Desolate Era Book 27, Chapter 26 - Entering the Alternate Universe

The grayish humanoid statue first made some slight alterations to the spacetime transfer array in front of the imperial palace, then activated it.
Ji Ning, Solewind, Firesurge, Greatjoy, and Skyfire could sense spacetime twisting around them. Soon, everything went silent.
“Eh?” Ning and the others stared at their new surroundings.
They were at the peak of a towering mountain that was levitating in empty space. At the very apex of the mountain peak sat a white-bearded old man dressed in snowy robes who had six curved horns on his head. Ning and the others had seen the almighty Hegemon’s true form before, and they immediately recognized the old man’s aura as that of the Hegemon’s. They immediately bowed respectfully. “Hegemon.”
“This place here is the transversal conduit.” The white-bearded old man pointed at a place halfway up the mountain. At first glance it seemed quite ordinary, but a more careful examination revealed a series of faint, concentric spacetime ripples emanating an aura of incredible power. If the transversal conduit was to collapse with them inside, they would probably all perish.
“Once you enter the alternate universe, even items like ‘truesoul towers’ and ‘heart lamps’ will no longer be able to detect whether or not you are still alive, to say nothing of ordinary life tablets,” the white-bearded elder said. “These are two completely separate universes, after all. But of course, if you have trained in some sort of cloning technique, you can leave a clone behind in this universe. If the other clones all perish, you can rebuild them with your backup clone. That’s one way to tell if you are alive or not.”
“Alright.” Ning and the others all nodded.
Heart lamps and truesoul towers were attuned directly to one’s truesoul. Even if one entered the most deadly of locations, they would still be able to sense the presence of your truesoul. Alas, if you entered an alternate universe they would be useless.
Life tablets were the most simple and common items used to determine if someone was alive or not. Many special locations were able to completely block the effect of life tablets. In fact, a sufficiently great distance would also be enough to make it impossible for a life tablet to function.
“No one will be able to assist you on this journey to this alternate universe. Everything will all be up to yourselves,” the white-bearded elder said. “Go in. After you enter the conduit, make sure you remember to only go forwards and follow the flow.”
“Understood,” Ning and the other four acknowledged. They then all turned to walk towards those the seemingly ordinary, concentric spacetime ripples. As the five moved closer to the ripples, they quickly began to feel as though they had been dragged into a powerful spacetime whirlpool.
The journey through the transversal conduit started off quite calm and peaceful. Soon, however, Ning and the others could sense how space and time were twisting and distorting around them, as were many of the laws they had taken for granted. This was quite a miserable feeling; even their truesouls felt stifled and choked.
“Let’s move faster,” Prince Greatjoy growled.
“Forwards!” Ning urged.
They all suppressed the nauseous feelings they had as they hurriedly flew forwards. In front of them was a dark tunnel which had been formed by rings of spacetime vortices. The black tunnel seemingly had no exit, and the laws of both universes were in force throughout the tunnel. Thankfully, Ning and the others had not yet reached the Daolord level, and so the disturbance they created was fairly minor. If a true Daolord had dared to make use of this transversal conduit, it was very likely that the two differing laws of the two universes would’ve crushed him to death.
Whoosh. Ning and the others continued to fly forwards at high speed.
“Why is this tunnel so long?”
“How long is this transversal conduit? There seems to be no end to it!”
Ning and the others had been flying for more than two hours by now, but they were still stuck within that tunnel of darkness. They all felt quite nauseous, but at least they weren’t at risk of losing their lives. They were all able to resist the uncomfortable feelings.
Heartlord Solewind sent mentally to the others, “The Hegemon told us to just keep pressing onwards after we enter the tunnel. Let’s just keep flying like this. Sooner or later, we’ll reach the exit.”
“Right.” Waterlord Firesurge nodded as well.
“A transversal conduit which links two universes. Today, I’ve finally seen such a thing with my own eyes.” Prince Greatjoy laughed loudly.
The five of them chatted as they continued to fly forwards, but they soon ran out of topics to talk about and so just continued to fly in silence.
One day. Two days. Three days…
Ning had never imagined that this transversal conduit would be so long. If this was ‘normal’ flying, he wouldn’t have minded, but this was a place where the laws of two universes were clashing against each other. Every second here felt like an entire miserable year. Why hadn’t the almighty Hegemon warned them about this? Most likely, he wanted to use it to temper their hearts and wills.
In the blink of an eye, three full years went by.
“Wait, what’s that?”
“Is that the exit?”
“I think that’s the exit.”
