Beastmaster of the Ages

“Who’re you talking about, Little Li? That baldy?” Xian Xian’s spiritform asked as she hung from Tianming’s neck.

“Bodhi?” Ying Huo combed its head feathers with its wing. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. He’s definitely someone who’d cause Sovereign Xi the most trouble. He’s the only one that can disrupt her rhythm,” Tianming said with a pensive look. As long as she could no longer pay attention to him, he would have hope for survival.

“Are you planning to do the same thing as you did on the Flameyellow Continent where you got the divine moonrace to kill the specters?” Ying Huo asked.

“There’s no need for that. But if I can at least get them to be in conflict with each other, I’ll benefit either way.”

“Sounds great! I support it!” Meow Meow mumbled, then turned around and went back to sleep.

“Bodhi has the specters behind him, while Sovereign Xi has the divine moonrace. I, on the other hand, have the humans of the Flameyellow Continent. So far, I’ve been looking for a way for us to survive between the other two factions. But now I need a breather to look for a chance to save Feng in the chaos. The only way I can get that is to start a war between the two of them.”

After seeing the lake of blood, he had lost all hope for any peaceful resolution.

“Yeah. By the time you see the blade at your throat, it’s already too late,” Ying Huo said. Though it seemed peaceful now, a fatal strike could come without warning.

“But how would you start a conflict in the first place?” Lan Huang asked as its heads tried to bite each other.

“Get outside, find Bodhi, then use your sky plunderer powers and work with him to bring him inside and let him cause chaos?” Ying Huo said.

“That’s too idealistic. Don’t forget that I killed his crown prince. There’s no way we can work together. If I really do seek him out, even if he gave me a chance to talk, he’d kill me the moment I brought him into the city. Not to mention, my awareness of his true identity also puts the specters he’s trying to protect at risk of being exterminated by the divine moonrace. If you were him, wouldn’t you kill me?”

“If I were him, I’d kill you even if it means I can’t enter the city. That’s just great. Now you have two powerful elites with designs on your life,” Ying Huo said.

“Then what do we do? Argh!” Lan Huang said.

“Either way, there’s nothing good that’ll come from Sovereign Xi either. Now that Shishi is fine and I got manna and a battle art, I think we should retreat first and watch what happens.” The lake of blood had caused Tianming to give up any and all hope on Sovereign Xi.

“Sounds good. Once we leave, we’ll think of another way. Maybe we don’t even need to show ourselves before Bodhi to incite conflict between them,” Ying Huo said.

“You’re right.” With how much danger he was currently in, he had to leave first. “The wise take no silly risks. No matter how urgent Feng’s situation is, I can’t lose my bearings and risk even more trouble.”

His dynasty on the Flameyellow Continent was still very weak, and would easily be wiped out by a war of this scale. Now, Tianming held the lives of him, his lifebound beasts, Feiling, and all of humanity as a whole in his hands. A single misstep could ruin everything.

“Living on the edge is the catalyst of growth, I guess.” Back then, he had relied on his talent and kept fighting. But now that he no longer had the backing of Li Wudi or the ‘goddess’, he had to rely on his own wits to solve things, especially with his status now as the Human Emperor.

“Let’s go.” He decided to leave the Moonnight Patio and head to the south of the city. “Sovereign Xi probably doesn’t know that Divine Moon Skycity can’t hold me.”

He could see the formation of the city high above. Even if Bodhi had never shown up, the formation was activated all year long; everyone in the city was of the divine moonrace. Tianming blended into the crowd and moved in the shadows toward the wall. He didn’t dare to move too quickly, choosing to walk at a leisurely pace to avoid drawing attention instead.

He made sure to check, and it appeared that nobody was tailing him. It seemed that Sovereign Xi was confident in her city’s formation. The grand city looked like a paradise above the clouds, thanks to the power of the dense stellunar source that gave everything a dreamlike quality.

In about two hours, he looked around and saw that he was only fifteen minutes away from the walls at this rate. There was only a cherry blossom forest ahead of him that was completely devoid of people. Right as he prepared to quicken his pace—

“Damn!” He rammed into a transparent wall all of a sudden. It looked to be some kind of barrier formation. Why would there be something like that in the city?

