Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming’s wardrum formation let out a loud beat. Though he hadn’t struck it, it still let out a sound that spread far and wide.

“Why did it beat by itself?” Yu Ziqian asked. He was quite curious about that formation.

“I don’t know. It feels like it’s resonating with something, just like how another drum resonated when I struck it the first time,” Tianming said.

They were now within a deep and dark pathway with nothing but fog ahead of them. Tianming struck the formation again, and soon heard a resonance like before. The sound had traveled a wide distance. People along the way were sure to hear it.

“So the resonating beats will cause people to gather and fight again,” Tianming reasoned.

“If that’s the case, should we head toward the resonance?” Xiaoxiao said, her eyes a faint red from nervousness. “Apart from the drum resonance, we seem to be hearing more sounds around here.”

“Yeah. I hear some fighting, and beasts as well. It’s getting much livelier.” The situation inside the tomb was growing messier. Tianming clutched the wardrum formation under his arm and looked ahead. “Keep going. In places like these, the more people around, the more conflict there’ll be. If we really want to win this, we have to go where the people are.”

This was a competition, at the end of the day. They hastened toward the sound of the beating war drum. The closer they got, the stronger the beating resonance became. Tianming noticed that other disciples near them could also hear the drumbeats; quite a few were approaching the sources of the sounds.

“If I knew that this would cause such a commotion for others, I would’ve beat the drum many more times.” Tianming saw quite a few other figures in the distance, and could even hear them.

“The drum sound came from there!”

“No, it’s from that way. Someone already went there.”

“Quick!”

Apart from other disciples, Tianming also noticed a lot of defeated dragon golems along the way. “Did these golems appear all throughout the tomb?”

His guess was soon verified. Tens of dragon golems were attacking the disciples of other sects. There were only around fifty or so disciples, all from different sects. Even while working together, they weren’t able to resist the golems well. They were soon overwhelmed and their imperial star formations were shattered, causing them to be flung out of the tomb. Then the golems came Tianming’s way before being swiftly dealt with.

“There’s quite a number of them.” They had encountered similar situations many times. Sometimes, the disciples would defeat the golems. “I bet there’s millions of these dragon golems all over the tomb where we can’t see, hunting down disciples.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. I also have a feeling that defeating them will give us points, too, more than defeating another disciple at any rate,” Yu Ziqian said. He was quite anxious, as the pace was picking up once more. He felt that others were raising their points fast while his hadn’t changed much. But he knew that given his current situation, it was already amazing that he hadn’t been eliminated yet. Though, he had Tianming’s protection to count on.

Further ahead, there were countless dragon golems chasing disciples down. They didn’t care who their targets were, so long as they were living flesh. As Tianming and the rest fought through the mess, he struck the drum again and again. After an hour, they had defeated hundreds of dragon golems. In the meantime, the resonant drumming was also growing louder. The sounds of a crowd could be heard ahead of them.

“Even though we have the drum, it seems we arrived late,” Tianming said, perplexed. The tests inside the tomb didn’t always make sense. Tianming had defeated thousands of golems only to get a war drum that led him in a certain direction, yet the other drum’s resonance drew other nearby disciples to the destination before he arrived.

“The Sky Palace must be trying to fairly distribute the stuff in the tomb to different factions. It’s already pretty decent that they led us here after we got the treasure from the Blooddragon Palace.”

It had been quite difficult to defeat all those golems. Tianming also had a feeling that he had traveled through pretty much the entire span of the tomb to reach the destination. Without the drum, it would have taken him much longer.

“I wonder if someone else got a war drum too?” Holding that thought, he continued along the maze. “Since the commotion hasn’t died down yet, it must mean that we still stand a chance of getting something!”

The four of them looked at the large crowd ahead of them. There was another labyrinth ahead of the crowd, covered in a black mist. Tianming realized that the people ahead remained there unmoving. Though they seemed like they couldn’t wait to give it a try, none of them took a simple step ahead.

“Is this another dragon palace? We just took down the Blooddragon Palace, only for the war drum to lead us to another one?”

Though they were slightly late, they were still in time for the event to start.

“Make way!” Yu Ziqian cried, making a path for Tianming.

Tianming looked at the wide dragon palace ahead, which was as large as the other ones had been. It was completely pitch-black, including the words on the ceiling. Each stroke of the words looked like gigantic black snakes hanging off the walls.

“Blackdragon Palace!” This was the third dragon palace they had encountered. They were already really lucky, as most people hadn’t even seen one of them yet. All they did was find treasures in the pathways and fight dragon golems.

“How dare you, kid?”

“Don’t shove people! Do you want to die?”

“The wargodeans have announced that any beastmaster that dares enter will have all their lifebound beasts killed. Totem users will have their bane-rings crushed!”

Quite a lot of people yelled at Tianming as he charged in, venting their frustrations at him for unreasonably being forbidden to enter themselves.

“It’s them! Li Tianming and Yu Ziqian!”

“Let them pass. I heard that Li Tianming obtained the Lifesteal Silverdragon, and Yu Ziqian managed to defeat Lan Feilin. They’re strong enough to be on the same level as Zhan Yuance.”

“We’ll let them lead the charge and cause enough trouble for us to enter!”

They were no fools, they just didn’t have anyone to lead them, so they were afraid they would become targets of the wargodeans. Thus, they quickly moved aside for Tianming. Some of them even greedily looked at him, knowing the treasure he carried on him.

“Chief Disciple!” There happened to be a disciple from Azuresoul Palace there. He held Yu Ziqian’s arm and said, “Don’t go in! I heard that Zhan Yuance got a yinyang skyscorch pill from the Flamedragon Palace and used it to break through to the fifth level! He’s invincible! Don’t let the others here use you!”

“Fifth-level constellier? Pill?” Yu Ziqian immediately blanked out. “I didn’t think the tomb would have divine pills as well as artifacts! This is troubling… Zhan Yuance is a battle maniac, and now he has the highest level among all the disciples. Even with my full power, I won’t be able to take even one of his punches.”

“Divine pills helped him make a breakthrough right away?” Tianming said.

“Friend! It’s a grade-seven divine pill! Compared to artifacts, pills of the same level are far more valuable. At grade seven, pills can have immediate benefits while artifacts like these can take hundreds of years before we see their full potential. Getting pills here is a surefire way to overtake everyone else.”

In other words, Zhan Yuance had already been incredibly powerful, but he managed to break through with the help of a pill and was even harder to catch up to now. They spoke as they moved to the front of the crowd. Soon, they could finally look into the palace.

Tianming saw hundreds of young men and women with blonde hair and golden irises. Their lifebound beasts were fiercely fighting as well. One of the young men had eight ears and was three meters tall. Like a huge beast, he had a body covered in muscles and golden divine patterns. There was a golden staff in his hands with complex patterns that made bestial roars when it was waved around. It looked like a grade-seven divine artifact as well, but it wasn’t one from the tomb. His seniors had probably let him use it, which meant he was highly valued.

They were fighting a ten-thousand-meter-long black metallic dragon. It had nine coiled heads and was covered entirely in black blades—a pure machine of destruction. It wasn’t a lifebound beast, but rather a peak-grade dragon golem. The hundreds of wargodeans weren’t able to do much to it and were desperately fighting.

“What’s that thing near its heart?” Tianming said, pointing at the dragon.

Yu Ziqian blanked out when he looked. “That’s a grade-seven divine pill. If Zhan Yuance gets it, it’s game over for us.”