Book 44, The Dusk War, Chapter 14 – Fatal Trap (part 2)
The ‘trap mode’ had worked in a gradual function by pressuring Ji Ning and slowing him down. Each time he destroyed one of the eight energy dragons, it would quickly reform and go after him again. The overall tempo of the battle was fairly slow… but now, everything suddenly sped up.
The eight energy dragons began to simultaneously coil around Ning in a ferocious fashion. Ning knew just how terrifyingly strong these dragons were. If he wasn’t able to withstand their attacks, he would probably be ground to dust! Even his truesoul would be ground apart by them.
“Break!” Ning chose to discard all defenses and instead use his sword-arts to charge straight towards the ice dragon which was closest to him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Sword-light flashed like the spokes of a giant windmill, instantly landing multiple consecutive cuts upon the frozen dragon’s body and chopping deep into it. Ning seized this opportunity to burrow all the way inside the dragon.
Bang! All the other energy dragons collided into each other, not even touching Ning who was now inside the ice dragon.
“Whew.” Ning let out a sigh of relief. “There’s no way for me to block all eight of those dragons head-on at once, but by hiding inside one of them I was able to sidestep the problem.”
Whoosh. The ice dragon Ning was inside of quickly began to crumble and break apart, taking away Ning’s ‘hiding spot’. A moment later, a new ice dragon began to reform at the outer perimeter of this region.
As soon as Ning revealed himself, all of the dragons once more swept towards him.
“Break!” Ning’s sword-light flashed with incomparable sharpness and severity, tearing through the body of the water dragon and allowing him to dodge inside!
No matter what dragon he faced, he was able to find the perfect sword-art to counter it. He would burrow deep inside an energy dragon’s body, using it to avoid the many other attacks!
“Hmph. I wonder how long you’ll be able to keep playing like this.” Ning wasn’t worried at all, continuing to dive into the bodies of the energy dragons to avoid their combined attacks. “This increased tempo means that the energy dragons are breaking apart ten times faster than they were in the past, with the overall formation expending far more energy than merely ten times that of before! How long could they possibly sustain this?” Generally speaking, when accelerating the attacks of a formation like this, the energy expenditure would skyrocket an astronomical amount.
Ning’s guess was spot-on. After just one hour, the Sithe Exalts were no longer able to maintain this tempo of battle.
“We aren’t able to kill him. Emperor Darknorth is just too strong; he can almost instantly tear through one of our formation-dragons.”
“Our energy reserves just don’t last long enough. Let’s go to the final formation, the ‘eight revolutions annihilator’ formation.
“I hope the ‘eight revolutions annihilator’ is able to kill him.
“It definitely will kill him. The eight revolutions annihilator is so powerful that it should definitely be mighty enough take his life.”
The Sithe Exalts were all desperate for victory. The eight revolutions annihilator formation was the final and most powerful offensive technique the temple possessed. If even this failed, then Ning would be able to break the formation and escape shortly afterwards, which meant that they would have failed in their mission!
……
As Ning was busy blocking those frenzied attacks, the eight energy dragons suddenly skyrocketed in power once more. They blasted out countless streams of power in every direction, aiming them at the giant worlds which were constantly shifting position in the perimeter around Ning. The worlds of water, freezing ice, blazing fire, stone, and more began to link together in an intricate and marvelous manner, forming a single complete whole.
Above Ning, the many worlds had come together to form something which looked like an enormous Eight Trigrams shape. Below him, the many worlds had come together to form something similar.
The two sets of Eight Trigrams were rapidly crashing down towards Ning, who was trapped between them. It was like the lower set was a grindstone, while the upper set was a millstone!
All of the worlds surrounding Ning had been completely joined together, giving him no chance to escape at all. As for the energy dragons, their energies had been completely merged into this formation as well.
“Not good!” This was a straightforward crushing attack, spread across such a vast area that Ning wasn’t able to dodge it at all. His only choice was to meet it head-on. Ning knew that the most critical moment had come, and he readied his six Northbow swords while maintaining his three-headed, six-armed mode.
This all took time to describe, but in truth it took less than a heartbeat for these worlds to come crashing down towards Ning. They moved at an absolutely astonishing speed!
Clang! Ning used his own sword-arts to defend. Three of the Northbow swords executed the Numerancy Sword Dao. The Numerancy Sword Dao was so incomparably intricate that it could truly be described as peerless amongst all divination Daos! This formation-attack he was facing was divided into two parts, and Ning wanted to attempt to redirect some of their power against each other. Thus, he used the Numerancy Sword Dao to do just that, lessening some of the pressure off him.
His fourth Northbow sword, he used to execute the Spacetime Sword Dao in generating a spacetime membrane which covered him. He was now within an independent spacetime continuum which would easily deflect many attacks.
