Beastmaster of the Ages

Though Ye Buzhiqiu said that, he actually felt much more relaxed. The more Jiang Qingliu let himself get pushed around, the more he felt his ego growing. Jiang Qingliu had lived like that for centuries, and it wasn’t the first time he had been ordered around like that. Ye Buzhiqiu didn’t believe that his little outburst would be enough to scare Jiang Qingliu into not entering the range of the Singularity Atlas with him.

“It worked.” He wasn’t the least bit surprised. He couldn’t hold back and started laughing, all the while not turning back inside the deep forest. His body shook with the laughter of mockery, joy, and insult. He opened his flask and took a large swig of fine wine brewed from top-tier divine herbs, then turned to Jiang Qingliu and smiled. However, he didn’t swallow the wine and instead spat it out.

“What’re you laughing at, Ye Buzhiqiu?” Jiang Qingliu asked, feigning ignorance.

“Heavens, have you not noticed yet?” Ye Buzhiqiu said in an exaggerated fashion.

“Noticed what?”

“The Singularity Atlas, of course! Look around you, fool!”

“Huh?” Jiang Qingliu looked around and noticed that he was indeed trapped inside a dense forest formation. Even the sky was covered in some illusory fog. After he tried flying up, he found himself dropped into another forest. The Singularity Atlas could generate an illusory forest formation layered tens of thousand times on top of itself, making it so that those within couldn’t break out with brute force no matter what.

“Congratulations on becoming the new leader of House Dongye. I see that your uncle has passed it down to you. How impressive,” Jiang Qingliu said.

Ye Buzhiqiu was completely stunned to hear that. “How stupid must you be if that’s your takeaway from it? Don’t you know that you’ll die soon?”

“Die? Are you joking? There aren’t any enemies here.”

“No enemies?” Ye Buzhiqiu almost fell over from the laughter as he pointed his sword at Jiang Qingliu. “I want to use the Singularity Atlas to kill you. Do you still not get it?”

“What did you say?!” Jiang Qingliu pretended to sound shocked.

“Forget it… why do I bother? Just die in ignorance.”

“Please don’t. I’d prefer to die enlightened,” Jiang Qingliu said with a sudden chuckle.

“Hehe….” Ye Buzhiqiu thought that it was only a waste of breath to talk to such a fool. “No wonder you were crippled at the age of thirty. It seems like you were also mentally crippled as well.” He immediately struck after his insult.

“Really? Are you sure?” Jiang Qingliu smiled.

“Huh?” This was the first time Ye Buzhiqiu found himself stunned. He didn’t believe what he saw. “Are you smiling?”

“Yeah, I’m celebrating a new lease in life. Looks like this chapter of my life’s going to have an exciting start.”

“You’re insane! Just die already, you mental invalid!”

“You’re the invalid.” While Ye Buzhiqiu was still puzzling it over, Jiang Qingliu pointed above. “I’m sure you can vaguely see it. The Divine Worldeater Cauldron, I mean.”

“Huh?” Ye Buzhiqiu could see outside through the atlas and noticed nothing but pitch darkness around both mountains. That couldn’t be! There was no nighttime in Orderia, so something must have been blocking out the light. It couldn’t be anything other than the cauldron!

“What’s this?” His expression changed as he felt something was off. The entire illusion formation began rapidly shaking, as if it was going to crumble. “Someone’s attacking the Singularity Atlas from the outside!”

Ye Buzhiqiu’s heart skipped a beat. That was the atlas’s weakness. It was resistant from within, but exactly the opposite from without! Eventually, it began cracking, then completely shattered before his eyes.

“Don’t think I’ll let you leave!”

Ye Buzhiqiu turned to run, only to stop when he felt a chill. He saw the two women whose statuses were far above his own in the sky, coldly glaring at him. Within the cauldron were the Whitedragon Empress and Yan Nuxia! It was a setup, alright, but he was the prey! He was shaken to the core.

“Impossible! How dare you plot against me?! What’re you planning?!” Ye Buzhiqiu snapped. Though he tried to sound threatening, his legs were actually shaking.

“What are we planning? I was thinking we should start by whipping you,” Jiang Qingliu said.

“You wouldn’t dare, not you! My dad and the chief instructor will immediately come here. You’ll pay for messing with me like this!”

