Beastmaster of the Ages

It would be really hard for Li Wushuang to refuse the suggestion, given how irrationally mad she was. Long Wanying understood them too well—Li Wushuang in particular.

Eventually, Li Wushuang assented and the Tumulus Pill God said, "Chief Instructor Gujian, Whitedragon Empress, and General Shi Yan, we'll offer the right to guard one sapling site as an incentive. How does that sound?"

The fact that he didn't address Tianming meant that he had no right to decide. Not to mention, the sapling site wouldn't be attractive to him at all, but it was different for his seniors. There were still seventeen sites in the Supracloud Sanctuary's territory, even though one pair had been destroyed. Offering one site as an incentive was already a huge concession. Everyone quieted down when they heard those words, with Tianming feigning shock himself.

"Let us talk about it." Long Wanying and the rest kept a straight face. She joined up with Shi Yan, Gujian Qingshuang, and Tianming for a talk.

"What do you think, Tianming?" Gujian Qingshuang asked.

"It works. The saplings are really important, so it's worth taking the chance," Tianming said.

"What about the Empyrean Sword Sect, General Shi?" Gujian Qingshuang said.

Shi Yan rolled her eyes. "What does it have to do with me? I don't really care, as long as we won't be at risk of losing any of our own sites. I'd suggest asking for another site, though, to test their limits."

After all, Li Haochen was the one who was asking for the privilege of a rematch so his honor could be restored. It wasn't a fight where both sides had something to lose, so Tianming had no obligation to accept the challenge at all. As such, Li Haochen needed to offer an incentive for the fight. The discussion between the four of them was merely a show they were putting on for Shi Yan.

After they came to a conclusion, Gujian Qingshuang said, "Tumulus Pill God, we want two of your sapling sites, namely the ones at Aix Lake and Inverse Peak. If you agree, Li Tianming will accept the challenge."

Tunnel vision often led people to fall for simple traps. Those two selected locations were sensitive areas where conflict would be prone to occur. If the Azuresoul Palace's side sent troops to guard those sites, the two sides would be separated only by a lake.

Shi Yan had also sent word to the two swordlords about the developments, which Tianming noticed. He looked at Long Wanying and couldn't help but smile. If their expectations were correct, the Empyrean Sword Sect would rush to take those two sites, though it wasn't like those from the Group of Celestial Hall Maidens had enough manpower to fight them for the sites anyway.

Now, it all depended on Li Wushuang. As expected, she didn't care about the sapling sites at all in her totally enraged state. She had already planned to take them all, so temporarily losing two made no difference to her. Not to mention, Tianming wasn't the one who asked for the saplings, leaving her ignorant to Tianming's plan to conquer all the saplings of the two sects.

Aix Lake and Inverse Peak weren't too distant from each other and cultivators from both sides often clashed there, so conflict would be inevitable. Apart from that, Long Wanying had an even more fatal link in the plan that would be inescapable if Li Wushuang fell for it.

As expected, Li Wushuang was completely fine with letting go of the two sites. She couldn't help her drive for victory, especially not after being provoked.

"Li Wushuang, I'll use your obsession with winning against you to make you lose everything," Long Wanying said under her breath after Li Wushuang agreed.

"Aunt Ying, don't worry. The game has just begun," Tianming said.

To prevent anyone from interfering in the fight, Gujian Qingshuang set up a battlefield within the Azuresky Myriadsword Formation and only let Li Haochen inside. The rest weren't too worried that they would harm him, given his status.

Li Haochen finally had the chance to face Tianming again in battle. He once respected Tianming, but the white-haired youth's shameless actions today had completely changed his impression of him. He absolutely loathed and hated him now.

Tianming entered the battlefield as those behind him cheered for him like he was their king. He knew that the fight itself wasn't really that crucial. After all, they'd already won the moment Li Wushuang and the rest had fallen for the trap. He insidiously smiled at Li Haochen with his head tilted and sneered, "So, you're here to humiliate yourself again. Why bother? You'll even lose two sapling sites as a result. Is it so hard to just accept that you've lost?"

