Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming had actually started the Infinitum Duel, with the girls repeating after him to declare their participation. They seemed completely fearless and played the part of wives following their husband into battle well.

The others from the second branch looked at them with disgust.

”They must be delusional!”

”Lin Feng unnecessarily angered his opponents. His wives are being dragged into the trouble with him.”

”If something happens to those girls, he’ll have to take responsibility!”

”What a waste of fresh flowers on a piece of shit. Let’s hope those three will snap out of it. What can Lin Feng offer them apart from his position as the heir? He’ll lose that soon enough!”

What little reputation that Tianming had managed to garner until now had been completely swept away by what he’d done here. He triggered an outrage in the crowd, and from their reaction, it was clear that power was held paramount in this society. The mighty was right!

The furious geniuses of Lin Bei’s faction were filled with righteous anger, all of them eagerly agreeing to the duel. Then an Infinitum Bodhimanda thirty times the size of the one that had appeared before manifested from the ground, shooting toward the clouds to encircle Tianming and the rest. All fourteen contestants were within! The formation was a part of Ebonia itself and was the most sacred arena in the culture of the entire mundus. Its manifestation immediately set a serious mood once more. Even though the contestants were much, much weaker than the audience, the presence of the formation made them take the battle seriously, like a sacred event.

One of the sides had five seventh-level stellaminors and five eighth-level stellaminors. On the other side, there were only two fifth-level stellaminors, one first-level stellaminor, and even one constellier! It wasn’t a duel, but a slaughter! No matter how furious Tianming acted, there was no changing the predictions most people had made of the outcome, so he didn’t bother saying any more. The instant the Infinitum Bodhimanda completely covered them, he started fighting right away!

”Little Fish, use the Grand Dao Thousand Words right away!”

Moran was the core of their defense in this battle royale. Her divine wonders were so effective that they were the cornerstone of Tianming’s confidence. ”Okay.”

Half of the battlefield was an ocean zone, which made quite suitable terrain for Tianming and his lifebound beasts. After a long absence, they finally made their appearances once more! Lan Huang fell into the ocean zone, displacing a huge amount of water. XIan Xian’s tree form stretched its roots out into the sea, forming a castle-like structure. The sight stunned the audience.

Then a pink star rose into the sky and hovered near the top of the tree, shading it in a coat of pink. Xian Xian and Ji Ji’s spiritforms, one in floral attire and the other dressed in brilliant pink, fought side by side like fairies out of a dreamscape. Beside them was Moran, dressed in an ink-black robe that highlighted her tall and slender figure. Having been assigned an important duty by Tianming, she grit her teeth and wore a serious expression.

”Come in!” Ji Ji’s pink star sucked Moran into its core, flooding her with a huge amount of genesis ancestral nova source.

”Ugh!” Moran furrowed her brows; the nova source from Ji Ji was far more volatile and potent than Ebonia’s, which was ideal for the activation of divine wonders. The skyway masterbrush wonder manifested as a gigantic, black-and-pink pillar, instantly becoming the focal point in the arena. Ji Ji was going all out without regard to whether or not Moran could handle it. The next instant, the white-and-pink sacredway tome wonder appeared above the Radix World Tree. It resembled the clan registry quite a bit, but every single page in it was blank. The divine wonders had once belonged to twelfth-level stellaminors, but now they were being pushed to their very limits with Ji Ji’s energy.

”He wants me to use Grand Dao Thousand Words in a short time....” Moran was a really willful girl that embodied fifty different consciousnesses. While her sisters were simple, they were still important pillars of her psyche. Controlling two divine wonders of this caliber was hard, but she powered through it.

”Sisters, go!” Their will guided the brush and tome until they touched each other. ”Master brush of the way of the sky, rise up! Celestial tome of the way of the sacred, stand strong like mountains and rivers!” The chant came from all fifty sisters in unison, shaking anyone that heard it. The inked brush moved closer to the tome, which opened its pages for the brush to mark it! The blot of ink turned into words.