As for his final two swords, he used them to execute the Five Elements Sword Dao. They embodied the gentleness of water, the weightiness of the earth, the vital energy of wood…
The two Eight Trigrams formations continued to come crashing down towards each other. Iyerre had called this ‘annihilation mode’, and it used eight different sources of power to create a single source of overwhelming power.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Ning began to fight back against the two Eight Trigrams crashing towards him. He once more was like Pangu cleaving apart Heaven from Earth, using all six of his Northbow swords to resist the crushing pressure of this formation! However, Ning quickly sensed that yet another source of mighty power was crushing towards him. This caught Ning off-guard, and he hurriedly moved to block this one as well. And yet, moments later another source of power was crashing against him…
The Eight Trigrams were crashing towards him but were also swiveling, which generated a strange type of power that clashed against Ning, making it even harder for him to defend.
Bang! After defending against the fifth surge of power, Ning could feel his entire body trembling. Some blood came spewing out from his mouth.
“Not good.” Ning knew that his body was starting to break down under the stress. It was formed from the power of mana and was as strong as any Universe treasure, but it still wasn’t able to take this level of pressure.
Ning instantly transformed his body into a form of blurry sword-light. This was his invulnerable swordform!
Autarch Ekong, when faced with grave danger, had been forced to use his own invulnerable form. Now, Ning was forced to do the same. His body was no longer corporeal, making it incredibly resistant to any attacks. As the master of the Eternal Omega Sword Dao, Ning was most skilled in the invulnerable swordform. His body was now formed from countless streaks of sword-light which dispersed the crushing power pressing against him.
Even though he was now incorporeal, his six arms continued to wield the Northbow swords in fighting back against the attacks crashing against him.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Three more surges of power came crashing against him. This power, the power of the ‘eight revolutions’, came in a total of eight waves. Ning’s blurry body of sword-light was able to deflect the majority of it, with the remaining power within the limits of what he could tolerate. However, his energy was now being depleted at such a rapid pace that for the first time in many years, Ning began to feel as though he wasn’t able to keep it up for much longer. During his previous fights, he had been able to instantly replenish as much as he used up. He had never felt as though he didn’t have enough energy!
This was simply because the amount of energy he was using to restore and repair his body was simply too enormous.
After all eight ‘waves’ of destructive energy were finished, the attacks paused for a brief moment before launching yet another eight waves… but that brief pause was enough for Ning to completely recover all of his energy.
“Hah! This formation of yours is useless against me.” Ning roared with laughter.
After he endured just three more cycles of annihilation mode… boom! The dimensional membrane pressing down on Ning from above in the form of the Eight Trigrams suddenly collapsed. It was unable to endure it any longer!
It must be remembered that the ‘crushing’ process was carried out by the dimensional membranes of the various worlds. The dimensional membranes were very tough, with Ning needing to attack for the time needed to boil a kettle of tea in order to destroy them, but the power of the ‘annihilation mode’ simply placed too much strain upon them, far more strain than Ning himself had to endure. Ning had been focusing on defending and redirecting its power away while using his invulnerable swordform to absorb the rest.
The great pressure needed to destroy Ning caused the dimensional membranes to be put under such great stress that they collapsed after a short period of time.
This could technically be considered a flaw, but it wasn’t really. This was because if three consecutive attack cycles of the ‘eight revolutions annihilation’ was insufficient to kill an opponent, it meant that the formation itself just wasn’t strong enough. It had failed.
As soon as the formation above him shattered, Ning immediately charged upwards to escape. “Break!” Ning immediately used his sword-arts to slash upwards. He had long ago discovered where the weak points in the dimensional membranes were, and just six seconds later he exploded past them. The various worlds outside were still trying to rearrange themselves; clearly, they hadn’t formed a perfect seal yet.
Swoosh! Ning transformed into a streak of light, shooting through the seams that still existed between the moving worlds.
“Stop him!”
“Quick!”
“We’ve already converted all of the worlds into ‘annihilation mode’. It’ll take time for us to switch back into ‘trap mode’. We won’t make it!” The Sithe Exalts were panicking.
Ji Ning was simply too fast. He wasn’t going to just stand there as a fool and wait for them to reform the ‘trap mode’ and imprison him once more… and in truth, given his power he would be able to break through in just an hour.
The ‘annihilation mode’ had been very dangerous, but after breaching through two worlds Ning was on the road to escape.
Boom! After blasting through one final dimensional membrane, the entire world seemed to change before him. He had already reached the outsides of that vast temple, and he could even see the endless Great Dark outside as well.
He had escaped.
Swoosh! Ning transformed into a streak of light, soaring into the skies. He immediately saw the Sithe Exalts seated atop those distant stone pillars, their faces filled with looks of terror.
“None of you will escape!” Ning’s murderous voice boomed throughout every inch of the temple.
