Time flowed on, one day at a time. Ji Ning’s Primaltwin remained at the Azureflower Estate, relying on the Autarch’s stone dais to furiously meditate on the various techniques that belonged to the same school as the ‘Seven Flaming Hells Formation’.
Ten years. A hundred years. A thousand years…
In the blink of an eye, over nine thousand years had gone by.
“Haha…” The white-robed Ning seated in the lotus position in the air above the giant Seven Flaming Hells formation-diagram began to laugh loudly as he rose to his feet, a look of delight on his face. Immortal energy surged from his entire body, flooding into the formation-diagram and flowing towards the flower petals.
Boom. Boom. Boom. The projections of the countless flaming passageways once more appeared in the air around him. Each passageway was as thin as a strand of silk, and each strand-like passageway was filled with countless mechanisms and traps. In truth, Ning could see them all clearly with the naked eye, and he was now able to control every single one of them as well.
“After meditating for over 900,000 thousand years, I’ve finally managed to comprehend the flower petal formation.” Ning revealed a look of delight. Although only nine thousand years had gone by in the ‘real’ world, his Primaltwin had spent this entire period of time under 100x temporal acceleration.
Clack clack clack clack…
Boom boom boom boom…
The Jadefire Realm was absolutely enormous, and the flaming passageways made up the largest part of it. Every single flaming passageway was incredibly long, and the countless flaming passageways formed an enormous nest which led to the prisons at the very heart!
By now, all of the countless flaming passageways were trembling. Some of the previously-revealed mechanisms suddenly went into hiding once more, while damaged traps began to automatically repair themselves, with quite a few returning to perfect condition. However, there were many other areas which had been forcibly torn apart; even though Ning was able to perfectly control those areas, he wasn’t able to repair them.
“Roughly 30% of the area has been wrecked.” Ning nodded slowly as he swept his glance across the countless illusory passageways in midair. “The Jadefire Realm was damaged so heavily during the war that it is now a flawed creation. However… in the remaining 70%, the countless mechanisms and traps are all under my control. It’s now far more dangerous than it was previously.” Ning’s eyes flashed with the desire to do battle.
Previously, he was dreading the major powers who were attacking the Flamedragon Realmverse. Now, he was merely somber and careful. He was confident in his chances to deal with them, in his chances to fight back!
Previously, many of the mechanisms and traps within the countless flaming passageways were exposed due to there being no one in control; this made it extremely easy for them to move past the mechanisms. Now that they had a master again, things were different. Even if you didn’t activate a trap, Ning could cause it to activate with a thought to envelop you! There were some extremely powerful mechanisms that, when unleashed, would releases blasts that would cover over ten billion kilometers. There would be no way to dodge them at all.
“Hmph.” Ning mused to himself, “Many Hegemons have come against me… but I, Darknorth, won’t necessarily lose.”
Although Ning was more confident in his chances now that he was in control of the tunnel passageways, he still didn’t dare to be overconfident. He knew just how powerful his foes were, and they all knew how dangerous the Jadefire Realm was. There was no way they would be easily trapped.
“The only thing left is the ‘flower stamen formation’ at the core.” Ning began to work on analyzing the most difficult-to-understand part of the formation, the one governing the prison regions.
Controlling the ‘flower stamen formation’ meant controlling all of the prisons within the area, allowing him to save Ninedust. Alas, many of the prisons had been destroyed. If they were all perfectly undamaged, control over them would give him ability to unleash a Decimatus Wave.
……
Time flowed on. More than 80,000 years had gone by in the blink of an eye. A rip in spacetime suddenly appeared in a region of empty primordial chaos within the Flamedragon Realmverse, followed by an invisible bubble of power pushing out of it with an ancient ship.
“Haha, everyone, we’ve reached the Flamedragon Realmverse.” A loud laugh could be heard, followed by the flying vessel disappearing into thin air and a group of figures appearing in its place.
There were a total of ten figures in total. One was Hegemon Wuye, the others were all various major powers he had picked up. “I’ve already brought you all to the Flamedragon Realmverse.” Hegemon Wuye looked at the nine. “You can decide for yourselves if you wish to wait here for the next batch of Emperors or if you wish to go off and hunt down Daolord Darknorth on your own. In short, once this is all concluded I’ll be back to bring you back to your respective realmverses. Alright, I’m off! I have to go get the next two batches of Emperors.”
“Thank you, brother Wuye.”
“Brother Wuye, just take your time with the others. The more you delay, the better.” The nine major powers were all in a good mood. Judging from time and distance, they shuld’ve been the first to arrive.
Hegemon Wuye took control over his realmship and departed.
