Beastmaster of the Ages

”The bet has concluded. Why is this thing still here?” Tianming hadn’t paid it too much attention and was even worried that the fighting would cause it to crumble, which would mark his loss. When he was fighting, he focused on destroying the enemy’s rose insignias before killing them.

He didn’t give it much thought and used cosmoforce to crush it, but his expression immediately changed. No matter what he did, the insignia remained in place. It seemed even tougher than his cosmic-god body. He even tried to use the Grand-Orient Sword to slash it but it didn’t do anything and instead hurt his head instead.

”That’s not right...” His expression turned stern. He tried to dig out the astron-made ’flesh’ that the leaf insignia was on only to find that it was affixed to the point between his eyebrows no matter how he reconfigured the astrons on his head. It wasn’t physically stuck to his head and was instead merely ’spatially correlated’ with the center of his eyebrows. While it was something he couldn’t get rid of like the skypole stars, it didn’t seem like its purpose was to protect him either.

”This thing should be rather fragile if the bet was going to mean anything at all. It can’t possibly be this tough.” He tried a few other ways to deal with it but all of them failed. He had no choice but to give up on it for now as there were still billions of people looking at him even after the cosmic gods of Yueling and Violetblitz left. ”I’ll ask Li Muyang about it when I go back.”

He turned towards the cheering crowd and said a few words that rallied them, saying things like his optimism about the future of the Realm of Chaos and the progeny he would create before sending them off.

As far as the spectators were concerned, Tianming had already won. His status in the Realm of Chaos had risen from ’trash’ to future hegemon. The Realm of Chaos had stagnated in its current state for far too long, with the only people capable of making sweeping changes being the Tianming of a hundred thousand years ago or the imperial princes of Yueling who were born around that time. Even then, the notion of an ultimate ruler of the Realm of Chaos was not common. But before a proper war could take place between the two sides, Tianming had killed all of them that had the potential to become someone like that.

The only question that remained was whether Tianming would be allowed to grow to peak power. Many people still had doubts whether Yueling Starcage would really fulfill their obligations after losing the bet or whether the Adjudicator would handle matters fairly.

There were many different trains of thought. Some were awed by Tianming’s power and foresaw an era of peace. Many others felt that an even bigger storm was brewing. The eradication of the young talent below a hundred thousand years of age was just the beginning, and the only question that really mattered was whether such a storm would manifest, and if so, when.

***

The people from Yueling and Violetblitz traveled in deathly silence. Everyone had their heads hang low, eyes bloodshot from rage. They teared up and grit their teeth without uttering a single word. Ahead of the group was Imperator Ji in her signature azure dress, standing tall over most of them like a universal temptress. She appeared perfectly alluring even among the black clouds of the Inverse Battlefield, as if she was a perfectly sculpted masterpiece. The people behind her looked ever so tiny in her light-blue eyes.

”Yueling Ji...” Yueling Xiao seemed to have aged a hundred thousand years in an instant. He spoke in a dry, husky voice as he struggled to catch up to his daughter, clutching her beautiful arm like a drowning person, ”Tell me! You won’t let things stand as they are, right? We will get our revenge, right? Tell me that the Adjudicator hasn’t abandoned us! Yueling Starcage will repay them a hundred, no, a thousand times over for this! We’ll bleed the sky plunderers and everyone else in Nullity as a sacrifice on the altar of the children we have lost today, including your eight sons!”

”Yes,” Yueling Ji answered, much to her father’s surprise. She merely nodded calmly.

”Really?” His eyes widened with hope.

”I promise that everything you just said will come true,” Yueling Ji said to her father.

”We will get revenge! The Adjudicator hasn’t given up on us! They will die a terrible death!”

”That’s right.”

”Good! That’s incredible!” After a moment of wild laughter, he hurriedly regained his composure, fearful that his reaction would reveal secrets to any onlookers. He forced himself into a reasonable state and asked, ”How are you so sure that the Adjudicator hasn’t forsaken us?”

”Throughout the whole thing, I was with the Adjudicator. We talked a lot about Li Tianming,” Yueling Ji said.

”You were talking, yet nobody did anything to save Qian, Kun and the others?”

Yueling Ji shook her head. ”We already lost the bet, so we can’t afford to lose more by meddling. The only way to win the war is to lose the battle.”

”Then, what did you talk about with him? How can we win the war? You and your sisters will have to marry him. What can you do?” Yueling Xiao wasn’t as calm as he thought he had been.

Yueling Ji gave him a helpless look. ”Dad, the terms of the bet have to be carried out, so I will have to go through with the wedding. It doesn’t matter since it’s only something done in name.”

”Are you all really going to be bedded by that twerp?!” Yueling Xiao asked, feeling his heart bleed.

”What are you talking about? Look at how tiny he is. Do you think he can really do anything even if he wanted to try? We are fully capable of destroying his skypole stars. Had we taken action, do you think that Li Muyang would believe that we fear disrespecting the Adjudicator’s power? Trust is nothing but a meaningless piece of paper. As long as we don’t tear it to shreds, we still have a chance. We will bide our time and wait for further instructions from the Adjudicator.”

”Fine!” Yueling Xiao sighed in relief. After some thought, he asked, ”What’s the key to this plan?”

Yueling Ji said, ”I will only tell you the six words that the Adjudicator told me.”

”What six words?”

”Encircle the corpse, ambush the reinforcements.”

”Corpse? What corpse? And who are the reinforcements?”

”I’m not sure myself, but based on our conversation, I believe he thinks that Li Tianming is the reinforcements. The Adjudicator and the other one had been waiting for him for far too long. He’s incredibly pleased that his identity has been confirmed,” Yueling Ji said, her eyes flashing with deep contemplation.