Beastmaster of the Ages

After drawing first blood, Tianming had an edge. He wrapped part of the long chain around Lan Huang, though it wouldn’t harm it. It could pull on the chain as hard as it liked as it ran around. Given that its four limbs were thicker and more powerful than the surging mars dragon’s, it could exert more physical force despite having weaker astralforce than its foe.

“Start running!”

Lan Huang sped across the area, loudly roaring and using Primordial Soundwave. Running was its favorite pastime. Like a raging bull, it tugged on the chain and ran toward the direction Tianming’s back was facing. Then it used Azure Oceanic Purgatory, causing the sandy terrain around them to turn into a vast ocean. The yellowish seawater began rising, and soon, Lan Huang was swimming at full speed with all nine of its kui seas spinning. It dove deep as it continued heading toward the outer edges of the arena.

“Time to fly my kite!” Lan Huang cheered with childlike innocent laughter, despite its actions amounting to nothing less than horrifying torture. Tianming had formed a knot with the chain around the surging mars dragon, so it was unable to use its claws to free itself in a short time. Everywhere the chain touched caused it to bleed profusely, and Lan Huang’s forceful tugging had completely grounded it, causing it to crash into countless boulders and leaving a trail of blood and flesh in its wake. Though this dragon was at the fifth level of the Constellation stage and shouldn’t be weaker than Lan Huang in terms of physical endurance, Lan Huang had the benefit of ‘attacking’ with the Lifesteal Silverdragon. To Lan Huang, it was a harmless rope, but to the dragon, it was peeling away its skin one tug at a time. Given that, even if the surging mars dragon had twice the force of Lan Huang’s, it wouldn’t dare to engage in a tug of war.

The dragon had been dragged into the ocean right at the start of battle as everyone watched. This was a nightmare scenario for all fire-type beasts. Once in the water, Lan Huang used a death roll, its huge physique tugging the chain even tighter and causing the blades to pierce even deeper into the dragon’s body. The crunching sounds, accompanied by the splashing and sloshing, was hard to stomach. Though the sea was boiling from the dragon’s heat, there was nothing it could do but cry out in endless pain. There was no time for it to free itself from the chain at all as the brutish Lan Huang dragged it around. Not to mention, the artifact soul in the chain made it so that it was even trickier to get off than normal chains.

……

Tianming had spent quite a while to figure out such a use for this chain. Though it wasn’t his ultimate strike, it had already commanded more than enough attention. Long Longlong immediately lost his cool at the sight.

“Launching a surprise attack right after meeting? How shameless.”

“Yeah. It was supposed to just be a friendly spar, but now Long Longlong is pissed.”

“Looks like this ‘internal strife’ of the Xuanyuan Dragon Sect will be interesting to witness.”

“It’s clear that Long Longlong doesn’t know that his sect is planning to stretch out an olive branch toward Li Tianming.”

This fight was the main talk of the entire audience and tensions began rising. Now that Long Longlong had been angered, the fight was bound to turn more exciting. They were surprised to see how the surging mars dragon had been taken out just like that. Now, many skyward eyes turned to film Long Longlong’s expression. An explosive draconic aura radiated from him.

“Li Tianming, I’d wanted to defeat you with your dignity intact. Since you didn’t hesitate to shamelessly attack me, don’t blame me for not showing any mercy.” He didn’t say much and sent his other four beasts to help out the surging mars dragon. In the meantime, he pointed the Ninedragon Imperius at Tianming, a powerful glow visible in his eyes. That gaze could make his enemies feel the threat of sword ki. No doubt, he had also cultivated some kind of sword art like the Invincible Sword Body.

“Eyes open!” he yelled. His body began resonating as light gathered around him and five-colored astralforce rushed toward his black third eye. Then the iris within suddenly turned from black to gold, brown, blue, red, and grey! They were the colors of the five phases—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The colors from the eye spread throughout Long Longlong’s body, causing his limbs to dragonmorphize. Now the Ninedragon Imperius looked like it was being bitten by a dragon’s mouth, rather than being held by a hand.

However, this transformation was only temporary. He was nowhere comparable to the Ninedragon Emperor, who had actual dragons as his arms and legs. Even so, it was proof enough that he was the legend’s descendant and it befit the title of genius. He had inherited the talent of his ancestor, as was evidenced by the single horn on his head. It was said that he could scan caeli through that horn of his, allowing him to cultivate much faster than most people and reach his current level at the age of twenty.

He proudly raised the Ninedragon Imperius up high, seemingly unstoppable. The power it showed completely stunned everyone watching. “Li Tianming, the treasures of my ancestor that you stole are wasted with your level of talent. No matter where you are, thieves like you are to be squashed and killed.”

“Stop spouting bullshit. First, the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb was left there by the Sky Palace. Everything within it belongs to them. Second, the fact that your ancestor didn’t directly pass it down to you means that he probably never intended to do so in the first place. You were able to get the Ninedragon Imperius because of your own abilities, not because it was your birthright. I know you’re young, but stop clinging to the childish belief that these treasures belong to you.” Though Long Longlong’s power seemed incredibly oppressive, Tianming wasn’t the least bit fearful.

……

Back at the sea, the water abyssal mercury dragon and earth grandiose saturn dragon dove right in. As they weren’t able to pull the chain apart, they charged to deal with Lan Huang instead. The gigantic water and earth dragons came bearing down from both flanks, with the water one on the left agilely using its ability, Thousand Waterform Dragons, to turn the waves around it into many copies of itself, which then swarmed Lan Huang. The earth dragon on the right blended into the bottom of the sea, using its ability, Grand Terra Corpus. It caused the ground beneath to fold above and over, covering the entire sea and pushing it down on Lan Huang.