Beastmaster of the Ages

Even though the power of the curse had decreased less than a fiftieth of its total, Chen Tianyong was certain that Tianming could do it! Tears began to flow from his eyes and his thick hands tightly gripped the dirt beneath him.

”Get ready to welcome your new life.” After Tianming said that, he sped up his absorption of the curse energy and signaled for Zi Zhen to start her part as well.

”Open your eyes,” Zi Zhen instructed. She felt a little awkward about this, as the only way for her unique ability to work against a much more powerful person was for them to willingly go with it. Chen Tianyong didn’t hesitate and opened his eyes wide, looking at Tianming and Zi Zhen.

Zi Zhen’s foundation fortress began bearing down on Chen Tianyong’s head, surrounding it completely. The walls were filled with hexagonal holes. The eyes within them formed a complicated structure above the head. Then Zi Zhen’s own hexapath eyes overlaid on the formation of eyes in the fortress and fused their field of vision together, forming a kaleidoscope of hexagonal irises. Those eyes gradually descended onto Chen Tianyong’s eyes and inscribed the power of order and bloodline onto them.

”Ugh!” Even someone who had endured so much torture from xeno fatigue shook when the power of the hexapath eyes entered his own. He began to have cold sweat; the pain could be felt all across his body, not just his eyes.

He instinctively struggled, causing the foundation fortress above him to rumble. Zi Zhen furrowed her brows in pain. However, he managed to endure it as a sixth-level foundationeer would. The hexapath eyes were beginning to inscribe things directly onto Chen Tianyong’s astral brain through his own eyes.

”This technique is rather terrifying. What kind of specter are you?” Chen Tianyong asked with a hoarse voice. He wouldn’t have believed something like this would be possible if he hadn’t experienced it himself.

”Skyghoul,” Tianming answered for her.

”Oh?” He didn’t offer up any more comments.

Thanks in no small part to Tianming, Chen Tianyong managed to endure the process of making him a hexapath slave. The absorption of the xeno fatigue relaxed Chen Tianyong enough to be able to better handle the process.

”I’ve never felt so relieved in a long time....” He still felt incredibly relaxed even as inscriptions were being made on his brain. How many years had he spent begging and waiting for a day like this to come? He had forgotten what true peace felt like! Even the sensation of his body feeling light was a distant memory that came rushing back, and that was after only half of his xeno fatigue had been sucked away.

Tianming had seen the same blissful reaction from the other afflicted that he’d helped heal. He began slowing down and waiting for Zi Zhen to finish, since he didn’t dare to let Chen Tianyong fully recover before that.

”This is good! Good!” Chen Tianyong couldn’t stop commenting on how much better he was feeling. His eyes were bloodshot, but mostly because of the agitation he felt from the utter relief and the pain from the hexapath eyes.

Tianming noticed that the minotaur’s huge pupils were becoming hexagonal from Zi Zhen’s work. Chen Tianyong was almost fully on his way to becoming a hexapath slave. Some purple could be seen within his black pupils. The eyes were the window to the soul, which resided within the astral brain.

This feeling is a little like how the dark mirror spirit transferred her evil impulses to me. It felt like a foreign energy filled the astrons of my head. As my vita’s been fused with my astral brain, my behavior’s also being influenced by it....

It basically worked on the same principle, influencing the behavior of others through subconscious means. The dark mirror spirit drove Tianming to be more impulsive and violent, and during that state, he wouldn’t feel that anything was off.

Zi Zhen’s hexapath eyes, on the other hand, immediately made Chen Tianyong loyal to her as if he had always been that way. No doubt, the dark mirror spirit’s technique was much more impressive, especially with how it could be forced on its target, not to mention its gradually intensifying effects.

”I’m done.” Zi Zhen’s face was pale after two whole hours of toiling. She had transformed back into her more humanoid form, her long purple hair freely flowing. She was covered in sweat and her face was pale and worn out from all the effort. She slumped weakly to the ground and closed her eyes to rest.

”Okay, get some rest.” Tianming immediately finished absorbing the rest of the curse energy from the vortices on Chen Tianyong’s body into the bottomless hole that was his Order Relic Universal Body, leaving not a single trace.

”Done!” Tianming jumped off Chen Tianyong’s body and went to Zi Zhen.

”Ooh! Ooooh!” Chen Tianyong sat up and looked at his arms and body, feeling the pain fade away. The full recovery even made a burly man like him uncontrollably tear up in joy! The tears washed away the years of nightmare and suffering. He had despaired about his life countless times, so being released from suffering like this felt like a complete dream.

”You two....” He had been under the impression that Zi Zhen’s control would make him lose his sense of self to become a complete puppet. Even so, he had thought it worth it. But on the contrary, he felt like he was still alive. The relief wasn’t temporary, as he had imagined it would be. It was as if Zi Zhen had done nothing to him at all. The feeling of gratitude and the subconsciously planted loyalty fused together. Despite being a senior, he knelt toward his saviors, audibly kowtowing.

”Senior Chen!” Tianming immediately stopped him. ”You don’t have to do this. You’ve already paid your price! It wasn’t a big deal for me either!”

”You don’t understand.” Chen Tianyong’s tear-covered face looked up. He kowtowed twice more and said, ”You’ve never experienced xeno fatigue, so you don’t know what endless despair is like.”

”Oh, that’s true...” Tianming agreed. ”However, you really don’t have to kowtow to thank me. I still need your help on many things in the future.”

Tianming checked on Zi Zhen and saw that all she needed was a bit of rest. He picked her up and turned back to Chen Tianyong. ”Senior Chen, let’s talk as we move. We aren’t exactly safe here, so let’s go underground.”

”Okay!”