Beastmaster of the Ages

Saying that Li Haochen could decapitate a dragon with a single swing was no exaggeration at all. Crimsoncloud Dragonbane had a similar effect as the Violetglory Star’s ultimate weapon, which allowed them both to expand at will. That instant, the flaming blade lengthened to a hundred meters as it swept toward Lan Huang while it was pressed down by two vastsun godbeasts, one of which had turned into a snake that bound Lan Huang. It was rather similar to how Tianming used his chain to keep others bound.

Lan Huang struggled to climb up and used Primordial Soundwave to shake off the two vastsun godbeasts, but it wouldn’t be able to take Li Haochen’s attack. But right before it connected, a silver dragon came flying in, followed by a rain of flaming feathers. The Lifesteal Silverdragon wrapped itself around Crimsoncloud Dragonbane and let out a screeching noise, dragging the blade off its trajectory and causing it to crash into Lan Huang’s shoulder. It broke through its defense of Montseabane, Starocean Flicker, digging three meters deep into Lan Huang and spilling blood, marking a gory turn in the battle. The two young disciples were representing the two main factions of their star and neither was prepared to lose. Now that blood had been spilled, they would fight to the death! Li Haochen didn’t show any mercy at all and had fully intended to use his legendary blade for its intended purpose: dragon-slaying.

“A rather quick reaction. As expected of the famous Lifesteal Silverdragon. That weapon is the only flashy part about you, though.” Li Haochen used an evasive technique to avoid Ying Huo’s Skyscorch Featherblast. As he spoke, another two vastsun godbeasts charged toward Tianming, then shrank to about Tianming’s size, condensing the flames that made up their bodies. Eventually, they turned into flaming praying mantises with blades for arms. Conjuring a lot of astralforce, they let it explode in one instant by executing an airtight blade art at about the fifth-realm in power, both of them flanking Tianming in a pincer attack.

Flaming shadows filled Tianming’s vision. They weren’t mere insects, but harbingers of death and part of Li Haochen himself.

“An octabane totemancer is truly impressive. All that variety in his moves…” Tianming had never seen someone use totems with such finesse and mastery. With eight totems at his beck and call, Li Haochen was the avatar of death and destruction.

“It took you so long to notice? It’s already far too late!” Li Haochen roared, his beasts echoing his cries. In the eyes of the seniors, his techniques had already far superseded the impressiveness of Tianming’s pandemonium constellation.

When the blades of the mantises crossed with Tianming’s sword, sparks flew. The flames from their bodies had long swallowed Tianming up, but that did little to him thanks to Ying Huo’s Infernal Armor. On the other hand, Li Haochen was still hell bent on killing Lan Huang. After all, it was among the easier ones to target, unlike Ying Huo or Meow Meow. However, nobody had been paying any attention to Yin Chen throughout the entire battle.

“Huh?” Li Haochen felt a stinging sensation all over his body and noticed countless silver ants on him! He looked below and saw a sea of silver ants trying to burrow into his body with their black mandibles. “This is a lifebound beast too?!”

He let his astralforce surge, burning away many of the ants, but the others just grouped together and turned into silver scorpions before they furiously injected Ghostwater Mercury all over his body with their stingers. Once a large amount entered his body, he would start to turn into metal and eventually die. The countless metal critters then morphed into spiders, centipedes, and even locusts, surrounding Li Haochen from all directions and forcing him to defend himself. The threads of the spiders and venom of the scorpions almost pushed him to the brink. No doubt his power could easily crush the bugs, but there were far too many of them. Tianming had gotten Yin Chen to exclusively focus on keeping Li Haochen busy, as it didn’t have any explicit abilities it could use against spiritforms like totems. Since that was the case, Yin Chen could always disrupt the totems by directly attacking the one controlling them! The grating metallic sound sent chills down the spines of those that heard it.

“Do it!” With Li Haochen temporarily distracted by Yin Chen, Tianming, Ying Huo, Lan Huang and Xian Xian regrouped. Then Meow Meow descended from above to join the group as well. Lan Huang executed its Azure Oceanic Purgatory, converting the earth underneath them into a large body of water. Being able to dive within, its combat capabilities significantly rose. It then dragged two of the vastsun godbeasts into the water. The one that had turned into a snake immediately began evaporating the water around it as its flames were slowly fizzling away. The rate at which they evaporated the water couldn’t keep up with the water that was currently forming, though. Meow Meow also dove into the sea to give chase.

