Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming spent another half day cleaning up matters at the Ancient Oldgod Domain.

”Are you really going to leave?” Huang Qi asked from within the ring. ”I meant it when I said that as long as you give me a bit of trust, you’ll be spared a lot of effort and time. You’ll be able to completely control the Order Relic and take over the Sea of Order. Perhaps the undying aeternals can even leave the Sea of Aeternity and conquer other places as your army.”

”Haha,” Tianming chuckled. The grander the promises, the more suspicious the offer. He wasn’t in any rush and preferred to maintain a stable position, so he wasn’t afraid of missing out to the point of taking such a huge risk. No matter what kind of temptation Huang Qi offered, it would be a waste of words.

”You sound pretty free. Why don’t you tell me more stories about the nine Aeternal Beings?” Tianming asked.

”It isn’t that I don’t want to tell you anything, but I simply can’t. Why can’t you just trust me?” Huang Qi sighed.

”So let me ask you this. What is longer? Aeternal or perpetual?” Tianming switched to another mode of questioning. ”Perpetual, of course. Even aeternal has an ending,” Huang Qi answered. Tianming had gotten a rough idea. It was clear that the ruler of Perpetia and the other Primordial Gods were even higher than the Aeternal Beings.

It didn’t take long before Bai Ye and Bai Ling finished dealing with the administrator of Order College, putting the Ancient Oldgod Domain completely under their control. The pathways the wonderians had used to travel there were also completely destroyed.

”Time to leave.” Right as he was about to go, a huge shadow appeared in the sky of God Domain Nine, causing a terrifying aura to descend upon it. All the gourd spirits knelt in fear.

”Get up!” Bai Ling and Bai Ye snapped, forcing them to rise, though still carrying fear in their hearts toward the giant shadow of a bee-headed person. It stared at Tianming from outside God Domain Nine without entering. If Tianming wasn’t mistaken, Sixth’s vita was controlling it and seeing him through its eyes.

”Are you running away? Coward,” the giant figure spat.

”I’m not running away, just giving you some more time to grow out of your phase. I’ll be back when the harvest’s better,” Tianming said.

”That sounds like pathetic coping.”

”So what if it is? Are you in a rush? Sounds like you’re the one running out of time, not me.”

The bee-headed figure looked at him again and plainly said, ”Now that I’ve gotten such a large petri dish like the Sea of Aeternity, what do I have to rush for? When I become this place’s ruler, you’ll be nothing.”

”Wonderful. I’ll be able to harvest it once you do all the work, then.”

”Your ignorance is outright pitiful, lowly thief.”

”You’re also completely ignorant about symbiotic cultivation,” Tianming said, shrugging. ”You will keep struggling and eventually learn that some things have been destined all along. It’s too late to change them.”

The figure stared at him with cold anger. ”Li Tianming, do you admit that you’re the source of the sickness? That you and all other lifeforms are parasites on the universe that’ll spell its end?!”

”I do,” Tianming said with a shrug, ”But so what? I’m an insect, but even I have my happiness! It’s my right to live and to seek my own happiness! What are you going to do about it?”

”You shameless, pathetic, immoral piece of shit!”

”The law of nature dictates that only the fittest survive. There always comes a time when the old will be replaced by the new.” Tianming opened his arms wide. ”Brother, once you figure things out, you may join the bandwagon any time you want! In the original universe, you were nothing more than a tool of its owner. But if you join my side, you’ll be fighting as my brother! You might think that your elder siblings are fools, but they’re much wiser than you are.”

”That’s right,” Ji Ji agreed. ”Little Bro, come back into Big Sis’s embrace.”

”Keep on daydreaming. You’re nothing but mere petty thieves. Do you think you can steal the entire universe?” The figure then receded, slowly fading into darkness.

”The joy of thievery lies only in the moment of the act. You’ll feel powerful and arrogant, yet you’ll have forgotten a basic thing: there are some things that you simply won’t be able to keep,” the voice said, fading away but sounding more sinister by the moment. ”Don’t laugh so soon. There’s many disasters lying in wait for you. You and your parents violated the way of the universe. Your entire family, including those women of yours, will one day suffer unavoidable doom!”

Tianming fell silent at the threat.

”Don’t hold this against it. It’s still a brat,” Ying Huo said.

”This will be a long and arduous path to tread....” Tianming turned to his beasts and asked, ”What do you think about what Sixth’s vita said?”

”What do I think? Hmm... all I’m thinking about is going back to see Shuo Yue as soon as possible!” Ying Huo said, clearing its throat and combing its head feathers.

”I want to sleep for eternity. I’ll remove the balls of anyone that disturbs my slumber,” Meow Meow said with a yawn.

Tianming turned to Lan Huang, who chuckled so loud that it made his head ring. ”What’re you laughing at?”

”I don’t know! Hahaha!” Lan Huang said, its heads empty.

Tianming turned to Xian Xian and Ji Ji, who were busy chronicling the many romantic exploits of Tianming. Yin Chen, on the other hand, prattled on about him strengthening his kidneys.

”Very well....” Tianming had thought that they would have something deep to say about the meaning of life, but he was thinking too highly of them. ”No matter what, it’s fine as long as we’re one big happy family!” That was the most important. There was no need to think about all that about being the source of sickness or their doom.

”That’s right! Happiness and joy are the point of being human!”

”But you aren’t human.”

”Well, a chimera like you is barely a human! Eww!”

Either way, Sixth’s vita wouldn’t shake Tianming’s dedication to do everything for his family, friends, and empire. ”Let’s go!” He wanted to hurry back and start strengthening his kidneys.

***

Tianming returned to the Sun through the Myriadpath Celestial Formation. Many of his family and friends had moved there to cultivate throughout the founding of the Tianming Dynasty, so he no longer needed to transport resources to the imperial capital. He didn’t stay long and immediately left with Qingyu.

Within a few short months after returning, Tianming realized that Wudi had been making much faster progress on the cosmic god blood, which might have something to do with Qingyu’s bloodline upgrade. Perhaps he was trying to keep up as the Flameyellow Imperator.

Those two were the most similar to Tianming in terms of talent, though their orders were much simpler, allowing them to make much faster progress. Tianming hadn’t become a cosmic god yet, but Wudi immediately reached that level after getting overflow fragments. Coupled with the Flameyellow Coffin, his capabilities on the Sun were incredibly formidable.

”If I’m able to make the Sun a maniverse-class world, it’ll be even more impressive.” Enhancing the Sun was the most important thing to do toward the goal of conquering the Upper Star Ruin. ”If we don’t consume fortuna-class worlds to do that, we’ll need a lot of middlekin stars. For that, we need to conquer many Middlekin Star Ruins, which will require a large cosmic god army.”

Tianming still lacked a firm foundation for all that. ”The Primordial Sands and the flameyellow voidkin might be able to help me with that. There’s also many flameyellow descendants that still suffer in many fortuna-class worlds. I have to conquer the Upper Star Ruin to save them!”

He was ambitious, but he needed to move forward one step at a time. With Zi Zhen, Moran, and Qingyu beside him, he returned to the entrance of the Ancient Flameyellow Ruin. As that place had no convenient marker for the wormhole expressway to pinpoint, it would take some time for them to reach it, time that he used to work on strengthening his astral kidneys.