Beastmaster of the Ages

Everyone’s mood grew tense when they heard that Yi Daiyan was going after traitors, but they had faith in her. As such, the optimistic people relaxed. When they realized that the bloodline wisteria was harmless, they began making merry. Many children even picked some of the vines and wore them around their bodies like accessories, while some adults even started playing tug-of-war with them. There was no sense of urgency at all, even though the vines appeared all over Ebonia.

Soon, everywhere between Ebonia’s fusion formation and astralguard formation became shrouded in a bloody mist, indoors or outdoors. The mist mixed with the planet’s nova source and entered the bodies of cultivators, dying their skin slightly red and making them seem even more energetic. Even their smiles seemed to have an extra layer of blush.

The red that filled the entire world made it look like a festive evening of the spring festival. It was almost as if they were preparing to celebrate the victory of the upcoming battle that would lead to a new chapter in the history of the Infinitum Bodhimanda.

It wasn’t just the surface; even the subterranean world was filled with bloodline wisteria vines, stretching across magma flows, storms, and dark currents. The ones that were burned up by lava turned into bloody mist that mixed into the soil and rivers, entering the bodies of wildbeasts.

Initially, the beasts didn’t really mind. They weren’t intelligent enough to notice the minor changes in their bodies that ranged from reddening eyes and bloody tears. Even as the wave of red entered their brains, they didn’t feel any pain. Instead, it was accompanied by a euphoric sensation. They felt like their bodies had gotten lighter. Slowly, they became swept up by the beautiful colors around them.

Most wildbeasts only felt a rough analogue of joy when they went in for the kill and devoured their prey. Yet it was a tense kind of excitement, completely unlike the absentminded bliss they currently felt. Like the bloodline wisteria, their bodies began producing more and more bloody mist. At the apex of their joy, their bodies melted away into mist that entered other wildbeasts, which also vanished in bliss and ignorance.

It was a peaceful and euphoric end, without any howling or pain. They didn’t even know that the end had come. It was simply like enjoying a sweet dream, floating away into eternal slumber. The wildbeasts that lacked tripartite souls were relatively simpleminded. Many of them dreamed about dominating other wildbeasts or eating humans.

The bloody mist feasted upon all the people in the world, only fully spreading out after Yi Daiyan departed with her troops. First, the joy spread to the children, then the elderly, and then to the young adults.

Deep within the subterranean world was a massive heart-like tree structure that was surrounded by the very same mist. It rhythmically pulsed, entirely covered in bloodline vines that seemed like capillaries, endlessly criss-crossing. It was the bloodline wisteria’s heart.

At the center of the heart was a bunch of bloodline vines that tied up a headless, black-robed man. The stump on his neck let out crimson-black smoke like a chimney. His body seemed completely dried out, with his palms, fingers, and toes looking like raw bone. His flesh had turned completely red, but the snake-like capillaries under his paper-thin skin pulsed like living snakes.

Each pulse of the heart spread endless mist all over the world. When the heartbeat rose to its maximum, the man above the heart twitched, causing the vines around him to retract. The headless man stretched his bones and stumbled out like a headless cockroach. After a while, he used the eyes on his palms to look around. The eyes, which had turned completely red thanks to the dense mist surrounding him that crawled around his body like insects. One could vaguely tell that he was Shenxi Xingtian.

”Hehehehe.... Hahahahaha!” His laughter turned from pathetic to wild and maniacal. ”Hong Chen! Beautiful red dust! This is your name!” He raised his arms and let the mist near them condense into tiny spheres. Only then could one tell that they were a kind of miniature lifeform.

”Who named you Hong Chen? This is amazing! Like everything in our dusty, red mortal coil, all hate, love, and aspirations will melt into numbing bliss.” Shenxi Xingtian looked at the little blood-colored balls with utter fascination. The entire world itself was covered in red dust.

”My ancestors discovered you in the astral void millions of years ago. Yet nobody dared to face the danger you posed head-on. You’ve been sealed in a box for millions of years, yet you were able to survive in that tiny space for tens of thousands of generations! What kind of insane lifeform are you? Nobody even thinks you’re alive because of your size!” The red dust motes were smaller than albi that made up the flesh!

While Shenxi Xingtian knew how truly terrifying Yin Chen was, he feared Hong Chen even more. His ancestors had named these things after red dust. Shenxi Xingtian didn’t know the true nature of them; it had been the best-kept secret among the ebons for that long. Nobody dared to let it out, as not only would it doom everyone in the world, it would even destroy the world and itself!

”Perhaps our ancestors never imagined that the ebons would eventually be destroyed. Since we’ve lost everything and become laughingstocks for the generations to come, what’s left to fear?” Shenxi Xingtian chuckled nonstop like a fiend amidst the red mist. The eyes on his palms wildly rotated as his neck released red mist all over the place.

”Hong Chen, let the trillions of people in Ebonia be your nourishment! You’re the apex lifeform, the life that ends all life. Since the ebons have become history, we’ll make Ebonia our tomb!”