Beastmaster of the Ages

"Hey, Huiye, you're looking good. Been doing well?" Tianming landed right in front of her, causing her to panic before she rammed into him. "Hey, it's not appropriate to crash into me chest-first you know."

"Is Ling'er not around? Is it finally my turn?" Her nervousness evaporated when she saw that it was him. However, the thought of him killing more than a hundred thousand gods filled her eyes with fear. "Ah, I was just joking! I meant no offense! Umm… my impoverished house needs me, so I'm off!"

"Wait, what're you panicking about?" Tianming pulled her into a corner.

"Don't do this! I'm just a wildflower, unfit for someone as noble as you! It isn't worth cheating on Ling'er for me!" she said, clutching her face nervously.

"Stop messing around." Tianming pulled her ears and asked, "How are you doing here on the Divine Moon Realm?"

"How else? Many people know that I was married to you. All I can do is say I don't know anything. I'd have long been beheaded otherwise."

"If you can keep up the lie, you'll be fine. By the way, I heard that Sovereign Xi is dead. Do you know who killed her?"

"It must be those specters, that overlord especially. He's far too terrifying!"

"Then do you know who sent the moon hurling towards the continent?"

"How would I know?!" She was on the brink of tears. If she didn't know, the rest of the divine moonrace probably didn't either.

"Then I'll tell you the truth."

"Alright."

"The astral killer was the one who killed your sovereign. He entered the mooncore like a madman and almost caused the moon to smash into the continent. However, he realized this was getting too big for him and immediately changed course. Then he ran off."

"Was it Bodhi?"

"No, there's no Bodhi, no specters, only the astral killer." Tianming gave her head a knock.

"What do you mean?"

"I need you to spread that around. Don't tell anyone who Bodhi was, got it?"

"Fine. I can do that. But there's more to it, right?"

"Yes. What really happened was I killed Bodhi and saved the Divine Moon Realm. But I don't want anyone else to know that. I can't risk even greater powers finding out about me, so the astral killer realizing his mistakes is what I'm running with, got it? I don't want Bodhi's identity to be revealed because I worry someone will come to the continent searching for him and drag me into it."

"Alright, fine! But did you really save the world?" She looked at him with hopeful eyes.

"What, touched by my sincere effort?"

"What about Ling'er? Is she still here? Why not think about making a baby with me? I want to carry your child," she said a little shyly.

Tianming's mouth snapped shut.

When Huiye Shi saw his 'just ate a fly' expression, she said, "Fine! I'm still cursed, so I have to do what you say! But I'm just a minor figure, so there's a limit to how far I can spread this."

"Just do your best, but make sure not to let others set their sights on you. It won't be too hard, either. During such a time, they need an explanation for what has happened, so this 'truth' will spread swiftly. You can even say that the celestial orderians came down and dealt with the astral killer. Just make sure to not tie it to me in any way."

"Got it. You picked the right person."

"Alright, good."

"But still, you killed so many of our gods. This definitely left a mark. If the celestial orderians come, you won't be able to avoid that either, you know."

"I know. But I only did it out of retaliation. What I did is nothing compared to the fall of the moon. Once you hear about the celestial orderians coming, just use a transmission stone to notify me. That way I can try to hide."

He wasn't sure if anyone was going to descend from Orderia. But once they did, the death of the sovereign would be pinned on the astral killer. There was a chance that they wouldn't discover Tianming's hand in the death of so many gods. Even if they did, the divine moonrace were the ones who had transgressed on the world below first. They would merely consider him a peak ascendant like Great Emperor Xuanyuan from aeons ago.

The celestial orderians shouldn't be as domineering as the divine moonrace to the point they would use the continent as a hostage to make Tianming show up. So, if he hid himself, there was nothing they could do about it. They would also be kept busy looking for the astral killer rather than Tianming, who was only tangentially related to this crisis as far as the story was supposed to go. Tianming had done something that would enrage the celestial orderians, namely, saving Lingfeng, but nobody knew about it.

"Make sure to spread this version of events as broadly as possible. It's the opportune time now. Remember to not do it in person… use some other tricks, like distributing flyers or something," Tianming said.

