Beastmaster of the AgesBeastmaster of the Ages
"What do you mean? You just used me to strengthen your own faction, but I've rendered services that paid back the debt multiple times over! But you still try to hold that over me?! You have no principles! Face reality and stop being so delusional!" Lan Yun coldly smiled.
"The reality is that you've been heavily crippled! You can't even lock down my cosmic charts as I stand before you. I no longer have to fear you! Why should I still be your fearful slave? Why should I let you feast on my treasure?! I’d rather use it myself!"
Naturally, she was talking about Tianming. She was unwilling to let him go just like that at the end of the day. The trouble he’d caused her and his tactless flirting had all added to her unwillingness to give him away.
"Lan Yun, you’ve truly gone mad! You have to die!" The cocoon woman would never have expected herself to be on the powerless side. Her rage reached its peak and boiled over.
"You've lived for tens of thousands of years, while I've had to endure your temper all my life! The one who should die is you!" Terrifying frost emanated from Lan Yun's body as she manifested her totems.
Tianming smirked as he ducked to the side, protecting Ying Huo and the rest while the two women fought one another. Seeing how dim their lifelines were, his smog-covered eyes were filled with killing intent. They should all die, especially Lan Yun! She knows about the Infinitum Mundus!
"Lan Yun!" the senior sister roared and cackled, "You're the delusional one! Even if I've lost two-thirds of my cultivation, killing you is as easy as strangling a snake!"
The two powerful foundationeers clashed within a tightly formation-sealed hall. They were at least above the fifth level in power! The stormy energies of their totems filled the entire hall in an instant, rocking Tianming like a tiny ship in dangerous waters. All he could do was protect himself.
His eyes shone with an evil light; he was merely a spoil of war to those two women! He didn't think such a day would ever come. Nothing but rage and the desire for vengeance burned in his eyes.
"Ying Huo, Meow Meow..." he called out to them many times, but they didn't wake up at all, nor did they fuse back into his body, making him even more anxious. He glared at the two women so harshly that inky water seemed to flow from his eyes.
The battle was intense.
"Lan Yun will win!" It was clear to see. She had endured the whims of her sister for so long, so the fact that she dared to fight back meant she was certain of her chances. However, the woman in the cocoon wouldn't go down so easily in her death struggle. She was someone who had survived tens of thousands of harsh years. Her desperate final stand and desire to drag Lan Yun to hell with her were things that could tip the scales of battle.
"You vile, vile lass! I raised you from childhood, yet this is how you repay me, you animal?!" she shrieked.
"Shut up!" Lan Yun's cold voice rang out as her frosty figure flew around within the hall of blood like an empress of snow and ice. The blood miasma around her froze over.
"Hahaha! I’ve roamed Myriadpath Valley for tens of thousands of years, only to end up dying here by your hand.... If I’d known, I would've squashed you long ago, Lan Yun!" As the blood miasma faded away, Lan Yun's totems drove the older woman farther and farther back.
"It's a shame that you lost that chance. Do you accept your fate?" Lan Yun asked.
"Accept my fate? Do you really think you can leave this place unharmed? I’ll torture you for the rest of your life! You deserve to live in this hell forever!" As she howled, the bloody woman turned into a thick miasma that quickly enveloped Lan Yun.
"What?!" Lan Yun furrowed her brows when she failed to stop the bloody astrons from entering her body. Her frozen, snow-white skin turned red at many spots. "Senior Sister, you've gone mad!"
"Even you look down on me.... If I die, you won't be any better off...." The cocoon woman's voice completely faded as Lan Yun knelt on the ground, sweating and in pain.
She huddled up in pain as waves of red ebbed and flowed on her skin. Tianming had no idea what kind of energy that was. His eyes turned the blackest they had ever been the moment he saw her fall. He got up and ran to her.
"Li Tianming?" Lan Yun’s entire body shook. She was awash in red and her frost emanated a kind of red mist. All of it made her look incredibly tempting to the eye. She tried using her foundation fortress to apply order suppression on Tianming, but it was useless. He stood before her eyes and looked at her like a feral beast.
"Go away!" Lan Yun sweated as the bloody astrons permeated her body. She had to expel them before they began growing within her!
"How large!" Tianming's lips curved into a dark smile. The hunted had become the hunter. "How white!"
