Beastmaster of the Ages

The rumbling of the tomb grew louder and louder. When the disciples were flung out of the tomb, the pathways suddenly changed and began moving like a snake. All the pathways in the gigantic tomb wiggled around, causing quite a few disciples to fall unconscious before they had even been sent out. They were like ants in a collapsing ant nest.

“Careful!”

“We must hold onto each other! Let’s not get separated outside!”

Many disciples from the same sects had joined up together inside the tomb in groups of hundreds. Though they knew they were going to leave the tomb, they wanted to stay together, but things wouldn’t go as they wished. The tomb’s insane shaking made it hard for a group to stay cohesive.

All of a sudden, it looked like the ceiling of the Imperialdragon Palace was about to collapse.

“I’m finally done!” Yu Ziqian had managed to control the artifact soul of the cauldron, allowing him to shrink the cauldron to the size of a bowl. Only then were they able to see what it actually looked like. Tianming noticed that it looked a little similar to orderian cauldrons. When he took his out, the orderian cauldron fused with the Divine Worldeater Cauldron like it was part of it.

“An orderian cauldron?” Yu Ziqian shot a weird look at Tianming. “Why would you have something of the celestial orderians?”

“What does this cauldron have to do with orderian cauldrons?” Tianming asked as he looked at the cauldron.

“The celestial orderians have many orderian cauldrons which they use to protect their borders. They’re split up from subcauldrons of the Divine Worldeater Cauldron. There are two such subcauldrons, one of which is with the celestial orderians and the other is with the wargodeans. The wargodeans’ subcauldron is complete, while the celestial orderians have split theirs into countless orderian cauldrons,” Yu Ziqian said.

“There are subcauldrons too? Man, this artifact sure has many tricks.”

“That’s why I said I’d be your ally for life if you help me get it.” Yu Ziqian was still really emotional. His eyes teared up and blurred his vision.

“Hold it!” Tianming noticed that the Divine Worldeater Cauldron was unbelievably heavy, as he didn’t have the exalted blood in him. The mere touch hurt his fingers and he hurriedly returned it to Yu Ziqian.

“Is the entire Azuresoul Palace really incapable of maintaining ownership over the cauldron?” Tianming asked.

“Definitely. It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re robbed of it right after leaving this place. Either that, or we disappear from the world all of a sudden without anyone noticing.” Yu Ziqian lovingly touched the cauldron, obviously not wanting to part from it. “Oh, these intricate patterns… this perfect feel to the touch! My life has been worth living!”

He wasn’t just consoling himself. He wasn’t even counting on living long, now that he had assimilated the exalted blood.

“Don’t stand too far away.”

The tomb was still shaking and more than five million disciples rained down outside after having been ejected from it. However, Tianming and the rest still remained within, huddling together to prevent being flung apart. Tianming looked at his palm and saw that the four wardrum formations had fused into a new black war drum about the size of a human head. It was still expanding on his hand, but it no longer had anything to do with the cauldron. Instead, it somehow seemed tied to the tomb’s changes.

He noticed a small beam of light shoot out from a passageway in the Imperialdragon Palace. Upon closer inspection, it was a small war drum, much like the first one Tianming had obtained. It kept beating nonstop, causing the drum in Tianming’s hand to resonate. Then it flew over and fused with the huge drum, making it even bigger. The drum was formed from many divine celestial patterns, making it somewhat resemble the Cyclic Map. The fusing of another drum had only made the patterns even more complicated. It started looking like a physical drum, rather than just a diagram.

“What’s next?” Tianming looked around, seeing that half of the hundreds of thousands of disciples had been ejected. Some others were glaring at them, intent on taking their treasures, but most didn’t make it and were flung away in the chaos. The number of people continued decreasing.

“There’s another one there!” Lingfeng said.

Tianming turned to look and saw a small war drum fly toward him and fuse with the one on his hand like before, making the pattern even larger and more complex. “These wardrum formations come from the dragon golems. That must mean there’s many more of them in the tomb. But why are they coming toward me?”

Then a third and fourth war drum came flying, followed by even more. The more the tomb shook, the more drums appeared. Upon the eightieth fusion, the drum in Tianming’s hand was about twenty centimeters wide and didn’t change in size any longer, though the celestial patterns were now so complicated that the drum looked three-dimensional, almost like a divine artifact.

“Looks like the cauldron isn’t the closing act. This is…” Lingfeng said as he looked at the black drum.

“It very well might be,” Tianming said. He inspected the entire tomb through the black war drum. Slowly, he began to feel countless smaller drums fusing together into a new whole. It was somehow connected to the entire tomb, while the nine treasures weren’t.