Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming had a feeling that would be its quirk after seeing how sparkling clean it was in the dream. Not to mention, with how well-coordinated every movement of the swarm was, it might even have some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“Are you calling me dirty?!” Xian Xian snapped. It was a celestial maiden!

“Dirty dirty.” Millions of metal cockroaches jumped about every corner of the lifebound space. Suddenly, it spotted Lan Huang and recalled bathing in its nine kui seas, among the cleanest places of all. Then they all swarmed together and lined up to bathe, emerging once more with completely shiny surfaces. They all flew, not wanting to touch the floor.

“Dammit, will you be sticking to Lan Huang after every fight to bathe?” Ying Huo said. It had a feeling that its siblings were getting weirder and weirder.

Even Tianming was finding it troubling. That aside, what could these metallic cockroaches do? The moment the thought occurred to him, all of them suddenly disappeared, but it wasn’t just normal cloaking. They had vanished without the slightest presence at all, yet they still existed within the lifebound space.

“I see… if Yin Chen had hatched in the Voidsky Realm, I could’ve sent all of them out to track people without being found out. Gaining a million points would’ve been easy beyond belief.” Tianming loved how his range of detection had increased. If he was training in a sect, he could have Yin Chen spread out all over the place, constantly keeping eyes and ears on others. No plot would be able to evade its detection, and even if it was discovered, it didn’t matter. As long as all million of them weren’t killed at the same instant, it couldn’t be killed. It was truly a game changer.

The cockroaches reappeared and reformed together.

“Do you have other tricks?” Tianming asked.

“Of course.” Ten metallic cockroaches repeatedly merged into one egg until their total number went back down to a hundred thousand. Then they turned into their second form: silver locusts. There were ten thousand of them in total, each one ten times larger than the cockroaches from before. Like before, they had shiny bodies and two large eyes. But they were longer and had strong rear legs. The parts that stood out, though, were their mandibles. Tianming noticed the text of his Aeonic Grandbane on them. “Damn, you broke the curse right after your birth.”

Their blessing was called Metalbane, Undying Titan. Yin Chen’s bodies were completely silver, save for the text that was made from a kind of black metal, which made its mandibles even more terrifying. The cockroaches excelled at splitting up while these locusts excelled at devouring everything. Tianming remembered seeing nova source worlds completely stripped clean after the locusts passed. Not to mention, the eggs could eat metal even before they hatched.

“How cute….” Xian Xian couldn’t help playing with the metal locusts.

“You woman… buzz off.” The insects all glared at Xian Xian with their googly black eyes. It was hard to deal with, after all.

“Naughty eggs. How dare you be so rude to your sister? Don’t make me spurt muddy water at you!” Xian Xian snapped.

Yin Chen began panicking and quickly ducked into a corner. Ying Huo and Lan Huang looked at one another and couldn’t help but laugh. It turned out that dealing with their new proud sibling was as simple as threatening to make it dirty, something Xian Xian had immediately picked up on.

Yin Chen showed off three other forms, namely, scorpions, spiders, and centipedes. They all looked rather adorable with their flawless, shiny bodies as well. The scorpion form seemed ideal for combat with the bane text focused near its stinger, allowing it to conjure up some kind of metal toxin called ghostwater mercury. Once it entered the body, it could cause it to metallize. The metallic transformation could easily affect organs and cause death.

As for its spider form, the Aeonic Grandbane enhanced the threads the spiders spun. The ten thousand silver spiders could spin a single web of infinite proportions called Infinite Siverthreads. They could greatly limit the enemy’s mobility and even cause death.

Finally, the silver centipedes had many legs that could interlock with one another as Tianming had seen in his dreams, forming a gigantic centipede that was about the size of Lan Huang. It was a terrifying close-range fighter in that form. The Aeonic Grandbane turned the legs of the centipedes black, making them much tougher.

Yin Chen would be really hard to deal with, what with its ability to shift forms, split up and recombine. It was practically unkillable, especially when it could split into a million cockroaches and spread all over the place. It was a miraculous ability with boundless potential. In terms of combat, Tianming’s other beasts already did well enough, so it was nice to have Yin Chen that was extra tricky to deal with.