"Got it. It's what I specialize in!" she said.

"I'll be leaving now."

"Wait!"

"What?"

"Will we meet again?" she said with a lot of effort, "I had a happy dream yesterday with you in it. As for what it entailed… I'm too shy to talk about it."

"Don't keep harassing me like that!" Tianming glared at her and left.

"Sigh, he just defeated me not long ago, but he's so much more powerful now. I bet his next goal is the sun. Perhaps the truth isn't as simple as he makes it out to be. Whatever it is, he's trying to get out of this complex web of troubles before he can go to Orderia without worry. Looks like I have to make extra effort to spread the 'truth' as much as possible so that he can break out of this!" Huiye Shi said. "Damn, I'm totally doing his bidding now… No! Even if I have to be single for the rest of my life, I won't keep pining after that bastard!"

Right after she said that, Tianming appeared before her once more. "I knew you were talking about me behind my back."

"I wasn't!" she said with a start.

"That's more like it. Here's a small gift." He handed her a grade-two divine sword from the many treasures within his ring. It was called the Floral Spirit. "So long!"

He vanished right after giving the sword to her. So much for not pining after him any longer. Huiye Shi held it in her hands and gave it a whiff, smiling from time to time. "It smells good!"

……

Three days later, back at the Flameyellow Continent, Tianming's dynasty began rebuilding to recover from the disaster. The specters and divine moonrace no longer infested their lands. For the first time in a long while, the humans finally had a new lease on life. Now, there was only one path: onward!

Tianming personally brought Li Caiwei to the Divine Moon Realm's halls to cultivate. With his help and her talent, she managed to ascend at the age of a hundred. As for Xuanyuan Dao and a few others, they were slower, as they had to reconstruct their damaged saint palaces, but it wouldn't be a problem long term. Once they had even a single god, they would have no issue keeping the billion specters in check.

After Tianming's return, he personally went to the Ninefold Hell. When the specters saw the corpse of their overlord, they lost the will to fight. They thought Tianming was there to exterminate them. Little did they know that not only did he not do that, he even cordoned off an uninhabited parcel of land west of the continent for the specters to make a new home.

He needed the specters to leave the Abyssal Battlefield, since that was where beastmasters would head for training excursions and gain cultivation resources, as well as abilities for their lifebound beasts by defeating wildbeasts. Since the Abyssal Battlefield wasn't suited for long-term settlement in the first place, the specters were all too happy to agree. They were already thankful enough that they wouldn't be wiped out, but now they even had a new home.

"The best way to resolve grudges is to become so powerful that the ones who have a grudge against you won't be able to catch up to you." Even without Tianming, humanity now had more than enough resources to stay ahead of the specters for good. Back then, they lacked caeli to study, but that was no longer a problem, thanks to Tianming. As a result of the recovery efforts, things began stabilizing and Tianming's dynasty took proper hold of the continent.

"Even though it's been three days, the celestial orderians haven't shown up at the Divine Moon Realm yet. It shouldn't take them that much time to travel from the sun to the moon. They must not be paying attention to the moon at all, then." Perhaps it was just one insignificant outpost out of many for the celestial orderians. "Huiye Shi did say that they hadn't shown up for centuries, and the only time they did was due to Feng and Qingyu."

If Orderia was a powerful empire, the Divine Moon Realm would be one of its rural island territories. Not to mention, the divine moonrace's ancestors had been exiled to this outpost in the first place, so the celestial orderians probably couldn't even stand the sight of them.

"That means I should be a ghost as far as Orderia is concerned." Anonymity was far too important to Tianming, as was apparent from his reluctance to show all of his totems. Li Wudi's words had given him quite a bad omen.

Huiye Shi's rumors seemed to be spreading well. At the very least, those of the Divine Moon Realm believed that their sovereign had been killed by the astral killer. As for why the astral killer had diverted the moon to fall towards the Welkin plane, only to later reverse it, there were few plausible explanations. Some said that the astral killer was scared of the consequences, while others said that the celestial orderians had come to kill the astral killer. But no matter the version, Tianming wasn't mentioned in any of them.