Beastmaster of the Ages

As the Wind Swordlord was about to join in to team up with the Rain Swordlord against Li Wushuang, a huge cauldron came smashing down, sending him flying off.

"Is that the Divine Worldeater Cauldron?" Tinaming asked.

"No, it's a sub cauldron," Yu Ziqian said.

The celestial orderians and wargodeans were each said to possess one sub cauldron, one of which was in the Tumulus Pill God's hands. As expected, Tianming saw the old man near the cauldron.

"I heard the two swordlords are unmatched when fighting as a pair. Even the Northdipper Swordsage has to be wary against you two. Impressive… however, I won't allow you to do something like that today," the Tumulus Pill God said.

"Get out of my way!" the Wind Swordlord roared, charging forward in a fury. Yet another epic duel unfolded, sending sword ki off in wild directions. However, the old man managed to keep the Wind Swordlord at bay.

By now, the battle had heated up to its peak, with countless dead. The center of the battlefield was where the battle was the most chaotic. All of a sudden, the sharp cry of agony of a crane rang out. Then a bloodied crane carcass fell from the sky, its stomach cut open. The bloody glint of a blade flashed across the area as the six remaining ghostface moongoddesses surrounded a woman in a bloodied robe. She was dripping with blood from head to toe, even down to her blade.

"Hehehehe…." She held a human head in her other hand, its expression still one of horror and despair. The rest of the body had probably long been vaporized. There were quite a lot of people paying attention to that fight, and they had all witnessed the Rain Swordlord's death. Still surrounded by the totems, Li Wushuang was coldly laughing as she wiped her face with a bloody sleeve, coloring it even redder. It was a ghastly sight for sure.

Many cultivators of the Empyrean Sword Sect felt their morale completely collapse. Pain, despair, and fury all surged as they let out groans of utter agony. Many of them raggedly breathed in disbelief of what they had just seen. They'd been feeling on top of the world when Lan Sha had been killed, but now it was a different story. No doubt, the Wind Swordlord was the one who was suffering the most.

"Rain!" His white hair flared up with anger. He had lost the partner he'd been with for around a thousand years; she was killed right in front of him. On a cruel place like the battlefield, any other killer wouldn't feel the slightest bit bad for the people they'd killed, who no doubt had their own families and friends. It took until their own loved ones were killed for them to realize the barbarity of it all. It was like an immutable law of the heavens. With resources being limited, only the powerful got to make the rules. Those who were strong enough were able to obtain the necessary resources to keep themselves alive, and perhaps even siphon away the resources of others. Wherever there was conflict, there would be death. The two swordlords had won almost every battle in their lives, but now it was their turn to be on the losing side.

Justice was a fickle thing; everyone laid claim to it to justify their cause. Tianming's justice was his care for his loved ones. Such was no doubt the case with other battles as well. As such, the others couldn't quite empathize with the Wind Swordlord's pain. His eyes were reddened with fury, his breathing ragged.

"You're next, Wind Swordlord. Come take your woman's head," Li Wushuang said, tossing the head into the air and impaling it upon her weapon. She heartily laughed and gleefully looked at the Wind Swordlord, seeding despair into the hearts of the many cultivators of the Empyrean Sword Sect.

"The Rain Swordlord is dead and their army is demoralized! Everyone, follow me and slaughter these fifty thousand swordpupils! Avenge Brother Lan Sha! Let's help our fellow fighters of the Blueblood Starocean even the scales!" the Tumulus Pill God yelled. His rallying cry was quite effective, and the wargodeans and Blueblood Starocean were now filled with even more murderous fervor.

"Kill them!"

"Slaughter them!"

"Death to all!"

Crazed war cries shook the entire area as the cultivators of the Blueblood Starocean and the wargodeans doubled down in the killing. Li Wushuang had opened the floodgates, causing blood to burst from the dam. Many swordpupils were killed in their despair, causing them to fall like dominos. There was nothing the Wind Swordlord could do to help their morale, unless he could kill Li Wushuang, but that was impossible. Not to mention, Li Wushuang and the Tumulus Pill God were trying to kill him. If he lost his cool today, the Empyrean Sword Sect would end up losing two swordlords and he would never get to avenge his lover.

"Rain…." Tears of blood flowed from his eyes. They had been in love since their teens, and it had lasted about a thousand years. And now he was completely heartbroken. Before the battle, he had come to a final decision. He had planned to retreat from Aix Lake and give up on the saplings after reuniting with the Rain Swordlord, finally seeing it for what it was: a hot potato he had taken from Tianming. However, the Rain Swordlord didn't know what Li Wushuang was made of and thought that she alone was enough to lead the Empyrean Sword Sect to resist, which ended up costing her life. The causal chain was the root of much pain and hurt.

"It's all my fault…."

However, his realization came too little too late. Once more, he looked at the Rain Swordlord's eyes as tears of blood flowed. Luckily, he retained one last strand of reason; if he charged in, the rest of the Empyrean Sword Sect's fifty thousand swordpupils would be completely eradicated in this battle. Seeing how eager Li Wushuang was about the fight, she must have been confident of her victory. Even the Tumulus Pill God was impressed by her capabilities.

The Wind Swordlord announced with a grieving voice, "Empyrean Sword Sect, retreat!" That exclamation used up all his remaining energy. Then he abandoned the body of his beloved and fled on his own as the rest of the swordpupils ran in all directions. The more dispersed they were, the more of them would survive. They had suffered a debilitating loss.

"Chase them down! You get to keep any spoils you take for yourself!" Li Wushuang ordered. The pursuers gave chase, some even going as far as hundreds of miles. Corpses continued falling from the sky before only ten thousand or so of the fifty thousand swordpupils managed to escape, some of whom had lost many lifebound beasts to the point that they were crippled.

This was the worst loss the Empyrean Sword Sect had suffered in the past hundred thousand years, something that would shake Orderia to the core. They had lost at least thirty-eight thousand people, including the Rain Swordlord. The wargodeans had also lost five thousand of their twenty thousand troops, and the Blueblood Starocean lost around twelve thousand. Though it wasn't even half of the Empyrean Sword Sect's losses, it was still nothing that could casually be brushed off by the Tumulus Pill God or the leaderless cultivators of the Blueblood Starocean. At the end of the day, Li Wushuang was the only one that hadn't lost anything.

Only Tianming knew that the true winner of this battle wasn't Li Wushuang, but his group. It was the result of their elaborate plan, starting with the provocation of Li Haochen and resulting in the deaths of Lan Sha, the Rain Swordlord, around forty thousand Empyrean Sword Sect cultivators, and some twenty thousand on Li Wushuang's side.

"An even bigger storm is brewing… sit tight."