“Let’s go. Let’s head to the Terror Starsea and the Jadefire Realm,” the skinny azure-scaled old man, ‘Hegemon Azurefiend’, said in a low voice. Of the nine Emperors present, five were Hegemons while the other four were quite powerful in their own right. Only those who were extremely confident in their abilities would dare to come here, with Hegemon Azurefiend being the strongest of the group.
“Let’s go.”
“We aren’t too far away from the Terror Starsea.”
“I travel the fastest. I’ll lead everyone with me,” an man dressed in graceful azure robes said with a smile. His fingers were as smooth as alabaster jade, and as he waved his finger he easily tore a path through spacetime.
“Since Hegemon Oldgem has chosen to guide us, let’s just go ahead and accept his kind offer.” The other major powers didn’t reject.
……
Although he wasn’t quite familiar with the Terror Starsea, Hegemon Oldgem truly was a formidable figure when it came to travelling. It took him merely a century or so to arrive outside the Jadefire Realm.
“The Jadefire Realm. How beautiful.” Hegemon Oldgem stared at the enormous vortex of flames before them, each of the flames looking like the petal of a flower. “Supposedly, this was a nightmare for our people during the Dawn War. Many major powers were imprisoned in here, and all those who went inside perished.”
“Everyone, we’ve already collected quite a bit of information regarding the Jadefire Realm. Based on what we know, entering is easy but leaving is difficult.” Hegemon Dawnruler said in a cold voice, “Daolord Darknorth went in a fairly short while ago. I imagine he probably hasn’t been able to flee just yet. Shall we wait for him outside or shall we go inside?”
“Go inside of course,” Hegemon Azurefiend said, a glimmer of terrifying red light flashing in his eyes. “We were the first to arrive here. If we waste any time, Hegemon Fogsun’s realmship will probably arrive with another batch of Emperors. By then, we’ll have lost our first-mover advantage and it’ll be even harder to acquire the realmship. The more time we waste, the more Emperors will arrive and the more difficult things will become.”
“Right.” A bald, grim-looking red-robed man nodded slowly.
“I agree that we should all go in together right away as well,” a silver-haired elder with a stone sword on his back agreed.
Since the five Hegemons were all in occurrence, the other four Emperors simply exchanged glances but said nothing.
“Haha… what a pity! I hear that the most powerful figure in the Flamedragon Realmverse is Hegemon Brightshore. He should know quite a bit about this Jadefire Realm, but he wasn’t willing to tell us anything about it at all.” Hegemon Azurefiend chortled. “Still… we were able to accumulate quite a good amount of intelligence. It should be enough. The Jadefire Realm was shattered long ago and should no longer pose of much a danger to us. Come, come! Let’s go inside.”
Hegemon Azurefiend immediately transformed into a streak of light and flew inside.
“Let’s go,” Hegemon Oldgem said.
“All together now.”
“Let’s go.” The nine Emperors began to charge into the vast vortex of flames, either singly or in pairs. Soon, all of them had entered the Jadefire Realm.
“There are this many flaming passageways?” After entering the Jadefire Realm, the Emperors saw the countless flaming tunnels off in the distance.
“Which one should we choose?”
“We? Gentlemen, are we still planning to travel together? Haha, I’m more accustomed to moving by myself. I’ll go in first. If I’m the first one to find Daolord Darknorth, the realmship will be mine,” Hegemon Azurefiend laughed wickedly. He immediately charged into one of the flaming passageways next to him. He was the most powerful member of this group of Emperors and thus naturally wasn’t interested in working together with the others.
He refused to believe that he wasn’t able to kill a mere Daolord!
“Let’s go.” Hegemon Dawnruler scanned the area with his three eyes, then took a single step forwards and transformed into golden light that burrowed in a distant flaming passageway.
“Let it all be up to fate.” The bald, grim-faced man dressed in red robes revealed a hint of a smile as he flew into one of the flaming passageways as well.
“Brother Oldgem, let’s travel together?” the silver-haired elder with the ancient stone sword on his back asked.
“Let’s.” Hegemon Oldgem smiled. These two Hegemons flew towards one of the flaming passageways together. These two came from the same realmverse and were on extremely good terms with each other; if they acquired the realmship, they would share it. It wouldn’t really matter who owned it.
“The five Hegemons have all gone inside. We should go as well.” The four remaining Emperors exchanged glances. Soon, they formed into two squads of two which flew into the flaming passageways as well.
……
The hidden control region within the Jadefire Realm. Ning remained seated in midair above the altar, scanning the surrounding area with his gaze. The area around him manifested projections of the flaming passageways of the Jadefire Realm, as well as the nine figures making their way through those passageways. These nine figures had entered the Jadefire Realm together, then had separately entered different passageways. Ning had watched all of this carefully.
“Have they come?” Ning murmured softly, “This first batch is already putting me under quite a bit of pressure.”