Beastmaster of the Ages

Specters were heavily reliant on their bodies. With Sovereign Sanctquility's throat pierced through, her spine had also snapped, cutting off the link between her head and body!

"Aaagh...." The light from her eyes seemed to vanish. Death had come far too quickly and fiercely, much like a storm. She didn't have any time to mentally prepare herself for it before she was on her way into its abyssal depths, going the way of Sovereign Greenvoid.

"No... don't!"

No matter what she said, it was already too late after Tianming had struck. Perhaps she had thought that Skywolf would be taking a star that didn’t have any astralguard formation defending it. No doubt, Sovereign Greenvoid had also thought the same. It was already too late for them to regret not making proper preparations beforehand.

"Li Tianming... those that back us are the Myst—" Her face paled even more as she unintelligibly howled. She was struggling to turn her head back and beg to be spared, yet Tianming's millions of totem swords swept through the space her body had inhabited, poking countless holes in her in the process! It was a gruesome and awesome sight to see millions of holes being opened in a single body. Even though a single totem sword wasn't enough to pierce through, the countless more that followed behind them helped push them through. Once a single perforation was made, countless more swords could enter through the wound!

The prime wonder reformed in the sky and slammed down on the sovereign's head like a mountain. The lupine head of the sovereign had been knocked aslant, causing it to start falling. Nothing but a few strands of tissue and skin still connected the head to the body. The dire wolves made a melancholic howl, yet that didn't stop death from claiming them. The final thing Sovereign Sanctquility managed to see was the angry flaming clouds, which seemed to scatter all of a sudden to reveal a serene view. Yet that didn't stop the many specters around from witnessing her horrid death.

The fact that her humiliating defeat had been witnessed by so many was the final and hardest blow she received. As the supreme leader of Skywolf Frost, dying on the front line in the opening volley of the invasion after losing a divine astralship was appalling, to say the least. Never had it ever occurred to her that this would be her fate. Not only that, her death would go on to affect the fighting spirit of the remaining troops from Skywolf Frost. It was already over, as far as their state of mind was concerned. At the very end, she felt her gigantic wolf head wrapped around by Godsin's sword-chain form before Tianming pried it off her body. Fortunately for him, she was in her bestial state rather than the beauty she appeared to be, making his job much easier.

"You—" She saw a white mist surrounding the youth right before her soul scattered. The mist seemed to stretch out into countless tiny threads, much like formation spirit threads! But even after seeing them, she had no idea what they were, though she instinctively knew it was because of those threads that she had been defeated. The fear was marked deep in her soul.

......

"Huh?" After dealing the final blow, Tianming picked some things up while Ying Huo and the rest fended off attacks from the nearby specters. The first was the spatial ring the sovereign had hid in her ship. It seemed incredibly intricate, being a grade-seven divine artifact with a vast space inside. It should contain a large amount of the sovereign's wealth. Tianming gave it a rough look and saw that there were not one, but four manna imperius! Given that it was still wartime, he didn't really have the time to appraise the types of manna they were, but a rough look told him that there was one suited for Xian Xian.

"Sovereign Sanctquility's possessions should be among the best items in Skywolf Frost. They were hunters, after all, so she no doubt had a lot of treasures to boast of." The spatial ring also contained mountains' worth of cultivation resources, ranging from divine ores, herbs, pills, artifacts, and even manna of all levels. It also contained an entire sea's worth of caeli!

Apart from that ring, he also got the other Godsin weapon, the Frostmoon Edge. The death of the sovereign had made it a masterless artifact. Interestingly, the artifact soul of the blade was also a yellowspring fish. Given that Tianming had defeated the sovereign wielding the blade, he should be recognized by it. When he laid his hands on it, the blade didn't outright resist him even though it hadn’t quite acknowledged him as its new master yet. It also seemed to develop some kind of relationship with the yellowspring fish in Tianming's Godsin. It was clear that the two were made for each other, and they had finally been reunited thanks to him. From how it felt, Tianming believed the Frostmoon Edge wouldn’t be one bit inferior to the Godsin.

"This blade is probably much more suited to Qingyu. She’s suffered quite a bit lately, so a gift is long overdue. Let's hope it manages to cheer her up a bit in these dark times." Even if she wouldn't be able to take ownership of the blade just yet, given her talent, Tianming believed it would only be a matter of time. "I haven't seen a true smile from her heart for quite a while. I hope she likes this gift. At least it can probably help distract her from other matters. The busywork should keep her mind occupied." He was her brother, so he tried thinking of what was best for her as much as he could.

The instant he took the blade, the flaming clouds spanning a large area around him vanished from sight! The cloudless region also seemed to expand at breakneck speed. It didn't take long before the site of the chaotic battle from before had turned completely transparent. It was as if the Flameyellow Guard Formation and the flaming cloud layer had disappeared. Tianming could see countless specters all around him. In fact, the transparency seemed to have begun manifesting while Tianming was still fighting Sovereign Sanctquility.

"Why’d it vanish? Did the sun emperor backstab me?! Or was he defeated?!" His heart shook from the shock. If the cloud layer’s disappearance was a sign of the sun emperor's death, it was over for Orderia. He couldn't imagine the sun emperor backstabbing him right after Tianming helped their side gain an edge. It would be far too short-sighted and reckless!