Beastmaster of the Ages

”With the entrance gone, the Heavenly Dao Arena should be cut off, too. There’s no longer any point in putting up a show in the lower ruins,” Tianming said. He had wanted to use this chance to spread his name across the Upper Star Ruin and let the flameyellow descendants learn about him, but that wouldn’t work with the Heavenly Dao Arena gone. ”I should seek out Mushan Xue to ask about the situation.”

He left the ark and asked Yin Chen to contact her. She knew that he would be coming, so she had already opened the gateway in anticipation. Tianming entered their pocket dimension in the Ancestral World and saw Mushan Xue in the corner, arms crossed. He was about to match her in height.

”What do you want to know? Ask away,” she said, recalling that Tianming had been but a tiny pipsqueak when they’d first met. She had noted his rapid improvement, which hadn’t slipped past the figures behind her either.

Tianming didn’t dally and directly asked her, ”Were the two entrances into the Ancient Flameyellow Ruins opened because of you to begin with? Can you open and close it as you wish?”

”Yes. Why would the entrance appear out of nowhere and connect the Primordial Sands to the Eightpart Pantheons’ territory? It was bait to begin with.”

”I see! You really kept it from me for far too long,” Tianming said, overwhelmed with awe. He had never expected that that would be the case. He had thought that their plan was limited to killing the geniuses within the lower ruins.

”It’s only to be expected. There was no ruling out the possibility that you were a spy on their side. If that had been leaked, our efforts would’ve been for naught! Either way, this turn of events is advantageous to you as well.”

”You’re right.” Tianming nodded and came to her side. ”Can you give me a hint of what your next moves are?”

”There’s no huge undertaking. We’ll simply use our terrain advantage to wipe out the prisoners slowly at the lowest cost to us.

”I feel like that would take a really long time.”

”Indeed. There’s a hundred million cosmic gods, so a few decades are needed at least, if not a few hundred years. It might even take a thousand years to wipe up every last straggler. Either way, we’ll trap them in our swamp, cut off from reinforcements and intelligence support. Then we’ll slay them one after another, no matter how strong they are.”

They could take their sweet time to work on it. In time, the forces of the Eightpart Pantheons in the upper and lower ruins would eventually crumble.

”Hmm, your plan is a long-term one, then.” Tianming had thought that it would be a grand battle, but he had to admit that the flameyellow voidkin had made the right choice. They treasured their numbers the most, so they didn’t want to lose many of them if possible.

”That’s right. Either way, your mission is temporarily complete. You’ve done well. We are watching.” Mushan Xue happily patted him on the shoulder. ”With the ’present’ of the Ten Desolate Starforges and most of the ’future’ of the Eightpart Pantheons trapped in the lower ruins, all they can do is wait to die! At the very least, it’s over for the Ten Desolate Starforges.”

”True. They lost quite a few key figures just like that,” Tianming said. Some geniuses over five hundred years old had qualified to join the expedition, so they went to the upper ruins. Cosmic gods had long lifespans, but their prime was limited to the first three thousand years of their lives.

After some thought, Tianming said, ”Is it possible to open just the lower ruins?” He was still trying to gain more omnisentient threads.

”No! Given the current situation, no matter how many grudges you build, they won’t send anyone else! Their young geniuses would no doubt escape, too. We absolutely won’t open it unless anyone among us younger than five hundred can wipe them out in one fell swoop.”

”Oh, your side’s also subject to the age limit, I see.”

”Even though we control the entrances to this Ancestral World, we don’t make the rules. Otherwise we would’ve already sent our top elites to wipe out the young geniuses in the lower ruins.”

”How do your young geniuses compare to the million from the Eightpart Pantheons in the lower ruins?”

”The best we can do is hold up against them, but we can’t fight them in a direct confrontation. Things might change in a few years, and we still have to count on you,” Mushan Xue said.

Tianming had a rough idea of what was going on. The Primordial Sands only had around three hundred thousand young geniuses, which couldn’t even compare to the Ten Desolate Starforges’ numbers. However, around a thousand imperial lineage cultivators, and many more from royal lineages, were trapped in the lower ruins.

The fact that Mushan Xue said their ranks could hold up against them for a time showed that the flameyellow voidkin’s baseline standard was powerful enough. If they were willing to fight at all costs, they would be able to wipe out the young geniuses. They were still somewhat weaker than the Eightpart Pantheons as a whole, but it was not something to be scoffed at. It was exciting news to Tianming.

Neither the flameyellow descendants in the Upper Star Ruin nor the people in the Primordial Sands can rival the Eightpart Pantheons, but the flameyellow voidkin seem capable of putting up a real fight.

Once the flameyellow descendants’ heavenly shackles had completely crumbled, they would have boundless potential. However, it would take time for them to grow in power. They weren’t able to skyrocket like Tianming could. Once I gain the flameyellow voidkin’s acknowledgement, I’ll be able to fight on, even standing with the Eightpart Pantheons.

It was an exciting prospect. Tianming had been rather lost as he simply didn’t have the manpower to do what he wanted. He required time to grow and didn’t already have a powerful base to tap into, so there wasn’t even a way to fight.

”Either way, here’s to a joyful, cooperative relationship between us,” Mushan Xue said, offering him a hand.

”Likewise.” Tianming suppressed his excitement and shook her hand. He had found a friend in her under the unlikeliest of circumstances.