Beastmaster of the Ages

It isn’t that far away. Ebonia isn’t located in the center of the mundus, but somewhere west of it, after all. Greensource is indeed located near the borders of the mundus with few other stars around it,” Xiaodao said.

”So is there something up with Greensource?” Tianming asked.

”Greensource itself is fine. However, there’s another heliacal-class world called Viridian, the nearest star to them. It’s an even more rural world.”

”So something happened to Viridian and we’re hearing it from Greensource. Why didn’t someone from Viridian send word themselves?” Tianming asked.

”That’s the issue!” Xiaodao furrowed his brows. ”Some people from Greensource are saying that they lost contact with the trillion people from Viridian all of a sudden two months ago. Word is that many transmission stones sent news of some kind of disaster all at once. So the administrator of Greensource went to investigate, and guess what he saw.”

Tianming shook his head, unable to figure it out.

”Everything from Viridian, including its continents, seas, and living things have disappeared! Only the fusion formation, nova source, and astralguard formations were left behind!”

”What?! Impossible! How could a thriving world suddenly be stripped clean down to the last speck of dust?!” The Sun could theoretically consume the nova sources of other stars, but it wouldn’t be able to so thoroughly destroy a world. Heliacal-class worlds weren’t big, but not even the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb would be capable of extracting all the landmass and seas of such a world. Tianming couldn’t imagine what would be capable of a feat like that.

”I believe there’s two possibilities. The first is that we’re getting some misinformation from Greensource, so I’m trying to get confirmation of the reports. The second is that it’s all true. Perhaps some kind of terrifying nova wildbeast appeared near the borders of the mundus. It can’t possibly be a man-made disaster, can it?” Xiaodao said.

”I doubt it’s likely, unless a threat on the level of Myriadpath Valley appeared near us. Then again, I don’t think Myriadpath Valley would be able to pull off something on a scale like that. It’s far too odd,” Tianming said, feeling rather distraught. If the reports were true, trillions of lives had been lost. It wasn’t something he could tolerate, as all lives lost were lives he wouldn’t be able to resonate with in the future.

”I’ll make sure to confirm whether it’s true then,” Xiaodao said.

”I’ll see if there’s any way we can verify it ourselves.”

Tianming had Fengqing Youmeng look into those coordinates.

”Let me investigate!” She returned after half a day and said, ”Regrettably, we divine wonderians don’t have any markers near that region. It’d take a deific-class ship a year to travel there from the nearest marker.”

”A year?” Tianming had to return to Myriadpath Valley soon to fulfill his promise to Suishen Yao.

”Just leave it to me. It’s already happened, so there’s nothing we can do about it anyway,” Xiaodao said.

Wudi furrowed his brows in thought. ”It’s far too odd. Let’s assume the extermination of Viridian is true—who do you think would truly be capable of such a feat?”

He addressed the question to Tianming. Tianming did see Primordial Chaos Beasts consuming entire worlds in the dreamscapes, but in this case, the world itself had left its fusion and astralguard formations behind. Only the contents of the world and the lifeforms living on it had been deleted without a trace.

”Nova wildbeasts probably wouldn’t bother consuming the world’s contents, but the nova source itself. It seems likely that it was caused by other people. As far as I know, the powers that be in the Xenoabyss aren’t capable of such a feat. The only possible faction that is would be Myriadpath Valley. However, people there don’t know where my true home is. And even if they did, they’d be coming through the stareye in the Skydome Mundus, not a border world of the Infinitum Mundus.”

”Then you should return to Myriadpath Valley to look into it,” Wudi said.

”That’s right. Even if it wasn’t them, they might know who did it,” Tianming said. ”I have a rather high status there, so I can send out Yin Chens without worrying about offending people.”

Tianming summoned Li Fan and asked him about it. Li Fan’s first reaction was to say, ”That’s impossible. I’m sure it’s just some freak conspiracy the people of Greensource are making up. The lower one’s status is, the more likely they are to believe in senseless conspiracies like that.”

”Let’s say it’s true, hypothetically. Could a faction like Myriadpath Valley be capable of it?” Tianming asked.

”I’ve never heard of anything like it in the thousand years I’ve spent at Myriadpath Valley,” Li Fan said, shaking his head.

Tianming wasn’t surprised, since Li Fan wasn’t high up in the hierarchy. He could trust Li Fan enough now. Tianming told Xiaodao, ”If something happens, have Li Fan inform me about it in Myriadpath Valley.”

”I will!” Li Fan said, hurriedly bowing. He was all too happy that Tianming had begun trusting in him.

Tianming wasn’t worried that Li Fan would betray him, since he had used the Imperial Sword Prison on him. Not to mention, there was no way Li Fan would risk dying after getting on a minor pathkeeper from House Suishen’s good side.

”I’ll wait for three more days, then,” Tianming said.

In that time, Xiaodao was able to confirm the veracity of the news.

”The extermination of an entire nova source world....” Tianming felt rather bad after the truth was out. It hit harder than hearing about the loss of a world from history, because it had happened to a world that existed within the Infinitum Mundus!

”Who in the world is responsible for this?!” Tianming could only count on Xiaodao to find out. He also had Fengqing Youmeng get some divine wonderians to send expedition ships to set up a marker near Viridian. It would be another year before he could actually go there, so he would go back to Myriadpath Valley and see what he could find out there.

”At the very least, it isn’t something a mere rex mundi is capable of.” He could also just about rule out all the factions in the Million Mundi.

Before going back, Tianming brought the two remaining 999-aperture ordered manna with him and handed over the cultivation resources he brought from Myriadpath Valley to Xiaodao and Wudi. It was a huge stockpile that would be of great use to the many cosmic cartographers in the Infinitum Mundus.

He also went to the Infinitum Stele. It stretched high up into the sky and was connected to the Oldgod Domain in some way. Legend was that it had come from a distant, foreign world. ”I didn’t dare to take you with me when I first left for Myriadpath Valley, because I was worried that I would draw too much attention to the Infinitum Mundus if I fused you with the Grand-Orient Sword, but now....”

Tianming had made up his mind to gain control of the stele!