Beastmaster of the Ages

”What in the world?” Tianming could immediately tell that this wasn’t a human hand. There was no flesh at all, just dark, withered skin wrapped around bones. Then the rest of the body came tumbling out of the vortex. Tianming took a close look at the skin-wrapped skeleton, whose sunken eyes were an oily green. It had eight thin arms about three meters in length sprouting from its back like a spider and stood about two meters in height. When it appeared, it immediately spotted Tianming.

”Hiissss!” Letting out a sharp sound, it immediately started shrinking. By the time it was about the size of a palm, it looked like a humanoid spider. All of a sudden, it vanished and Tianming felt a pain from his right palm. Turning it around, he saw the creature dig its arms into his flesh and disappear, leaving nothing but a spider mark on his palm. He didn’t feel anything weird, for now, but it was clear that he had fallen for its trap. Nothing good would come of this.

In this world where common sense made little sense, he couldn’t even be sure if what he was seeing was real. He had no idea how the creature ended up on his palm. He tried using astralforce to force it away, but to no avail. Even now, the spider mark was still hissing. Soon, Tianming heard the xenofiends not far away.

”Okay, the xenofiends definitely know where I am now.” He furrowed his brow as more and more hisses sounded out from nearby. Turning to look, he saw more than a thousand xenofiends greedily glaring at him. They swarmed toward him, pushing each other aside like rowdy kids. Some simply turned into small eyes that shot out odd beams into Tianming’s eyes. The beams were able to cause hallucinations that affected his vita and mind. However, the Soul Tower was working and Tianming wasn’t the least bit affected.

”These sure are some disgusting critters.” Tianming felt his heart skip a beat. He calmed down and retracted his providence swords, causing a dense sea of swords to appear around him. Each of them contained a different kind of power. The providence swords shot out like strong rain, instantly flaying many xenofiends and turning them into a bloody mush. More and more of them began to shriek and go berserk while the remaining ones tried to tackle Tianming. They wanted to parasitize him, but he still had the Grand-Orient Swords in hand. Using the Moonnight Subdued Strike, he had an airtight defense that ensured the xenofiends couldn’t remotely get close to him.

While the providence swords made killing them convenient, having his location revealed was still inconvenient, to say the least. The spider-like monster on his hand kept hissing and acted as a beacon for his location. Before he could catch a breather after killing near a thousand xenofiends, he saw dark clouds appearing around him through the providence swords, each of which brought a xenofiend here. There seemed to be tens of thousands of them, causing him to draw a cold breath.

”At this rate, I’ll be doomed myself before I’ll be able to save Feng.” Now that he had been marked, escaping would be rather difficult. He grit his teeth and slashed at his hand, accurately cutting off the patch of skin and revealing the bone. The skin was then vaporized by his slashes and soon, the long-legged creature’s corpse appeared. The gamble worked! Though his hand hurt a lot, it was quickly regenerating thanks to the Greenspark Tower. Though the newly-generated albi had his Grand-Orient-Sword-shaped Imperial Will within, they were devoid of astralforce as there was no way to replenish it here.

Even though he had dealt with the creature, it was already too late. Many xenofiends flocked toward him from all directions, filling his line of sight with purple eyes. The eyes were bundled together as they stared at him with bloodlust. Then, nearly a hundred thousand of them came swarming toward him like a tidal wave.

”Fuck!” It was even more terrifying than being surrounded by a hundred thousand divine moonrace. ”At least they’re still people!”

Ye Lingfeng himself probably hadn’t had to deal with so many xenofiends, either. Tianming was now completely surrounded and had no choice but to fight. He drew all the providence swords near him and used them to execute the Moonnight Subdued Strike at the same time, causing sword-ki-filled moons to manifest. At the same time, he activated the Imperealm Sword Formation. The stronger he grew, the stronger the formation was as well. The black and gold sword ki rapidly flew around, dealing massive damage.

Countless xenofiends fell like rain. Even so, the sheer number that were swarming Tianming was enough to make up for the fallen. They dove toward his body, fully intent on tearing into his flesh. However, his albi were all protected by the Purple Tower, which gave him great defense. It would take some time for them to drill into him, and they were easily swept off by his swords before they could finish burrowing themselves in him.

There were also many humanoid spiders like the one from before alongside the xenofiends. They were able to silently approach him and cause his entire body to be covered in hissing spider tattoos. There didn’t seem to be an end to them!

”I’ll be overwhelmed and completely parasitized at this rate. Thankfully they don’t seem to be able to see the dimensional rope.” It would be really troubling if they destroyed it. Tianming knew that if it weren’t for the Soul Tower, Greenspark Tower, and the Purple Tower, he would have fallen long ago. The moment the xenofiends get into his body, he would lose control and by extension, his life. He had slain thousands of them already, but there were still hundreds of thousands more above him, not to mention the countless spider marks on his body. The only way he could get rid of all of them was if he skinned himself from top to bottom.

”What kind of ridiculous place is this?! Who controls it? Or are the xenofiends simply acting out of some primitive instinct, rather than any intelligence?”

He felt like he was going mad. Soon, he found himself wearing out. Even the Imperealm Sword Formation began crumbling after such an extended deployment. There were still hundreds of thousands of xenofiends, even angrier than before after witnessing Tianming slaughter their mates. Though they didn’t appear to speak, they could communicate in some measure.

Eyeballs rained down on him, accompanied by the ever-present hissing sounds. They accurately zeroed in on him in a coordinated fashion, wave after wave. He was at his breaking point! Now, he only had two choices: either try to escape using the dimensional rope, or flee into the wondersky realm under him.

Right as he was about to be swallowed up, he looked down at the wondersky realm. It was basically surrounded by a formation of indescribable complexity to protect it within the xenomemory space.

”I wonder if my Plundering Arm can allow me to hide inside it? It’s a world of caeli, so what happens if someone with a physical body enters?”

He didn’t have too much time to think it over. Using the providence swords and Imperealm Sword Barrier to defend himself, he clawed at the formation with his black hand using all of the force at his disposal. He could end up far worse than Ye Lingfeng if he didn’t find a way out of this. As expected, he managed to leave a gash on the formation, but the sight that followed shocked him. The wondersky realm looked like it was bleeding!

The true nature of the gigantic butterfly was that of a perpetual wondersky world, yet it bled after Tianming clawed at it.

”Is this some kind of illusion as well?” This was like striking a rock and seeing it starting to bleed. ”One more time!”

He tore away at the thick formation, leaving one bleeding wound after another.

”The sky plunderer race still has surviving remnants!” said a rumbling voice from within the butterfly; it sounded like the voice of the realm itself. His identity as a sky plunderer had been found out almost immediately, much to his dismay.