Beastmaster of the Ages

Yin Chen reported that the five pantheons had a huge argument after they heard about the incident at Ninefirm Imperius. The Sin and Virtue Pantheon insisted on using this opportunity to crush the Sun and negotiate with Tianming.

In the beginning, Imperator Yan also agreed with that idea. They were about to launch an attack with more than ten billion troops without waiting for the whole army to assemble. But two days later, word came that Ninefirm Imperius had been infiltrated. Imperator Yan did some mental calculations of the time it took for the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb to travel through the Flameyellow Divine Path and concluded that Tianming could still return in time with the hostages if they continued the attack!

There simply wouldn’t be a point anymore. Starfall Pantheon already had a target painted on them. This created quite the stark disagreement among the five pantheons. As Yin Chen didn’t dare to approach them too closely, it didn’t know about the details of the arguments.

Everyone in the Eightpart Pantheons knew about the silver insects at this point. People were trying to catch them in Calabash Windfiend and their divine astralships. However, Yin Chen’s high level made it nearly impossible to capture. Even if some of its bodies ended up captured, there was no end to it. Its numbers only continued to grow again and again. Most formations wouldn’t be able to stop it either.

Either way, the ultimatum that Imperator Yan gave them was that if the wonderians and devas wouldn’t join the assault, Starfall Pantheon wouldn’t either. Just like that, the thirty billion troops of the five pantheons lost a fifth of their number. Imperator Yan’s retreat was absolutely devastating to the five pantheons to the point that they had to halt their plans. The various armies argued nonstop to the point that they almost started fighting among themselves. Calabash Windfiend had become an unstable volcano that would erupt at any moment. Even so, the four remaining pantheons still hadn’t given up on eliminating the Sun. They continued to wait for the rest of their troops to assemble.

”The Sundown Pantheon’s the only other one left that’s not too keen on fighting me to the bitter end.” After Tianming received the news, he made his next move. He stopped wreaking havoc on Ninefirm Imperius using the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb and went back to the cosmic gods of Starfall Pantheon.

”Li Tianming, Imperator Yan has already made his retreat! Please return the imperial son, ancestral corpses and children back to us!” Uncle Tian cried out.

”What are you? Five? Why would words so naive even cross your mind?” Tianming mocked.

”We have demonstrated our sincerity. Don’t push us too far or we’ll have nothing left to lose and fight back!”

”Is that so?” Tianming was rather relaxed as he left the ship. He pondered for a moment and said, ”Alright, I’ll return some of that sincerity and give some of the hostages back.”

Just like that, he tossed all of the cosmic-god essences of the young cosmic gods out of the ship. As for the imperial son, Ninefirm Divine Wheel and everything he took from Ninefirm Mausoleum, Tianming wouldn’t return it in the short term.

”As for the imperial son and everything else, I’m sure Imperator Yan would be happy to negotiate with you about them,” Uncle Tian said.

”Very well. But before that, I have to make a trip to the Sundown Pantheon. Let us all negotiate together when the time comes!”

Stunned, Uncle Tian said, ”The Sundown Pantheon have heard of what happened here and are prepared. You wouldn’t get a chance like this again.”

”Did you think I only made it in here and took everything you cared about because I was lucky?” Tianming said with a laugh, leaving the old man speechless. The five pantheons had sent troops out, so their homes were not fully defended, allowing Tianming to use his ghoul army to overwhelm their meager defenses. All he needed to do was to sneak inside the astralguard formation.

”The defenses of their imperial star are much stronger than yours, but Imperator Yan already made the first move to leave Calabash Windfiend. It wouldn’t take as much to push their imperator to do the same.”

After that, Tianming flew away in his ship and disappeared into the massive vortex that was the Flameyellow Divine Path. The totemancers of Ninefirm Imperius still didn’t know how to react to all that had happened.

***

During the journey, Tianming started to absorb the cosmic tribulation seas of the hundreds of thousands of ancestral corpses. His totems began to unlock more simulacra rapidly. It was as if they were unlocking their own bloodline chains like the Primordial Chaos Beasts.

Before this, their simulacra was around the sixty mark. Given how powerful they already were, it was incredibly difficult for them to unlock more simulacra, so Tianming had no choice but to use his totems to supplement his Grand-Orient Sword along with Bai Ling’s terra power. However, things were about to change. Who knew what the upper limits of these ten ancient totem blades were?

”If talent is a number, Godfather’s would be two one hundreds. Qingyu’s would be multiples of ninety-nine. The two of them are about the same level.” Two one hundreds weren’t the same as two hundred; Wudi was talented in separate domains like his lifebound beast and totems while Qingyu had the talents of the Eightpart Pantheons in addition to that.

Talent in the Realm of Chaos, on the other hand, was something that could be evaluated when one became a Heavencosmic god, relative to the number of cosmotizations. Li Tianzi’s talent would be around the hundred-point mark on the scale.

The imperators of the Realm of Order had their own individual talents. Whether they were the number of sub eyes in the fiendsky eyes or the number of primalwings or crests a cosmic-crest beast had, most of them were above ninety-five. Imperator Yan’s simulacra reached up to ninety-eight, which was the upper limit of simulacra that had been achieved.

”Me, on the other hand...” Tianming lost count of the simulacra he was gaining. By the time he finished absorbing the cosmic tribulation seas, he found that the decapath era godswords’ simulacra had reached two hundred.