“Don’t even bother trying to bluff. They’re waiting at the Azuresoul Sword Mountain for you to bring the Azuresoul Tower back to them.”

“You… you know everything?” He drew a cold breath, just now realizing that all his boasting from before was nothing but a court jester’s act. He couldn’t figure out where it had gone wrong.

“Of course we do! Ye Buzhiqiu, you’ve picked on me for long enough!” Jiang Qingliu said gleefully.

“Do it,” Long Wanying said.

“Ugh!” A chill shot toward Ye Buzhiqiu’s head from his feet.

……

Tianming and Yu Ziqian sat on what appeared to be nothing above the valley. It was actually the cauldron, but it was in its invisible form. Without getting close enough, nobody would be able to see it. Ye Buzhiqiu had intentionally picked a quiet place far away, after all, and with these two standing guard, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Then the first rumble came from inside the cauldron. “Boss, won’t you go in to take a look?” Yu Ziqian asked.

“There’s no need. Your master and his Azuresoul Tower should be more than enough to deal with him, not to mention we have two goddesses backing him up,” Tianming said.

People often said that Long Wanying was a late bloomer, referring to the fact that she had only grown powerful by focusing on nothing but cultivation after her husband died. Eventually, she broke through multiple barriers and rose to the position of the Whitedragon Empress.

As expected, the commotion soon stopped. Right now, Ye Buzhiqiu was probably powerless to move or resist. Tianming was playing around with a few silver eggs in his hand when they suddenly burst into tens of thousands of ants and crawled all around Tianming, making for quite the ghastly sight.

“That lifebound beast of yours is a monster if I’ve ever seen one,” Yu Ziqian said.

“Hah, and it’s just in its early form. You haven’t seen what it can become yet,” Tianming said.

“Yeah. Relying on it alone, we’re able to control the entire continent. It’s influential indeed. At the very least, we can’t let these shortsighted people cut the divine tree down.”

“Let’s take things step by step and make sure we don’t make any mistakes along the way.” What they were attempting to do was incredibly bold and risky.

Some fifteen minutes later, Long Wanying called out to them. “Tianming, come in.”

With how quiet it was inside the cauldron, it seemed that they had succeeded. Yu Ziqian opened the lid and let Tianming in. Tianming found himself in a dark area and spotted some destroyed plants nearby. They were plant-species lifebound beasts that looked a little like maple trees, all of them huddled in a corner and suppressed by two azuresky qilins.

On the other side was the Azuresoul Tower. It looked a little like the Azuresoul Sword Mountain, almost like a conical sword of sorts, and it could also be used as such. Though it looked slightly weaker than the Lifesteal Silverdragon, it was already a pretty decent divine artifact. Jiang Qingliu, Yan Nuxia, and Long Wanying stood beside the tower, completely subduing Ye Buzhiqiu.

“Over here,” Long Wanying said, waving Tianming over.

“On it.” He approached and saw a head peeking out from beneath the tower. He looked weak and at his last breath, seemingly having been badly tortured. He couldn’t even move a single finger, thanks to the tower.

“Hey,” Tianming called out.

Ye Buzhiqiu blinked blankly a few times before noticing Tianming. “You….” He suddenly shuddered. Doubtfully, he said, “Just kill me if you dare! Why bring a child here? To humiliate me?”

“That’s right. I have some young piss for you to drink. Thirsty?” Tianming said.

“Fuck off!” Ye Buzhiqiu continued struggling, his face flushed from the effort.

“I’m just joking. I have something else for you to drink instead.” Tianming squatted down in front of him.

“Get away from me, you mongrel!” Ye Buzhiqiu tried to use his glare and aura to suppress Tianming, but to no avail. Tianming took out a silver egg that turned into a swarm of ants. “What is this?!!”

“Now, you’d better do what I say.” Tianming held Ye Buzhiqiu’s mouth open and let the ants crawl into it like a stream of water.

“Uuuggh!” He cried and struggled, his eyes filled with despair.

“Don’t panic. You won’t die from this, but you’ll have to suffer a bit today. I need to teach you the consequences of disobeying me. It isn’t the kind of pain that’ll kill you, but it’ll make you shudder every time you hear my voice.”

Tianming pulled out a few more eggs and poured them into his mouth. The third and fourth forced him to swallow them down, and Ye Buzhiqiu’s eyes widened as his body twitched.