Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming shook his head and smiled. "I was only joking, don\'t take me seriously. I wasn\'t counting on them to help us, given how stubborn they usually are. It\'s already good enough that they\'ll be staying within their formation and not causing us trouble."

"Yeah! I told them about that and they agreed. When I was on the way back, the dreamless celestial emperor\'s lifebound beast was asking for people to avenge him, but I tamed it and showed the dreamless celestials my divine wonders," she said.

"His lifebound beast? You mean the one he took in using a blood pact?" According to reports, that was a grade-seven divine beast. But it wasn\'t that powerful, and paled in comparison to the Warlord\'s beasts. It was basically a pet that was left to the side as it aged.

"That\'s right."

"Doesn\'t it know about Skywolf?"

"Probably not, otherwise it would be spreading news of that around given how rowdy it was."

"That\'s good." Tianming had almost forgotten about the lifebound beasts of the dreamless celestial emperor and his children. The fact that they hadn’t even brought their lifebound beasts with them showed how the dreamless celestials held no regard for lifebound beasts if they weren\'t naturally born. "It\'s great that you\'re back. I need your help, little fish."

"Okay."

"Where’s your sisters?"

"They\'re all in my body."

It seemed like they were ready to fight. Tianming took her and Lingfeng to the grand hall at Great Saintdragon Peak. The two of them would play important roles in the upcoming battle. Right as they entered, Yin Chen sent some odd news.

"Apparently a hundred-odd crimson and gold formations appeared in the celestial orderian territory out of nowhere," Tianming said.

"What does that mean? Long Wanying asked.

"I\'m not sure, Yin Chen just detected it. We’ll have to wait and see." Tianming continued telepathically communicating with Yin Chen. While it was faster than by mouth, Yin Chen\'s odd, stuttering speech pattern still made it janky. After some time, he said, "Odd... there’s around a hundred formations of indeterminate grade, each of them looking like a crimson and gold pillar that stretches up to the clouds."

"Indeterminate grade? Can’t Yin Chen tell what grade it is?" the Northdipper Swordsage said.

"No, it heard the locals talking about them. Apparently, the appearance of these ‘skyreach pillars’ has come as a shock to the locals as well. Everyone\'s talking about it. Yin Chen said that they only appeared around the hundred most prosperous cities of their territory." Tianming turned to the Saintdragon Emperor with a doubtful look. "Why’re the locations of the hundred cities of the celestial orderians mirrored to the locations of the top hundred sects of the Myriad Solar Sects?"

The sun was a sphere, and every point on it had a corresponding mirror point on the other side of that sphere. For instance, the north and south poles were mirror points of one another. According to Yin Chen, the cities of the celestial orderians corresponded to the main bases of the top hundred sects, including the Empyrean Sword Sect, Divinemight Dynasty, and even the Azuresoul Palace. The pillars had appeared around those celestial orderian cities, which was a shocking sight that changed the scenery of the sun. Such occurrences were uncommon no matter what age they were in.

"That\'s no surprise. The structure of the fusion formation makes it so. The sects are constructed on the points of the fusion formation where there are openings, so as to benefit from the higher output of nova source, which is also the same reason why the celestial orderian cities are constructed at the mirror points. The solar core can change the output of the fusion formation\'s openings, but the openings themselves can\'t be changed. That\'s why the Myriaddragon Mountains has always had the most dense nova source output since ancient times," the Saintdragon Emperor said.

Tianming imagined the two corresponding points to be the entry and exit points of a needle if it were pierced through the sun\'s core. Right now, a hundred such pillar formations had appeared near the cities of some points.

"A hundred of them, huh...." For something like that to take place before the grand battle was a foreboding omen. What in the world were the sun emperor\'s plans? When had he prepared those formations? Why did they appear for seemingly no reason? Then, new reports caused Tianming to jump with surprise.

"The same pillar formations appeared near the Azuresoul Palace and Supracloud Sanctuary! They\'re identical to the ones in celestial orderian territory!"

"What?!"

"Have Gujian Qingshuang and Yun Tianque come here. Do they know about this?"

Tianming called out to them, but it was pointless as the same formations had appeared near the five second-rate sects of the Land of Three Skies, replacing their destroyed defensive formations. After that, even the Windheed Pavilion experienced the same. All of them were second-rate sects. The pillars spread toward the south of the sun, leaving only the top ten sects without one. The pillars only rose at sects with destroyed defensive formations, giving Tianming and the rest a sense of what was taking place.

"So it looks like the sun emperor wasn\'t just fighting for no reason. He\'s sparing so much effort to attack us instead of dealing with the voidheart worm because it\'s necessary."

"Perhaps he\'s trying to activate some special formations."

"What happens if all the top hundred sects get covered by them?"

Nobody could tell for now, but they were certain that the sun emperor wouldn\'t back down until the Myriaddragon Mountains fell, even with the threat of Skywolf looming over them.