Beastmaster of the Ages

Just as on that day three years ago, there was a torrential storm, as lightning flickered and thunder rumbled. He had watched Midas have all its feathers plucked out before being murdered.

Then, he carried his companion's corpse through the rain. Of that night, he had never spoken exactly how much hatred and pain he held.

He had sworn a vow, then.

"Brother, if one day I can stand in front of Lin Xiaoting… I will take his life! If I fail, I'll take my own life at your grave and join you in the afterlife. Wait for me. Wait for me to bring his blood as an offering to you!

"Brother, I'm sorry. If fate wills it, let's be brothers again in the next life. We'll kill everyone that needs to be killed, and I won't let you die in front of me again!"

He had knelt down in front of the grave, mourning their too-early separation, something that he had never believed could happen in the sixteen years before.

It had been three years since he'd made that vow, and he had been waiting for this day.

Li Tianming watched with a malevolent gaze as Lin Xiaoting, dressed in black, landed on the stadium and the barrier closed behind him!

It wouldn't reopen again until one of them died!

Lin Xiaoting's eyes were gloomy, and a hint of ferociousness was in his smile. A stormy day like this was a tailor-made battlefield for him! Just as on that night, he looked every bit a child of lightning. He had been an unscalable peak to Li Tianming then.

However, Li Tianming no longer held the same reverence.

"Your melodramatic revenge plot has sincerely touched me." Lin Xiaoting gave a strange laugh. A massive halberd, the Scarlet Electrohalberd, was in his hand. Blood-red electricity flowed through it and his body, making him look like a bloodsoaked god of murder.

In the following moment, his two lifebound beasts made their appearance.

The first was the same lifebound beast as the Lightning Seigneur, a Four-Eyed Divine-Lightning Eagle. It was a low-tier eight-star lifebound beast.

It had been this very eagle that had plucked away Midas' feathers. However, it hadn't had the chance to enjoy the Saintbeast War-Soul. That privilege had been reserved for the other lifebound beast!

It was a scarlet terrestrial beast that looked like a cross between a tiger and panther. It had a thick mane, a powerful body, and teeth and claws as sharp as any weapon! Bloody lightning also ran across its body, and its fierce gaze was aimed at Li Tianming.

This was the Scarlet Suanni Beast! Three years ago, it had still been a Golden Electropanther. However, the efforts of Lightning Manor and the War-Soul had pushed it into becoming Vermilion Bird's second mid-tier eight-star beast!

The War-Soul had been integrated into it as a spiritsource ability. In the three years since, it was this beast that had been Lin Xiaoting's greatest asset, and it was also thanks to it that Lin Xiaoting had been looked upon with favor by Heaven's Elysium. This beast could be said to have a saintbeast's ability!

However, the War-Soul belonged to Li Tianming, save that it had been seized from him in a malicious move!

At this juncture, what more was there to say? For other opponents, Li Tianming may have done his usual shtick of opening with a salvo of words. However, toward Lin Xiaoting, Li Tianming only had one word in his mind.

Kill!

Kill, until his body was shredded to pieces!

Kill until his corpse was no longer whole!

KILL, until rivers of blood are formed!

However, Li Tianming took the unexpected action of having the little chick and black cat step back, retiring his two terrifying beasts. Obviously, he didn't intend to have them fight!

"Has he become some crazed demon that's lost all rationality?" Everyone watching rose to their feet in shock at Li Tianming's courage.

However, such questions were unnecessary. They only needed to watch what happened next for the answer!

"That's, that's Mu Yang's Demise of Man-Earth-Heaven sword art! It's simplified, but it's a true heavenly-ranked battle art!"

"I was wondering why the little chick's beastial art looked so familiar!"

"Die!" Lin Xiaoting didn't care how many opponents there were. He too only had a single word in his heart: kill!

His halberd hacked down toward Li Tianming's face.

His lifebound beasts immediately created their unity fields, a scarlet lightning field from his suanni beast, and a fourpoint field from his eagle. The sixteen nexuses of the fields rumbled as an endless amount of spiritual energy poured into his attacks.

