Beastmaster of the Ages

Yu Ziqian had made his decision long ago. Asking the Ultimate Pill God all those questions was just trying to get his support.

"Then do what you want. Don't blame me for this. I asked you to abandon him because I wanted to test if you were suited to be my successor, Gan Gangan," the Ultimate Pill God said with a chuckle.

"Damn you, you're shameless!" Yu Ziqian truly was impressed that the old man would even think of testing him at this moment. However, hearing that made him even more certain of his decision. His portable grandpa hadn't disappointed him after all.

"Seniors, I'm willing to relinquish my identity as a member of the Sky Palace for the life of my friend," he called out to the seven.

"Very well," they replied, as if they were a single entity. They stretched their hands out as he closed his eyes and felt the stigma leaving his body. At that moment, the entire palace began to shake. Yu Ziqian tripped and fell, causing the erasure process to stop.

"What's going on?" He looked behind him and saw a black vortex, out of which a wooden hut appeared. Its door opened and out walked a youth with white hair. Then the wooden house, the light, and the vortex all disappeared. The youth looked at the seven white-robed people with his black and gold eyes, shocking everyone into silence.

"Boss!" Yu Ziqian rushed to him and held his hand, his mouth chattering. "You're real! You're alive!" Then he saw the stigma on Tianming's forehead. "You also passed the trial?"

"Also?" Tianming noted the stigma on Yu Ziqian's forehead.

"It looks a little different!" Tianming's own stigma looked more like the character for 'void' than it did for 'sky', while Yu Ziqian's simply looked like 'sky', which was the same as the seven white-robed seniors' as well.

"My pill advancement phase just returned. Coupled with the Divine Worldeater Cauldron and the myriad dao pill, I managed to pass the test. But...." Yu Ziqian touched the stigma on his forehead, doubting it was still there, only to be glad to be proven wrong. "I understand now. Was saving you part of my test? I think I passed it!"

"You saved me?" Tianming wondered.

"That's right. They asked me if I was willing to give up being in the Sky Palace to save you!"

"How long ago was that?"

"A few moments ago? It wasn't too far back."

Tianming patted him on the shoulder, certain that it wasn't due to his efforts that he had made it back. The trip up alone had taken well over a few minutes. But he remembered the choice Yu Ziqian had made for his sake. Lightly pushing him aside, he looked at the seven people in white.

"Hehe..." they chuckled lightly before turning away and vanishing in a mist.

"They're leaving just like that? Then... I'm still a member of the Sky Palace? Are we both?" Yu Ziqian couldn't believe it; it was too good to be true.

"Theoretically, yeah." Tianming looked in the direction the elders had left in, still filled with doubts. The seven of them had looked super serious at first, but they actually ignored him when he came back.

"That's wonderful! By the way, what kind of trial did you undergo down there? Over here, that old hag... I mean, senior… applied so much pressure on me that I was about to turn into mincemeat!"

"Me? I just took a nap down there and the trial was over." After that, Tianming asked him more about what happened. "So they asked us to leave just like that?"

"Yeah, that's what they said."

"Alright, then let's not stay here." This was a mysterious and possibly dangerous place, after all.

"How do we leave?"

"Let it guide our way." Tianming pointed at the stigma on his forehead and turned to leave the empty hall. Some time after they left, the seven robed people reappeared in the hall with even more white powder on their faces, still falling nonstop. There seemed to be some kind of a blush on them, as though they were actually countless microscopic lifeforms that gathered together on their faces.

"Damn it!" they snapped in perfect harmony. "What's the wooden hut doing this time? It let the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb out and completely ruined everything! One day, I'll completely destroy it...."

......

Outside the hall, Tianming and Yu Ziqian continued heading outside.

"What is... wooden house... doing now?" Yin Chen asked. Its manner of speech greatly infuriated Tianming. It was the same even when it reported important information to him.

He was using Yin Chen's spying ability for the first time. There were some tens of silver cockroaches within the hall, having disappeared into the corners without being spotted by the robed people. This ability was far too amazing. "If only this fellow can report what it sees with coherent sentences...." Tianming patiently listened to everything. "What else? Did they say anything else?"

