The Divine Sword Awakens

Ji Ning descended from the sky, landing beside the Five Elements God-Tripod. He turned his head to look at the ancient stone platform beside him. The blood-colored divine sword resting upon it was still covered in cracks from hilt to tip.

“Ziguangqiong…” Ji Ning glanced at the divine sword. Then he waved his hand. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~ A massive number of treasures appeared out of thin air, each one radiating an astonishing pressure. In practically the blink of an eye, they had piled up beside him into a small mountain. This was nearly all of the Innate spirit-treasures Ji Ning had looted from over a hundred True Gods and True Immortals.

Of course, plundering that many True Gods and True Immortals had also netted him an extra Chaos treasure. This Chaos treasure was in the shape of a great hammer, capable of unleashing endless lightning.

“So many Innate spirit-treasures… keeping this many is useless.” Ji Ning pointed from afar at the Five Elements God-Tripod. “Rise.”

Humbuzzzz~~~

The Five Elements God-Tripod immediately began to radiate an aura of pressure. Five streams of light shot out from its handles.

“In you go.” Ji Ning’s vast divine power swept outward, carrying a sharp Sword-Force as it wrapped around those Innate spirit-treasures. One after another, treasures of various forms—swords, sabers, axes, pearls, and so forth—flew into the Five Elements God-Tripod. Inside the tripod, a furious grinding and destruction began, extracting the Quintessence of the Five Elements contained within them. In merely the time it takes to draw ten breaths, the nearly thirty Innate spirit-treasures Ji Ning had tossed inside were all reduced to worthless slag. The Quintessence of the Five Elements within the god-tripod’s internal space, however, had increased by a fair amount.

Wave after wave of the vast collection of Innate spirit-treasures was thrown inside.

This scene would have been enough to make any major power in the Three Realms tremble with heartache. But Ji Ning, though it pained him, knew it was all worth it for the sake of the divine sword Ziguangqiong.

“Sssssss~~” From within the Five Elements God-Tripod came the continuous sound of treasures being ground to pieces. The mountain of treasures beside him visibly shrank with speed. Soon, the entire pile had been completely consumed.

“So much Quintessence of the Five Elements.” Ji Ning looked at the Five Elements God-Tripod. Within the god-tripod’s internal space, an enormous amount of the quintessence now swirled.

First, the massive quantity of slag inside the Five Elements God-Tripod flew out. When it first emerged, it was only a few zhang in size. But the instant it exited the tripod, it rapidly expanded into a slag heap the size of a ten-thousand-zhang mountain peak. Ji Ning’s divine power wrapped around this slag, and he casually tossed it away. Boom! It landed several hundred li away, giving birth to a new mountain of waste slag.

“Let’s see how it goes this time. Based on my experience from the last repair, this amount of Quintessence of the Five Elements should be enough.” Ji Ning turned his head to look at the blood-colored divine sword on the stone platform. Swoosh. The blood-colored sword flew up, hovering before him.

“Release.”

Ji Ning pointed.

Streams of golden-yellow, water-blue, wood-green, fire-red, and earth-black flowed out from the Five Elements God-Tripod. They coiled around the blood-colored divine sword, layer after layer. The divine sword ‘Ziguangqiong’ immediately began to tremble, like a starving beggar who had encountered a delicious roasted chicken. It started to madly devour and absorb the essence. Through the faintly visible five-colored streams, one could see with the naked eye that the surface of the blood-colored sword was being restored at an agonizingly slow pace. Those cracks gradually shrank and vanished.

Time flowed on.

The five-colored streams continued to fly out, continuously being absorbed by the divine sword Ziguangqiong. The speed of the sword’s restoration was clearly far slower than the speed at which the Innate spirit-treasures had been destroyed.

…

The absorption of the massive amounts of Quintessence of the Five Elements took over an hour. Finally, all of the quintessence was completely consumed.

“Hm?” Ji Ning stared at the beautiful blood-colored divine sword hovering before him, a slight frown creasing his brow. The blood-colored sword was unspeakably beautiful, possessed of a heart-shaking loveliness. But upon its beautiful blade, two tiny cracks still remained. They were the only fissures left on the entire surface of the sword.

“It’s still not fully repaired?” Ji Ning frowned. “What to do? I’ve almost completely exhausted my Pure Yang treasures and Innate spirit-treasures. The only useless Chaos treasure I have is that one hammer. And this Five Elements God-Tripod has limited power; it might not be able to destroy a Chaos treasure.” Ji Ning mused to himself.

The Five Elements God-Tripod was at the Innate level.

Destroying a Chaos treasure to extract its Quintessence of the Five Elements would be extremely difficult.

“Right.” Ji Ning suddenly thought of a certain treasure. He willed it, and a monkey-shaped puppet appeared in midair. It was the All-Things Emissary.

“The internal core of this All-Things Emissary is already damaged. Keeping it is useless. The Seamless Gate expended an incalculable price to forge just a few of these. Each one, when controlled by a Daofather, could unleash power close to the ‘leader’ tier. This treasure is far more useful than a Chaos treasure, and its material composition is far more precious as well.” Ji Ning nodded to himself. “The amount of Quintessence of the Five Elements it contains must be enormous.”

