Beastmaster of the Ages

Yin Chen swiftly attacked, all ninety thousand locusts instantly turning into metal spiders that spun ninety thousand black threads. Thanks to the enhancement of the bane text, these Infinite Silverthreads were much more reinforced. In an instant, one silver-black net after another landed on the wildbeast, a metal devourer that, like Yin Chen, consumed divine ore to strengthen its scales, claws, and skeleton.

Right as the beast was submerging itself into the magma, the threads pulled tight. Then, the spiders landed on the ground and moved in the opposite direction, dragging the metal devourer out and smashing it to the ground. The beast was about as strong as a three-star constellier, so it was by no means weak, yet it was helpless before Yin Chen.

The threads that tightly pulled together seemed to dig into the beast’s hide, causing it to bleed. Then the spiders morphed into countless centipedes that combined into a gigantic one a few thousand meters long, making it even larger than the metal devourer. The giant insect charged at the beast before wrapping its body around it, piercing its countless legs into the beast. The metal devourer’s pained cries accompanied the cruel sight, only to be followed by the centipede burrowing itself into the beast’s mouth before splitting into a torrent of metal ants that entered its body from its mouth.

The sound of metallic rubbing endlessly echoed; it was a gruesome thing to behold. Putting Long Wanying aside, it was also Tianming’s first time seeing Yin Chen fight. This was just the starting form of the insect army. Nobody knew how much more terrifying it could become once it developed even more.

“There hasn’t been a lifebound beast the likes of this in the history of Orderia. How did you not let it fight even once in the Voidsky Skirmish?” Long Wanying asked, face filled with awe.

“It was hurt back then.” He didn’t bother showing how it behaved like a broodmother as it wasn’t that kind of lifebound beast in the first place. He would just let others imagine what the imaginary broodmother must look like.

“Stealth, eavesdropping, combat, and binding…. This lifebound beast is a natural-born killing machine.”

Tianming had to admit that she had a point. He had thought Xian Xian was already the pinnacle of fighting beasts, yet Yin Chen seemed to supersede even that! At this rate, Tianming would become a one-man army. “Aunt Ying, this still isn’t what I wanted to show you today.”

As he smiled, the ninety thousand silver eggs turned back into locusts and continued eating divine ores. Before leaving, Yin Chen said, “Mission accomplished!” Those two short words were spoken in a prideful tone. A million bonegnaw ants had already infested the metal devourer’s bones.

The beast, seeing that its foe had left, quickly turned and ran, only to suddenly collapse in pain and agony and uncontrollably twitch from its bones being gnawed at. Even though it had only happened for an instant, that was enough to cause it to despair and it no longer dared to move at all. It seemed as if its mind had completely broken down.

It’s far more potent than Ling’er’s Latticeheart Curse. More importantly, the Latticeheart Curse depended on the level of power of the target, while the bonegnaw ants could seemingly be used on anyone at all, as long as the ants reached the spots not protected by astralforce.

“It looks horrible. What’s happening?” Long Wanying asked, inspecting the beast.

Tianming ended the beast’s suffering. Wildbeasts basically had no higher intelligence at all, being no different from normal fowl or fish. They focused more on pain in the moment than pain in the long term. He then cut off the foreleg of the beast.

“Aunt Ying, take a look at the bone.”

She looked closer and felt her hair stand on end. The bone was filled with many metal ants that flooded out and turned into little silver eggs in Tianming’s hand. “This….” She backed off a few steps and blankly looked at the whole thing.

“These are called bonegnaw ants. Once they enter the parts of bone where there’s no albi or astralforce to crush them, they can inflict agonizing pain on the enemy by devouring their bones.”

“I give up….” She solemnly looked at Tianming. “I thought you were an obedient kid, but it turns out you’re far more terrifying than meets the eye.”

“Do you think this is a good or bad thing?” Tianming asked, smiling.

“Given the current times of chaos, I couldn’t have asked for any better.”

“Great.” Tianming nodded, then told her more details.

“So you need an enemy to be subdued for an hour for this to work? Wouldn’t killing them outright be much easier?” she asked.

“Some people are better left alive, right? There’s people whose death can cause problems or inspire others to come after us, but if we can control them and make them work for us, we’ll gain a chess piece of our own. Isn’t that much better?”

“I see… Tianming, let’s try it out on me.”

“Try what out?”

“Let it enter my bones.”

“It’ll hurt a lot, you know.”

“It’s just a small thing. I want to judge whether that kind of pain is something that can really traumatize someone enough to make them think twice.”

While this ability was a little similar to Ghoul King Xue Yi’s heartscourge worm, those worms would easily be crushed by astralforce.

“Alright.” Tianming sent ten thousand ants into Long Wanying’s palm. She easily vaporized them with her albi.

“Looks like they can’t survive well in the flesh.”

“That’s right, which is why we need to heavily wound someone first, then keep them like that for one hour. Even if most of the ants are vaporized, if only ten thousand manage to reach the bone, this will work out.”

“Alright. This time, let them burrow straight to my bones.” She took a deep breath, her face pale.

“Aunt Ying, you’re an absolute badass!” Tianming praised with a thumbs up.

“You little brat, how dare you talk about me like that? I’m not an ass!” She was stunned at how disrespectful he could be to a senior.