Beastmaster of the Ages

”Tianming...” Moran reminisced on her life on the eve of her death. Everything about her and her sisters was mired in tragedy since their birth. They had struggled for so long in the darkness and saw light for the first time when Tianming entered her life. More and more memories surfaced to accompany the death-inducing pain.

She recalled how Tianming was like back then: a hot-blooded and fearless youth, the one who scattered the darkness around her and killed the dreamless celestial emperor. She recalled the time they spent at Ebonia with the Swordgod Lin Clan and how curious he was about the entire universe.

She had experienced far too many things with Tianming. There were times of union, separation and unforgettable moments of love. She couldn’t forget the mortal dance that she and her sisters performed for Tianming, hearing his sweet whispers.

”I really wish that I could’ve danced for you one last time...” Limitless grief could be seen on her beautiful face, but she regretted none of it. Tian Jiu’s heart was crushed, so her death was coming upon her. She wanted to burn out the last bit of her energy to give Tianming one last pull back up.

”Die for me!” Moran mustered all that she could to turn the countless wonders into nine massive divine maws that bit down on the imperator couple’s bodies before swallowing them completely! Even losing her heart didn’t stop Moran from doing so. This was the determination of the Little Fish that promised to get rid of all of Tianming’s troubles. She gladly did so even at the cost of her life!

Imperator Shen’s cries of terror rang out nonstop as the terrifying wonders devoured them. No matter what they did, they weren’t able to stop Tian Jiu from assimilating them and suppressing their bloodline. Eventually, they became a proper part of the whole, dying for good.

It was a monumental shift in the entire battle at the Flameyellow Imperial Star! The Heavenly Dao sword would quickly lose its effects now that Imperator Shen was no longer sustaining it. Only imperatores of the Eightpart Pantheons could manifest it, after all. Shen Wu could only use its altered power after Imperator Shen manifested it first. In other words, the massive Heavenly Dao formation that hung above the Flameyellow Imperial Star disappeared, returning to its proper place.

The only imperator left in the Eightpart Pantheons was Imperator Yin, who was far off at Deva Imperius and couldn’t be made to help Shen Wu either. Shen Wu had lost her grip on the Heavenly Dao.

The death of Imperator Shen, however, wasn’t accompanied by the cheers of the flameyellow divinities. All of them had their sights set on the crushed heart in Shen Wu’s hand and Moran and her forty-nine sisters.

The girls fell silent as pain shook their entire bodies, growing ever more intense and difficult to bear. There was so much pain that their sensations no longer meant a thing.

”Little Fish!” Tianming kept his eyes open despite the pain in an attempt to sear this sight into his mind. The power of the Heavenly Dao around him had weakened, but there was still enough to suppress him. It was all he could do to watch as his beloved suffered in her final moments after she performed the ultimate sacrifice. The ten billion flameyellow divinities were absolutely silent.

But as the pain Moran and her sisters experienced reached an apex, right as they lost all sensation, their bodies stopped shuddering. The pain vanished all of a sudden! Then, all fifty of them instantly unleashed unthinkable power.

Countless divine wonders manifested and scattered, assembling into a complex wonder formation that filled the entire battlefield. Moran and her sisters opened their eyes at the same time. Their eyes seemed much clearer than before. It was filled with strength and the jubilation of having survived a tribulation.

They didn’t die! They could continue to accompany Tianming far into the future! The divine radiance from the massive wonder formation illuminated the silent battlefield.

Tianming’s despair flipped into joy at the sight. ”Little Fish is alive! Hahahaha!”

The heart in Shen Wu’s hand was still scattering into the void at this moment. When she noticed Moran snap awake from the sea of pain in an act of rebirth, she froze up completely, absolutely stupefied. ”What’s going on? This heart...”

She couldn’t believe her eyes at all.

At that moment, a bee-head empress appeared. Huang Qi lazily said, ”So this means she really isn’t Tian Jiu. She has Tian Jiu’s form, but she’s not really Tian Jiu’s reincarnation. In fact, Tian Jiu’s heart had shackled them all along. Once it’s gone, they’re finally free to surpass Tian Jiu!”

Though Huang Qi initially seemed impressed, her expression turned cold the next instant. She looked at Shen Wu with schadenfreude without saying a word, but it was clear that she was delighted by Shen Wu’s defeat.

”How could this be?!” Shen Wu stared at the even more powerful ”Tian Jiu” and wanted to deny what she saw. ”I had my guesses that you weren’t really Tian Jiu, yet I never imagined that you would be able to surpass her!”

Tian Jiu’s heart was something that could cause Moran and her sisters unbelievable pain, but crushing it was exactly what was necessary for them to transcend Tian Jiu! This was something Shen Wu had never imagined to be the case.

As Tianming relished his joy, he suddenly recalled something from the past. Before they entered the Fiend Ruins, Moran hadn’t been able to receive a heavenly punishment protection seed from the Heavenly Dao.

He had found it weird back then. As a wonderian, Moran should’ve enjoyed special treatment from the Heavenly Dao. Yet, it turned out that her constitution was fundamentally different from that of wonderians. Within her was the terrifying potential to surpass the wonderians’ founding ancestor all along!

Moran and her sisters unleashed even more power than before, dominating the entire battlefield.