Desolate Era Book 44, Chapter 25 - Snake and Sword

This ovaloid object was the most powerful Sithe weapon… the Grassland World.
“We’ve been traped!”
“What’s going on? How could there be a trap here? We cut off all connections to the outside world and are undetectable. There’s no way the cultivators could’ve tracked us here. How could they have set up a trap in advance?!” The black-robed man, the red-robed man, and the silver-robed woman were standing atop the clouds, staring at the outside world. They were able to see past the Grassland World’s dimensions with ease.
The world outside had been transformed into a writhing realm of primordial chaos, filled with such power that even they shuddered at it.
“Did they perhaps manage to guess that we were going to come and rescue the Exalts and so set up a trap in advance?” the silver-robed woman asked, puzzled.
“They trapped a total of four temples. How could they be sure that we would come to the Nine Cicadas Temple first?” the red-robed man boomed.
“Could they have set up traps around all four temples?” the black-robed man asked in his icy voice.
“Impossible. You can see how much power the formation outside is using. The ambient power alone is enough to annihilate realmships with ease. The cultivators must have poured all their power into creating a formation of such power,” the silver-robed woman said. “There’s no way they could simultaneously maintain four or five formations of such power.”
The red-robed man shook his head. “In the end, this is their Chaosverse. They must’ve come up with some other way of tracking our whereabouts. No time to waste on wondering how they did it! Right now, our biggest problem is that we’ve already been trapped.”
“Then what should we do?” the black-robed man said with a frown.
Unlike the other Sithe Exalts, they weren’t truly Iyerre’s subordinates. Thus, they didn’t really care too much about whether Iyerre won or not. They had only taken part because they had been required to, while the promised rewards ensured that they weren’t excessively opposed to helping out! However, when they could sense that they were in mortal danger, there was absolutely no way they would throw away their own lives for the sake of this war.
Outside this Chaosverse, they could kill these Autarchs with ease. Here in this Chaosverse, these local Autarchs were terrifyingly powerful. Now that they had joined forces and used a mighty formation, the three felt even more nervous.
“We can’t risk ourselves. Absolutely not. If Iyerre wants to take risks, let him do it,” the black-robed man muttered.
“Let’s see just how strong the grand formation is. Let the fools go,” the silver-robed woman said. “We ourselves can just stand back.”
“Fine.” The black-robed man and the red-robed man both agreed. By their very nature, they looked down upon those three ‘fools’.
“Hey, idiots! Hurry up and get over here!” the silver-robed woman shouted.
Soon, three enormous creatures emerged from beyond the clouds. The first was the giant cyclopean bear, the second was the red-eyed white-furred humanoid, while the third was the tentacled stormcloud. These Autarch-class void dwellers were extremely displeased at the contempt which these three powerful Sithe displayed towards them. They could sense it keenly, but they were weaker than the three Sithe and so there was nothing they could do.
“What do you want?” the giant cyclopean bear rumbled unhappily.
“We have business for you, of course,” the silver-robed woman snapped. “The Grassland World has already been trapped by the cultivators! We don’t know anything at all about the situation outside, and so we need you to help investigate it for us.”
“Investigate?” The three Autarch-class void dwellers were filled with both rage and fear. They knew just how powerful these three Sithe were… and yet, the Sithe were too afraid to go outside and so were sending them out?
“The three of you are skilled at staying alive.” The silver-robed woman’s eyes flashed coldly. “I suggest you go immediately. Don’t force our hand.”
They had to go, whether they wanted to or not! The three Autarch-class void dwellers exchanged glances, communing in secret.
“We can go if you want,” the red-eyed, white-furred humanoid said hoarsely, “But we’ll need to keep part of our bodies within the Grassland World. We’ll only let parts of ourselves go outside! That way, we can be sure to keep ourselves alive. If you want us to completely depart from the Grassland World, we’d rather die than comply! It’d be death either way.”
“Right!” the cyclopean bear and the tentacled stormcloud both chorused.
“Haha, so you three idiots aren’t as dumb as you look?” the silver-robed woman snickered. “Don’t worry. We don’t stand to benefit from your deaths. All we want to do is to use you to investigate the outside world. We can agree to your terms… now hurry up and go! Find out what’s going on outside so we can take the appropriate counter-measures.”