Although the All-Things Emissary’s combat power was formidable, the physical puppet itself was only comparable to a top-grade Innate spirit-treasure. Reaching the level of a ‘Chaos treasure’ was far too difficult.

“Go.”

Without any hesitation, Ji Ning tossed the All-Things Emissary into the Five Elements God-Tripod.

Crack, crack, crack~~~

The All-Things Emissary began to be slowly ground apart. If one tried to destroy it through sheer force from the outside, a top-grade Innate spirit-treasure would be extremely hard to break. But the ‘Five Elements God-Tripod’ accomplished it with ease. This was the principle of mutual conquest. After quite some time, the entire All-Things Emissary was completely ‘harvested’ into a pile of slag, and a vast amount of Quintessence of the Five Elements had once again coalesced.

“A single All-Things Emissary contains far more Quintessence of the Five Elements than a hundred Innate spirit-treasures. No wonder the Seamless Gate had to exhaust the full strength of their entire camp to forge just a few of them.” Ji Ning’s eyes lit up. He immediately guided the Quintessence out. Five-colored streams of energy flew out, once again coiling around and enveloping the divine sword Ziguangqiong.

Huum!

The divine sword Ziguangqiong let out a ringing hum, rapidly devouring the Quintessence of the Five Elements. Ji Ning stared fixedly at the two cracks. They shrank rapidly, grew shallower, and then vanished completely. Following that, some of the broken patterns inside Ziguangqiong’s body also began to slowly recover. But internal restoration was far more difficult. After a short while, the Quintessence was exhausted, but the internal repairs were so negligible as to be practically nonexistent.

“Northrest World God was right.” Ji Ning let out a soft sigh. “Repairing the surface is easy. But repairing the interior… is a hundred or a thousand times harder.”

“Fortunately, the most precious core origin of this divine sword is intact. Using just these few Innate spirit-treasures and the All-Things Emissary, I was able to repair the surface. It can now unleash a portion of its power.” Ji Ning reached out, and the blood-colored divine sword fell into his hand.

Holding the blood-colored sword, Ji Ning could feel the inconceivably vast power contained within it.

Because the interior of the sword was riddled with holes and damage, only the surface was intact, it could only unleash a portion of its true might.

“What a terrifying sword.”

Ji Ning gently swung it.

Whoosh.

The space before him seemed to be split apart, forming a canyon of torn air that stretched for over ten thousand li.

“Even though it can only unleash a portion of its power, it is still enough to make one’s heart tremble. With this divine sword, looking across the entire Three Realms… I am probably number one in terms of offensive power. Only a few who excel at defense, like Master Stonerule and the Tathagata Buddha, can probably withstand me head-on.” Ji Ning murmured to himself. Whether he had this divine sword or not made an enormous difference in his combat strength.

Without using the divine sword, Ji Ning was on the ‘leader’ level, comparable to an Elder God.

But using the divine sword Ziguangqiong, he stood at the very peak of the ‘leader’ level. As for who was stronger and who was weaker, that could only be known by actually crossing swords. It had been far too long since the Dawn War. No one knew exactly how strong the major powers of the two camps truly were. It was possible that some major powers had been hiding their true strength.

Take for instance the Buddhist ‘Enlightened Buddha’ (Jueming Buddha). The Enlightened Buddha also cultivated the Forlorn World God technique, and had even grasped the Nine Yuan Annihilation ability. Ji Ning believed that after that vast amount of time, the Enlightened Buddha’s strength was surely extraordinary. Yet within the Three Realms, the Enlightened Buddha was extremely low-key. Most major powers merely treated him as an ordinary True God or Daofather.

“In the coming great calamity, I must be cautious.”

“If I do not draw the divine sword, so be it. But if I do, it must achieve an astonishing result.” Ji Ning understood well. A trump card suddenly revealed was what created the most astonishing effect. When the divine sword Ziguangqiong made its debut… it would have to claim the life of a major power from the Seamless Gate’s camp to test its edge.

“Withdraw.”

Ji Ning willed it. The blood-colored divine sword instantly flew into his body, entering the Golden Core space to be nourished.

“Now, it’s time to deal with True God Shiyu.” Ji Ning longed desperately for the Heaven-Gazing Taihao Tower. What he lacked most right now was training time. If he could fully comprehend a single Heavenly Dao, then there would be hope of him becoming an Ancestral Immortal or Elder God!

Swish. A Northsea sword appeared in Ji Ning’s hand.

Northsea swords were six in total.

After the battles and slaughter of the recent period, some True God and True Immortal prisoners who would rather die than submit had been killed by Ji Ning without the slightest mercy. This had also caused the other five Northsea swords to cross into the ‘Chaos treasure’ level. However, according to Northrest World God’s classification, Ji Ning’s six Northsea swords could only be considered ‘ordinary-grade Chaos treasures’.

Chaos treasures, according to the records left to Ji Ning by Northrest World God, could be divided into three tiers: ordinary-grade, high-grade, and top-grade.

“To deal with True God Shiyu, the Northsea swords are enough.” Ji Ning held a Northsea sword in hand. With a swoosh, he transformed into a streak of black lightning, vanishing beyond the horizon.

The Qidian Authors’ Annual Conference started with a morning meeting. Tomato wrote this chapter during his lunch break. Haha, it’s a bit late, but it’s finally done.