Beastmaster of the Ages

Li Fan of Myriadpath valley was quite famous, even among the wonderians. Everyone that saw him quickly turned to see Mister Taihe’s reaction, Tianming included. He held the Grand-Orient Sword tight against Li Fan’s neck.

”Master!” Li Fan’s bloodshot eyes turned toward Mister Taihe, who was setting up a Starshatter Formation. His voice was hoarse and unstable. The fact that a promising young talent of Myriadpath Valley had been crushed by a youth from a mere mundus had resulted in complete humiliation.

Everything fell silent.

Tianming looked up and said, ”Mister Taihe, look who I’ve got. He’s the pride of Myriadpath Valley—or am I mistaken?”

The hundreds of thousands of wonderian gazes grew even heavier. Demoness Yin smiled and crossed her arms as she watched things unfold. Meng Ying, on the other hand, seemed to seethe at the sight. But Mister Taihe didn’t stop working at all and didn’t so much as glance Tianming’s way.

Tianming didn’t care if he was merely feigning aloofness. He looked at everyone else and spoke in the same tone that Meng Ying had. ”Your disciple, Li Fan, has ten cosmic charts in total. For every day that you spend setting up the Starshatter Formation, I’ll destroy one of his cosmic charts. Ten days later, he’ll die for good. Your master-disciple relationship shall be separated by death.”

The wonderians all exploded with rage. Meng Ying turned a furious gaze toward Mister Taihe, yet, to his surprise, Mister Taihe didn’t even turn to look. His hands didn’t even stop for a moment. Tianming looked at him for quite a while, realizing that Mister Taihe probably didn’t care about this disciple of his now that a precious treasure was being dangled in front of him.

He wasn’t able to threaten Mister Taihe the same way Meng Ying had been able to threaten him. The threats simply weren’t in the same league and wouldn’t solve the root of the problem. Tianming cared about his people, but Mister Taihe didn’t seem to care about his, so it was a losing fight to begin with. A few words from them were enough to convey their attitudes about this matter.

”My dear, your subjects are nothing much. The common folk are nothing more than a bunch of lower lifeforms in the eyes of gods. It’s just like how humans don’t care if ants die by the colonies. Astral gods don’t sympathize with the plight of normal gods, either. There’s no need for you to be sad about it. It’s fine if you don’t surrender. Just spend these ten days of yours in leisure, and after that, return to Intrepidus with me. Lin Ke’s gone, so you need to be the one to solve the problem of my lost son. That’s the most important—and pleasurable—thing you can do,” Demoness Yin said, looking at Tianming with a pitiful gaze as if she really cared.

”Remember, Li Tianming! A trillion per day!” Meng Ying spat, still chuckling manically.

Meanwhile, Mister Taihe worked without rest. The more time passed, the heavier the atmosphere became. Tianming, Xiaodao, and the rest didn’t say anything else and returned to the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb.

”It’s fine. Take all the time you need to think,” Meng Ying said, feeling even more ecstatic than ever. He knew that Tianming and the rest were absolutely torn by the potential loss of life.

”Dad,” Fengqing Youyun said as he shuffled to Meng Ying’s side. He was Meng Ying’s successor. ”What do we do about Youmeng?”

”Li Tianming will definitely put her to use when it comes to me, but it’s pointless. Her life is worthless compared to Li Fan’s. It’ll change nothing,” Meng Ying said. Had his other half still lived, he wouldn’t have said that. Fengqing Youmeng and Fengqing Youyun had been the children they’d painstakingly cultivated to be the next rex mundi, but he’d been driven to the ends of desperation. All he wanted to do now was to live forever. There was no need for legacy anymore; the only path that lay before him was the reincarnation of Tian Jiu!

Fengqing Youyun gasped at those words, not knowing if he should react with joy or sorrow. ”Dad, I heard our people say that Li Wudi is Li Tianming’s godfather. He’s still operating that coffin of his within the Flameyellow Guard Formation to attack our forces. He’s supposed to only be a fresh, new astral god, but he’s able to stay alive because of that coffin.” f.

”He’s the only one outside the Sky Palace Formation, right?”

”That’s right!”

How could Meng Ying forget about Wudi, especially after the harsh blow he had dealt him last time?

”I was thinking.... Maybe we can capture him and exchange him for Fengqing Youmeng,” Fengqing Youyun suggested. Though he hated his other half, he could understand what she was going through. Currently, she had no hope whatsoever and had been made a disposable pawn in a conflict of grand interests.

”Of course!” Meng Ying said, smiling. However, he wasn’t thinking about the hostage exchange. Instead, he yearned for the Flameyellow Coffin, something they hadn’t included in the talk of distributing spoils. He had intentionally withheld the coffin’s existence from his allies.

The Sun might go to Shenxi Xingtian, but he’s no longer able to protect himself, let alone fight me over some little spoils. Meng Ying’s greed kept on ballooning. Perhaps that was just the kind of person he was, and the death of the other half of him that’d kept him modulated had allowed him to finally move toward his true nature.

”Brother Shenxi, I’m unable to send any astral gods to react to Yi Daiyan’s sudden move. It can’t be helped. I really hope you don’t betray me....” Meng Ying’s smile grew more and more sinister.

......

The furnace-like pink clouds of the Sun and the flameyellow fiends made the descent of countless wonderians absolutely horrible. Blazing flames and wild nova source slammed into their divine wonders, and there was a real risk that their bodies could be shattered by the assault of the flameyellow fiends.

”Die! Die for me!” Wudi didn’t dare to emerge from the coffin, of course. He piloted it around, slamming through countless divine wonders and shattering them with brute force. ”Die!”

He was killing like a madman, but he knew that no matter how many he or the flameyellow fiends killed, there were bound to be countless more wonderians that slipped through his defenses under the protection of their divine wonders. It would be impossible to keep the surface of the Sun completely defended. ”I only killed fifty thousand and missed at least a hundred thousand of them!”

At that rate, perhaps five million or more would get through when all was said and done, and the ones in the Sky Palace Formation would be the ones to face them off.

”Damn it all!” Right as he was miring in frustration, he spotted something from the point of view of one of the fiends. ”Tianming, my son, Meng Ying’s heading up here. Do you think he’s secretly trying to capture me?”

”Meng Ying?” Tianming looked outside and saw all the other elites there, but not Meng Ying! ”So, he’s trying to sneak the Flameyellow Coffin away before the Sky Palace Formation is destroyed, eh?”

”It’s possible. They said they’d kill a trillion of us for each day that passes, huh? It sounds like an impossible situation. Why don’t I take a bit of a risk here?” Wudi asked.

”If we kill Meng Ying, the seven million plus wonderians will be leaderless. We’ll also obtain the ephemeral world wonder that way.” Tianming’s eyes burned with desire at the thought.