Beastmaster of the Ages

A heavy, desolate atmosphere was present all over the divine moon hall of the Huiyue Clan. The battle had just ended, leaving the area as nothing but a messy rubble. The people who had just emerged from hiding despaired at the sight of the corpses littered all around the ground, most of them surrounding their clan leader, Huiyue Tianyu. His seniors, concubines, and many children were all grieving his loss. There were even some children that were only a few years old.

Among the factions of the Eightmoon Skycities, the Huiyue Clan ranked eighth, at the very end. This time around, they had been heavily impacted by the massacre. With their main pillar of support gone, their pride had been utterly crushed.

Now, even though Huiyue Jie had been freed from his fate, he was greeted with an even greater pain. He knelt in front of his father and looked at his wide-open eyes. He couldn’t ever have imagined what kind of torture the person he had respected so much had gone through before he died. His shoulders shook and his tears fell like rain.

At that moment, someone announced, “Her Majesty has arrived!”

Those words shook Huiyue Jie despite the abysmal circumstances. He hurriedly turned around and knelt in the direction of the voice. Everyone else did the same to welcome the arrival of their sovereign.

“Do away with the formalities,” said a lazy, gentle, yet authoritative voice. While it wasn’t loud, the voice rang out clearly in everyone’s ears.

Huiyue Jie slowly looked up and saw a woman nestled comfortably in a palanquin surrounded by tens of peak experts. The four youths carrying the palanquin were exquisitely beautiful, each one no doubt as impressive as Huiyue Jie used to be. They were tall and fit with courageous and spirited gazes. Though, despite their impressiveness, they were nothing but new toys for the woman in the palanquin to play with.

The wind chimes hanging from the palanquin jingled softly, a sign of how well trained the four youths were at carrying it. When they set down the palanquin, the woman everyone was staring at stretched and slowly got up. One of the youths let the woman step on his back to descend from the palanquin. When she pushed apart the blinds and came out, it was as if all the moonlight in the Divine Moon Realm concentrated on her.

She was a really tall woman around 1.8 meters tall, and dressed in a really thin blue-white dress, but with a skirt hanging so high that the slightest sway showed her long, shapely legs. Her pristine feet were bare. The mere sight of her stepping onto the ground felt like putting a lotus into mud. In her slender fingers was a feathered fan. There were long nails on her fingers with decorations of cherry blossoms, each of them brightly standing out amidst the sight of this rubble. Not to mention, she was curvy from top to bottom, with her dress barely hiding a third of her allure.

Her bosom looked deeper than the deepest valleys Huiyue Jie had ever seen, and he couldn’t get enough. Everyone knew how charming their sovereign was, but her beauty was a lethal poison. The slightest bit of unnecessary glare could well earn one a death sentence. Surely, such a beautiful woman would have an equally stunning face to match. However, most people couldn’t see her face, for she wore a white cat mask that gave her an air of mystery and mischievousness. Nobody could see what she really thought or felt.

Some might ask if she was actually ugly under the mask, since she had worn it for the past three centuries, but that was naturally not the case. When she was less than two centuries old, her looks were unmatched across all of the Divine Moon Realm. No matter how many younger people she had been compared to, they were no match in the face of her absolute, enchanting beauty. There were people who looked stunning despite their white hair, after all.

She needed no introduction at all. One look and it was easy for anyone to tell that she was the ruler of the domain. Everyone knelt far lower than the level of a skirt. Some of them just so happened to be in view of her beautiful legs, but they felt so humble that they wanted to bury their heads in the sand more than anything else.

The entire area was dead silent after they knelt and greeted her. Even though their heads were lowered, they could still smell her flowery bodily fragrance approaching them. They knew that their sovereign was standing right in front of Huiyue Jie, looking at Huiyue Tianyu’s corpse and inspecting his wounds. “The killer has escaped, but worry not. We shall set things right on behalf of the Huiyue Clan,” she decreed.

“Long live Her Majesty!”

In other words, they had given chase and even wounded the killer, but hadn’t managed to capture him. They should also be unaware of his true identity. But since the sovereign had spoken, most of them were ready to let the matter rest, including Huiyue Jie.

“Look up,” said the lazy, catlike voice to Huiyue Jie.

He had just lowered his head, only to have to raise it again. Now, his face was in a terrible state. One side was covered in blood, and the vanished bane-ring was exceedingly obvious.

