Beastmaster of the Ages

“Haha!” Carefree laughter rang through the tomb.

“Moron! The Nonacrypt Fushen Formation can’t move, but I can! And you think you can accurately hit me?” The Ninedragon Imperial Tomb didn’t have to stay still and keep taking hits. The time Sovereign Starfeather had attacked the Primary Sphere with the Kilostar Capital, it had dodged many times.

Time was tight, so Tianming had no time to care about what the people inside the Divine Sun Palace thought. He hurriedly flew the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb into the sky again. After being roasted by the Divine Sun Palace, the Divine Palace Army had been scared out of their wits. Not even the Deluge Emperor dared to order them to give chase.

As expected, the next phase was the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb fleeing while the Divine Sun Palace gave pursuit. The only good news for Tianming was that the Divine Sun Palace’s attack power should be near the minimum. As long as he could dodge, he was home free.

“Come on, shoot! Let’s see how many more times you can!” Ying Huo arrogantly shouted at the Divine Sun Palace. It had clearly been won over by Tianming’s driving skills.

Unobstructed now, the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb kept accelerating. Once he got back to the Myriaddragon Mountains, the sun emperor wouldn’t be able to do anything to him.

Tianming’s guess had most likely been correct; the Divine Sun Palace had likely used up its miniature nova source. After the last Divine Wrath, the Divine Sun Palace no longer attacked. Perhaps if it attacked once or twice more, it wouldn’t even be able to get off the ground.

“I guessed right.” Tianming looked back. The Divine Sun Palace was still hot on his heels, but it didn’t attack anymore. As long as it didn’t attack, the sun emperor couldn’t do anything even if he rammed the Divine Sun Palace into the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb.

The situation had been perfectly overturned!

From his perspective, the Myriad Solar Sects had won this round. Just as he began slightly relaxing, Ying Huo suddenly stiffened. “Hey, you may want to look back.”

“What?” Tianming looked back while driving, only to see that the Divine Sun Palace was slightly faster than the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb and gaining on it. The golden head was covered with flames, its eyes glowing and its dragon-shaped wings flying about wildly. It was the very image of anger.

Its mouth opened. That was usually a signal for an incoming Divine Wrath. However, energy didn’t gather inside this time. Instead, someone was standing there!

Tianming’s body shook at that moment, his hair standing on end. It was a muscular man with long crimson hair. He stood amidst flames, his long hair fluttering. He was smiling at Tianming, his gaze warm. He was even waving to him.

“Godfather!” The main reason Tianming had rushed back to Orderia was his concern about Li Wudi. The man had provided great help to Tianming during his growth, but had somehow become an ’experiment’ after coming to Orderia. He had been imprisoned by the sun emperor, his freedom and dignity lost.

Li Wudi had definitely rendered great services when he stole the Solar Wheel the last time. If he hadn’t, the Myriad Solar Sects wouldn’t have had these two or three years and the Nonacrypt Fushen Formation wouldn’t have been able to withstand a few true Divine Wraths. He was also the father Li Qingyu yearned for.

Tianming had assumed he wouldn’t be seeing him until he killed the sun emperor. Hence, the shock of seeing him was great.

The Ninedragon Imperial Tomb decelerated. The Divine Sun Palace didn’t ram it, instead decelerating as well. The two massive astralships parked in the sky, and Tianming turned the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb around to face the giant golden head.

The world around them seemed to fall silent, but Tianming’s heart was pounding in his chest; Li Wudi’s smile and warmth gave him a strange feeling.

Tianming appeared in the black dragon’s head. He could communicate with Li Wudi through the dragon’s eyes, and the other side could see him as well.

“Tianming my son, I hope you’ve been well.” Li Wudi gave a carefree smile before shaking his head, seemingly full of emotion.

“Godfather,” Tianming hoarsely said.

“Yes.” Li Wudi nodded in acknowledgment before shaking his head and laughing bitterly. “Why’d you return? You’re still so disobedient. You could’ve brought Qingyu along to wander high-level nova source worlds. That’s the future for you two. But now you’ve made this painful for the both of us.”

“What do you mean, godfather? I don’t understand.” Tianming wanted to say that he had returned to save him, but he wasn’t able to say it, as grief filled him at that moment.

“You still don’t.” Li Wudi shook his head. “You should with your intelligence.”

“On this matter, I’m a bit foolish. Please enlighten me, godfather,” Tianming said.

Li Wudi nodded. He exhaled and began, “From the very start, I was the same person as the other me. We merely grew up in different places. Your godfather is a piece of flesh and blood I split off. Hence, Qingyu is my flesh and blood daughter. She inherited my most perfect bloodline. How else would an octabane or nonabane appear in a deserted place? The ‘experiment’ was just a guess I had before awakening my memories. But now I’m no longer confused. I’m the sun emperor and the sun emperor is me. Throughout all the heliacal-class worlds of the astralscape, the sun may be in a small corner, but I’m the strongest king of a heliacal-class world.’’ His last sentence finally had the arrogance of the one who had called himself the ‘number one genius’ of the Grand-Orient Realm before. That smugness and arrogance was very similar to the old him.

However, Tianming shook his head bitterly as well after hearing him. ‘You’re messing with me, godfather.”

“How so? I know you must have doubts in your heart. This exceeds your imagination and it’s difficult for you to accept. Facts are facts. Do you know the name of the first ancestor of the celestial orderians who was also a nonabane like me?” Li Wudi asked.

“Please tell me,” Tianming said.

“His name was Li Shenxiao,” Li Wudi said. That name was the same as the name of the Li Saint Clan’s first ancestor.

There were some connections in there that were filled with mysteries. Tianming went quiet. “Seems interesting. But let me ask something. If that’s true, why’d you steal the Solar Wheel for me years back and make me run away?”

“That’s simple—it’s because I understand you all too well. You’re a person that values kindness. You joined the Myriad Solar Sects after coming to Orderia and stood opposite of me. You definitely wouldn’t approve of me uniting the sun and causing casualties, so I had to come up with a way to let you and Qingyu safely leave. However, I underestimated your growth rate. If you’d come back a few months later, you would’ve returned to a united and prosperous world. Even the experience in the Grand-Orient Realm tells me that once everyone is united, the sun will reach its peak in history and no longer fear the law of the jungle of the astralscape.

“Tianming, I don’t mind telling you that the Skywolf Star is already eyeing Orderia. Their nova source is already moving in our direction. If they arrive before the sun is unified and the astralguard formations haven’t been controlled, all the people on the sun will become slaves and millions of years of glory will end! Unification must be accompanied by blood. There’ll be resistance. I don’t want children to witness this, but I have no regrets for the sun’s future. You must’ve witnessed the tragedy of destroyed stars after wandering the astralscape. This is the path I must take for survival and the future.”

Li Wudi spoke until Tianming was crying. He had seen a dead sun before. It was desolate. Nothing lived there, not even grass. He wouldn’t be able to accept it if the sun became a dead star. But that wasn’t the reason for his tears.

“Child, why do you cry?” Li Wudi asked.

Tianming’s tears carried an absolute grudge within them. He glared at the man he had once recognized as his godfather and said to him in a resolute voice, “You pilfered his memories. No matter how you try copying him, your acting skills as a high and lofty sovereign are very clumsy. Maybe your words today have truth inside. However, you are not him, no matter how much you try.”

He wiped away his tears and deeply inhaled—men didn’t cry. However, from the moment he had first laid eyes on him, he knew that the godfather he loved and respected no longer existed.

His younger sister would also never see her beloved father ever again.