Beastmaster of the Ages

”Quick, look at those three stink bugs!” Many people believed that Tianming and the rest had just lucked out in their discovery of those two good cultivation rooms, which had allowed them to avoid much of the chaos outside.

”That’s Luori Yumo! I heard she’s the daughter of some huge figure in Starmoon Haven!” The cult members were respectful and envious of the young scion. Being able to cultivate in a fortuna-class world must be much better than doing so in any Middlekin Star Ruin. However, all of Starmoon Haven’s territory was already occupied. While the cult members could visit, they couldn’t stay long term.

”She ran into those stink bugs. It looks like there’s going to be conflict.”

”Conflict? It barely even registers as such. She’ll just stomp them flat.”

Even though they said that, they couldn’t help but recall the sight of Tianming killing Jiang Zhen. His horrible death had clearly had a lot to do with him looking down on his foe. The fact that the three were giving them so much trouble was what made some among the audience think that they weren’t really from the Lower Star Ruins. Near the seating area of the Scorchmoon Cult’s core members, quite a few overflowers of fourth level and above noticed what was happening.

”Those three came out at the right time!” They had been suffering from quite a headache about the youths in their cults fighting each other. Fortunately, Tianming and the rest were there to divert the attention of the cult members to other things. They finally remembered the existence of the fourth slave faction in the trial.

”Hmph! Luori Yumo won’t have any trouble dealing with them,” Jiang Linxi said with a glum look. Ever since the incident with Xing Baifeng had begun, she’d been mulling it over. This was a welcome break from all that. ”Either way, as long as we get that divine astralship, it won’t have been a great loss.”

”Will Luori Guiyang and Xing Yue take that ship back to Starmoon Haven?” Chen Chenchen asked in a whisper.

”Even if they do, they’d have to compensate us with adequate resources for the effort. At the very least, it’ll have to be better than the manna shipment that we lost.”

Jiang Linxi turned and looked at the Cosmic God Palace, where she saw the nine-headed dragon within. Beside it were ten thousand slaves who were nervously watching Tianming, Qingyu, and Moran’s every move.

”Long Qian, how are you so calm even at a time like this?” If Long Qian wasn’t panicking, Jiang Linxi would start having some serious worries.

”She’s just feigning calm!” Chen Chenchen said. ”Leader, you mentioned that even monsters with 50-crest beasts from imperial-class worlds can’t defeat second-level overflowers if they’re only at the super zenith, right?”

”It’s impossible. The only explanation for it would be some kind of mutation. It’s possible that he’s already an overflower, just with a huge defect in his development!” Even though Jiang Linxi was rather troubled, her confidence was still there. ”At the end of the day, a slave is a slave! No matter how they mutate, they can’t overcome their absolute limits! Based on his previous performance, he’s definitely going to die against a third-level overflower.”

”True! Every single level of the Overflow stage is leagues ahead of the previous one! A third-level overflower can take on more than a dozen second-level overflowers, thanks to the sheer increase in astron count. Not to mention, Luori Yumo must have a lot of tricks from Starmoon Haven to help her.” Right as Chen Chenchen said that, the crowd around them exploded into shocked cries. Luori Yumo’s cosmic crest beast had appeared!

”A 16-crest beast! It’s the same as yours!” Chen Chenchen cried. It was the highest talent anyone in a Middlekin Star Ruin could achieve!

”She’s only at that level for now. Given the talent of her siblings, she’s very likely to become a cosmic god in the future. Then her beast might gain even more crests!” Jiang Linxi enviously said.

”Twenty crests is a clear sign of cosmic god-level talent! How envious. For now, there isn’t a single maniverse-class genius with that crest count in the Cosmic God Palace.”

Maniverse-class geniuses referred to monstrous talented youths with a good chance of becoming cosmic gods. Beastmasters of that class would have 20-crest beasts. Such was the threshold in the Upper Star Ruin. As there weren’t that many lifeforms there, the number that could become cosmic gods was insanely low.

Most beastmasters had fewer than twenty crests, so having sixteen was already impressive. Someone that young who was considered just as talented as the leader of the Scorchmoon Cult would be at least a governor of a city in Starmoon Haven, and the Middlekin Star Ruin was akin to a large, distant satellite city of the Midway Tristars.

Maniverse-class geniuses naturally had much higher status than fortuna-class ones. Once they became cosmic gods, they would even have a chance to cultivate in eighth-class worlds—in other words, maniverse-class stars! Only the very elite of the elite would be given that chance.

The number of cosmic gods in a maniverse-class world was far more than ten thousand, but the population was still dwarfed by those of deific-class worlds. Based on Tianming’s understanding of the Realm of Order, the population of worlds rose all the way to infinitum class before shrinking again as the class of worlds increased. It wasn’t surprising, as only the very top in the Realm of Order—cosmic gods—would have the right to live in those worlds.

Wudi and Qingyu could already be classified as maniverse-class geniuses. In the past few fights that Qingyu had gotten into, she hadn’t used Shuo Yue, as she wanted to hone her own combat capabilities. However, it seemed like she couldn’t avoid letting her beast out for the upcoming fight.

”They’re going to clash!” someone cried. The ten thousand dragonoids’ heartbeats quickened.

***

A wave of ear-piercing shrieking echoed within the Cosmic God Palace as golden lightning rained down around Luori Yumo’s body. Right as the fight began, a fifty-meter-long beast leapt out of her open lifebound space. The beast was incredibly densely packed with astrons. If it allowed its astrons to fully expand, it would be large enough to use an entire infinitum-class world as its lair.

Golden lightning came shooting out of the beast’s body and filled the entire corridor. Tianming saw a glowing, bat-like giant, complete with similarly huge wings. But unlike normal bats, it was covered in golden scales and spikes and had claws that were as sharp as maniverse-class cosmic artifacts. Its head didn’t look like a bat’s, but rather a fiendish dragon in the same vein as Archaionfiends. Golden fangs poked out of its menacing mouth. With its wings spread, he saw more than fifteen dragon beastfaces, a sign that it was a 16-crest beast! It had sixteen times the cosmoforce of beastmasters!

”A goldblitz dragonbat!”