Beastmaster of the Ages

Imperator Ji was the oldest among the four imperatores of Yueling. The other three saw her as their elder sister. She had cared for them and watched them all grow up. As such, the three younger siblings were incredibly grateful for their caring eldest sister. Even the most talented and powerful one, Imperator Long, was filled with nothing but respect for Imperator Ji.

Yet, they had never expected that Imperator Ji would die so unceremoniously during the grand battle over the fate of the Realm of Chaos. Imperator Tu and Imperator Tong broke down immediately. Yueling Long, the youngest among them, lost even more of her mind, especially after having just agonized over having her confidence on the imperial path being completely crushed by Tianming. It was one nightmare after the other. How could she not go mad?!

Imperator Ji’s cosmoforce scattered completely into the ether after Li Tianzi killed her. Li Tianzi peered through the shards of azure energy as they fizzled out and saw his younger brother. ”Tianming, hold strong!”

Without any hint of hesitation, Li Tianzi charged toward the blood hell in which Li Muyang and the Adjudicator fought along with his four massive and pitch-black lifebound beasts. The battle within the blood hell immediately intensified.

Tianming’s blood boiled even more, but before he could make his move to slay Yueling Long completely, a storm of blood appeared around her with such force that it pushed him back!

A large cocoon of blood appeared behind Yueling Long, but this wasn’t the Adjudicator himself. Instead, it was a part of his power that he had given his all to send out to Yueling Long. She felt the bloody power that radiated behind her. Hanging at the edge of despair, she heard the call of the Adjudicator. His voice sounded like a beacon of light to lead her lost soul back onto the right path!

”Yueling Long, you are the hope of all life in the Realm of Chaos! You can’t lose! You can’t die!” said the Adjudicator’s young, yet deep, voice with a hint of madness. She could hear him in her mind. ”To save the Realm of Chaos, I have bequeathed upon you the Tribulation Heart Blood.”

Yueling Long looked at the exploded shards that used to constitute her eldest sister turning into space dust and felt madness itself take over her entire being. Her tears fell like rain as the desire for vengeance spiked like never before within her. Though she was moved by the Adjudicator’s call, there was still a hint of doubt in her. ”Tribulation Heart Blood?”

Once more, the Adjudicator’s voice in her mind said, ”It is the core of my power! Granting it to you would come at a great cost to me. You have to accept the blood with a completely willing and open heart and absorb it into all middlekin astrons of your body. Only then can you make the most of this and inherit my power!”

”I understand.” Yueling Long didn’t refuse it. She simply had no reason to. The next moment, she surrendered herself to the massive blood-red cocoon. Within it, she could feel a savage and bloody power that took the form of countless bloody crying faces, heralding imminent doom.

”This power... It’s quite similar to the thing that Lin Xiaoting drank!” Tianming wasn’t able to stop her after he had been sent flying. All he could do was watch as the imperator entered the cocoon willingly.

This seemed like an enlarged version of what had happened to Lin Xiaoting, seemingly a hundred times more potent. He recalled the wild state Lin Xiaoting was in after drinking that fresh blood and felt the onset of a headache. The blood only drove one mad and pushed one into a terrifying state where one could focus on nothing but killing.

”Li Tianming, you will die today!” Yueling Long proclaimed from within the blood cocoon. Her eyes turned completely red. She opened her mouth and swallowed all the blood that would flow into it, dyeing her cosmic-god body red. An immense amount of wild, lunatic energy flowed into her middlekin astrons, filling them to the brim.

Throughout the process, yet another cry of despair could be heard. This was Imperator Tu, the red-dressed and second-eldest of the four imperator sisters. She used to be a carefree figure that indulged in her baser pleasures, though she turned completely cold and fierce since forming a grudge with Zi Zhen. She had engaged Zi Zhen in a duel but was completely outclassed!

The feral specter had seven of her ninehall eyes open and fought like an ancient fiend of antiquity, tearing Imperator Tu’s Net of the Enligtened to shreds with nothing but brute force! Zi Zhen managed to overpower an imperator completely. Then, she swung her sharp claws at Imperator Tu, reducing her to cosmic-god essence. She quickly followed the attack up with a thrust of her spike-covered tail, instantly destroying the spherical essence.

”Aaaaaagh!” Imperator Tu couldn’t accept her impending death in the slightest. Yet, the sheer gap in power between her and Zi Zhen rendered her powerless to change the outcome. Her essence fizzled out into ash and smoke in no time at all.

”Zi Zhen, I can hold this place down for now. Help Uncle Yanfeng!” Tianming told her.

”Okay.” Zi Zhen only barely managed to pry her consciousness out of her wild, demonic state when she heard Tianming’s words. She looked at the scattering essence of Imperator Tu and smirked wordlessly before flying towards Li Yanfeng.

The older imperator was fighting on even ground against Imperator Tong without either gaining ground over the other. But with Zi Zhen joining him, the stalemate wouldn’t hold for long.

The troops of Aquamarine and Torch Dragon were completely demoralized when they witnessed the two subsequent deaths of the Yueling imperatores. More and more lost the will to fight and were slaughtered by the ghoul army and the troops of Vermillion Bird. The lines of the Adjudicator’s faction faltered even more than before.

The Adjudicator himself was the only one who seemed to be able to turn everything around. As long as he could kill Li Muyang and Li Tianzi, he would have free reign over the rest of the battlefield. However, many of the cosmic gods on his side had their morale utterly decimated. Even if there was still hope, they no longer held onto it.

”Cang Shanyuan, die!” Sage Chen and Sage Xing found their next targets, Cang Shanyuan and Granny Longya respectively.

”All of you, perish!” Imperator Long’s banshee-like shriek reverberated across the astralscape. The power she had managed to absorb from the blood cocoon had assimilated completely into her body.