Beastmaster of the Ages

To prepare for the event, Tianming had read many books about Ebonia, attempting to learn everything about its culture, geography, factions, and people. One of the things he had studied was in the form of a legacy formation, containing an enormous amount of information. It was titled the Ebonian Bestiary. Compiled by the ebons, it had undergone countless revisions and updated editions, detailing large numbers of nova wildbeasts that they were familiar with. The only unmarked beasts either resided in the world down under or had undergone some odd mutation in recent years.

Nova wildbeasts lived in horrific habitats, constantly absorbing the most chaotic form of nova source and feasting on other beasts. They also didn’t have any structured mating behavior, usually allowing for bloodline dilution and mixing. Coupled with the constant exposure to chaotic nova source, mutations would often form, creating many ether- and infinitum-class monsters. The birth of such beasts usually heralded incoming calamities.

Nova wildbeasts could endlessly absorb nova source without any formation to stop them. Many could even roam the astralscape without needing any divine astralship to hunt there, which made them cosmic wildbeasts. Should any deific-class nova wildbeast or stronger find a heliacal-class world to prey on, it could easily reign supreme and consume the inhabitants as it pleased.

Before Tianming were fourteen such monsters. The high-deific-class giant snake, in particular, applied quite a bit of pressure on him. He recalled what he read in the Ebonian Bestiary and found the relevant entry. It was a worldring skysnake, which were named as such because once its kind managed to achieve a high enough level to be released from the bonds of gravity, it could grow to immense sizes.

Many worldring skysnakes had left Ebonia for other heliacal-class or smaller worlds, like stellunar source worlds, after which they locked down the entire world like rings, both for camouflage purposes and to make those worlds their nesting spots. Those that managed to achieve those feats were among the apex of its kind. That said, Qi Hongzhen’s worldring skysnake hadn’t yet fully matured despite having a larger body than Lan Huang.

When compared, lifebound beasts were more intelligent than nova wildbeasts, but they didn’t have the monstrous growth potential of their feral counterparts. There were pros and cons to those characteristics. Take Tianming’s Primordial Chaos Beasts, for instance. While their growth rate was heavily restricted by his own, their power base and soul level were clearly defined and incredibly stable. Lifebound beasts were essentially sapient lifeforms, while wildbeasts were feral and ranked low on the sapience scale no matter how powerful they grew.

”Feed! Feed!” The worldring skysnake was able to use human language in a limited capacity, like voidheart worms. However, every notion that came from its mouth was savage, cruel, and bloody.

”Huh... comparatively, the voidheart worms were much smarter, even though they aren’t as strong.” Tianming had never expected that the first ebon he would meet would have a beast of such a caliber. Being surrounded by so many snakes felt like falling into a snake pit.

The worldring skysnake had two heads, but it definitely wasn’t just a normal two-headed snake. Instead, its heads were on both ends of its body, with a tail nowhere to be seen. One of the heads was covered in frosty icicles, while the other was covered in heavy crimson scales and had a single sharp horn. As such, worldring skysnakes were also known as frostburn skysnakes.

When his giant snake hissed, Qi Hongzhen used his whip to pull himself into its mouth. In other words, he would be fighting while his worldring skysnake protected him, making up for the well-known weakness of infinite beastmasters. There was no way they wouldn’t be prepared for such tactics, so actually taking them down was harder than it sounded. Not to mention, dead warbeasts could simply be replaced, making them perfect meat shields.

Qi Hongzhen opened the soul eyes on his palms, illuminating the entire battlefield with violet light in an instant. The marks of the ebons shone with violet light that seeped into the beasts’ eyes, manifesting the same marking within them as well. That seemed to drive the giant snakes wild, causing them to rush Tianming with a flurry of abilities.

”Destroy them! Feed as you please!” Qi Hongzhen smirked as his beasts put on a show. His strongest beast was naturally the worldring skysnake. Each of its heads unleashed an elemental smog that corresponded to the head’s type—one fire, one frost. The two streams collided, forming a tsunami of ice and fire that caused the surrounding area to shake and crumble. The entire time, Qi Hongzhen was able to attack with his whip from the mouth of his beast and stay far out of range of easy retaliation.

”This is such a pain!” The first wave of attacks put Tianming in quite a tough position.

”It’s no big deal, you’ll see! My fellow siblings, let’s bust their balls!” Ying Huo cried as it went flying.

”Chicken Bro, snakes don’t have balls,” Meow Meow reminded the perverted bird.

”Then we’ll have Fifth stick itselves to the snakes before we bust them up!”

Hearing that, Yin Chen suddenly tensed up. ”What the... Chicken Bro... wants to... bust up... my egg... balls balls?” Then it stopped tensing up when it recalled that it didn’t actually have testicles; its bodies were basically all balls and nothing else.

Tianming’s lifebound beasts seemed to not feel any pressure at all. They were oddballs indeed. Though, partially being cosmic deities themselves, they didn’t need to fear this predicament at all.

”Lan Huang, follow me! We’ll deal with that big snake! I’ll leave the smaller snakes to the rest of you,” Tianming said.

”Okay!”

”Ji Ji, give us the stuff! We need the kick!” Ying Huo said as it charged toward the incoming barrage of destructive abilities, unfettered.

The First Aeonic Ancestral Star appeared, casting a pink glow over the entire battlefield. The little girl that sat atop it looked completely disinterested. It had wanted to negotiate conditions with Tianming, but given how urgent the situation was, it decided it would be better to charge him extra after the fight was over. Then the gigantic star split into five parts that entered the bodies of the other beasts.

Lan Huang, Meow Meow, and Ying Huo glowed a girlish pink, which was a stark contrast to their frenzied appearance. Xian Xian, on the other hand, turned into its dryad form before assimilating the pink power and became a goddess of flowers. As for Yin Chen, all of its silver bugs looked much cuter in pink. Ji Ji’s nova source was far more potent than Ebonia’s, greatly increasing the amount of astralforce they could muster! They wildly shrieked like animals gone feral, exploding with energy.