”Go wild like an inked brush on parchment, Grand Dao Thousand Words!” Fifty magnificent voices echoed throughout the battlefield as the brush started rapidly writing on the tome, painting a miraculous picture that greatly moved Tianming. In almost an instant, the character that represented ’grand’ appeared on the first page of the tome. Then the page with that character tore off and turned into a huge, white stone slab that radiated an aura of ancient power, while the ’grand’ character turned into a black relief carving on the slab, emanating a lonely black glow.

And that was just the start! ’Dao’ appeared on the second page before it, too, turned into a stone slab and fell next to the first. Next was the slab with ’thousand’, and finally, the one with ’words’. From the fifth page onward, the text was much smaller, but the stone slabs that formed were just as big. The brush moved so quickly that it turned into a blur, and the tome’s pages flipped so quickly that nobody could clearly see them. The continuous collisions between the two divine wonders filled the entire area with slabs that lined up to form a wall, unleashing more power than the sum of the two divine wonders! Tianming had chosen to use a powerful move right at the very start of the battle. Lin Xiuzhu and the other nine would definitely not consider Moran and the rest their equal, so they didn’t even bother stopping her from operating her divine wonders.

”That thing seems pretty powerful, Xiuzhu, doesn’t it?” someone asked, still merely watching.

”That’s probably the reason Lin Feng was so arrogant.”

”Looks like he did have some kind of plan after all.”

”Other things aside, those two divine wonders aren’t to be trifled with. They were at their strongest when Weisheng Moran fought to enter the daisy rankings.”

”It looks like she’s using the energy from Lin Feng’s lifebound beast to power them!”

No matter their comments, the opponents felt lofty enough to not take the initiative in attacking, giving Moran a lot of time. Tianming had asked her to use that at the start as it was a move that required time to set up. He knew that their opponents would be ’gentlemanly’ enough to let them finish it.

”Hehe....” He watched as the stone slabs continued falling while Moran’s speed increased more and more as she grew more used to it. As time went on, the brush and tome got smaller and smaller before a full thousand slabs finally manifested. This was her current limit. Back when they’d gone up against the Wonderhaze Suzerain couple, the old man had only managed three hundred slabs before being interrupted by Tianming. He had experienced how powerful it could be.

Since the other side is giving us time to fully execute this, even if Little Fish is only able to use up to sixty percent of its full power, they’ll be done for!

The slabs assembled into a large formation under Moran’s control, surrounding the tree and the pink star. The outer two layers formed a powerful defensive fortress. Tianming had fought in many group battles before and knew the importance of having a powerful defensive position. If he could ensure that no one but his allies were behind him, he could focus on fighting those in front of him without worrying about being surrounded. He knew that Feiling and Moran’s strengths weren’t in individual duels, but they excelled in group battles.

”Ling’er!”

”Yes!”

As Grand Dao Thousand Words continued working, Feiling deployed Perpetia. She danced around in the air near Tianming as she continued the deployment process, spreading a gigantic, boundless city that covered half of the Infinitum Bodhimanda. Perpetia’s time manipulation, coupled with Feiling’s wings, raised the level of potential of her allies to an entirely new level.

Moran took care of their defense, while Feiling and Xian Xian handled control. It was a perfect, complementary approach. Seeing all that, Xiaoxiao poked out her tongue as she mounted the Archaionfiend and rose into the air. Then she took out her Chimei Boltbow and Chimei Bolt Arrows and Wangliang Boltarrows, which cost five thousand merit points to exchange. The bow and arrow set contained ten grade-nine divine hazards of impressive might. [1]

The myriadstar Archaionfiend, however, was dark and frosty. Even though it was only a fifth-level stellaminor, Tianming could feel that it was even more threatening than before. Tianming’s final lifebound beast, Yin Chen, left his lifebound space in the form of a hundred million silver eggs and spread insects of all forms across the entire battlefield. Its number had already grown a lot after only a single day of ore replenishment, making it much stronger. Tianming was looking forward to the day when it would reach a full ten billion eggs.

1. For the mythological elements that inspired this bow-arrow set, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimim%C5%8Dry%C5%8D ☜