"What’re you planning to do?" Lan Yun's eyes widened with panic. She struggled with all she had to resist the dying strike of her senior sister that was wreaking havoc within her body.
"Master, you saved my life, so it's time I repaid you!" Tianming leaped at her like a beast that couldn't control its carnal impulses.
"No! I need another three hundred years before I can engage in the Sky Starvore Fiendart! If I do anything like that now, it'll all be ruined! The technique will fall apart!" she shrieked. Her expression had changed for real; she used to control everything, but now she was a tiny bunny that could do naught but shiver like a helpless beast.
"Nooo! Aaaaah!" The hall of blood shook down to its foundations. After a long time, Tianming was done neutralizing her fiendart for good. He looked down and saw the former empress of frost huddled in a bunch, shivering as she stared at him.
Her lustrous blue hair had almost instantly turned gray and white as a consequence of the broken technique and her body began rapidly aging to resemble what she should properly look like at the age of 5700 years old. As long as the Sky Starvore Fiendart was broken at the wrong time, one would age to their natural point. The consequences that the fiendart had allowed her to defer had caught up to her.
"My hair! My hands!" Lan Yun observed her body aging to her natural, ugly look as Tianming watched. Everything was over. This was her true form.
"Li Tianming...." She clutched her gray-white hair and looked at the vigorous young man.
"Master, do you still think I'm a toy you can casually mess with?" Tianming said, relishing every word. He had only been forced to get revenge for himself. Finally, it was over, and Lan Yun had indeed suffered. He took his spatial ring back from her and summoned the Grand-Orient Sword.
"You... you ruined everything I’ve built, and you're still going to kill me?" She struggled to stand up, but she was so weak from losing her power that she could barely move. There was no way for her to push him aside.
"You forced me to do this! Everyone who’s threatened me using the lives of my family and friends has perished without exception." If she hadn’t gone looking for the Infinitum Mundus, he wouldn't have gone this far.
"My good disciple, I beg you, I don't want to die! Let me live! I’ll serve you with all I have!" Lan Yun knelt and hugged his legs, crying.
"Forget it. You're too ugly now that your fiendart’s been broken. You make me sick."
"You! How cruel of you! I saved your life before, and were we not just in each other's embrace? How could you find it in your heart to kill me?!"
"Me? Cruel? You taught me all of that! You were a great teacher. You showed me how to properly bully and oppress the weak. You told me that it was the way of Myriadpath Valley!" He had learned all those rules of survival from none other than Lan Yun.
"Lan Yun, I, Li Tianming, am not someone you can afford to mess with!" He growled and swung his sword. Even though Lan Yun had been greatly weakened, it still took him tens of strikes to properly kill a reverend like her.
"Ooof! Aaagh!" She cried in pain and despair as her innards were hacked apart. She was filled with endless regret—not for harming Tianming, but for feeling the slightest bit of affection and unwillingness to see him killed. If she hadn’t tried taking him back as an astralkiln for herself after her senior sister had been crippled, she wouldn’t have died. Her greed ended up saving Tianming.
Who could be blamed for this outcome? Tianming had only barely survived this ordeal. The black smog only relinquished control back to his soul after he hacked the woman that attempted to control him into fine pieces. He could barely remember what had happened and passed out.
***
Tianming drowsily opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged man wearing a black robe standing before him. It was Uncle Hei, Jian Qinghe's chaperone. Calmly, he said, "If you're fine, I'll take you away."
"Wait!" Tianming sat up and looked in the corner, where four mangled lumps of astrons were.
"Ying Huo, do you hear me? Meow Meow! Xian Xian! Lan Huang!"
He called out to all of them, but they didn't respond.
He lightly patted them as the panic built up within him. As his heartbeat reached its zenith, the four lumps twitched before jumping in to fuse with his limbs once more. They were able to move!
"Phew..." he finally sighed in relief. As he was still wounded down to his body's basic structure, his astrons were still messed up. Even his brain hadn’t yet returned to normal. It would take him quite a while to recover. When Ying Huo and the rest had properly returned to his body, he turned back to the man and said, "Thank you, Senior."
"You're welcome." The man shot him an odd look, then suddenly smiled. "You're truly something. You even drove a reverend to death." He seemed to be implying that he had seen what had happened. Tianming understood what he was talking about. It was incredibly awkward.
"Uhh... that..." he muttered before he completely fainted.