Beastmaster of the Ages

Within the Ninesun, the body that Bai Ye had formed with four of its infant souls was a cloudy being that swept through the fifth-level overflowers. The dreambreach fiend was no different, though it wasn’t nearly as efficient as Bai Ye was. Wherever Bai Ye swept past, the brains of the overflowers exploded, causing their spiritform astrons to burn into nothingness. Their souls perished just like that!

”Bai Ye’s always been the most violent of them all, and that got far more intense after taking on the grudge of fifteen million flameyellow descendants....” Tianming could sense the emotions from countless people emanating from Bai Ye. The hateful soul power it had absorbed allowed it to give out certain death.

It didn’t take long before the last group of people in the Middlekin Star Ruin perished. Not a single corpse in the Ninesun was intact; all of them had been turned into fine stardust. Yanri Shuang didn’t say anything else and opened all the doors of the ship to let the stardust scatter into the void of space, much like a burial at sea.

Once Bai Ye finished, it squeezed back into Tianming’s astral brain in an all too practiced manner. ”Done deal! That felt great! Now this is life! Amazing! I’ll serve anyone who gives me power!” It was quite the simple-minded sort.

”Yanri Shuang, take care of the aftermath,” Tianming coldly said to her.

”Yes....” Her eyes were dim and she felt rather stiff like a puppet. When she nodded, her tongue still trembled in fear. Before Tianming returned to his ship, she managed to muster some courage and asked, ”What’s the point in taking the middlekin stars? They’re used to replenish fortuna-class worlds. Normal people aren’t able to use them at all. You can’t sell them to anyone, either, since the sale of middlekin stars is prohibited in the Upper Star Ruin. You might be able to get away with smuggling some smaller ones, but those above ether class won’t trade hands at all!”

”Why do you care? It’s got nothing to do with you,” Tianming said as he flew into space.

Speechless, Yanri Shuang took a deep breath. ”Where in the world did someone like him come from?”

***

The middlekin stars were densely packed in a large formation. Their sizes ranged from a hundred meters to a hundred thousand. The smallest and most common were deific-class middlekin stars, but there were still quite a number of infinitum-class stars as well.

”A middlekin star of a hundred thousand meters should contain a similar amount of energy to Ebonia!” Tianming looked at the infinitum-class middlekin star that seemed small relative to an actual nova source world with some awe. ”I wonder how much the nova source in this can be compressed.”

It was as if an entire row of Ebonias had been neatly arranged in the gigantic storage formation before him.

”These middlekin stars were excavated one after another by us and our forebears,” Long Qian said. Only they knew the tragedy that had occurred for the middlekin stars to be excavated. Such tragedies were still happening all across the Upper Star Ruin.

”It’s fine!” Tianming’s terse expression finally loosened up. He turned to the dragonoids and said, ”Taking down this Middlekin Star Ruin marks the start of our rebellion! The days ahead will no doubt be even more exciting!”

The ten thousand dragonoids looked at Tianming like they would a deity, or rather, a humanly incarnation of the true Heavenly Dao. The Heavenly Dao in the form of a super formation absorbed nova source to power itself, yet this human Heavenly Dao absorbed omnisentient will!

”Brothers and sisters, let the looting begin!”

The dragonoids immediately took out a middlekin-star chain, a tool used in transporting middlekin stars, and began working. They connected the middlekin stars using the chains, tightly binding them together. Having been forced to work on harvesting middlekin stars for generations, they were all too familiar with the workflow. It was a shame that all of their harvests had never belonged to them—until now, at least. All the stars in the storage formation belonged to Starmoon and Wargod Havens. It was the treasury upon which the prosperity of their future generations depended.

”Too bad, they’ll be used to fuel the prosperity of Flameyellow from now on!” The mood of the harvesters was merry indeed. Tianming helped them secure the middlekin-star chain on the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb so that they would be able to drag them all away. Most of the deific-class middlekin stars of around a few hundred meters in diameter could simply be put into the ship itself. And the Sun wasn’t that far away from the Middlekin Star Ruin, so transporting them wouldn’t be a problem.

I wonder if this’ll be enough to make the Sun a fortuna-class world. Tianming was filled with anticipation. He was waiting for them to empty out the entire reserves of middlekin stars.

Eventually, Bai Ye said, ”Someone’s looking for Yanri Shuang!”

”Who is it?” Tianming furrowed his brows.

”It’s a cosmic god from Starmoon Haven, Fentian He!”

”Cosmic god....” Those were beings whose mere corpses were able to ensure the prosperity of a faction like Myriadpath Valley for countless generations. They were a completely different kind of superior lifeform, just like the Source Progenitor and monochrome giant. Tianming couldn’t help but feel some respect for them; quasi cosmic gods were still far from being comparable to a true one.

”Given the complete transformation they undergo, my level-crossing combat capabilities might not mean much against them.” Tianming still didn’t have a clear idea of the power of cosmic gods. But given the reaction of the fifteen million flameyellow descendants, it was nothing to be scoffed at.

”No matter how strong an overflower is, they still cower like meek animals before cosmic gods. There’s no way of winning at all. I heard that a single cosmic god can kill a hundred thousand overflowers in a short time no matter their levels!” Long Qian said with measured awe.

”Are they that powerful? Is the gap so vast?” Tianming furrowed his brows.

”The transformation is the most drastic in cultivation. They change from one type of lifeform into a completely different type. Ascendants are mere initiates in the cosmic deity phase, while astral gods are advanced cosmic deities. Cosmic gods, on the other hand, have completely transcended that classification and become universal gods in the truest sense. Their bodies are no longer comprised of astrons, but real stars! Every single astron in their body slowly transforms into something like middlekin stars that make up an entire living being!”

”That’s far too insane!”