Beastmaster of the Ages

Hell hath no greed like a mammoth-eating snake. Tianming was the most alluring piece of bait across two mundi. Not even Li Fan and Meng Ying had been able to resist, let alone the wonderian troops.

”He’s far too arrogant!”

”Let’s snuff out this little pipsqueak.”

”He couldn’t be killed in the wondersky realm, so I’ve been wanting to beat him up real good for a good, long while now.”

Most of the wonderians didn’t know that Tianming’s current power on the Sun was a far cry from what he had shown back on the Skyhold Bridge. He had even managed to overwhelm the tenth-level cosmic cartographer, Li Fan!

The fight broke out into a chaotic melee, with forty thousand divine wonders surrounding Tianming and his beasts and pushing them to the absolute brink. There were all kinds of different shapes, sizes, and levels, applying pressure on them from all directions with the power of their order!

Facing that pressure, Tianming yelled, ”Shatter!”

As he shouted, Ying Huo, Meow Meow, Lan Huang, and Xian Xian let their abilities loose. Purgatorial fire and monochrome lightning formed a storm of blitz and blaze, razing a path straight through the divine wonders! Lan Huang rolled on the ground and charged in with its Primordial Wheel, smashing anything else that attempted to fill the space and crushing quite a number of enemies in the process.

Most effective of all was Xian Xian in its tree form, lashing out with its black roots, sword leaves, blood-red petal rain, radiant vines, nightly roses, singing mares, exploding loti, and many more abilities that swept across the battlefield. No wonderian was left untouched or unharassed. Some of the weaker astral gods were heavily wounded by the bombardment, with many not even managing to catch their breath after being pierced through by sword-shaped lily petals before a lotus exploded in their faces. Fiendsong Mares also attached themselves to the bodies of the astral gods and began siphoning away their energy!

”Die!” Tianming put the Grand-Orient Sword down and raised up his Prime Starchain. He stood on Lan Huang’s back as it marauded through enemy ranks with Myriadstar Swordrings and Primordial Swords engaged. Words from the grand lexicon wonder joined the bombardment while Tianming swung the chain with abandon, grinding away at the mass of flesh and divine wonders that blocked his way—no wonderian could stop him at all!

He hadn’t gone wild with his lifebound beasts in this fashion for a long time and had almost forgotten the joys he felt in combat during his days on the Flameyellow Continent and the heliacal-class Sun. Back then, he had been a war god among men with his mythical beasts, and that hadn’t changed even now. They were nightmares wherever they went.

In almost no time, not only had the forty thousand divine wonders failed to take them out, they even crumbled like tofu. Whoever Tianming struck fell without fail. Even if the wonderian couples survived the beast bombardment, they would be turned to dust by the Prime Starchain. Countless flashes lit up all across the battlefield, each one signifying the tragic death of a wonderian pair. It was the deathly light emanated by a dying advanced cosmic lifeform. It wasn’t gruesome at all; instead, it was even a beautiful sight to behold. Somehow, that made it so that the act of killing itself was completely unburdened by the trappings of guilt.

The wonderians were completely horrified by the endless light show.

”Isn’t he under a hundred years old? How is he so powerful?!”

”I saw Marshal Nan get killed by a single strike of that whip! They’re ninth-level cosmic cartographers!” ℯ

”That’s far too unbelievable....”

”We shouldn’t even bother! If forty thousand divine wonders aren’t able to stop him, we should regroup with the main force! He won’t be able to catch all of us alone!”

”Marshal Zhao ordered everyone to retreat!”

The wonderians could barely take the heat, but at least they were able to react to the slaughter, no matter how unbelievable it seemed. The marshal that had led their twenty thousand troops was able to come up with the next best move they could make and actually put it into action.

When the markers had been destroyed, the wonderians received orders from Meng Ying to regroup. Once a million of them were gathered, they would have enough might to pose a threat to the astral gods of the Sun. But regrouping wasn’t a simple matter of joining up to increase their numbers. In fact, there was a good reason for that, as the synergy of their divine wonders could reach heights that could even take down many astralships. And it wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the powerful life force and flexibility of astral gods.

The wonderians did as they were told. Once more and more units joined up to form larger ones, the Sun would have a harder time using their numbers and mobility to their advantage. More crucially, there were seven million other wonderians outside of the Sun, while the forces of the Sun were having trouble with only seven hundred thousand. No amount of strategic maneuvering could help them overcome a fight on two fronts, one with an enemy ten times their number.

”Everyone, retreat!” The wonderians would never admit that they had fled because of the terror Tianming had inflicted on them.

”This is a strategic retreat.”

”Enough of our greed! We’ll leave that monster to the rex mundi.”

With the order relayed, the wonderians that had been being slaughtered by Tianming finally relented, retreating in multiple different directions to limit the casualties he could inflict upon them. He watched as they left with fearful and unwilling looks, feeling the pressure of order and divine wonders around him lighten as they did.

”Leaving so soon? I already told you that I’d show you the best hospitality we have to offer! Come have a taste of death as we serve it here!” Tianming chuckled and turned back to look at the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb.

Within the Silverdragon Palace inside, fifty girls held each other’s hands and formed a formation core, allowing Ji Ji to funnel energy into their bodies. The outer walls of their albi glowed with brilliant divine celestial patterns as the eightpart apparition wonder manifested!

The wonderians that were scurrying off felt a fiendish power coming from behind them that chilled every one of them to the core. It was the most powerful and fearsome divine wonder in all of the Skydome Mundus. They turned back and looked, shaking as they did, and almost all of them gasped.

Their eyes widened in complete disbelief, with at least a half of them shrieking in wild lunacy at the sight of countless hellish white apparitions rising from the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb. They numbered in the tens of millions and instantly covered the battlefield. One single divine wonder had managed to envelop more than thirty thousand others within itself!