Beastmaster of the Ages

All the Qitians only had one thing on their minds: running for their lives. Qitian Cave wasn’t that far away from the Progenitor’s Altar. They had been mounting a fighting retreat from the very beginning, so the battle gradually moved closer and closer to Qitian Cave.

The tensource beast had been killed right in front of the cave entrance. If it had given up on its pride and chosen to escape, it could have made it into Qitian Cave. It was too bad that it’d chosen to fight the two women that it had gravely underestimated.

When it finally died, all the beastmasters of House Qitian lost their will to fight and fled chaotically! It was so disorganized that they frequently crashed into each other. Some of the more powerful ones were lucky enough to retreat into the safety of the barrier formation.

Corpses soon lined the outside of Qitian Cave, scattering astrons and spilling blood. Many people’s bodies had been destroyed and reformed, only to be pulverized once more! There seemed to be no end to the carnage.

”You can’t escape!” Yumo Diyan gave it all he could to kill the valley lord so that his merit in battle would catch up to Suishen Jiguang’s. It was too bad that the death of the tensource beast had snapped the valley lord out of the prideful delusion he was in. There was nothing he could do but tearfully flee like a defeated animal.

”Go!” He led Yumo Diyan toward the part of the battlefield where his son and daughter were. If he didn’t run now, Suishen Jiguang and Suishen Xiyue would come and wipe out House Qitian for good. The major-zenith Qitians had only fought as they ran so as to minimize the casualties of their house as a whole during their retreat. However, their ranks had collapsed, so there was no longer a point in doing so.

The valley lord ignored the toxin in his body and endured the assault of Suishen Ranxing, the old Suishen patriarch, and Yumo Diyan before finally making it back to Qitian Cave with his children. Right before he managed to escape, Yumo Diyan had bitten off one of his arms and taken his high-maniverse-class artifact, the Myriadpath Divinity!

The toxin acted up even more and seeped deeper into his body after he used all the power he could muster. It would take many more years than he had predicted to recover from it now. Blood gushed out of the stump where his arm used to be. All the astrons in his body shook as the snake-shaped divine celestial patterns devoured them.

The Qitians had once been the strongest people in Myriadpath Valley, yet they had fallen far. His children and a few other eminents and reverends speechlessly surrounded him. Even though they didn’t cry and bawl, they had still reached a new emotional low point that they’d never experienced since their birth.

”Uncle Ba hasn’t come in yet,” someone said, breaking the silence. Countless more members of House Qitian were scrambling to enter Qitian Cave as those inside activated the barrier formation. They tried to make the formation cover as much area as possible to protect as many as they could.

Most of the beastmasters had managed to retreat, but there were still quite a few who’d been caught up in the chaotic battle and were unable to leave. If they all died, the casualties of House Qitian would balloon.

Among them was another major-zenith foundationeer, Qitian Baba. After the valley lord had brought his children back into the safety of Qitian Cave, Qitian Baba had been left alone to face off against all the other major-zenith foundationeers, namely, the old patriarch, Suishen Ranxing, Suishen Jiguang, and Suishen Xiyue!

However, the Suishens no longer fought. Only the specters, Yumo Dinai and Yumo Diyan, continued fighting Qitian Baba and his lifebound beast, and they were gaining the edge. The two specters didn’t let the elites of House Suishen interfere, either, as they already had credit for slaying the tensource beast. Thus, House Yumo needed to hunt down a prey of their own to prove themselves to the rest of Myriadpath Valley!

That was how the battle wound to the end. Many other Qitians were held up, like Qitian Baba, and ended up dead, man and beast alike. Those who had escaped could only watch tragically from behind the formation. None of their prayers did anything to change the fate of the deaths of their own kind.

As House Yumo had said, House Qitian was merely reaping what it had sowed. Qitian Xiao was the one who’d begun all the violence with the murder of the senior madame, and now House Yumo had become a rabid dog that couldn’t be stopped.

The slaughter kept going without end; Yumo Diyan and Yumo Dinai were the most ferocious fighters of them all. Everyone witnessed them kill Qitian Baba, the second major-zenith foundationeer to die in the battle. His death marked the end of the battle as those of House Yumo and House Suishen were no longer able to press on slaughtering the Qitians, with most of them having returned to their territory. It would be foolish to continue to engage them without a solid plan.

”Refreshing!” Yumo Diyan and Yumo Dinai rammed into each other, covering their bodies with the blood of Qitian Baba. From the euphoric look in their eyes, it seemed that they considered the vengeance for the senior madame and the twenty eminents they had lost—as well as the Hellfiend—mostly achieved.

House Qitian had lost thousands on that day and no longer had enough reverends to rival Houses Yumo and Suishen. They had also lost more than forty eminents, twice the number of eminents House Yumo had lost in Infinitum. The remaining seventy were far outnumbered by eminents from other houses.

They had also lost four minor-zenith foundationeers. Coupled with the deaths of Qitian Baba and the tensource beast, House Qitian had been completely beaten and crippled.

The other two houses had also suffered quite a few casualties, with House Yumo losing another ten eminents. House Suishen had mostly helped out, but hadn’t committed too deeply to the battle, so they’d only lost two eminents. There were others who were heavily wounded, but they would recover with time.

It was clear to everyone that House Suishen was far ahead of the other two houses in terms of the number of eminents and reverends, even after taking the death of Suishen Hongtian into account. Even House Yumo, after losing so many eminents, had more eminents than House Qitian, who had lost two-fifths of their fighting force overnight!