Beastmaster of the Ages

Not long after Tianming and the others entered Miracle Mountain, the Soulfiend seemed to change. It turned the face of Joy to the front as it cried out to Tianming, jumping nonstop.

”Did you feel Feng’s presence?” Tianming asked, delighted.

It nodded with all three heads and groaned. It seemed rather agitated.

”Yin Chen, you haven’t spotted him yet, right?” Tianming asked.

”Not yet,” Yin Chen said, somewhat crestfallen.

”Didn’t you say that nobody could elude your sight?” Tianming said, somewhat speechless. The fact that the Soulfiend could feel Lingfeng’s presence meant that he had come to the Ancestral World from the Xenoworld.

”Give me... more time!” Yin Chen started furiously looking for Lingfeng.

”Relax, it’s fine. We’ll find him in a bit,” Tianming said to the Soulfiend. It obediently nodded, as loyal to its master as ever.

”Yin Chen, maybe you can make yourself less stealthy and let Feng spot you. Then he’ll know that we’re nearby,” Tianming said.

”Got it... naggy brat!” Yin Chen snapped. Ever since it had become a cosmic god, it still hadn’t found Lingfeng, even though spying was its forte. That stoked its sense of competitiveness, so it increased the number of bodies for an active search, not sparing the smallest corner.

”That brother of yours walks the path of soul cultivation, eh? His soul must be really powerful. Once we go up, we’ll help you find it. You don’t have to count on this useless piece of trash, Fifth,” Bai Ye said.

”You little... ass shit! Fifth is... not for... you to... address me!” Yin Chen was so mad that it resorted to cursing.

”Oh? Touched a nerve, did I?” Bai Ye kept the mockery going. It was able to get into arguments with anyone whenever it was bored. Bai Ling, on the other hand, only really bothered fighting with Bai Ye.

Tianming and the two girls quickened their pace as they headed for the peak. He looked forward to finally fusing the Grand-Orient Sword with its missing fragment. But before they went very far, the Soulfiend started groaning again. ”What’s wrong?”

It shook its head with an odd expression.

”Did he vanish again?”

The Soulfiend nodded.

”Don’t worry. Once we go up, we’ll use a soul wave to look for him,” Tianming consoled.

The Soulfiend nodded, unable to hide its grief.

***

The seniors in Skyfiend Hall were quite unhappy with the chaos at Miracle Mountain’s entrance.

”What’s going on there?”

”What kind of tomfoolery are those kids up to? How are they fighting over something like that?”

”Who was the one that instigated it?”

They were quite speechless and dumbfounded. Fortunately, nobody was getting badly hurt in the fight, which soon calmed down. The ones who started it apologized and put a rest to the situation. The elites sitting at the highest round table did feel somewhat off, though they didn’t say another word.

”Those three flameyellow remnants haven’t shown up since then,” said the God of Original Sin.

”They’re rather hard to track,” the Cobalt Overfiend said.

”If they’re near the peak, the ashuran disciples should be able to use their fiendsky eyes to locate them. Why don’t you send some of them there?” the God of Original Sin asked.

”There’s no need. Let’s observe the situation with that hole in the sword up there first. Since those three are natives of the Ancient Flameyellow Ruins, they should understand it better than anyone else,” the Cobalt Overfiend said.

”It seems like you believe this cosmic relic is more important than the little beastballs,” the God of Original Sin said.

”No. I’m just focusing on the cosmic relic since it’s still there, while the little beastballs have been transferred away. As for those three juniors, I just got some reliable information about them.”

”What kind?” the leaders of the other maniverse-class worlds asked.

”The Heavenly Dao Arena’s been fully deployed in the lower ruins, encompassing Miracle Mountain. There are no blind spots. One of the masked figures has a heavenly punishment protection seed. By using the Heavenly Dao, I can locate every single seed, which will tell us where that flameyellow remnant is. We’ll be able to learn about the location of the little beastballs soon enough.”

”Did you hear that from the imperial-class world?” the God of Original Sin asked.

”Yes.”

”That brat must not have expected that the seed he got would lead to his doom. There’s no way to get rid of it unless he leaves the lower ruins and doesn’t enter for three more years.”

”Is it going to activate soon?” asked the other cosmic gods.

”The entire Heavenly Dao Arena’s been activated, with the core located near the peak. Even if we can’t kill our foe, we’ll be able to help our disciples with enough information for them to locate him,” the Cobalt Overfiend said.

Even though the Eightpart Pantheons’ disciples had reached the peak long ago, they were in a stalemate against those from the Primordial Sands. The complete deployment of the Heavenly Dao Arena was an edge they could exploit to decrease their casualties.

The God of Original Sin laughed, ”At the same time, we’ll no longer need the tracing rings. The Heavenly Dao Arena can broadcast everything to us. Neither the Primordial Sands nor the flameyellow remnants will be able to escape our sight.”

”That’s right,” the Cobalt Overfiend agreed. They had been reeling from the deaths of Shiming Shengshi and his group, and didn’t know how it’d happened, as the tracing rings had been destroyed beforehand. However, the fully deployed Heavenly Dao Arena would be able to broadcast everything from the caverns, allowing the seniors to support the juniors there like never before. They would be able to search for treasures or hunt down their prey far more efficiently.

”The imperial-class world will send a few geniuses in there. Even if they perish through fights, we can’t afford to let their deaths go unexplained. That’s why it’s crucial that we properly deploy the Heavenly Dao Arena beforehand. This way, if anything goes south, we won’t be blamed for it,” the Cobalt Overfiend said.

”Overfiend, surely you jest,” the God of Original Sin said, ”Members of imperial lineages in the Eightpart Pantheons are princes and princesses of the entire universe, all talented beyond common sense. How could they possibly lose to ruffians from the Primordial Sands?”

”The Primordial Sands aren’t much of a threat, but the flameyellow remnants, on the other hand....”

”That’s true! Still, with such monstrous geniuses deployed, the truth will come to light soon enough.”