"Quit putting up that carefree act, it only makes me look down on you more. Let's not waste words. Only celestial orderians deserve to win," Li Haochen said.

"So you're saying that only you guys deserve to stand at the top and other people don't even deserve to look up at you?"

"You can think of it that way." No doubt, he was enraged at the disrespect Tianming had shown Li Ruoshi and Long Youyou, causing his fighting spirit to rise. The vastsun godbeasts that had been consuming tons of divine herbs emerged from his bane-rings. He wielded Crimsoncloud Dragonbane and stood in front of his totems that blocked out the whole sky. They were much larger than before and the golden flames on their bodies burned even stronger. At the ninth level of the Constellation stage, he had reached even greater heights that his peers could only dream of.

The godbeasts furiously roared at Tianming, sending vast pillars of flames his way. The normal disciples who were ascendants and below in the crowd behind Tianming paled at the sight. As far as normal people like them were concerned, Li Haochen was like a god!

"Long live Senior Brother Li!"

"Beat him up!"

Their faith in Tianming was the only thing that supported their confidence. Then a black and red phoenix with a wingspan of a thousand meters emerged alongside a Regal Chaosfiend bathed in lightning bolts and an even larger gigantic two-headed dragon. Then, a tree thousands of meters tall took root on the battlefield. It looked like a smaller version of the Azurecloud Divine Tree. Those four lifebound beasts alone were like miracles in and of themselves.

Li Wushuang and the rest could tell that Ying Huo had evolved with the Solar Nucleus and had become a seven-star divine beast. But was that all? Tianming, standing between the four beasts, waved his hand. A terrifying stream of metal reflecting silver light appeared, forming a silvery vortex around him that was tens of thousands of meters wide. It was a sea of metal made up of Yin Chen's three million bodies, the super metal army!

"Whoa!"

The appearance of Yin Chen caught many there by surprise. The vortex of metal spun with Tianming at its center, creating a lot of sparks and sharp noises from the friction. It hurt just to be near them. If one looked close enough, one would notice that the vortex was made out of countless tiny metal insects. Some were locusts, others were spiders or scorpions, and there were even interlinked centipedes. In terms of volume alone, those bodies could rival Xian Xian's tree. Contrasted against those gigantic beasts and totems, Tianming and Li Haochen looked puny.

"These lifebound beasts…."

Everyone, including the Tumulus Pill God, gasped in confusion. Little did they know that these bodies had been created using the mines across the continent. There were still two million bodies outside, split up into a total of twenty million invisible cockroaches that surveilled the entire continent, apart from the three million bodies that remained with Tianming in case of combat. The five lifebound beasts alone had completely outshined the eight totems.

Even Li Haochen was stumped, despite his earlier confidence. Even a fool would be able to tell that Tianming wasn't fighting on the same level he had back then. His lifebound beasts had all evolved, and Yin Chen now had three million bodies compared to the previous hundreds of thousands. Too bad for him, Tianming didn't even give him a chance to process it.

"Go!" Tianming didn't even have to do the work, leaving it to Ying Huo, Lan Huang, Meow Meow, and Xian Xian to try out their new abilities. Ying Huo had only used Sungod's Wrath against Princess Shen Yu in the wondersky realm before. Now, it flew into the sky and exploded into a new sun before crashing back down.

The look on Li Haochen's face immediately changed. He immediately used his ultimate move, his totemic calamity Vastsun Truegod. The eight totems fused and formed a flaming warblade-wielding titan. It looked far more powerful than before, thanks to the divine herbs, but Ying Huo wasn't the only one attacking. Meow Meow showed off its wings, forming them into eight trigrams as it executed Regalfiend Wings. The wings attracted countless lightning bolts, all of which had Blitzbane text within them. Then the wings flapped and created countless lightning vortices that crashed down on the gigantic totem alongside Ying Huo's sun. After that, countless mud-water dragons appeared from the ground, constricting the flaming titan's body before linking and forming a cage!