Beastmaster of the Ages

”I heard that divine wonderians appeared on the Sun.”

”The inter-mundi war is starting!”

”The first rex mundi and Lin Feng have made up. They’re mother and son, after all. If the divine wonderians are attacking the Sun, we can’t just sit here and watch.”

”Of course we have to send help! Don’t forget that they also helped us wipe out the beast waves. The first rex mundi said that the Swordgod Lin Clan played the biggest role in the siege of Taixi City, as well.”

”Brothers, do not fear! The divine wonderians came without ships, but we have them! No matter what cosmic artifacts they bring, they’ll be wiped out in one fell swoop as long as they group together!”

”We’re all part of the Infintium Bodhimanda, so we’d better act like it! We can only exist as we do because of our camaraderie! Only the ebons spend all their time plotting against everyone else. They’re small-minded, shameless folk, and should be ashamed to show themselves to others!”

”It’s thanks to the Swordgod Lin Clan that the ebons fell to this point! They only have one million out of their four million astral gods left!”

Even though most people were somewhat worried about the latter stages of the war, they were still spirited and hopeful. After all, they hadn’t heard of Myriadpath Valley or Intrepidus, and thought they only had the wonderians left to contend with. Unlike the ebons, the wonderians were an invading force from outside the mundus, making the people surge with righteous fury! ”Kill them all!”

The three million astralships and astral gods gathered together, waiting for the remaining million ships from all over Ebonia to gather near the astralguard formation of Ebonia. As the world was far too massive, it would take quite a bit of time for them to group together; normal heliacal-class ships weren’t nearly as fast as the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb, after all.

Comparatively, however, the wonderians were slower, since they didn’t even have ships! It would take them quite a while to gather to the point that they would be able to threaten the Sky Palace Formation.

The beast waves had been considerably thinned and were no longer covering the entirety of Ebonia like before. The little that remained wouldn’t be able to threaten the regal clans in the near future. As such, Tianming and Xiaodao weren’t the least bit anxious, despite their rage. The two dragon ships flew back toward the Sun while they kept in touch with Lin Xiao and the rest through Yin Chen.

”The enemy came really fast. They’ve assembled around seven hundred thousand astral gods,” Lin Xiao said.

No doubt, the populace of the Sun was feeling rather nervous about the large-scale mobilization. The reason Tianming had kept the Sun’s denizens in the Sky Palace Formation this whole time was precisely to guard against this kind of eventuality, and it’d paid off.

”How is it? Are the nova source blasts of the ships able to destroy the markers?” Tianming asked.

”I reached the markers that’re nearest to us. We’re just about to try it out!” Lin Xiao’s ether-class ship was among the faster ones on the Sun.

The blazing surface of the sun was primarily made up of wide, expansive plains. One xenogate of around twenty meters in diameter could be seen down below. Even now, wonderians poured out of the gate one after another. Near it were thousands of others who had made it across, some two hundred among them being cosmic cartographers.

A single marker was enough to let thousands of people through, and there were probably more than a thousand markers all across the Sun. Nearly a million astral gods might have crossed them. It was a number that far exceeded the total number of astral gods of the Sun, and they were definitely capable of posing a threat to the Sky Palace Formation! The wonderians coldly looked around the foreign land with a haughty sense of superiority.

”What a barren land.”

”I really don’t know what kind of treasures there could be to take in a barbaric place like this. Why’d the rex mundi mobilize eight million astral gods to take this place?”

”It’s said that this is Li Tianming’s lair. He possesses so many treasures that even our rex mundi couldn’t bear to let him sleep.”

”Couldn’t he just kill Li Tianming himself and take it? Why’s an inter-mundi war even necessary? The casualties will be enormous! I recall that different mundi basically haven’t interfered with each other throughout history. The only people who stand to suffer from the war are the innocents.”

”Don’t bother with all that nonsense, just follow orders!”

”Fine, fine!”

As they talked, a gigantic black sword of galactic proportions appeared above them. The instant they saw it, a sword flash descended upon them.

”Evade!” cried many wonderians as they scrambled away. Astral gods like them should have been hard to kill and agile, yet many of them were killed just like that! It was something they never could have imagined happening, and a demonstration of why astral gods stood no chance against astralships.

While fleeing was definitely an option for astral gods, they couldn’t exactly move the xenogates or markers; and that was what Lin Xiao was actually targeting with his ship! He didn’t set the blast of his ether-class ship to full power, using only about as much as a blast from a deific-class ship just for the test. When the beam struck the xenogate, the black vortex immediately vaporized into nothing, leaving behind a large area filled with spatial tears. Some wonderian astral gods that were still within it were instantly turned into vapor.

”It looks like it works! Once the blast disrupts the unbalanced energies between the Xenoworld and the astralscape, they shouldn’t be able to restore the gate for quite some time,” Lin Xiao said with some relief. At the same time, he gave further instructions to other units with his transmission stone. ”Ignore the wonderians for now! Prioritize wiping out their markers!”

That news came as quite a relief for Tianming. With Yin Chen’s help in finding the markers, as well as Wudi and the astralguard formation, they wouldn’t be taken on the back foot. Destroying the markers wasn’t hard at all!

It didn’t take long before all the markers were located. ”Watch the wonderians closely. Make sure that all of them are tagged so we can get them all once the markers are dealt with!” Tianming said.

”Okay, I... got it...” Yin Chen said with its ever-miffed attitude. Despite that, it tirelessly worked as if it had a split personality that loved what it was doing... or would it be more apt to call it ’insect-nality?’ In fact, with as many bodies as it had, it wouldn’t be weird if it had multiple personalities.

”Leaving more markers will take time, too. All we need to do is to make sure we have the entire Sun under surveillance. But even though we had them watched back then, they still managed to leave so many markers. They’re sneaky pests, just like the ebons! We have to deal with them posthaste,” Xiaodao said.

”Well, unlike ebons, they don’t have defensive formations to protect them,” Tianming said.

”It all depends on how spread out they are now. If a million people scatter, it’ll be a pain to track each and every one of them down.”

”Their goal must be the Sky Palace Formation, so they’ll no doubt gather there. What I’m wondering is why Meng Ying would send a million astral gods here...” Tianming’s sense of unease hadn’t faded in the slightest.