Beastmaster of the Ages

Yumo Xue could only chuckle at the mention of Suishen Yao.

”She is pretty, though. Got to give her that,” Yumo Yuanni added.

”Do you like her?” Yumo Xue asked, tilting his head. ”Have you played with a Suishen before?”

”Played? We aren’t even the same kind of people. Humans and specters can’t marry,” Yumo Yuanni said in a straightlaced manner.

”Hahaha!” Yumo Xue slapped the young specter on his head as he shook his head. ”You’re truly naive. Not being able to marry doesn’t mean not being able to become one.... I’ll arrange one for you later. I assure you, it’s a completely different experience. The soft Suishen girls have their own charms that we specters don’t. Though, the Suishen girls that come to fool around with us aren’t virgins. After all, they have to reserve their Suishen Blood for their husbands, understand?”

”Sure! That’s perfect!” Yumo Yuanni sounded excited.

”That’s why I keep telling you the Three Exalted Houses are basically united as one despite our differences. You can tell from that alone!” Yumo Xue reemphasized.

”When?” Yumo Yuanni couldn’t wait.

”You’re that impatient?” Yumo Xue could understand the folly of youth. House Suishen had always been filled with celestial beauties. Eminent Jiguang and Suishen Yao were perfect representatives for the Suishen beauties that were famous across countless mundi. Specter girls, on the other hand, had more of a wild air to them.

Yumo Xue gave it some thought and said, ”I have to leave in two days. You’ll have to wait until I return.”

”Are you leaving Myriadpath Valley?”

”Yes.”

”Where to?”

”Did you forget?” Yumo Xue’s blood boiled at the thought. ”I’m going to assimilate my tenth drop of starblood! If I succeed, I should be able to break through to the second level of the Foundation stage. I’ll crush Qitian Jian before he can become a major pathkeeper and make him my stepping stone as I rise to first place!”

”Your tenth!” Yumo Yuanni’s eyes brightened up. ”Wasn’t there a big fuss over the extermination of some world recently?”

”That’s right. That’s why our flagship, the Hellfiend, found a brand new mundus without a stareye! It’s a rather rural place that’s perfect to be refined into a drop of starblood,” Yumo Xue said.

”The Hellfiend, one of the three mobile stareyes of the Myriadpath Celestial Formation! We’ll be able to reach that mundus in an instant!” Yumo Yuanni enviously said.

”That’s right. Stareyes have to be supported by ten skypiercer-class nova source worlds. Apart from us, House Suishen and House Qitian are the only ones that have mobile stareyes. Our ancestors spent aeons modifying three divine astralships by removing their offensive formations and shaping them into barrier compression formations so that we can fit mobile nova sources in them.

”The three mobile stareyes might lack combat capabilities, but they greatly increased the amount of power we project across the astralscape of order! We’ll soon discover more and more ownerless mundi, within which precious treasures might lay!”

”Combat capabilities? Forget it. Even with infinitum-class astralguard formations, not a single mundus can defend against our foundationeer army. It’s all too easy for us to crush their armies and build stareyes there,” Yumo Yuanni said.

”Yes. And the mobile stareye of our house just happens to be perfect for what we need to do,” Yumo Xue said, snickering.

”True! What’s the name of that ownerless mundus, by the way?”

”I forgot. Let’s see....” After some recollection, the words came to his mind. He cracked a smile and said, ”Ah, I think it was called Infinitum.”

”Is the starblood ready?”

”Almost. Our house’s precious artifact, the Yumo Blood Crucible, is refining it as we speak.”

***

Within the dark void of the astralscape, an emerald-green star lay hidden. It was in a lonely corner of the astralscape that seemed to be separated from the other stars that shone brightly far away.

The green star seemed like an isolated island. It wasn’t huge, being only a heliacal-class world that was surrounded by a few lunar worlds. Even so, it was packed with abundant life. The forests were ruled by beastmasters who called their home by the name of Viridian.

Viridian was a world where plant life flourished. The local beastmasters prospered in their environment. People of all walks of life, from mortals, to gods at the level of stellaminors, lived their own busy lives.

It was a world with but a few small divine astralships. Nobody in it saw the approach of a gargantuan beast with a gaping maw. The monstrous shark’s shadow seemed bigger than Viridian itself.

Viridian was surrounded by a layer of green clouds formed of condensed nova source. Nobody could see through the clouds to spot the looming beast. Deep in the dark shadow was a group of people clad in black. They stood in a neat row and each cast a great big shadow of their own. Like lifeforms from a higher plane, they observed the puny world before them. None of them wanted to waste words after coming so far.

”Hellfiend, brace for the vacuum!” shouted the leader. Soon, everyone spread apart and the gigantic object began to scatter and reform into some kind of ring that contained an unbelievable suction force! The object had a miniaturized nova source that was made up of ten compressed skypiercer-class worlds, at the very least. The ring spun faster and faster, letting out a terrifying sound. Something shone bright black within the ring as it expanded like the bloody mouth of a predator.

Soon, those in Viridian heard the noise. At first, they noticed the clouds above slightly moving, but none of them seemed to pay much heed apart from a few curious looks. They had their own busywork to go about, after all. Even those who were resting were doing so to recharge before returning to their routine.

As time passed, the terrifying sound of the wind grew louder and louder. When people finally started panicking, The cloud layer of Viridian was being sucked away, forming a beautiful trail of green that led into outer space.

”What’s that sound?”

”Why does the sky look like that?!”

”I don’t know!”

”Does the lord sovereign know?”