Beastmaster of the Ages

Kong was enduring the pain of his divine soul being consumed by flames. He roared agonizingly as he swung his sawblade over. At the same time, the nine-headed dragon applied a huge pressure on the Soulfiend, a few of its heads piercing straight through it and toward Lingfeng. He furrowed his brow in a troubled manner. Then, his primordia constellation rose into the sky and blocked the dragon, though it did nothing to stop Kong's attack.

"Die!" the werewolf yelled. He executed the Bonesea Phantasm, each one of his slashes causing Fiendbone to clack and crackle as it grew in length. Then it shattered into countless pieces of bone, each one a sharp blade in itself. All of them threateningly swarmed toward Lingfeng, filling his vision with ivory white.

The moment the attacks landed, Lingfeng couldn't block them all, so he chose to commit even more into his attack and flung the Heartpiercer Soulblades toward Kong. They split into countless fine needles in mid-air, all connected to his hands through blood-colored threads that had stretched out of his own vita. The needles blasted outward toward the countless bone shards.

What was weird was that the sight everyone was expecting to see didn't come to pass. Instead, the needles passed straight through the bone shards, guided by the threads to home in on Kong, who was still in pain from the black flames eating away at his soul. This was Lingfeng's suicidal gamble. Since he couldn't block the countless bone blades, he would unleash an attack that Kong had no way of blocking as well.

"Aaaagh!" Kong heart-wrenchingly yelled as the sea of bone shards swallowed Lingfeng up. But right then, a black gust materialized with its back facing the shards, protecting Lingfeng. It was none other than the Soulfiend!

The countless shards that pierced it dealt it a lot of damage. Almost instantly, its back was almost entirely covered in holes. A normal lifebound beast would have died right away, but the Soulfiend was a unique lifeform. It immediately reverted to its spiritform to survive lethal injuries, though its spiritform was visibly dim; its injuries wouldn't just disappear like that.

"Soulfiend!" Lingfeng cried out. He didn't know how to express his emotions very well, but he was completely shaken at the sight of the Soulfiend protecting him without regard for its own life.

The Soulfiend continued groaning in pain, but it didn't stop. Its dim spiritform surrounded the threads sprouting from Lingfeng's hands. On the other end of the threads, the needles had embedded themselves into Kong's body, making a pincushion of him. The nine-headed dragon was visibly shaken, too.

Then the injured Soulfiend entered Kong's sea of consciousness through the red threads. Within it was a small white figure that represented his vita, but it had been completely pierced through by the needles. As it was crying out in pain, the Soulfiend's spiritform invaded with its special ability. Right as it entered, the mist around the sea of consciousness surrounded it to stop it from progressing, but the Soulfiend roared and persevered, disabling the sea's defenses and putting its six arms around Kong's vita.

This was its skill: Soul Embrace. Using it, the Soulfiend could enter someone else's sea of consciousness as a spiritform, though it would badly drain the Soulfiend. Even so, it couldn't care less about itself. The longer they let the battle go on, the worse they would fare thanks to the divine corpse puppet's immunity to soul attacks, so they had to settle it as fast as possible.

The Soulfiend was injured, but there was no retreat. It kept its arms tightly locked around Kong's vita like a stubborn octopus. When it hugged Kong's vita into a deadlock, his gaze immediately petered out as his body fell weakly to the ground. Even if his terra returned to his body now, it was too late; the Soulfiend had caused him to completely lose control of his body. Soul Embrace wasn't just a simple matter of hugging and suppressing a vita's movement, after all. To the Soulfiend, Lingfeng was its young master, so it would do anything for him.

"Soulfiend...." Lingfeng knew that it was helping him at a cost to itself after seeing Kong weakly slump over. He had to take advantage of the opening! Roaring, he switched the Fiendguard Armor back into the Evil Suppression Pillar. The dragon had been being controlled by Kong the whole time, but it was completely frozen now that Kong had lost control.

"Get out of my way!" Lingfeng used Demon Suppression Staff, swinging the staff through an entire circle and smashing it into Kong's head. Right before he made contact, the Soulfiend was repelled from Kong's sea of consciousness, so Kong had regained consciousness. It was no surprise, considering the sea of consciousness was somewhere that normally couldn't be entered. Anything that did would face huge rejection. Though Lingfeng could damage what was inside with his abilities, he couldn't enter it himself. Yet the Soulfiend had managed to do so and use its Soul Embrace. It would take a long time for it to recover.

The staff finally smashed into Kong's head. He had regained clarity too late to be able to mount any resistance to it. If he didn't have the imperial star formation protecting him, his head would have exploded from the impact. Finally, his formation shattered, marking his elimination.

"Soulfiend, come back," Lingfeng said. The Soulfiend crawled onto his outstretched hand, now about Ying Huo's size, though it still retained its three heads and six arms. It looked cute, in an ugly kind of way, and that gave it quite a bit of character.

The Soulfiend entered Lingfeng's own sea of consciousness, in which it wouldn't face any rejection. Lingfeng's third regal soul was golden bright. Being nourished by the golden divine soul, the Soulfiend gradually recovered from its near-death state and began to rest and recuperate. It couldn't use any pills to recover; only time would mend its wounds, though there were some that couldn't be fixed with even that. Fortunately, the injuries it had suffered this time weren't of the latter variety.

"You really fought hard today. Rest well." Lingfeng's own soul looked at the tired creature with a gentle gaze. The Soulfiend perked up all of a sudden and made a weird noise. The center head had an expression of 'liking'. It meant to convey that it was happy, despite the injuries it had suffered.

"Do you mean to say that protecting and serving me is the meaning of your existence?" Only Lingfeng would be able to understand what it was trying to say. The Soulfiend nodded in response.

"I won't let you down," Lingfeng replied earnestly. What a truly loyal servant the Soulfiend was. Even so, Lingfeng treated it like he would a senior. As they conversed, Lingfeng rapidly backed away from Kong, who had regained consciousness. The nine-headed dragon began rampaging once more.

"I lost?" He seemed a little confused. Lingfeng was the most interesting opponent he had fought so far. Though he was physically unharmed, his vita hurt really badly. Kong had wanted to join the Sky Palace; it had been his dream. Yet another fellow specter had put an end to it. Furrowing his brow, he said, "You mixed-blood mongrel, you're gonna die for sure." He shot Lingfeng one last savage glare as he was eliminated.

"Mixed-blood mongrel?" Lingfeng shook his head. It probably meant that his bloodline was among the inferior ones in the specter hierarchy, not that it mattered to him anyway, as he had never particularly felt like he belonged with them in the first place.

The fourth and fifth places in the ranking switched. Kong was eliminated and Lingfeng took fourth place, earning himself the last slot to progress to the next match.

"Among the four slots, Azuresoul Palace occupies three...."

"That means we'll definitely have at least one disciple who'll get the Sky Palace candidacy...."

Having completed his mission, Lingfeng felt completely relaxed. Little did he know that he had played a part in creating the Azuresoul Palace miracle that had shocked the entire world stupid. Now, there were only two battles left to observe.

......

On the Azuresoul Sword Mountain, many people watched the broadcast, all fearing that it was nothing but a group fever dream.

"Three! Chief Instructor, we got three places in the top four!"

If anyone had told them this would be the result before the Voidsky Skirmish, everyone would have asked that person to get a sanity check. Gujian Qingshuang held on to a stone pillar as he looked at the Skyward Stele, tears flowing from his eyes.

"Chief Instructor, why're you crying? Are you moved to tears?"

"Fuck no! Quick, fortify the Azuresky Myriadsword Formation even more!" Gujian Qingshuang snapped.