Beastmaster of the Ages

"If it weren't for the fact that nobody knows where Lin Feng is outside, people would've found him and beat him up already! Challenging someone in the top ten is no joke!"

Though that sounded cruel, it was completely understandable. He had wasted the time of so many people. One could only imagine how many total hours that was, given that each person had waited an entire ten hours.

Tianming managed to reach the battlefield. When he touched it, he was sucked inside. He was immediately surrounded by blinding light and appeared within the battlefield. "Apologies, everyone. I regrettably had some personal matters to settle, hence the delay," Tianming said before he could even look around him.

The crowd immediately exploded with conflicting opinions the moment he appeared. Many cursed him at the same time and some reprimanded him, while some said it was understandable. All those voices added together were so booming that nothing could be clearly heard. It almost made Tianming lose his balance. Back when he had faced off against Weisheng Moran, there were many times the number of people watching him fight, but they were spread out across the sun, unlike the people who were watching it live right now. It felt completely different, almost asphyxiating to have so many people watching him so intently. The battle itself seemed like it would boil over with excitement as a result.

"Lin Feng," someone said with a low growl from behind him.

Tianming turned back and saw a youth sitting atop a boulder a kilometer behind him. "Is that a person? Oh, he's a specter, so not quite human."

When the youth stood up, Tianming noticed that he was a towering giant, completely unlike the small and slender Kong. This youth was ten meters tall and looked like a gigantic beast. He wore a white bearskin that slid to the ground when he stood up, revealing the bestial muscles that filled up his huge arms and body. His cold gaze and needle-like hair looked really impactful.

"Damn, this man's junk is probably bigger than your whole body! Despair!" Ying Huo said, leaving the tattoo and perching on Tianming's head.

"Despair your ass. If you really had junk that big you'd only be able to fuck pigs!" Tianming said, rolling his eyes.

It was quite hard to place a standard for the size of specters. He recalled that Di Zang, a six-eyed specter, was only about five meters tall, so it wasn't surprising that a skywolf royal would stand ten meters tall.

As Mu Sha walked toward him, the ground shook. Tianming was at least certain about one thing pertaining to specters: their size correlated with the amount of beast flesh they had consumed. Back then, Jiang Wuxin had probably only turned into a monster after consuming so much beast flesh because of some mutation that resulted from his former human form. But Mu Sha was a pureblooded specter through and through. His physique was impressive, to say the least.

"Lin Feng!" Mu Sha yelled.

Tianming seemed to blank out. Even now, he still wasn't used to being called that, often forgetting that he should respond to that name. Putting his hands together, he said, "Apologies for making you wait."

"It's fine. If you're capable enough to not disappoint me and let me have an entertaining fight, I'd even be willing to wait a year for you." Even his deep voice seemed to make the surroundings shake.

"Alright!" Tianming's opponent seemed rather agreeable. Looks like I was a bit judgmental toward skywolf royals. They've already assimilated to the Violetglory Star, so perhaps they see it as their home now.

Though Mu Sha didn't mind, some audience members still felt slighted from being made to wait. "Beat him up!" many cried. Being made to wait ten hours was unacceptable.

"I wonder if there's anyone that'll support me at all." If there were even ten people that did, he would be happy. The pressure from the audience members being against him alone felt really heavy.

"Come." Tianming took a deep breath.

"En garde!" Mu Sha was quite straightforward. His body loudly snapped as he transformed into a huge werewolf-like creature. His transformation was far more explosive than Bodhi's, bringing his height to thirty meters. His gigantic wolf head was already about the same as an actual lifebound beast's, and just as ferocious. While his tall body stood up in a humanoid manner, his limbs were those of beasts. He was armed with cold, glinting claws and talons that could pass as blades. From his rapid and loud breathing alone, Tianming felt the sheer power that coursed through his muscles.

Unlike the elegant totemancers, specters were known to be savage and rough. Their fighting spirit was easily the strongest among all of them. Not only was Mu Sha two levels stronger than Kong, he should be far more powerful in actual combat as well. He was dragging a twenty-meter-long spiked club. The entire weapon was covered in sharp spikes about a meter or two in length, all of which were covered in venom. It crackled with white lightning bolts that loudly snapped. Though it was only a grade-five divine artifact, it was clearly designed to be used to dispatch lifebound beasts.

As specters had to fend off totems and lifebound beasts in fights, they would usually make special accommodations with their weapons to even the odds. This divine artifact was called a Hundredvenom Thunderbolt. Mu Sha's raw strength and astralforce, coupled with this club and its venom, could deal more punishment than normal lifebound beasts could take. Mu Sha's sheer ferocity only hyped the audience up even more. There were quite a number of fervent believers in him from the Skyword Shrine. The crowd cheered far harder than the time Weisheng Moran had used the Lifeless Dreamdance.

"Violetglory Star is filled with talent after all." There was no way fighting the fifth ranker would be that easy.

The crowd turned to look at Tianming to see what he would bring to the table.

"I heard he has seven sword totems. He only needed one strike to take out Han Xingluan."

"Han Xingluan is only a fifth-level constellier. Mu Sha can take care of him with a slap!"

"Only the top two disciples of the Violetcloud Imperium can deal with Mu Sha. Han Xingluan is only in the top five of his sect. They're in completely different leagues."

They were waiting for Tianming to display power that would convince them of his chances. They anxiously awaited his seven totems. According to the rules, one could use lifebound beasts obtained from blood pacts, but totems could only be awakened if one was born with them. Anyone that could use totems was definitely a totemancer; however, five lifebound beasts appeared beside Tianming at the moment.

"He's a full-fledged quintuple beastmaster after all...."

"This is weird. Were they all obtained through blood pacts? That can't be, right? Was I the only one who heard that?"

"That bird on his shoulder, or rather the little phoenix, looks weak as hell. Let's not even think about it."

"Look at that cat! How cute! What's it gonna do? Pummel Mu Sha with its puffy beanies?"

"Is that a tortoise or a two-headed dragon? It looks weird, huge, and dumb."

"Is that a tree I see? Don't all plant beastmasters only have plant-type beasts? That tree looks rather interesting."

"It's confirmed! Look at his disuniform beast roster. It's clear that he wasn't naturally born with them. No bloodline could possibly have such a diverse array of beasts. They must be from blood pacts. He must've intentionally chosen beasts of different types."

"Don't blood pacts fail often? How could he have succeeded five times?"

It was puzzling for many of them. Even the seniors wondered about their origins.

"Five lifebound beasts, eh?"

"Wow, a metal broodmother-type beast!"

They looked at the hundred and fifty thousand silver eggs that circled around Tianming as they transformed into locusts. This was Yin Chen's peak combat form. It was the first time Tianming had all five of his beasts out for combat, making for a rather impactful sight.

However, Mu Sha was rather unhappy with what he saw. "Where's your totems? Don't mess around with me using these blood pact toys of yours."

"I don't need totems to defeat you," Tianming said, shocking the entire area silent. He had looked so humble moments before; where did all that arrogance suddenly come from? He seemed so confident!

"Hahahaha...." The werewolf chuckled loudly. "I love fighting those like you that don't recognize their own limits. I'll turn you into meat paste."

Tianming summoned the Grand-Orient Sword to his right hand and the Lifesteal Silverdragon to his left. This was the greatest sign of respect he could afford his opponent. Even so, the mockery still hadn't stopped. Then his gaze clashed furiously with Mu Sha's. Tianming loved fighting specters, though, since he could swarm them with numbers without feeling bad about it. Taking a deep breath, he ordered, "Go!"

He and his five beasts began surrounding the gigantic specter.