Beastmaster of the Ages

The Wind Swordlord trailed off in embarrassment. Obviously, this wasn't his intention, but rather his wife's. She had simply let her greed get the better of her.

Shi Yan facepalmed, though she was already used to this kind of behavior. It wasn't the first time the childish old woman had made such an incomprehensible choice, and her husband had taken her side more than once too. "I'm sure you two thought it was reasonable, but that won't work on Li Tianming. He's not a normal kid. Based on my observations, he doesn't have any physical relationship with Long Wanying either. After all, even Yang Ce has come here. If you two had been here to observe them for as long as I have, you'd know that he isn't that easy to deal with."

"Why didn't you say that sooner then?" the Rain Swordlord said, glaring at her.

"Me?" Shi Yan was stunned. They were the ones who had wanted to throw their weight around before they'd even settled down!

"It's fine. The Sky Palace disciple is still young and that doesn't change the bigger picture. Our main mission here is to ship the divine herbs back to the sect. That's not something a mere few thousand of them can stop. To be honest, the two Sky Palace disciples must've been thoroughly brainwashed by Long Wanying by now, so we'll definitely be in conflict with them if we want to take the divine herbs. It's inevitable, but only temporary," the Wind Swordlord said, much to Shi Yan's relief. She had been considering the issue as well. No doubt, doing anything of the sort would antagonize Tianming, but it was clear that the fruits of the harvest had a far higher priority than a Sky Palace disciple.

"We have to secure the benefits of the divine tree for ourselves, first. However, since you came with a hundred thousand swordpupils, we should probably face off against Li Wushuang and the Supracloud Sanctuary to take more fruits from their side too, right?" Shi Yan asked.

"Let's focus on taking the fruits here first. Only after that will we look elsewhere," the Wind Swordlord said.

Shi Yan nodded, then took a deep breath. "Swordlords, there's another matter I wish to consult the two of you about."

"What is it?"

"Are we really going to heavily damage the forces of the wargodeans and Blueblood Starocean to help the Azuresoul Palace conquer the Supracloud Sanctuary and stand up for the Myriad Solar Sects? If we succeed, the descendants of those of the Azurecloud Continent across multiple generations will belong to us," Shi Yan said.

"Attack them? Do you think they're pushovers? There's no way we can achieve that with the numbers we have now. The most we can give to the forces here is a slight edge. There's no way that conquering the continent is an option," the Wind Swordlord said.

"Will the sect not send us more support?"

The two swordlords merely shook their heads. Shi Yan came to understand that the Northdipper Swordsage was only making a blank promise to the Azuresoul Palace. No matter how righteous they had made their cause sound, they'd only come for the divine herbs.

"It's a precarious situation, so acting independently like that will doom us. However, our swordsage still wishes to take the Azurecloud Continent for good, so he's been doing something else."

"What is it?"

"He united thirty-one second-rate sects, two hundred and eighty third-rate sects, and thousands of fourth-rate sects into an alliance. Currently, he's negotiating with the sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-ranked first-rate sects too. Once the alliance is formed, he'll be its leader and control up to a third of the Myriad Solar Sects!"

"Sixth, seventh, and eighth… So they're all Orderian natives," Shi Yan said. The Voidword Shrine and Dreamless Celestial Nation had alien origins, whereas the Xuanyuan Dragon Sect and Empyrean Sword Sect didn't. The Northdipper Swordsage seemed to have grand ambitions. "What's the swordsage planning?"

"Once the alliance is formed, he'll conquer the Azurecloud Continent for real. Even if the continent has to be split up with other allies, our sect will still keep the honor of leading the conquest!"

Shi Yan nodded, her eyes filled with worship. "I see… I already said that relying on our sect alone to wipe out the wargodeans and Blueblood Starocean's presence on this continent would be hard. They can call for reinforcements, too, and Li Wushuang is also here plotting to kill Long Wanying."

"Li Wushuang? That reminds me… we must find a way to expose her whereabouts or set a trap to lure Long Wanying in and have Li Wushuang kill her," the Rain Swordlord said.

"That'll be difficult. Long Wanying is far too careful," Shi Yan said.

"Don't underestimate Li Wushuang's desire to kill her," the Rain Swordlord reminded. As a woman, she knew how deep hateful grudges like that could run.

"Alright, let's figure out a way together," Shi Yan said.

