Beastmaster of the Ages

It wasn’t that the golden specter was naturally submissive, Zi Zhen had simply been too domineering. If the former valley lord saw her transformed appearance, he would no doubt cast her as a villain in his stories. She seemed like a savage, bloody, cruel killing machine. And with three of her ninehall eyes opened, the slightest loss of control would cause her to tear the golden specter to shreds.

”Goddess, I was mistaken!” Even a specter who was an overflower was driven to shed tears before Zi Zhen’s savagery. His impression of her immediately shot up after she had so magnificently defeated him.

”Have you learned your lesson?!” Zi Zhen hissed with an agender, fiendish, and crass tone of voice.

”I have!” Only then did he dare to open his eyes. He looked at her and weakly said, ”Goddess, are you a sacredfiend skyghoul specter?”

”What do you think?” she growled.

”Sacredfiend skyghouls have two eyes and six irises, but you have three eyes and nine irises! You must be stronger than a sacredfiend skyghoul! Your bloodline must hail from the ultimate line of specters!” The golden specter pointed at himself and said, ”I’m from the aurumites, a race of golden specters. My name is Jin Lin! Please let me serve you, Goddess!”

”Jin Lin? Aurumites?” Zi Zhen coldly glared at him.

”Yes, Goddess!” the golden specter said with equal measures of respect and nervousness. ”I was a fool to fail to spot the caliber of your bloodline, Goddess. Perhaps your bloodline is the most superior in all of God Domain One! No, the entire Ancient Oldgod Domain probably doesn’t have any specter as powerful as you, Goddess! Are you here to lead the specters of the Ancient Oldgod Domain to rise up against our enslavers, the orderly race?! Are you here to save us from our suffering?!”

Tianming came over and said, ”Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I have a few questions for you.”

A wave of anger flashed across Jin Lin’s eyes. ”What’re you?! How dare you interrupt my conversation with the goddess?!”

Zi Zhen gave him a slap that caved in his face. It was such a deep wound that his bone was visible. Golden blood poured out of his face.

”Agh!” He looked at Zi Zhen with some confusion. ”Goddess, I’m an aurumite. We used to be the number-one race in God Domain One. I’m also an overflower! Don’t tell me that I’m inferior to a mixed-blood mutt in your eyes!”

He got another slap, this time caving in the right side of his face.

”Goddess, I was wrong!” Tears endlessly flowed from Jin Lin’s eyes. He glared at Tianming and said, ”That pathetic piece of trash must’ve served the goddess much earlier than me. That’s why she’s beating me up for his sake! Hmph! One day, I’ll show how much more valuable I am so the goddess will finally abandon him!”

”All I need is for you to answer his questions. Stop with the nonsense,” Zi Zhen said. She struggled to maintain her transformed state, so she soon returned to her tiny, girlish form. She seemed completely harmless when standing beside Tianming.

Jin Lin nodded, though his anger and frustration were plain to see. How dare a mere human be so close to his goddess? He didn’t even seem particularly powerful! The goddess is terrifying indeed. She even has a wonderian as a servant. Even a proud wonderian would lower herself to serve my goddess. That must mean there’s something special about her. She’s the one who can save my kind!”

Jin Lin saw Zi Zhen as an ultimate, unparalleled mistress, while Tianming was merely a manservant and Moran was the goddess’s personal maidservant. ”Alright, kid, ask your stupid questions.”

Jin Lin’s golden blood circulated to heal himself by consuming cosmoforce. He soon recovered to his former state. As he said that, he gave Zi Zhen a respectful look in fear of angering her.

Tianming raised a brow and asked, ”You just said that the aurumites used to rule God Domain One, right?”

”That’s right. Kid, how don’t you even know that? Are you an outsider?”

”That’s right.”

”Outsiders?” Though Jin Lin had wanted to mock him by virtue of that, it didn’t take a genius to suspect that his goddess was an outsider as well. He turned to Zi Zhen and said, ”Outsiders are welcome! I love outsiders!”

”Then how’d you end up enslaved?” Tianming asked.

Jin Lin raged, ”The Ancient Oldgod Domain used to be specter territory! Our kind lived here for generations on end! And we aurumites were the top ruling clan that ruled God Domain One!”

”What happened, then?”

”Those orderlies are spiritforms born from the Sea of Order. There aren’t many of them in the first place, so they coexisted with us without much conflict. But then the wonderians appeared. When we refused to sell order fragments to them, they allied with the orderlies to conquer our lands and enslave our people! They plundered and destroyed our homes!”

”So the wonderians are behind this, huh....” Tianming had thought that the orderlies were the rulers of God Domain One.

”Of course. Before that, most of the order fragments that the Ancient Oldgod Domain produced went to the Upper Star Ruin! The orderlies might have powerful souls, but their small number made it so that they weren’t a threat to us. The only thing they’re good for is selling order fragments,” Jin Lin angrily said.

The specters of this god domain hadn’t caved to wonderian demands and had ended up enslaved. The wonderians from the Upper Star Ruin must be rather powerful; they seemed to have influence in every corner of the universe.

”It sounds like this place is completely controlled by wonderians, then,” Tianming said to Moran and Zi Zhen.

They nodded in agreement.

”Not really! Trade’s their main purpose at the end of the day. Everything else like the governing of the god domain is done at the orderlies’ Order College. They control the lifeblood of the Ancient Oldgod Domain, from the harvesting to the sales of order fragments. The wonderians also make sure they benefit from the arrangement,” Jin Lin said.

”How powerful are the orderlies?” Tianming asked.

”They have many order fragments, so their cultivation levels are high. Even though they’re few in number, each one can rival an enemy nation. They’re also spiritforms with powerful soul-manipulation powers. Using the brand from the Order College, they’ve subjugated most of the specters and can muster them as a force to fight for them.”

Tianming could hear the resentment in his voice. It was a rather sorry state of affairs. The brand he mentioned was probably the patterns that depicted purple eyes on the backs of specters. Jin Lin didn’t have a brand, so he wasn’t being controlled.