Beastmaster of the Ages

Yumo Diyan went through his skyghoul transformation. His body expanded and was covered by black and white scales. His half-black, half-white hair grew much longer and bone-like spikes covered his entire body. Coupled with his demonic fangs and monochrome eyes, he appeared ghoulishly threatening!

Each of his eyes had three irises, completely white in one and completely black in the other. His characteristic impermanence-variant bloodline made him tall and slender. Covered in black and white mist and with the baleful aura of ten worlds’ worth of aggrieved souls, he emitted a terror that no mortal could comprehend.

His was a domineering might generated from endless cruelty and suffering. Apart from a very small minority of people in the astralscape, most people would lose their will to fight at the mere sight of Yumo Diyan.

Not even the yin-yang essence storm could suppress his baleful aura! The most shocking thing was that he wasn’t the only terrifying specter among them. When the others also underwent their skyghoul transformations, they assembled around the monochrome planet. The cries of the baleful souls in their bodies sounded like a choir of doom, singing a requiem for the prey in their midst.

”Now, go!” the senior madame ordered. The specters found a relatively weaker point on the surface and began wildly attacking it. Sparks flew as loud clangs of tortured metal resounded all over. The specters struck the spot repeatedly with their maniverse-class artifacts, each blow creating a mind-numbing clanging noise.

Fortunately, the storm in the Inner Yin was rather intense. No matter what kind of commotion they caused with all the noise, they weren’t too worried about attracting the attention of others.

Only those from House Yumo knew about the existence of this ship, and only House Qitian and House Suishen could possibly fight them for it. Even if the three siblings of House Suishen—Hongtian, Ranxing, and Jiguang—came in, they weren’t on good terms with one another. As for House Qitian, the specters were certain that Qitian Muyu and Qitian Muyue weren’t in the Yin-Yang World at the moment they entered.

There really didn’t seem to be anyone who could fight them for the ship. If someone of a lower status saw what they were doing, they could simply kill them off. Little did they know, however, that someone was actually spying on them!

Far away behind veils of mist were two people dressed in white, calmly staring at the specters. One looked like a scholar with black hair, standing behind a silver-haired person with a tiny white dragon wrapped around his arm.

The raging storm seemed to calm around the vicinity of the silver-haired man, giving him a supernatural countenance. He was none other than the valley lord himself! The scholar behind him was actually Qitian Muyu, the current leader of House Qitian, equal to Suishen Ranxing and Yumo Diyan.

The three of them were considered to be around the same level in power, being among the top six most powerful beings in the astralscape. Once their seniors grew older, they would rise to the top three. If any of them could go from major to super zenith, they might become the next valley lord. If those three couldn’t, it would be up to the younger generation, such as Qitian Muchen, to fight for the position of valley lord, though he was already dead.

In the latter case, the current valley lord would remain in his current position even as he aged and degenerated. He would keep his position until the next super-zenith foundationeer took over. Should the current valley lord die from old age before such a person appears, a stand-in valley lord would be picked from one of the major-zenith foundationeers, who would then be replaced by a true super-zenith valley lord when the time came.

Apart from the valley lord’s authority, the next highest authority in Myriadpath Valley was the Myriadpath Sacred Codex. Its laws had to be upheld even by the Three Exalted Houses, for they were the source of their legitimacy in Myriadpath Valley. None of them could senselessly dominate the other, even if the valley lord was from their house. That was how the Three Exalted Houses could coexist even though valley lords had come from every one of their houses at different points in time.

The silver-haired valley lord observed them with both arms behind his back. ”All this time, Myriadpath Valley’s operated based on the precepts of the Myriadpath Sacred Code without any issues. Each of the exalted houses have an understanding of not taking the risk to surpass the others.”

”But it looks like House Yumo intends to break that balance. This is the very first time in recorded history, right?” Qitian Muyu said, his gaze cold and calm.

”They can’t be blamed. It’s simply far too tempting.” The valley lord smiled and looked at the monochrome planet with awe.

”That’s right. Who could’ve known that something that could tip the balance so heavily would show up in the Yin-Yang World after tens of millions of years? House Yumo thought they could overcome us using starblood, only for them to completely lose it in Infinitum. They must still be reeling from the loss. That’s what drove them to be more desperate,” Qitian Muyu said.

They continued observing as the nine specters desperately worked away at making an entrance. ”Dad, what do we do?”

The valley lord smirked. ”Hmph. We should thank House Yumo for working so hard to find something that’ll allow House Qitian to dominate the astralscape of order.”

Qitian Muyu was stunned. Despite the stability offered by the Myriadpath Sacred Codex, House Yumo wasn’t the only faction that wanted to upend the balance. As long as the fortuna-class ship existed, it would fall in someone’s hands. Rather than let House Yumo have it, House Qitian would rather keep it for themselves.

Based on how frantic the specters seemed, there was no stopping the Three Exalted Houses’ impending civil war. Back when no such balance breaker had existed, the Three Exalted Houses huddled with each other to ensure their shared dominance and stability, despite the countless conflicts between them over tens of millions of years. The Myriadpath Sacred Codex had forced those conflicts to remain unresolved, but they would all come surging forth once a means to resolve them appeared.