The three Autarch-class void dwellers could no longer refuse, and so they immediately soared upwards through the clouds. They went through one layer of clouds after another. The clouds were normally quite resilient, but when they flew through them the clouds all parted before them. Soon, they reached the ninth and final layer of clouds.
“Be careful, everyone.” They exchanged glances, then nervously began to fly through the ninth layer as the two men and one woman below them watched intently.
……
Ning and the others were using the formation to blanket and smother this entire region with their power. After trapping that ovaloid object, they quickly saw it dramatically expand in size. Boom! Boom! Boom! It grew to be ten thousand kilometers in size… a hundred thousand kilometers… a million kilometers… ten million kilometers… a hundred million kilometers…
“Suppress it!” Autarch Titanos commanded. Ning and the others began to pour the power of the formation into doing just that.
Boom! Boundless amounts of power began to coil around the Grassland World, compressing and crushing it. As it continued to expand in size, the amount of pressure it faced continued to increase as well. By the time it reached a size of nine billion kilometers, it was unable to expand any further! Every single part of its enormous bulk was under utterly horrendous levels of pressure.
“I can’t believe a mere artifact is able to resist the power of our formation and still expand to such a great size,” Ning said. “It really is far more powerful than any of the temples we saw earlier.”
“Find its weak points. If we can’t find any, just launch an all-out attack,” Autarch Titanos sent mentally.
“Alright.”
“Let’s take a close look at the thing. Ning and the others all began to inspect the Grassland World from their various vantage points, searching for weak points. Alas, they couldn’t see anything from the outside.
A short while later, as they were still inspecting the thing, a gray part of the ovaloid object suddenly began to ripple like the clouds. An enormous creature began to emerge, quickly resolving into the giant head of the vast, foolish-looking cyclopean bear. Next to his head was a stormcloud that seemed to be filled with countless black tentacles as well as an unremarkable-looking red-eyed, white-furred humanoid.
Each just sent parts of their bodies from within the rolling screen of clouds, keeping the rest of themselves within. They stared curiously at the outside world, but they saw nothing but a mishmash of chaos. How could they tell what was going on?
“Autarch-class void dwellers!” Ning recognized them right away.
“Those were the three which attacked me previously,” Bolin’s avatar sent.
“Perfect. Everyone, attack! When they retreat, follow them inside the Grassland World,” Autarch Titanos ordered.
“Alright.”
“Attack!”
Ning and the others began to carry out the plan they had practiced a number of times in the past.
The five avatars of Titanos, Mogg, Skyfeeder, Stonerule, and Ekong within the inner formation all began to activate their respective parts of the formations. They transformed into an enormous five-headed black serpent, with each head representing one of the avatars. The main head of the black serpent was led by Autarch Titanos, who commanded the other four in attacking.
As for the ones in the outer formation, they were even more powerful but chose to be cautious and launch long-range attacks from afar.
“Go!” Autarch Mogg waved a finger from afar. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! A series of round arcs of saber-light flew out, filled with the boundless mysteries of the Space Daobirth Essence.
Bolin’s avatar waved a finger as well, causing ten thousand beads to appear which were filled with the mysteries of the Samsara Daobirth Essence. To keep his true identity hidden, he did not use his Claw Daobirth Essence.
The other Autarchs all used their most powerful long-distance attacks as well.
“All Daos Are The Sword!” Ning willed his six Northbow swords to come flying out, filling them with the power of his mana and linking them together with the power of the other Autarchs. Ning was responsible for guiding the powers of all six Autarchs, because as an Omega Emperor he was skilled in virtually every aspect. He understood illusions, karma, the samsara of life and death, and both space and time.
He was a bit weaker than Bolin when it came to life and death and a bit inferior than Titanos when it came to karma, but he remained incredibly skilled in all respects. Thus, he was the perfect mediator for their powers, allowing the six to join together in a flawless manner and truly transform their attacks. It was a pity that Ning’s avatar was still tied down within the Annihilation Hive. Otherwise, he could’ve also taken responsibility over the five avatars attacking from the inner formation, allowing them to become even more powerful!