Beastmaster of the Ages

This was a momentous event for Yun Tianque. Hundreds of thousands of elites and disciples were organizing the harvested divine herbs when he made that announcement. The moment he finished, the Myriadfold Skycloud Formation shifted into wartime mode. That was their highest security level.

The Supracloud Sanctuary was actually a moving fortress that floated through the sky, using the corpse of a nimbus emperor as its foundation. When the formation was active, the fortress looked like it was protected by ten thousand layers of cloudy spheres, increasing the volume of the entire structure by a few times. This grade-seven divine formation had been constructed over the generations throughout millions of years. Defensive formations were a necessity of any sect; without them, nowhere they settled could be considered home.

Eventually, the clouds turned into a storm that surrounded the formation. The Supracloud Sanctuary had entered full battle stations. Every time the formation was left active in this state, it would consume a lot of resources, but that was a worthwhile sacrifice for their future. Yet, the hundreds of thousands of sect members couldn't comprehend their sect master's decision.

There were seven grade-five cultivators in the sect, including Yun Tianque, one of whom was Lu Yuanji. She represented the voidstag race, a huge internal faction in the sect. All of them blankly looked at Yun Tianque. Anyone above grade three or four had been informed about the intricacies of the situation and knew what kind of crazy move this represented. Only the normal disciples and cultivators who were sick of the mistreatment by outsiders cheered this decision.

"Yeah, this is it!"

"That's right! Why should a second-rate faction like ours bow to the celestial orderians?"

"The Blueblood Starocean and wargodeans are traitors that don't even take us seriously. They aren't here to help with the harvest, they're here to rob us of it!"

Cheers erupted throughout the sect.

"Everyone, quiet down! Sect Master, we have something to say!" Four people with grade five status stood out. They were highly regarded elders within the sect and had contributed much to it. From the very beginning, they had believed that Yun Tianque's decision to side with the celestial orderians was difficult to comprehend and, in some ways, went against the will of their forebears. However, they had been forced to keep quiet due to the circumstances. But now the matter could no longer be left in a corner.

The oldest elder with fully white hair stood out. He was Yun Mingcang, the uncle of Yun Tianque. Sternly, he said, "Sect Master, you were the one who unilaterally decided to pick the wargodeans and Blueblood Starocean to be our allies, and now you're the one who's deciding we should leave them. It's within your rights as a sect master to choose to do so, but we have to remind you that these people aren't pushovers. They're the vilest of people, and our betrayal will only incur their rage. Even if we don't particularly like them, we're now in the same boat as them. Won't getting off the boat only cause us to drown?"

Betrayal was among the most hateful things someone could do. They had already considerably sullied their reputation by joining up with the robbers, yet they were going to call it quits all of a sudden.

Yun Tianque looked at the crowd and said, "Please hear me out. Li Wushuang killed the Rain Swordlord and eliminated forty thousand troops from the Empyrean Sword Sect, earning the ire of the Northdipper Swordsage, who went on to forge an alliance with many other second and third-rate sects. They've assembled an army of a million troops and they're approaching our continent! Li Wushuang was the one that caused all this trouble. If we don't back out of this while we still can, we might be completely eradicated by the alliance. Right now, we don't have to fear Li Wushuang. She'll be hard-pressed to protect herself from the alliance. Without the wargodeans and the Blueblood Starocean, there's no way she can project any influence in the territory of the Myriad Solar Sects."

"An army of a million?!" Everyone in the sect was shocked. It was a force on such a scale that it could wipe their sect off the face of the continent.

"I knew from the start that Li Wushuang was far too reckless. Things would catch up to her sooner or later."

"Looks like this has come to pass."

"The Myriad Solar Sects are finally here. The sect master has made the right decision. We can still pull ourselves out of this mess."

"We never should've joined them in the first place…."

All kinds of panicked thoughts floated through their minds.

"There's another reason I'm distancing our sect from them," Yun Tianque said.

"What is it?" Yun Mingcang asked.

"Before the alliance's army comes, Li Wushuang is going to bring her two hundred thousand troops back to our sect to hold out using our formation. That alone wouldn't be too much of a problem, but she's unwilling to give up on the sapling sites and wants us to send a hundred thousand of our own to face off against the incoming army! She wants us to be cannon fodder just so that she can keep the saplings!

"Now I know her true goal. She wants to keep the saplings and for the alliance to exterminate us! After all, we're still part of the Myriad Solar Sects. She's using us to make the Northdipper Swordsage's alliance look bad for killing one of their own. From the very beginning, she wanted us to die! I acknowledge that it was my fault for initially allying with the wargodeans and Blueblood Starocean. But back then, Li Wushuang wasn't in the picture. We had no choice if we were to compete with the Azuresoul Palace, who had the Xuanyuan Dragon Sect backing them. But now I've decided to jump ship. It's still not a good look for us, and if our sect comes to an end as a consequence of my decisions, I'll be the one to stick my neck out to atone for it." To make sure their sect stayed united, he had to make it clear; as expected, Li Wushuang's ambitions had caused some frustration to rise.

"Isn't that too shameless?"

"They really see us as nothing more than livestock."

"Haha… it's like they think we're just going to give them divine herbs like this."

"I understand the sect master's troubles. Li Wushuang's presence here wasn't expected at all. Back then, he had no choice. The performance of the Azuresoul Palace's disciples at the Voidsky Skirmish was far too shocking."

"Let's all stand with the sect master!"

Yun Tianque was a focal figure of their sect, especially with his record of having defeated Gujian Qingshuang before. He was their pride and joy and his authority was highly respected. That was why Tianming needed him.

Now that Yun Tianque had gained their favor, he brought out an explosive suggestion. "We'll quickly cut off our ties and we still hold all the harvested divine herbs. We shall seal off our sect and defend what belongs to us without compromise! These are the gifts the divine tree has bequeathed to the denizens of our continent, not outsiders! We shall take our fates into our own hands and not let anyone take away the slightest bit! Even if we don't leave our sect for the next century, we'll still have profited greatly from all these divine herbs!"

That caused an uproar. Nobody expected this would ever happen; there had never been an instance over the past eon where their sect got three billion divine herbs! It was something straight out of a pipe dream. Every time they felt like they had hope after harvesting so many divine herbs, they were only left with around a tenth of it, roughly three hundred million. There was far from enough to go around.