Beastmaster of the Ages

”Everyone, follow me to the Myriadpath Celestial Formation!”

All the elites of House Yumo immediately left. Even though it would take a while before they could reach the Hellfiend without being able to directly warp there, it was the only way for them to learn what had happened. Once this chance was gone, there would be no more.

It was quite rare in the history of the Three Exalted Houses for so many elites to mobilize at the same time. Even the ones who were leaving felt rather anxious. The Three Exalted Houses simply hadn’t dealt with something like this since a long time ago.

Right as Eminent Diyan left Subsoul Hall, more bad news came. ”The Hellfiend’s mobile stareye isn’t working!”

All five hundred plus elites yelled ”What?!” at the same time. They were truly stupefied this time around. The mobile stareye would only be inactive when the vacuum formation was operating. But why would the subsouls be extinguished if the vacuum formation was still running?

Eminent Diyan took a few steps back, his face pale as if he had suffered a great shock. The crowd all turned and nervously looked at him. He struggled and said in a hoarse voice, ”The Hellfiend must’ve been destroyed. The major formation core that I control crumbled....”

All the elites felt like they had been struck by lightning.

”The Hellfiend was destroyed?”

”We lost the mobile stareye!”

”How will we control the outer mundi from now on?!”

Losing twenty eminents was already a near-fatal blow, but losing the Hellfiend was even worse. Losing eminents meant losing the present, but losing the mobile stareye was losing the future! The tool that made it possible for starblood to be refined had given them new hope to rise to the top, but it’d been forever taken from them!

Before they snapped out of their daze, Eminent Diyan reported another nightmarish scenario. ”I’ve also lost touch with the Yumo Blood Crucible. Its artifact soul must’ve been conquered.”

”What?!”

”We lost the crucible, too?!”

They felt their hearts torn to shreds yet again. Some of the older eminents slumped to the ground and painfully bawled. Everything had come tumbling down. The reverends and eminents, people over thousands of years old, cried and bawled like children.

Yumo Qiangming turned back and immediately teared up. He saw the final three subsouls of those on the Hellfiend going out. The three young ones that were like family to him had died just like all the rest! Two of them were minor pathkeepers, the future hope of House Yumo, yet their loss was nothing compared to everything else.

”Without the Hellfiend and the crucible, we’ve lost starblood once and for all!”

”Oh, we’ve truly wronged our ancestors! We’ve sinned!”

”It’s over! Losing twenty eminents, the mobile stareye, and starblood.... We’ll be hammered back to our original pathetic forms! We’ll no longer be fit to bear the Yumo name!”

The older eminents seemed to have completely lost their spirits. They cried and hammered the ground, unwilling to accept the cruel truth. Even the younger ones merely stood there, their spirits completely shattered. Something this tragic couldn’t possibly be covered up. It had erupted like a volcano and word would soon spread all across Yumo Cave.

”Enough! Everyone shut up!” Eminent Diyan roared. Finally, the chaos began calming somewhat. He forced himself to calm down as well. ”What we have to do now is find the culprit and find out what in the world happened!”

”Yes!” Rage came seeping out of their bloodshot eyes.

Eminent Diyan continued, ”After losing our mobile stareye, it’s no longer possible for us to arrive there in time. We can only go there using the closest stareye to where it happened. Does anyone among you know which mundus the Hellfiend went to?”

Yumo Qiangmang said, ”I heard it’s called the Infinitum Mundus.”

”Infinitum? Is there a stareye there?”

”No. It’s a backwater mundus that has yet to be exploited. Nobody’s ever gone there before the Hellfiend,” Yumo Qiangmang said.

Eminent Diyan furrowed his brow at how long it would take to track down and reach that mundus. ”Which mundi did the Hellfiend pass through before reaching Infinitum? Who has the records?!”

”I do. I only returned from the Hellfiend a few years ago. I was stationed there before I came back,” said a young eminent. ”It went to Windsoul and Mullberrian.”

”I need you to bring a few with you to those mundi using the stareyes there. Find out where Infinitum is. Borrow their infinitum-class ships. No matter how many years it takes, you must find Infinitum!” Eminent Diyan said.

”Yes!”

”Myriadpath Valley will reward anyone who knows where Infinitum is with a keg of springwater! Even if there’s no stareye there, there’ll be a mundus near it that does have one!”

”Yes!”

Even though Eminent Diyan seemed calm enough to react, he had actually lost his spirit just like the rest. ”Yumo Qiangming, take Eminent Lianqing with you to Eminent Ranxing. If what caused this incident is a being instead of a secret realm, and such a being has appeared in the Million Mundi, they’ll come to threaten the Three Exalted Houses! Eminent Lianqing should know how to ask House Suishen about such a sensitive manner.”

”Dad, should we suspect House Qitian and House Suishen for doing this?” Yumo Qiangming asked.

”There’s no need. It can’t be them. They can’t possibly do something like this, nor would they,” Eminent Diyan said.

Yumo Qiangming also understood that the Three Exalted Houses wouldn’t mess around in such a manner. They might have minor conflicts with one another, but nothing that would ever result in such a thorough slaughter. If their involvement was exposed, it would trigger an all-out war among the Three Exalted Houses, which would result in countless casualties. At least two of the three houses would be wiped out, and a new force might rise to take over everything. The Three Exalted Houses hadn’t ruled for so long by tempting fate like that.

Eminent Diyan took a deep breath. ”I need the rest of you to stabilize the situation. Don’t let chaos break out. I’ll personally go to House Qitian.”

”Yes!”

A dour atmosphere spread through the entirety of Yumo Cave. Eventually, the news spread to the top-level elites, and then to the masses. Yumo Cave was soon filled with cries and groans of anguish. The lofty, strongest specters in the astralscape had finally come to know what desolation felt like and panicked.

It was simply unbelievable how the eminents had been first, followed by the destruction of the Hellfiend, then the Yumo Blood Crucible. Only at the very end were the three youths killed. It couldn’t have been the work of a secret realm—everything about the incident screamed of will and intention!

There was a monster hiding in the Million Mundi that even the Three Exalted Houses feared. Everyone in House Yumo soon forgot about Tianming’s laughable affair and instead shuddered in fear nonstop.