Beastmaster of the AgesBeastmaster of the Ages
"Even though the eye's mesmerizing power is powerful, the centuroptic beast that possessed this eye is long dead. That's why it isn’t resisting at all as I absorb its blood threads, unlike normal living organisms." Despite no longer being alive, the Archaionfiend Eye was still capable of sending countless people to their demise.
"I wonder if this thing’s more powerful than the valley lord? Where do astral giants like Huang Qi and my parents come from? Do they come from the Upper Star Ruins that Ling'er mentioned?" Tianming's mind was growing more and more facile.
He could see barriers that separated the subeyes from one another. They seemed much thinner than the cornea on the outer layer. Using his Fiendsky Arm, Tianming could easily tear them open to reach the blood threads of the next subeye.
"I'm having yet another grand feast!" It felt like he was slurping up a large bowl of smooth, silky tofu that almost seemed to melt when it entered his mouth. There were up to a hundred bowls of such delicacies here! Even though that tofu would be fatal to anybody else, Tianming relished it with pleasure. He wolfed down all the bowls he could reach and felt his body recovering.
By the time he finished the tenth subeye, he had completely recovered, along with Ying Huo and the rest. He noticed that he had fallen into the Archaionfiend Eye and was lying within one of the subeyes, completely surrounded by a bloody miasma. Above him were countless darkfiends tightly squished together, completely unaware of the fly that was consuming their sacred object. They seemed focused on nothing but their apparent pilgrimage, trying their best to kneel in an almost humanlike fashion.
"You guys keep doing what you're doing! I'll keep eating. We don't have to disturb one another!" Tianming felt as good as ever.
"What happened just now?" Ying Huo sounded a little dazed.
"I think I fell asleep, but I didn't have any dreams. It was like we were dead," Meow Meow said.
"It feels like we just went through the Myriadpath Celestial Formation!" Lan Huang said.
"Shut up!" Tianming was worried that its loud voice would wake the darkfiends.
"Oh, okay!" Lan Huang hastily said.
"All of you, quiet! Let me finish eating all this soft, supple tofu!" Tianming said.
"Soft and supple, eh? Whose 'tofu' are you talking about?" Xian Xian said with a warning tone.
"It was a figure of speech!" Tianming snapped.
"The fact that your mind went there means your thoughts are unhealthy."
Tianming couldn't be bothered to deal with it and looked at the eye in his palm. It seemed to have gained many more blood threads than before, but far from enough to fill it to the brim. There should be a lot of space left for more blood threads.
"I wonder how it’ll change after I finish consuming this centuroptic beast's eye...." He couldn't wait and sped up, rampantly absorbing the blood threads from one subeye to another. The sound of blood threads being sucked into his Sky Plundering Eye was utterly delectable. Even though they weren't actually going into his mouth, he still tasted a pleasant sweetness all the same.
"His inner thief is on full display.... That's just what he is at the end of the day."
"Look at his expression as he steals. It's so punchable."
"We can't blame him. His ancestors were generations and generations of thieves. It's in his blood." Ying Huo and the others joined together to mock Tianming.
"Shut up! The owner of the eye is long dead, so finders keepers! It isn’t stealing at all," Tianming said, glaring at them.
"That's right. Even if the owner is alive, after you kill them and take their eye, it isn’t considered stealing," Ying Huo added.
"When I'm done with this, I'm going to pluck all your feathers." Tianming sped up. By the time he reached forty subeyes, his absorption speed became much faster than before.
"The darkfiends have far too few blood threads. This centuroptic beast is so much better. There’s millions of them, at least. I wonder how many I'll have in total when I'm done." At the end of the day, the eyes of darkfiends weren't too useful for him; only Archaionfiend Eyes would do the trick. His sky plunderer talents were some of the most unique things in the astralscape, so he had to use the best materials to nurture them.
In order not to draw the attention of other darkfiends, Tianming consumed the subeyes from below and progressed upward, taking care to only consume about half of the blood threads in each.
Eventually, he realized that the darkfiends seemed to have settled into a state of stasis. Their auras and soul-affecting abilities seemed much more subdued and they didn't move at all while carrying out their sacred rite. The eye seemed to mean everything to them, as if it was their god. They wouldn't dare to closely observe the subtle changes of their mysterious deity.
"A hundred! I'm done!" Tianming didn't think that he would take so long. Two whole days might have passed since he started. By now, the Archaionfiend Eye was nothing but an empty husk despite still being surrounded by the bloody miasma. Tianming had absorbed all of its blood threads.
"Will a new ability be unlocked?" Tianming looked at the Sky Plundering Eye, which still seemed to be processing the blood threads it had absorbed. Normally, he could see inner and outer circles in the eye. The inner circle looked like two yin and yang fish nestled together, while the outer circle normally had spots that glowed red, white, and black, each representing one of his sky plunderer skills of Vitasteal, Fatesteal, and the Fiendsky Arm itself.
He used the Fiendsky Arm the most, but didn't dare to use Fatesteal at all. The last time he had, he’d almost ended up dead. As for Vitasteal, he had used it back at the Flameyellow Continent on mortals before. It didn't seem to have much of an effect since he started going up against samsarans and gods. Tianming believed that it had something to do with his soul, but the ability didn't seem to rely on any energy from his soul at all. The Sky Plundering Eye's cultivation technique seemed to rely on his cosmoforce instead.
"I should’ve unlocked a fourth ability after consuming this eye." Right as that thought occurred to him, the first red dot fused into the inner circle's yin yang diagram, but there was no new glowing spot on the outer circle. All of a sudden, the Sky Plundering Eye turned red as it swirled, eventually taking form as a compound eye with hundreds of subeyes, each one looking like they were alive and independently looking around.
"Wait, is it still just Vitasteal?" Tianming felt a little disappointed, but when he channeled cosmoforce into the Sky Plundering Eye he felt it unleash a wave of terrifying soul turbulence! It was similar to the effect that the darkfiends had on his soul. When he pointed the Sky Plundering Eye to his head, he suddenly felt that all of his senses crumbled away, even overpowering the effects of the Skysoul Tower!
"Wow. This is terrifying indeed!"