Beastmaster of the Ages

”’Thousand Foundation Divine Puppets?” Tianming and the rest widened their eyes.

”Divine puppets? As in corpse puppets made using divine patterns? Are they equivalent to a thousand foundationeers?” Tianming asked.

”You wish they were,” Xiaodao said, rolling his eyes. ”Not even foundationeer corpses would be able to retain their cultivation.”

”Why not?” Tianming asked. Back at the Flameyellow Continent, he had been impressed by corpse puppet techniques. They operated on really complicated principles.

”If an astral god dies in combat, their flesh collapses and leaves nothing behind. Only astral gods that pass away at the end of their natural lifespan leave corpses behind. When their life force runs out, most of their cosmoforce will scatter, leading to their astrons being damaged. If you use those corpses as material for corpse puppets, even if you can replenish the energy stores in their bodies, you wouldn’t be able to retain their foundationeer combat prowess. It’d be hard to even barely sustain cosmic cartographer levels of cultivation.”

”I see. In other words, more advanced lifeforms are harder to reuse after they’re dead, right?” Normal people easily died, but the states of their bodies while they were living or dead didn’t differ too much. Astral gods, while being able to survive and recover from insane damage in combat, lost their orders all the same, whether they died in combat or at the end of their lifespans. Their orders return to the natural environment along with their caeli. All that would be left behind was an empty husk with at most some muscle memory.

”That’s right!” In other words, Xiaodao was saying that they shouldn’t be too happy even if all those puppets were made from dead foundationeers. Even if that were the case, they’d be no stronger than first-level cosmic cartographers that needed to constantly be charged with nova source. Tianming alone could easily dispatch a thousand enemies of that level.

”However, I feel that since this chamber was so hard to open, there must be something better than a celestial tome inside,” Tianming said.

”Just follow me,” Xiaodao said. But just as he did, Wudi entered first and loosed a loud cry, piquing Tianming and Xiaodao’s curiosity.

The two of them entered a dark secret chamber. There wasn’t a hint of light at all. In fact, any light that was brought into the room would be sucked away. Tianming couldn’t even see Wudi and Xiaodao within. There weren’t a thousand corpse puppets in the center of the room; instead, there was only one thing, and it was far smaller than a celestial tome, yet that made it only easier to tell what it was.

Tianming’s eyes dilated as he focused on the five-meter-tall giant in the middle of the room. It stood with its back facing Tianming, back straight and golden hair worn loose. Each strand of its hair was lustrous and filled with vigor. The giant seemed to give off a dim astral radiance, a sign that there was still cosmoforce flowing through it, yet there wasn’t a single shred of the presence of a soul within.

The giant had obviously been dead for a long time, but it was fully armed from head to toe in a full set of dark, crimson armor. Tianming could even see both of its hands behind its back holding a gigantic, crimson blade that was pierced into the ground, giving off a bloody aura. Even after having been dead for all this time, Tianming could still feel an overwhelming aura of dominance coming from the giant. The sensation was so overwhelming that it made it hard for Tianming to raise his head.

”So the Thousand Foundation Divine Puppet is only a single thing?” The three of them circled around to the front of the giant, intensely staring to the point that they bumped into each other and screamed in fright.

”Calm down!” Xiaodao yelled.

They looked up at the dominant presence once more, seeing eyes underneath its helmet. They were closed tight, but they could feel a solemn might radiating from it. ”Indeed. This is a flameyellow divinity that passed away eons ago. His divine corpse has been modified, but the divine patterns aren’t obvious from the surface at all. However, don’t doubt the complexity of the methods used.”

Tianming also noticed as much. Apart from the impressive aura, everything else about the giant was no different from a normal, living person.

”To be honest, the wonderians are much more adept at making divine puppets. Their cultivation is mainly based on formations, after all. Once they die, they can use the divine wonders in their astrons as a base for new formations, maintaining most of the capabilities of the divine wonders. Naturally, they’d also have to integrate a new formation to ensure that nova source can power divine puppets,” Xiaodao continued.

”This senior, however, isn’t a wonderian. Do the core principles differ, then?” Tianming asked.

”They should be different. He doesn’t have a divine wonder, so the only thing that’s left behind would be the power of his physical body. Naturally, he was a flameyellow divinity, while the Sun used to be the Flameyellow Imperial Star. Perhaps he can trigger some kind of change,” Xiaodao said. They really had no good way of judging the combat capabilities of the Thousand Foundation Divine Puppet.

”How do we make him move, though?” Wudi said, circling the giant a few times and feeling him up.

”Since it was your bloodline that unlocked this room, you should be the one that knows how to do it,” Xiaodao said.

”Really?” Wudi blinked and muttered, ”Spirits of the heavens and earth... old seniors and ancestors... please stop putting up airs and tell your genius, handsome descendant who just broke through ten levels at once how I may witness your brilliance!”

The puppet didn’t react in the slightest, much to Wudi’s chagrin.

”Old Lin, take a look at the armor and blade. Those look like peak cosmic artifacts, but they seem sealed somehow,” Tianming said. They looked a little like the Grand-Orient Sword’s sealed state when the cosmic impulses within it were inaccessible. There wasn’t a shred of luster at first glance, but he could feel the undulations of power coming from them.

”That’s right! They must be usable.” When Tianming thought that, an idea occurred to him. ”Godfather, try putting it in the Flameyellow Coffin. Maybe it ran out of power after such a long time.”

”That makes sense, but the coffin itself doesn’t have nova source, you know,” Wudi said.

”Just give it a try. Maybe he needs Flameyellow Bloodsoul to awaken.”

”Fine. It isn’t like we know any other method.”

Everything in the Gladean Ruins and the Sun had come from the flameyellow divinities. The Flameyellow Coffin and Ninedragon Imperial Tomb, for instance, were symbols of that legacy, while everything in the Gladean Ruins seemed somehow related to the Sun. Perhaps a core object of the flameyellow divinities—like the Flameyellow Coffin—was the key to unlocking changes in the giant.

Wudi opened the coffin while Xiaodao moved the puppet into it. ”How heavy!”

Right as the puppet touched the Flameyellow Bloodsoul, the liquid seeped into him and caused both of his eyes to open! Bright beams of black radiance shot into the air as the Flameyellow Bloodsoul within the coffin began boiling.