Double the amount of beast ki exploded as a unity-ranked battle art was unleashed: the Chaotic Demon's Thirteen Strikes!

The so-named unity-ranked battle arts were martial and beastial arts that had been fused together as perfectly as possible using the unity field. Lin Xiaoting led the battle with a frenzied onslaught of attacks, lightning flickering for hundreds of metres around, and the two lifebound beasts had already prepared their spiritsource abilities, while also unleashing beastial arts to support Lin Xiaoting. The eagle and suanni beasts' claws, talons, beak, and teeth were all wreathed in lightning as they drew difficult to track trajectories through the air.

How could Li Tianming survive the onslaught on his own?

Toward the incoming halberd, Li Tianming took the simple action of raising his left arm to block its path.

"Has he gone mad?"

All thirteen strikes slammed into Li Tianming's black arm.

"Break!" Lin Xiaoting thundered, fully intent on removing Li Tianming's arm.

A shrill scraping sound rang out that forced many to cover their ears. They witnessed Li Tianming being knocked up into the sky at an incredible speed. His arm, though, remained very much attached. However, the cloth around his arm had been shredded apart, revealing an arm covered in black scales.

It wasn't a human arm underneath, but the claw of some beast, reminiscent of a dragon or qilin's!

A fresh wave of shock rippled through the audience. Now, even more than before, Li Tianming, with his white hair and black arm, looked like a demonic god.

"What is he doing?"

Li Tianming had borrowed the force to accelerate upward at a breakneck pace, arriving almost instantaneously in front of the eagle!

His eyes immediately took on a cold shine.

Once upon a time, he'd been incapable of standing up to this Four-Eyed Divine-Lightning Eagle, back when it had only had three eyes. However, now Li Tianming's response was to laugh in its face as countless phantom swords of the Grand Thunderflare Sword filled the sky.

Demise of Man, Spectral-Dance!

With his sword raised, Aeternal Infernal Beast Ki and Genesis Chaos Beast Ki collided with each other and burst outward.

A sword swept past, and the eagle was immediately bisected!

It hadn't died yet, as what it had lost was only its wing.

Li Tianming didn't stop there, but reappeared in a ghostly fashion, this time striking out with Soul-Extinction.

Another wing fell to the ground!

The eagle screeched in pain.

"When you plucked off my brother's feathers, did you imagine this would happen? Blood debts can only be wiped clean with blood." With its wings severed, the eagle was no different from being crippled.

"You have four eyes?"

Blood spurted out from four wounds, so fast they seemed to appear at the same moment. The eagle had now lost its eyes, in addition to its wings.

The giant eagle crashed down in front of the little chick and the black cat. At this point, it could only shriek and struggle.

Now, people finally understood why the king had made children leave.

"Ying Huo, Meow Meow. Remove all its feathers and keep it for me." The words were delivered casually, but it was the pronouncement of a death sentence for the eagle!

Of course, this was just the beginning.

"Midas is your elder brother. We'll scatter these feathers at its grave, and we'll all be brothers from now on."

Who at this point would still dare to call these little things cute? It was only because no one had ever seen them serious, nor witnessed them make a blood sacrifice to their brother.

Ripping off the feathers had finally helped Li Tianming warm up.

However, Lin Xiaoting's eyes nearly popped out of their socket. It had all happened too quickly; Li Tianming had been so quick he had no chance to catch up.

Li Tianming dragged along his sword as he walked towards Lin Xiaoting, speeding up.

"Die!" Lin Xiaoting shouted as the suanni beast unleashed its spiritsource ability, the Scarlet Electric Furnace, causing countless scarlet lightning bolts to bombard Li Tianming.

When it finally cleared, a white-haired demon walked out, completely unharmed. "Ah, Xiaoting, Xiaoting, are you trying to tickle me to death? What a dangerous ploy!"

The current Li Tianming had a Genesis Chaos Thunderfiend as a lifebound beast, and as such, lightning had next to no effect on him now.

Lin Xiaoting quickly turned pale. "Impossible… impossible!"

He staggered three steps back, staring at Li Tianming.

Li Tianming roared with laughter. "It always seems impossible until it happens!"