Beastmaster of the Ages

The six mini stars all fused into one, marking Tianming as number one. The moment he destroyed Shenxi Shang’s Oldgod Ring, his new ranking as the first was reflected in his disciple card. It was his final ranking! He knew that the Swordgod Lin Clan had pined for these glorious heights for quite a while.

”I surpassed Lin Lingxiao and got first place as Lin Mu’s son. The whole world is going to be shaken. The clan should reward me with at least a million merit points. Once Ying Huo and the others truly become astral gods, I’ll be able to afford eight-aperture ordered manna at least.” He began fantasizing about the pleasant things he would get, being only two levels from becoming an orderan. He had looked forward to becoming an astral god for far too long. When he had come to Ebonia a few years ago and been suppressed by Gongshu Ding and Lin Jianxing, he was only a solarian, far from an astral god. However, the adventures in the Oldgod Domain had shortened the time he needed to cultivate by at least ten years!

”No matter what consequences I’ll have to face after leaving here, it’ll have been worth it.” He turned his attention back to the mini star that resembled an ordered manna. The gravitational star he was on had hundreds of hexagonal holes. He waited for what would happen next with bated breath.

The mini star began to crack apart and seal Tianming like before. Then it took flight, bringing Tianming with it as it sped into another hexagonal hole. Before he could react, the mini star suddenly stopped and split apart, freeing him once more. He looked around in a hurry and was surprised to find himself outside the gravitational star. Then the mini star vanished, as if it had fulfilled its purpose.

Tianming looked at the gravitational star in the mist again. Its surface was about as wide as the Archaion Realm, far from comparable to a proper nova source world. But compared to a human, it was still incomprehensibly vast. He seemed to sense a pulse from the star, then all of a sudden, the mist that it had spewed nonstop was sucked back in through the hexagonal holes around it. Then it began brightly glowing.

What’s it gonna do? Right as Tianming thought that, the black star began shrinking. The crunching sound of metal it let out as it shrank was quite terrible to listen to. When he was still inside the star, he had tried striking it and found that its surface was made of a material so tough that not even the Grand-Orient Sword could leave a mark on it. It wasn’t actually made of metal, though, or Yin Chen would have gone crazy and consumed it all.

”It’s just like Ling’er’s Perpetia, filled with endless mysteries. Looks like there’s still a long way to go before I’ll be able to learn anything about it.” For instance, Huang Qi’s body seemed to be made of nova source worlds. Tianming didn’t even remotely understand how that could be possible. All he could do was watch as a seeming miracle played out before his eyes. Once the mini star was compressed to a certain point, Tianming felt space itself compress as he was drawn toward the object by the curvature of spacetime.

”This is unpleasant.” His face paled. ”It’s far too terrifying.”

Even now, the Order Relic continued shrinking in volume. The ancestral world itself seemed to be crumbling as a result of the spacetime contortions. Tianming looked around at the dying world; even the path where he had run into Guchi Xiaoyin had been crushed like cotton.

The entire world was falling apart.

”Perhaps I’m somehow being protected from the destructive effects. Otherwise I’d be vaporized in almost an instant.” It was no doubt one of the most terrifying sights he had seen. Everything in all directions was torn apart and began orbiting the Order Relic. There was no salvaging the hive world at all, and it would be gone forever.

Tianming was unable to move in the slightest, sandwiched between the Order Relic and the crumbling world as he was.

”It’s far too small!” Tianming was shocked to see how a world with a comparable area to the Archaion Realm had shrunk into a sphere that was only one centimeter in diameter. The sphere caused the surrounding space itself to tear into small pieces and he found himself within one of those torn shreds. While he was still alive, it was a harrowing thing to experience. The tiny sphere before him was filled with hexagonal holes on its surface and he felt the urge to stick his finger into one of them and fling it away.

”Will that happen? Is it so I can carry it with me?” Huang Qi had said that he would be able to obtain the Order Relic once he’d passed the trials, but in what way? Before he had time to figure it out, the sphere gave him an answer! It began to move and spin as it flew toward him. It took only an instant! Tianming shrieked as the sphere rammed into his body. It felt like he was the one who had started crumbling!

”What in the world?!” He had thought he would die from the impact, but he didn’t feel any pain. ”Did I die so fast that I didn’t even feel anything?” When he looked down, he saw the ball fusing into his body. ”How’s this happening?!”

If the ball itself could cause the spacetime framework around it to crumble, what would happen to his body once it had fused with him? It happened so fast that his mind turned blank as he witnessed the unfolding of a miracle—a manifestation of impossible odds. All he felt during the process was a little stinging pain in his albi. In almost no time at all, his body had been sucked into the Order Relic.

”This was what Huang Qi was looking for! It pulled me into this place for the sake of obtaining the Order Relic! Then, once I was here, it made a plan to help me make breakthroughs. It even wanted me to release it before the final battle so that it could get the Order Relic instead! Given the kind of risk it took, this relic must be something quite magnificent. Maybe it’s even more precious than the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb!”

His eyes widened as far as they could. Fortunately, he had foiled Huang Qi’s plans and avoided death. There was nothing he could do about the amazing item, so he let fate take its course; it wasn’t like he could resist it anyway.

At the moment the Order Relic disappeared, his body underwent an earth-shattering change.