Beastmaster of the Ages

These solar lances had already been revealed back at the Ninefold Hellstar. Even so, the three pantheons weren’t able to avoid the heavy losses at this moment.

Nova source erupted wherever the pink pillars pierced through, tossing around countless wildbeasts were tossed about, and spraying blood everywhere. It was total chaos as far as the eye could see.

Yet, it didn’t take long for the seemingly endless beast waves to recover. Under the control of the ashuras, they regrouped and smashed into the Flameyellow Guard Formation, arriving at the battlefield.

The Virtue and Sin Pantheon followed, great clouds of darkness crashing into this pink sea of blazing magma.

Deep within this raging inferno, the flameyellow fiends, the flameyellow cavalry, and Tianming’s ghoul legion had long since assembled. Their battle intent surged sky-high as they waited for their enemies.

Not to mention the flameyellow fiends and the ghoul legion that were beings that fundamentally had no concept of death, even the flameyellow divinities had joined with Tianming through the omnisentient threads to become a single, fearless whole.

Glory had transcended individual life.

“Our fighting spirit is at its absolute peak, but theirs...” Tianming assessed his opponents.

True, the wildbeasts did not fear death, but Tianming could see clearly that many of the ashuras, the Virtue Pantheon, and the Sin Pantheon were far less resolute than expected.

The reason was simple.

This was ostensibly an operation of the Eightpart Pantheons, but only these three were being thrown into the grinder. Anyone with the slightest sense would know this was a terrible loss, an utterly unwise move.

If not for their deep, near-fanatical reverence for the three imperatores, they would never have come here to risk their lives like fools.

“That execution didn’t ignite their fighting spirit or hatred. Instead, it made them feel shame, and incomprehension.” That was the prevailing sentiment among these sixteen billion soldiers.

Logically, such unstable morale should have been good news for Tianming, but he still felt a trace of unease.

“Even so, their upper echelons are still forcing their people into battle at the risk of universal condemnation. That only means they believe their all-or-nothing gamble has a real chance of succeeding!”

The value they stood to gain would exceed those six billion lives, and the three pantheons would no longer have to share that benefit with the rest of the Eightpart Pantheons.

“So what is their strategy?” Wudi frowned. He was already leading the flameyellow cavalry into battle.

Tianming recalled what had happened last time.

Back then, he had taken hostage ten billion vanguard troops, cutting off the assasination of the two imperatores and forcing them to retreat and scheme a larger assault.

Then Tianming had raided the homes of the Starfall and the Sundown Pantheons, preventing that from even taking shape and dealing a heavy blow to their morale.

Now, in their extreme desperation, they had abandoned even the fate of those six billion vanguard. What strategy would they choose? Tianming immediately thought of the Ninefirm imperial son.

And sure enough, that was exactly what they did.

At that instant, Tianming shuddered and said, “They’ve lost their minds. They’d rather abandon those six billion vanguard troops and target me!”

The moment the thought arose, he felt the presence of a deadly threat. Tianming had to admit their line of thinking was correct. Tianming himself was the very foundation of the Tianming Dynasty.

“How ruthless... they’re even willing to throw away six billion lives!” Last time, the two imperatores had still hesitated. Now they showed no such restraint, which was somewhat beyond Tianming’s expectations.

“No wonder these are the three pantheons most willing to risk everything...”

In an instant, deathly silence surrounded Tianming.

They must have located him through the origin point of the ghoul legion. They had been hidden at the forefront of the beast waves from the very beginning, powerful enough that even Yin Chen couldn’t detect them.

And by the time they revealed themselves, danger had already arrived.

Tianming looked up. A titan wrapped in white bandages and its body bearing ninety-seven eyes, was crawling out of a gray vortex. This was the Virtue Pantheon’s Imperator Ming.

And behind Tianming, amid a storm of black feathers, a shapely woman with endlessly large black wings also appeared. This was the Sin Pantheon’s Imperator Yinne.

And there were certainly more than just two imperatores.

Just as his scalp went numb, a gaunt cosmic god clad in a black-and-white robe appeared in the sky. Thick mist coiled around his body, his skin deathly pale. His palms were enormous, yet his eye sockets were empty like bottomless abysses.

He had long waterfall-like hair, each strand stretching a hundred thousand meters.

Crimson patterns covered his skin like exposed blood vessels, surging with the power of calamity and curse.

“Imperator Mo.” This ashuras’ imperator was one of the three supreme behemoths of the Upper Star Ruin. Tianming had long heard of his name; his history was even longer than that of the Imperatores Yinne and Ming, and he was the true commander of this campaign.

The moment the battle had begun and the two armies had barely made contact, the three imperatores of the Eightpart Pantheons had disregarded the battlefield casualties and struck straight at the vital point.

They were simply repeating what Tianming himself had done on the Ninefirm Imperius.

Tianming had guessed they would do this, just not that they would throw in six billion lives to make it happen.

“Didn’t expect—” Tianming was about to say a few words to buy himself some time.

“Heh.” Imperator Mo let out a cold, eerie laugh the moment he appeared.

The three of them knew better than anyone that if they still failed to take down Tianming, their losses would be unimaginably catastrophic...