Beastmaster of the Ages

Hearing that the devas didn’t suffer any losses, the other marshals turned to Granny Yin again. She had been the odd one out in the crowd to begin with. Devas have historically been sidelined because of how odd their ghoul summoning was to the point that even their fellow specters from the Virtue Pantheon ostracized them. The gazes angered Granny Yin like never before. Her expression was completely dark as she roared, ”That’s obviously part of his plan to dupe all of you! Use your brain and don’t make a joke out of ourselves!”

She knew that deep down, this wasn’t a matter of being tricked. Instead, they were merely using this as an outlet for deeply held frustrations. The devas, being specters through and through, were forceful with the way they did things. Under the fair enforcement of the Heavenly Dao, nobody dared to say anything against them. But given that they were out of the jurisdiction of Heavenly Dao, coupled with Tianming’s flame fanning, it would be tough for the rest to not be tempted to take action.

”Granny Yin, we’re well aware that Tianming is trying to sow seeds of division among us, but that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t go along with it. How do you explain the ghouls being summoned?” Goat Saint said.

”If you question the loyalty of devas to the Eightpart Pantheons, go back and request a judgment from the Heavenly Dao! Report this to your imperatores! If we had the intention of betraying you, heavenly punishment will smite us without needing you to spout your bullshit here! I will immediately ask my troops to stand down, and you should do the same. Don’t fall for our enemy’s tricks and lose the bigger picture just because of your petty grudges!” Granny Yin snapped.

”Fine! We will call our troops down too, but you better be sure that we’ll report this to the imperatores. Whether you will be punished by the Heavenly Dao won’t be up to you,” Goat Saint said before giving the order to the Sin Pantheon to stop attacking the devas while making sure that evidence of what was happening there was gathered and sent back through the Xiavoid Stareye.

”Alright, let’s all calm down,” An Shen said, stepping in as a peacemaker. The ashuras still had some measure of authority. Empress Xia, Lord Yue, Feng Linxue and Meng Yao felt like helpless eggs that couldn’t do anything against the marshals. They wanted to do what Granny Yin had done, but they didn’t dare.

The marshals’ orders finally got the devas to split off from the rest of the Eightpart Pantheons, but the chaos gave Tianming a chance to double down on the attack. The ghouls and Xia words didn’t fear death at all and caused it to rain cosmic-god essences! The ones who could fall to the ground in their essence form were the fortunate survivors. Even more of them were burned up by the words after turning into essences and died for good.

”Marshals, we have an answer! The ones who attacked us were the wondermancers of Grand Xia! They are fighting from a cloaked imperial-class ship. They’ve already killed quite a lot of us!” came a report. Hearing that, the marshals were even more enraged. Their first expedition to the Primordial Sands ended with them being locked up and beaten up, and their second expedition was already off to such a horrible start before they even saw their foes! How would they be able to provide a satisfactory explanation to the imperatores back home?

”It’s not us! It must be those Tian Jiu Cult traitors! They must’ve allied up with Li Tianming and are attacking from his ship!” Empress Xia clarified.

”Tian Jiu Cult?” The marshals turned to the three Mi Shens, who wore extremely cold expressions.

”How could those dogs possibly understand the ancestor of our kind,” Mi Shen Beta mocked.

”Those flies dared to spoil the name of our esteemed ancestor. For that, they deserve extinction!” Mi Shen Alpha said.

Empress Xia breathed a sigh of relief. ”That’s right, they deserve death!”

”Shut up! You’re still the prime suspect where the formation is concerned!” Mi Shen Gamma gave the sphere a harsh kick and sent it rolling. Lord Yue watched it silently without daring to move.

They continued to instruct their troops to leave the formation even as Tianming’s ghouls, word prisons and the cult members attacked them. They were forced to take the losses, and the larger they grew, the more furious they became. They may have seemed calm, but the marshals were close to blowing up.

The Eightpart Pantheons didn’t fight back against their enemies at all since the formation only consumed nova source, so there was no fear of casualties. They could do nothing but swallow those losses. The only way they would still pose a threat was if they ignored the losses and charged out of the formation, but that was impossible considering they had chosen to retreat at the start. What seemed like a tiny change at the start snowballed into a chain of bigger and bigger problems. Eventually, Mi Shen Alpha managed to assimilate the Grand Xia Flare Mirror fully.

”Quick, take over the formation and use it to attack the enemy! We must wipe out the Tian Jiu Cult at least!” The marshals couldn’t wait to vent their rage.

”Yeah!” Mi Shen Alpha waved the mirror mightily, but that caused the word prisons to go even wilder and slaughter even more of the retreating cosmic gods.

”What are you doing?! Did your hand slip or something?!” Granny Yin shouted.

”No!” Mi Shen Alpha looked at the mirror in his hand. ”There’s something wrong with it!”

”Is it fake?” Mi Shen Beta furrowed his brows.

”It’s real, but it can’t control the formation!” Mi Shen Alpha said with disbelief.

”Impossible!” The marshals were speechless, but they accepted the truth of the matter. Their expressions were difficult to behold.

Only one person was glad at the outcome. Empress Xia felt completely vindicated. ”Case closed! Li Tianming used some weird trick to take over the formation! I’m innocent! I’m loyal to the Eightpart Pantheons!”

They finally accepted that she was, indeed, innocent, but nobody had any sympathy for her in her essence state.

”Xia Yuan, explain to me how anyone can possibly usurp an imperial-class formation while the worldcore that came from the fusion formation is still intact,” Mi Shen Alpha said.

Empress Xia calmed her nervous mind and wracked her brains. Eventually, she exclaimed, ”I’ve figured out how!”