"They have... already disappeared... again again." It was one thing for it to speak in word pairs, but it had to double the last lingering word as well.

"Try to say little yellow chicken," Ying Huo said.

"Little yellow... chicken chicken," Yin Chen said with its mechanical voice.

"I am... so embarrassed," Xian Xian said, hiding its face with its hands. The other beasts' mimicry of Yin Chen was driving Tianming insane.

He forced himself to calm down and go over what Yin Chen had reported. "So the wooden hut of the sky plunderers that appeared when I entered is the same as the one that saved me. It's also the one that brought out the Ninedragon Emperor's divine astralship. It's been helping me the whole time. Even this Sky Palace stigma was given by it. In other words, the wooden house and the white robes are two different entities in the Sky Palace. Given how good the wooden hut was to me, it might be thanks to my sky plunderer predecessors. I wonder if the hut's alive or something.

"As for the white robes, they definitely regard me with malice. They're probably top elites from all across Orderia, but their intentions are subordinate to those of the wooden hut. Whatever the hut decides, they aren't able to oppose it. The most they can do is to test the waters a little here and there. Maybe the white robes control the normal Voidsky Skirmishes and the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb, and minorsky stele were there because of the wooden house." That was the most he could come up with based on his experience and eavesdropping.

"Looks like that can't be too far from the truth," Ying Huo said.

"Then what should we do?" Meow Meow asked.

"No need to do anything, really. As far as outsiders are concerned, the Sky Palace is a monolith. Since the wooden hut supports me, and I have the stigma, too, I'm just as much a member of the Sky Palace as the rest. Now, I have their protection and nobody will dare mess with me. Not to mention, we don't cultivate at the Sky Palace either, so we don't have to know what's going on inside. If we don't, outsiders won't either. Nobody can say otherwise if we claim to be full-fledged members of the Sky Palace. The only ones we have to be aware of are the white robes. We need some contingencies."

Tianming left tens of thousands of invisible cockroaches in all corners of the Sky Palace. It was nothing more than a weird, white hall shrouded in misty clouds. The seven white robes were nowhere to be seen, but Tianming wouldn't worry as long as he had Yin Chen there. "This fellow's far too useful a spy...." Without hearing what the white robes said, he would have no idea of what's going on at all.

"My reward," said Yin Chen as many cockroaches climbed on Tianming's shoulder, their eyes staring expectantly at him.

Tianming took out some divine artifacts, as much as it hurt to do so, and fed them to the swarm of cockroaches that turned into locusts.

"I want... a reward... as well!" Xian Xian said.

Tianming was going to go broke at this rate. It was one thing for Xian Xian to want meat, but another to use divine artifacts as feed.

"Now go!" Many small silver cockroaches spread out across the Sky Palace.

......

Outside the Voidsky Flame Pillar, the atmosphere was deathly silent. Many of the people hiding in ambush began surfacing. The four Dragon Imperials were there with more than three thousand elites from the Xuanyuan Dragon Sect, standing closest to the scene in preparation for what would happen. Their dragons filled the skies, ready to strike.

East of them were the wargodeans and Blueblood Starocean, with more than five thousand to their number. It was said that powerful figures like the Warlord, Tumulus Pill God, and Emperor Lan had come.

To the south were the Voidword Shrine and Empyrean Sword Sect, sitting in wait and ready to pounce. All ten of the first-rate factions were camping and waiting with many of their finest. The tens of second-rate factions the likes of Azuresoul Palace were waiting farther away for a chance, though the chief instructor of the Azuresoul Palace himself, Gujian Qingshuang, was hiding away in his stronghold back at the Azurecloud Continent.

There were some sightings of the Clouddream Ark nearby, which meant the dreamless celestial emperor had personally come for the Divine Worldeater Cauldron. He would personally be reclaiming what his disciple had lost. Everyone waited as the storm brewed. When the two youths emerged from the Voidsky Flame Pillar, their identities could spark a war among the Myriad Solar Sects.