Beastmaster of the Ages

No matter how badly the ebons lost, as long as they kept their bases secured, they could just wait for tens of thousands of years. No matter how powerful Yi Daiyan was, she would only last ten thousand at most, which was only around two to three generations of peak cultivators.

”If they come to attack our bases, we’ll collapse the caverns. Their ships won’t be able to return to the surface.”

”Even with Yi Daiyan’s might, we still have the rex mundi and his infinitum-class warbeast. There’s no way she’ll be able to do us in alone, like she did the sanctlighters.”

”If she forces us into desperation, we’ll unleash all the wildbeasts in Ebonia to slaughter the entire population!”

Rage and resentment were brewing fast in Taixi City. The cavern paths were still intact, as once they were collapsed, even the ebons would have a hard time leaving their bases.

”The fact that our rex mundi hasn’t ordered the pathways to be blocked means that he’s still confident we’ll be able to turn this around.”

”That’s right! Trust the rex mundi!”

”We have infinitum-class warbeasts. There’s no way that Yi Daiyan can take them out!”

”They’re our ultimate trump cards! Legends of legend!”

Every single infinitum-class warbeast was a spirit animal of the ebons.

All of a sudden, an ear-piercing shriek came from deep beneath the formation around Taixi City. The entire underground world began to shake and fill with a stream of darkness. Burning-hot lava began flowing in response to the sudden surge of nova source. Apart from nova source, Taixi City was surrounded by cosmic ores all around, but even they were shattered by the severe rumbling.

The wildbeasts in the surroundings also began howling in fear and randomly stampeding. Many smaller wildbeasts were trampled to mush, and any beast that crashed into the city’s defensive formation was almost instantly reduced to ashes. It seemed like the world itself was breaking apart and changing. The cry from deep underground chilled the souls of the ebons within the city; they were a race adept at the soul, making them extremely sensitive to the changes.

”What’s happening?”

”It’s the taixi fiendbeast! Something’s going on!”

”What?”

They were all speechless. The taixi fiendbeast was the backbone of the ebons’ spirit. For countless generations, that wildbeast had been a friend to their kind. Being the strongest soul beast in all of Ebonia, the taixi fiendbeast also boasted really high intelligence. Its soul, despite being a bestia, was even comparable to the tripartite soul of foundationeers!

It maintained a really close relationship with the ebons and would often be situated near one of their two underground bases, making it easier to find. But even then, it took Yin Chen a lot of effort to locate it. Yi Daiyan herself wouldn’t have been capable of doing so, but Tianming had managed to guide her to where it was.

Having loathed the beast for a long time, Yi Daiyan immediately struck. In almost an instant, the fight had been brought to Taixi City. The taixi fiendbeast howled in desperation, being unsuited to single combat. Its strength mostly lay in soul attacks that seeped through any kind of protection, making it the perfect weapon to use on the battlefield. Every single meal it ate contained millions of vitae at a minimum. With a single gulp, it could claim countless lives—even those within astralships!

To feed the beast, the ebons had many units that would capture people and bring them to the beast. In all these years, the taixi fiendbeast had consumed at least a billion people. The only reason it didn’t seem to have had a cascading effect was due to the sheer size of Ebonia and its population, as well as the fact that the ebons didn’t capture them in one fell swoop, but rather in smaller, more distributed numbers.

”Somebody’s attacking the taixi fiendbeast!”

The taixi fiendbeast was clearly crying for help. The reason it was located near Taixi City was so that help could arrive more quickly. People in the city began reacting as the powerful cultivators instantly came out. Xuanxi and Ling’e were among the ones that came out to help.

”Who’s that?”! They headed to the bottom of the Taixi Guard Formation where the gargantuan beast was located. It looked like a black eyeball from afar with countless red dots on its surface. All of the red dots were actually eyes! The taixi fiendbeast, as abstract as its name was, was a conglomeration of eyeballs. Every single red eyeball was able to independently move, looking in a completely different direction. They even had different gazes. But currently, most of them looked to be in pain.

The reason for that was how the beast consumed souls. It didn’t really digest and absorb them, like Lingfeng or the Soulfiend could. Instead, it used a special ability it was born with, its soul eyes, to imprison the souls it consumed. They would serve as nutrients for the beast to be slowly digested. The consumed vitae would gather together into a gigantic spiritual mass that the beast could use as it saw fit.

There was a real possibility that the pained, despairing looks of those red eyeballs meant that the souls within the taixi fiendbeast were conscious and suffering. As long as the beast lived, the souls would continue to be in pain. Nobody had seen the beast’s true form, but one look at the mass of writhing red eyes on it was enough to inspire absolute horror.

”Save me... save me!”

”Eat! Eat!”

”I’m hungry... so hungry....”

”Mom? Mom, where are you? I can’t find you! Don’t abandon me! I’m scared!”

The cries of those souls still echoed in the depths of Ebonia.

”This soul is so tasty. Yi Daiyan, you must be rather bold to come to our territory and get yourself killed. Now that you’re here, you won’t leave. You’ll die here and become the main dish to go with my side of souls!” the fiendbeast said in the voice of a three-year-old girl.

Yi Daiyan’s Souldaemon Wings flared out from her back. Her totem ki was concentrated within the Infinitum Stele. She didn’t say a single word, and wore an expression of absolute coldness. Looking up, she saw countless angry people at the border of Taixi City. However, none of them dared to come out when they spotted her. Ling’e and Xuanxi stood nobly among them.

”What a coincidence. Shenxi Xingtian isn’t in Taixi City, I see.” Yi Daiyan smirked. Tianming had chosen a prime time for her. Nobody inside the Taixi Guard Formation dared to come forward to stop her.

It wasn’t easy for her to keep track of Shenxi Xingtian’s location. Even though the Infinitum Bodhimanda had many informants, up to the hundreds of millions, most of them were unable to enter extreme places like the underground caverns of Ebonia. And even if a few did manage to infiltrate, their reports would be completely different from one another’s, making any information from the underground incredibly hard to verify. They were mostly unreliable, unlike Yin Chen, whose many eyes were all connected to a single intelligence that could process all that information.