Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming slammed toward the boundless world of darkness before emerging on the other side, worlds apart from where he used to be! When he turned back, he was surprised to see that there were other worlds around this huge one. It was actually a cluster of stars, tens of dimmer ones surrounding the bright one in the center.

”Aren’t these the Lower Star Ruins and Upper Star Ruin?” The hellish world filled with ghouls was attached to the astralscape of order, as if it was the entrance to the cycle of reincarnation. ”In other words, Eighth is a world in itself, something that resembles the Xenoworld and Ancestral World perhaps?”

Tianming couldn’t be certain about his guesses, but the more he looked at the rectangular world of the ghouls, the more certain he was about it being a world-sized coffin. It was Eighth’s true body.

”Isn’t this the Hell I’ve been hearing about as I grew up? Does the underworld bureaucracy really exist?” Tianming was shaken to the core. Was the cycle of reincarnation that every soul was believed to go through actually a Primordial Chaos Beast? He had a feeling that this was the case, but seeing it for himself elicited a totally different emotional response.

”If I’m not mistaken, that thing is almost here....” That was a sentence that Tianming wouldn’t dare to forget. ”Is the cycle of reincarnation mine to control?”

He looked around for the boundless black arm to descend. It had shown itself in the dreamscapes of every beast from Ying Huo to Ji Ji. Whose hand could it possibly be? Then again, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been waiting for quite a while now. It still hadn’t shown up, but why? Right as his doubts grew, a sensation of numbness spread all across his body, chilling even his heart.

He took a deep breath and turned around with a snap. Two eyes of unthinkable proportions were behind him, appearing larger than the hellish world itself! One eye was gold, the other black. Brilliant gold light shone with unlimited brightness, sending scorching flames across the skies. A boundless black vortex seemed to be surrounded by countless lightning bolts. What stunned him the most was that he could almost make out the wings of an avian creature in the gold eye, possibly that of a phoenix, and a prowling beast within the black eye, ready to pounce.

”Ying Huo? Meow Meow?” His mind simply froze. Was it really them? They seemed really familiar!

”No... these eyes seem to be looking at me!” Back then, he was only a passive spectator of these dreams. The giant hand had never seemed to take note of him. Yet this time around, the two eyes seemed to look directly at him rather than the hellish world behind him. Tianming met its gaze for a long time, unable to describe what he felt with words.

There was one thing he could be certain of: the Upper Star Ruin, Imperator Yin, and even Di Yi, Huang Qi, and the rest were definitely not the ultimate beings in the universe. There were far more terrifying beings far above them, such as the black arm and the black-gold eyes.

”Wake up!” Someone slapped Tianming’s face twice and his eyes snapped open. Ying Huo and Meow Meow flanked his face as they slapped and nudged him awake. That dream didn’t seem like it would’ve ended otherwise.

”What’s wrong?” Tianming scratched his head as clarity returned to him. Everyone looked at him in a concerned manner.

”What are you doing? Our little sister is awake!” Ying Huo said.

”Awake?” Tianming looked at his palm and found it empty. Where was it? He got down and saw the tiny girlish infant huddled up in the corner of the gray coffin, shivering as it mumbled, ”Scary... scary....”

He recalled the dark and devious world of the dead and didn’t quite know how to square it with this terrified little infant.

”What are you blanking out for? Go!” Ying Huo gave his head a smack.

”You little....” Tianming glared at it and even wanted to ask what it was doing in the dreamscape. ”Ahem....”

He calmed himself and brought out his nurturing parenting skills. With the gentlest smile and tone he could muster, he said, ”Come on, little one. Come to me.”

The infant’s nose was red as she kept tearing up. Seeing Tianming’s hand, it burst out crying immediately.

”You’re useless,” Meow Meow said.

”Shut up, you two.” Tianming had no choice. The little one was probably afraid of the crowd, so he jumped into the coffin and closed the lid. Once everything was dark, he said, ”There’s nobody else around us. Are you still scared?”

The infant looked around with its large, gray eyes and stopped crying. However, it continued to sob. ”I... scared.... Lots of ghouls....”

Tianming almost spat out his lunch. Why was it afraid of ghouls? Weren’t they a snack that it enjoyed? Eighth gave him far more questions than answers. I should settle symbiotic cultivation with it first to build a foundation. I’m sure that will answer most of my questions.