Ning and the others had been flying silently when suddenly, they all revealed looks of great joy. They saw some light sparkling up ahead, breaking up the monotonous darkness of the transversal conduit. It didn’t seem as though there was anything past those sparkles of light. It seemed as though they had reached the end.
“Keep flying.” They had no other options but to fly straight towards the light.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. The five of them all flew out of the darkness.
“What is this place?” The five of them found themselves within a region of drifting primordial chaos. In front of them was an enormous chaos star that blazed like a giant ball of fire. Due to its close proximity the surrounding area was illuminated quite brightly by this chaos star.
Ning and the others turned to look behind them, only to see an enormous spatial vortex.
“I imagine there aren’t many who would dare to enter this spatial vortex,” Heartlord Solewind laughed.
Ning nodded.
He himself had arrived in the Badlands Territory by leaving the Three Realms through a spatial vortex. There were quite a few such vortices in the Endless Territories, but because most were naturally formed they often contained unknown dangers. Generally speaking, cultivators wouldn’t dare to risk their lives within one of them.
But of course, there were always those like ‘Old Man Yuan’ or Godfiend Witherspike who would enter the vortices because they were being chased and had nowhere else to flee. They had no choice but to flee into the most dangerous of places.
“Even if they made it through and were lucky enough to survive… on the other side is the Hegemon himself.” Prince Greatjoy sent a mental chuckle as well.
“Can you sense it, everyone?” Skyfire Brightshore’s eyes were closed as he sent out his senses. “It is true. Many of the prime essences in this place are different from ours.”
Ning was attuning himself to the local prime essences as well.
This place was similar to the Endless Territories in that both had a prime essence of the sword, a prince essence of fire, a prime essence of water, a prime essence of lightning, a prime essence of space, and many other types of prime essence. These prime essences were like giant stone pillars that were holding up the entire universe they were in, and the outermost ripples of these prime essences could be sensed and attuned to by cultivators. In this respect, things were exactly the same as they were in the Endless Territories!
Thus, cultivation was a similar process as well. However, ‘inside’ the prime essences things were very different.
“In the Endless Territories, the prime essence of the sword is more all-encompassing and massive. In this alternate universe, the prime essence of the sword seems to be more reserved but also more savage,” Ning mused.
The five of them were all curiously attuning themselves to the local prime essences.
“According to our star maps, our current location is quite a long ways off from the Archaeus region. Let us head off, gentlemen,” Waterlord Firesurge said.
“Yes, time to head off.”
“Our journey is a long one. Our most important mission right now is to reach the Archaeus region safely.”
“Let’s go.”
Although the five were all very confident, and although their chances of reaching the Archaeus region were quite high, they didn’t dare to be reckless. The distance between their location and the Archaeus region truly was quite great, as the Archaeus region was the core of this entire alternate universe and was truly, indescribably vast.
According to their star maps, it would take Ning’s group at least 1500 years to go from the transversal conduit to the Archaeus region. They would have go to through more than three thousand territories! World-level cultivators would almost never be willing to take on a journey of such distances, as it would be simply far too dangerous. Who knew when they would perish?
It took them two months to go to the nearest spacetime transfer array. The spacetime transfer arrays here were quite similar to the ones in the Endless Territories. Clearly, the two universes had very similar systems of cultivation.
Be it by flying, teleporting, or using spacetime transfer arrays, the group advanced through the alternate universe for more than a hundred years. Finally, they reached a specific chaos planet that was the core of a spacetime transfer array they had to pass through.
Deep within a gorge on this planet, there were a series of estates where other World-level cultivators resided.
Crackle. Pop.
A figure was seated in the lotus position by the banks of a lake, his entire body wreathed in flames that didn’t cause any damage to the nearby mud or grass at all.
Swoosh.
A streak of light flew towards him from afar. It was a green-haired World God who was carrying a greataxe on his back and radiated an aura of great strength.
“Five World-level cultivators arrived,” the green-haired World God growled.
“Oh? Five dared to trespass in our territory? Do they have extraordinary backgrounds?” The flaming figure asked.
“They should be outsiders. I’ve never seen them before,” the green-haired World God said.
“Never seen them before? Mm. We should know all of the World-level cultivators in the ten or so territories around us. If we don’t know them… they must have come from very far away.” The flaming figure let out a hoarse chuckle. “Inform the other leaders. Begin our preparations for killing these outsiders. We discovered them, so I insist on getting a full share.”
“Understood,” the green-haired World God said respectfully.
“By now, we’ve killed more than three hundred World-level cultivators. Still… that’s not enough. We aren’t even close to our quota of a thousand,” the flaming figure mused softly.