“What happened?” Sovereign Xi asked, stretching her hand out to hold him by the chin. From that angle, her body was devilishly sexy. All the men who had entered her harem couldn’t wait to get a taste. Even so, Huiyue Jie felt his throat becoming a little dry.

“I… I lost,” he said with a pained look.

“Oh? Do elaborate.”

The mask she was wearing made him feel like he was speaking to a cat. With a hoarse voice, he described his encounter with Tianming with a look of grief and reluctance. He was really nervous, as he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get away with it. Sovereign Xi, on the other hand, patiently listened to all of it.

“So he’s a rootbeast and seventeen years old. He also has totems and is an ascendant. Not only did he defeat you, he also destroyed one of your bane-rings,” she repeated with a soft, toneless voice. The fact that nobody knew what kind of expression she wore beneath her mask was even more terrifying.

“Yes. I have… disappointed Your Majesty. I wasn’t able to live up to Your Majesty’s expectations.”

“Before courage comes humility. From now on, the burden of rebuilding the Huiyue Clan falls on your shoulders,” she said.

“Understood!” he said in ‘pain’. However, he knew that he had successfully broken free. The nature of his task meant that he would no longer have to enter her harem.

“Where might this Li Tianming be right now?” Sovereign Xi asked. It was as Yuehe had expected. The sovereign couldn’t hide her desire for young, talented blood and had forgotten Huiyue Jie as quickly as she would a fleeting dream.

“Your Majesty, he’s within Huiyue City’s bounds. I have arranged for people to watch him. I was about to present this genius to Your Majesty,” Yuehe said.

“Bring him to me.”

“Understood. Your Majesty’s loyal servant shall see to it.”

It was all going according to Huiyue Jie’s plan. He inwardly sighed in relief as Yuehe went to fetch Tianming. Now, the entire place fell into silence once more, as nobody dared to speak when their sovereign didn’t need them to. However, her gaze still lingered on Huiyue Jie.

“Don’t try all that hard with the tricks next time. We have even better treasures at our disposal, so We shan’t be disappointed by your absence.”

Those words cut like ten thousand swords into Huiyue Jie. He immediately paled and prostrated himself, shivering as tears and snot flowed, clutching the ground with both hands. “Your Majesty, have mercy. I made a mistake.”

“Heh.” She smirked softly and turned away. All Huiyue Jie could see was the fluttering of her skirt as it vanished from his sight. He didn’t dare to look up at all, knowing full well that the only reason he was spared was that the Huiyue Clan had already suffered enough bloodshed today. He had survived and came to understand one thing: plotting against that woman was a surefire way to commit suicide.

……

Fifteen minutes prior, Tianming and Feiling buzzed through the chaotic streets of the city, heading south. Amidst the strong winds, Feiling’s hair fluttered around, her beautiful eyes locked on the man in front of her. For some reason, she had taken a liking to running rampantly like that. It felt like Tianming had grabbed her hand and ran with her since they left the Vermillion Bird Kingdom. The strength of his grip was reassuring to her. She knew that he would never let her go. Life was good, save for the people that were monitoring them.

“Big Brother, is Huiyue Hai still tailing us?” she asked with worry. They were being tailed by Huiyue Du’s cousin brother and Huiyue Yu’s father, who had tried to become Huiye Shi’s guardian.

“Yes.”

“Since he saw us holding hands like this, will he suspect the nature of our relationship?”

“He will. It’s obvious we’re lovers and it’s even better to let him think that.”

“Why?”

“We’re now traitorous deserters. It’s best for Shishi to be distanced from all this. As long as she was just a fool who was tricked and abandoned after being used, she will be safe.”

Tianming had a few reasons for immediately leaving. The first was the destruction of the divine moon hall. Now, the city was of limited use to him. Second, he had already fulfilled his two main goals, reaching the Ascension stage and awakening his totems. Third, the Huiyue Clan had never treated him well.

With Huiyue Jie’s bane-ring ruined by him, it was obvious that he would no longer have a good future in the city. Even though leaving meant that he would have to forge a new path, he was already far less reliant on the divine moon hall, having now ascended. Suddenly leaving like that, however, was still a risky endeavor, but it was probably the only path to survival. Even though he wasn’t sure why, the incident with Huiyue Jie’s bane-ring caused him great unease.