“I don’t think it has any abilities,” Ying Huo said.

“That’s right.”

Yin Chen didn’t possess any special abilities; its strength was its transformations. At the first level of the Constellation stage, it only had five forms. But Tianming recalled seeing thousands of different forms in the dream, including every insect he had ever seen or heard of. The transformations allowed Yin Chen to use their innate abilities. For instance, in its firefly form, it could join together to let out a beam of light far more powerful and blinding than nova source.

“Looks like evolving through universal manna can allow it to unlock bloodline shackles and undo the seal on those abilities.” It was similar to Xian Xian in that respect, who had ten different flowers but countless variations.

“Powerful indeed,” Ying Huo agreed.

“That’s right. In terms of innate talent and potential, the ones who hatch later seem to have it better.” Though Ying Huo was the Aeternal Infernal Phoenix, it seemed the most normal out of the bunch. Still, seeing Yin Chen bathe on Lan Huang again after demonstrating its tricks made Tianming worry for the future. “No matter how powerful, these Primordial Chaos Beasts are all unruly children.”

He recalled the clouds of white that seemed to have emerged from the xenomemory space. It looked like something countless times larger than a wondersky realm. Right when the thought occurred to him, a crisp sound came from within his lifebound space. Everything turned silent within. Meow Meow was still hugging five of the eggs as it slept, only to yawn and wake up.

“This egg has gone cold….” It picked up the egg it used as a pillow and noticed that there was an additional crack on it. “Oh no! Sixth already started making a fuss before Fifth hatched!” Meow Meow reported.

The fine crack meant that the hatching process had begun, though it would still be some time before the final stages. Still, it was par for the course in the lifebound space. The hatching of one egg always signaled the start of another, but this time it was different.

Meow Meow hugged the white egg as it mumbled, “Why’s this one so gloomy? It’s like a baleful spirit or something….”

Then, the hundred thousand silver eggs that were lining up to take a bath suddenly chaotically bounced around, then before landed. They opened their eyes and glared at the pale-white egg.

“What’s wrong?” Tianming asked.

“Utterly hateful… utterly hateful!” Yin Chen kept on repeating those words agitatedly.

“Huh? Fifth has already hatched? Why are you calling me hateful?” Meow Meow asked. Then, it tossed the pale-white egg away and began to stretch. “Don’t worry. Cat Bro will give you a good lick and ensure you stay nice and shiny.”

The silver eggs saw its saliva and immediately scattered like fearful flocks of sheep.

Tianming took out the pale-white egg from his lifebound space and smiled. “Interesting… I know who you are… You’re the cloud that fought with the Myriadworld Immortabeast in that dream, right?”

He hadn’t expected that would be the sixth Primordial Chaos Beast. The fifth and sixth looked to be old enemies. “Don’t worry. One day you’ll join the family, and bygones will be bygones.”

But would it really be that simple, though?

……

When it all ended, Tianming headed upward. He was within the core of the nova source and staying there for too long could kill him. Though Yin Chen had hatched, he had to find a way to survive. “It doesn’t look like I can just leave the fusion formation of the sun. What do I do….”

The nova source was far too hot. Tianming didn’t want Yin Chen to die right after hatching here; that would be tragic. Eventually, he made his way to the fusion formation. This was the most complicated formation he had seen up to now. It was tens of thousands of meters thick and had completely sealed off his escape route. When the nova source surged, he would be reduced to ashes where he stood. Nowhere was safe.

As he wracked his brain to think of a solution, he felt something change on his forehead. Using his third eye, he saw a white marking on it. It was the ancient character for ‘sky’, written a little like the character for ‘void’. He had no idea why it had appeared, nor what it did, but he knew that it was the stigma of Sky Palace. It marked him as a member of Sky Palace and meant he had passed the test. However, he had done nothing of the sort and was instead imprisoned within the nova source. What in the world was going on?