"At the end of the day, this Li Tianming brat is far too ignorant. Our swordsage now leads too many people among the Myriad Solar Sects. With none of us attempting to give the Xuanyuan Dragon Sect aid, it's only a matter of time before they fall to the celestial orderians. Even the Sky Palace will give up on them. Their fate is practically sealed in stone. If Li Tianming continues siding with them, he will be going against the Sky Palace's interests. By extension, his five hundred years of cultivation will end up rather problematic. The Xuanyuan Dragon Sect won't be able to hold on for long, so we can just wait. That child has nowhere else to go. Without our support, he'll find it hard to join the Sky Palace for real after five centuries of lackluster training! He'll see the light soon enough. It doesn't matter if he's hostile toward us now. It's not like we represent the Empyrean Sword Sect in its entirety. We'll play the role of the crook for now and let the swordsage swoop in to his rescue later! I refuse to believe that he'll remember Long Wanying's care for him after we carefully nurture him for the next five centuries," the Rain Swordlord said self-satisfactorily.

"You're right," Shi Yan said, though she scoffed at her in her mind.

……

With the arrival of two swordlords and a hundred thousand swordpupils, the Empyrean Sword Sect had a much bigger force. However, all their plans had been laid bare before Tianming. First, they wanted to take the fruits of the divine tree and couldn't be counted on to fight to the death. Second, they wanted to conquer the Azurecloud Continent, but that would only work out if the Northdipper Swordsage managed to form his alliance. Third, they were still after Tianming and the rest, but they had to temporarily give up on that goal in favor of the first. Gujian Qingshuang processed all the information and had come to a conclusion.

"They're treating me like a chess piece. At least you have the courtesy of being direct with me," Gujian Qingshuang said, rolling his eyes.

"Of course! I'm famous for respecting my elders!" Tianming said.

"The swordlords are your elders too, you know," Gujian Qingshuang retorted.

"Those two's idiocy is infamous. They're only elders by virtue of age alone," Long Wanying said.

"You say that, but they'll wipe the floor with you in a fight," Yan Nuxia said.

"Well, by the time I'm as old as they are, I'm sure I'll be able to slaughter the Rain Swordlord like slaughtering a chicken," Long Wanying hissed.

"Wait, you slaughter chickens?" Ying Huo asked, perched on top of Tianming's head.

"I'm just joking. Yep. Nothing more than a joke," Long Wanying said, winking.

Ying Huo shuddered.

"Come on, stop flirting around. You already have one foot in the coffin!" Yan Nuxia said.

"I haven't flirted for ages. Can't hurt to see if I'm out of practice or not. Even the Rain Swordlord's still flirting with her husband a lot despite her head being the only part of her that isn't stuffed in the coffin yet."

They broke out laughing at the recollection of the Rain Swordlord being soothed by her husband. Gujian Qingshuang felt cold sweat forming at the notion that this was exactly how he had been spied on before this.

As they laughed, Tianming stilled himself and said, "Everyone, there's been a breakthrough at the Supracloud Sanctuary! A surprising discovery!"

Yun Tianque's sect was the key to the next step of Tianming's plans. The two main sects of the continent had to unite for them to be able to drive the Empyrean Sword Sect away.

"What is it?" the rest asked.

"Yin Chen's bodies have increased to a total of two million, which is akin to tens of millions of cockroaches. I have more than ten million of them spread throughout the continent. Occasionally, I noticed that Yun Tianque leaves the sect alone, but Yin Chen isn't quick enough to follow him. So I figured there must be something he wants to hide. I gradually spread Yin Chen as far as I can each time he leaves, progressing little by little, until I finally found his destination: a normal mountain range. However, it's protected by a grade-six formation. Though it can stop other elites, Yin Chen was able to burrow inside. Guess what I found inside?"

"Stop letting us hang like that and be out with it," Long Wanying said.

Tianming narrowed his eyes and said, "I found a beautiful woman with two children. Male and female twins, in fact. The woman isn't that powerful, probably a constellier, and the children are around three or four years old. They call Yun Tianque daddy."

Gujian Qingshuang stood up. "Looks like his wife isn't the only one who cheats."

"That's right. They probably aren't a loving couple at all. He might even know what she does behind his back. Lu Yuanji also probably doesn't care what he does outside. To think that he married someone else that also isn't as powerful as he is. Looks like he's quite the sentimental person," Long Wanying said. That realization made their future plans much easier.

"The grade-six formation is definitely Yun Tianque's, so facing off against him there isn't ideal. We have to use his family to lure him to the Goldridge Mountain to meet us," Yan Nuxia said.

"Tianming, it should be fine to take his family to Goldridge Mountain and wait for him to come, right?" Long Wanying asked.

Tianming wouldn't do anything like harming the innocent, but simply moving them to another place wasn't an issue. He wasn't a saint, after all. "Yeah, that's fine."

Crucially, having Yun Tianque stand with him would be good for him too. Gujian Qingshuang also stood to benefit as he had now come to understand.

"We have to take action before the swordlords ship the eight hundred million fruits back to their sect!"