‘won’… but this process would consume an enormous amount of energy, especially with Ning launching so many attacks against them.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The three-headed, six-armed Ning continuously assaulted the energy dragons using his Five Elements Sword Dao. He didn’t pause for even a second, because he already discovered a flaw in the formation. “These dragons are formed from energy and given physical heft, making breaking them difficult. Without a doubt, maintaining them takes up an absolutely shocking amount of energy at all times. If I furiously attack, their energy expenditures will be insane!”

“I refuse to believe they’ll be able to sustain such high levels of energy expenditure for too long. That’s the weak spot of this formation – its energy consumption. Break!” Ning didn’t worry about his own energy running dry. He was an Omega Emperor in his own Chaosverse; he had an endless supply of energy from the Chaosverse itself.

Boom! Boom! Boom! He destroyed yet another dragon, and once again a new dragon came in its stead. The eight energy dragons continued to coil around him and suppress him, preventing him from escaping but paying an enormous cost in energy to accomplish this.

After six full days of this war of attrition, the Sithe Exalts were finally unable to maintain it any longer.

“If this continues, in just one day our Eight Revolutions Spacetime Palace will collapse under its own weight due to lack of energy.” The female Sithe Exalt said hurriedly, “Even if we can manage to last for an extra day, it won’t be enough time. Iyerre won’t be able to make it.”

“Damn this Emperor Darknorth. He’s been attacking nonstop this entire time. If he took a slight break, we wouldn’t have it this rough. By all rights, we’ve prepared such a powerful energy wellspring that it should be more than strong enough to last us until almighty Iyerre arrives, but Emperor Darknorth won’t stop his crazed attacks!”

“Well, we ARE trying to kill him. You didn’t really expect him to just stand there and wait for death, did he?”

“Enough. Let’s attack. Cancel ‘trap mode’ and activate the ‘annihilation mode’! Annihilation mode has much more powerful attacks. Emperor Darknorth might be an incredible genius, but he still might very well die to it.”

“We’re out of other options.”

The Sithe Exalts had been trying to buy enough time for Iyerre to arrive, since that would guarantee them victory. Alas, they no longer had enough time. Their only choice was to fully activate ‘annihilation mode’, with the original ‘trap mode’ having been nothing more than the first phase of the formation.

“Materialize!” The eight Sithe Exalts simultaneously began to activate their respective parts of the formation.

Rumble… the energy dragons that had been coiling around Ning suddenly began to roil about in midair, tangling around each other as all of them simultaneously shot towards Ning. Even the enormous linked worlds off in the distance began to move once more, causing Ning’s face to change.

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