“Not being able to use my totems is really troublesome. Totems can’t really be killed, after all.” So far, Ying Huo and Meow Meow had the most powerful abilities. The two of them charged up to the snake godbeast, with Ying Huo using Death Inferno and Meow Meow using Cosmic Lance, sending it flying. The flames and lightning bolts of the abilities were able to swallow up the flames on the godbeast’s body, causing it to suffer even more damage than Lan Huang had so far.

“We finally injured one!” It had been far too difficult. Meanwhile, Xian Xian and Tianming worked together to hold back a few of the godbeasts that wanted to charge into the water. Xian Xian withstood the pain of its Radiant Vines being burned away and fired Bloodrain Swords at them, causing quite a lot of commotion. The sheer magnitude of chaos the battle wrought was shocking even for the seniors to see.

“Li Tianming is doing rather well. Despite being at a disadvantage in terms of raw power, his coordination with his beasts is giving Li Haochen quite a bit of trouble.”

As the spectators from the Azuresoul Palace were easing up, Li Haochen felt even more impatient when he saw his totems suffering damage. “A beastmaster’s greatest weakness is that they’ll be crippled if their lifebound beasts die for real!” He swung his blade, allowing flames to cover it. While the flames themselves were unable to harm Yin Chen, the astralforce contained within managed to vaporize quite a lot of its bodies.

“Isn’t it the same for totemancers if their bane-rings are destroyed?” Tianming let his chain stretch hundreds of meters, thrusting its spike toward Li Haochen, who angrily deflected it with his blade.

The golden flames formed into a ball of flame around him and exploded with him at the center, covering his vastsun godbeasts. It was his totemic calamity, Myriadbeast Heavenly Judgment. Instantly, the flaming mantises, lion, tiger, rhinoceros, and snake expanded and began dividing into ten thousand vastsun godbeasts, joining up into a sea of flames. “Charge” Li Haochen roared. It somewhat resembled Tianming’s Myriadsword Providence. “Beastmasters with an inferior system of cultivation shouldn’t be allowed on the sun! You should be vaporized and turned to ash!”

Li Haochen had uttered an affront to all beastmasters, including the Supracloud Sanctuary and wargodeans. Even Long Youyou herself was a beastmaster. However, they couldn’t utter a word at the sight of the might of this totemic calamity. There was no argument that Orderia was the home turf of totemancers.

“Begone!” Li Haochen charged with his ten thousand totems, wielding the Crimsoncloud Dragonbane with both hands. His golden hair and robes fluttered in the wind. The light from his overlaid bane-rings was so bright that it shot toward Tianming like a pillar. He was the embodiment of the ultimate ruler of the sun and his blade slashed with unmatched ferocity. Even though he looked rather handsome and refined, the will with which he wielded his blade and the blade art he was using centered around absolute domination. This was no doubt a sixth-realm blade art, and for someone of his age to be able to use it, it marked him as one of, if not the best among his peers. His own father had taught him this blade art, called Heavenly King’s Domination, Solitary Slash. It was as savage as its name sounded, a move that focused on the essence of domination to its utmost.

The myriad beasts stampeded alongside the sweeping blade that unleashed flames all across the area it swept past, heating up the air around the divine tree and setting fire to its leaves, directing all of that destructive force toward Tianming. The blade descended, infused with the will of the ruler of beasts. Even some grade-one swordpupils couldn’t help but marvel at the might of that strike coming from someone easily a tenth of their age. Based on that alone, Tianming knew that even if Lingfeng could fight eighth-level constelliers, he would have a lot of trouble with Li Haochen. Now, the sky seemed to be falling as Tianming approached the critical moment more and more.

“Come!” In a battle where he had nothing to lose, Tianming wasn’t afraid in the least. His expression barely changed as he moved the imperial star of his constellation to put pressure on Li Haochen, taking half the force of the blow away. Then he regrouped with all five of his beasts.