He didn’t give it too much thought, since there wasn’t anyone in the vicinity. But right as he was about to circle around, he picked up the voice of a girl crying for help with his enhanced senses. It sounded really horrifying, like she was about to be violated.

“So someone set up a formation here to lure prey inside, eh?” He had wanted to leave and ignore it. After all, the matters of the divine moonrace had nothing to do with him. However, he decided to help after taking two steps away. He wasn’t trying to be a saint that set right all wrongs; pain and suffering was the natural state of the world and the bigger picture always saw the deaths of many innocents. For instance, to ensure the survival of his fellow humans, Tianming used the divine moonrace to massacre hundreds of thousands of elite specters. Even so, he still held true to his nature and didn’t want to let it desensitize him to other people’s suffering.

So he stretched out his black arm and dispelled the formation, which caused the cries for help to ring even louder. Using the Plundering Eye, he saw a burly man pinning a woman down, tearing away at her clothes like a beast.

“Don’t do this! I already have a husband! He’s your best friend too! You—”

No matter how much she struggled, the only other sound apart from her cries was the tearing of her clothes. She had been stripped naked.

“My best friend? Haha, you’re overthinking it. Your husband’s my dog. How long have we been flirting, eh? How long are you going to pretend that you don’t like me? You were the one who tempted me!” the man growled as he pressed her arms down and prepared to devour his prey.

“No, I’m already pregnant! Stop!”

“Then let’s end that little critter inside you.”

Tianming couldn’t take it any longer. How could a family friend have designs on the wife?! Not to mention, he didn’t even hesitate to assault a pregnant woman. Right as he was about to violate her, Tianming gathered astralforce at his finger to form a sword and thrust it at the man, who immediately noticed the danger. Terrified, he immediately jumped up and hurriedly dressed himself as he glared toward Tianming’s location.

“It’s you!” the perpetrator and victim said in unison. Tianming knew fewer than five people in the city. He didn’t think he would be seeing two of them two hours after meeting just now. One of them was Prince Zhuoyang. Tianming hadn’t recognized him just now as he pinned the woman down.

“The mighty Prince Zhouyang is forcing himself on a peasant woman, a married one at that. Isn’t that a little beneath you?” Tianming said, shaking his head. He began feeling that the divine moonrace were no different from the theocratic Nineshades Clan in the Divine Capital. They were the hegemons of their realm and unchallenged by anyone, so they chased after the most superfluous of things. The Nineshades Clan did whatever they pleased, while the divine moonrace liked to maintain a facade of superior elegance.

Yet for a supposedly civilized and superior royal to do something shameless like this really tainted Tianming’s perception of the divine moonrace even more. He decided that he would step in to help. It wasn’t like the prince would dare to touch him, either, nor could he stop Tianming from leaving the city as well. However, when the panicked woman stood up, Tianming noticed that he knew her as well. She was none other than Yueshen Qi.

“Huh? What is going on here?” Tianming was stunned. Yueshen Qi was a married woman, whose husband was Prince Zhuoyang’s friend. For them to meet here tonight after meeting once during the day…

“Li Tianming….” Prince Zhuoyang glared at him coldly, his smiling face from before nowhere to be seen.

Tianming ignored him and turned to Yueshen Qi. “I happened to be passing by. Consider my aid repayment for your guidance earlier. Leave!”

Her eyes were red from crying. Though Tianming had thought she would thank him and leave, she stood even closer to the prince instead.

“If word of this gets out, your reputation will be ruined. Once my husband finds out about this, he’ll cause trouble for you, too… What do we do…”

“What do you say we do? Who asked you to shriek so loudly?” Yueshen Hao snapped. Then he turned to glare at Tianming. “Can you ensure you won’t tell anyone about this today?”

Tianming was completely stunned. Turning to her, he said, “Can you please explain what’s going on? Did I stick my nose somewhere I shouldn’t have? Haha, then it’s my bad. Goodbye, you two.”

“Li Tianming, you don’t understand,” Yueshen Qi said.

“Don’t understand what?”

“You did in fact help me. However, I can’t afford to let you ruin my reputation.”

“If that’s the case, don’t worry. I’ll pretend all I saw was two dogs mating. Nothing else. I’m not so bored as to spread rumors in my free time.” He really didn’t know how to react. He had only helped her because of how desperately she was crying out in the first place, yet now she was worried Tianming would ruin her reputation instead.