Beastmaster of the Ages

Chapter 4239 - Fortress

Tianming soon returned to the Inverse Battlefield with his newfound strength. He wasn't in a rush after returning to the dark, boundless continent. Instead, he focused on stabilizing his cultivation while letting Yin Chen do some reconnaissance. Yin Chen's trillions of bodies spread out in all directions in all insect forms. In terms of area, the Inverse Battlefield was probably wider than an imperial-class world and far more barren too.

As Tianming immersed himself in cultivation, Mu Qingqing watched him closely without blinking even one bit. He felt rather annoyed and asked, "What are you looking at? Don't you need to cultivate too?"

"My main body has always been in seclusion," she said shyly. "At my current level, breaking through is no longer possible. All I can do is to keep on absorbing chaotic power to maintain my peak state."

"Are you already this old?" Tianming said with some disdain.

"You're not that much better off. You only appear younger," she said, biting her lip. After spending some time together, she was acting much more relaxed unlike her old grudge-filled self. She would even joke around with Tianming from time to time.

"Why don't you use a different name?" Tianming suddenly suggested.

"Alright. Name me anything you want," she said. She knew that her name was part of the reason Tianming was so stiff towards her.

Tianming had long considered her a separate person from his Mu Qingqing, so it really didn't matter anymore. Though he tried to come up with a name, he simply couldn't find one. "Whatever. You've already gone with this name for a hundred thousand years, so others are probably too used to it by now." Since he wasn't able to change the names of everyone in the Realm of Chaos, he simply had to learn to accept that the people here were different from those in the chaos skyjail.

"Alright." She took his giving up as a sign of accepting that she was her own person and resumed her staring. Tianming didn't bother with her and focused on cultivating his orders.

"I wonder if my last two Primordial Chaos Beasts will hatch in the Realm of Chaos..." He simply didn't have an answer to that. As time passed, Yin Chen spread out across the battlefield, allowing Tianming to learn more about it.

Some day half a year later, Yin Chen said, "I found... dazzling radiance..."

He had been waiting for just that! "Lead the way!"

"Right on."

Tianming called out to Mu Qingqing. "Did you find it?" she asked.

"There's a lead on one," Tianming said.

Her eyes glowed brightly. "As expected. Just like you from back then, once you entered the Inverse Battlefield, nothing was able to stop your rising. This time around, you even have the protection of the skypole stars. Any fool that's too blind to see that even dared to proclaim that they'll widen the frontlines. Talk about no respect."

"A hundred thousand years is a long time. It's no surprise they've forgotten." Tianming proceeded through the storms of gray ahead. It was a barren world with nary a living being or person. After traveling at their fastest speed for a month, they saw some mountains that were tens of millions and even billions of meters in height. On top of one of them was a lightning ball with a diameter of a billion meters, filled with countless bolts of lightning. One could barely make out a sealed fortress within it."

"Is this the Violetblitz fortress that Yin Chen mentioned?" Tianming asked, looking ahead.

"That's right, a minor one by the look of it," Mu Qingqing said.

The various imperial-class powers in the Realm of Chaos had fortresses across the Inverse Battlefield. As the Inverse had no divine celestial patterns or formations, their fortresses were defended by the raw energy of the people stationed within. They still served defensive purposes, but they simply weren't as effective as peak-level formations.

The fortresses were hubs of manpower and resource transfer as well as important places to conquer. The fact that a Violetblitz fortress was here meant that the region around it was considered the territory of Violetblitz. Tianming and Mu Qingqing had trespassed into it!

"Is the dazzling radiance inside?" Tianming asked.

"Of course... it is... heavily defended," Yin Chen said.

Mu Qingqing explained, "Dazzling radiance is no longer of any use to your father and brother. So, in the past tens of thousands of years, others didn't bother with something that nobody would have any use for. The fact that they started doing this again right after you returned shows what they're thinking." In other words, Tianming was the only person who had any use for dazzling radiance in the Realm of Chaos.

"There is... something else," Yin Chen said.

"What?"

"There are... some Mu... Clan hostages... in there."

"How many?" Mu Qingqing asked.

"One hundred," Yin Chen said. Mu Qingqing's eyes turned cold.

"Let's head straight there," Tianming said, openly flying towards the ball of violet lightning.

***

There was a jail deep within the fortress within which a hundred youths were confined. They were covered in injuries and had downcast looks. Some of them had been reduced to essence form.

Right just then, a group of cosmic gods from Violetblitz came noisily over and cackled with teasing looks on their faces. A violet-haired youth that stood six thousand meters towered over them.

"Greetings, Marshal Jun!" Many cosmic gods immediately saluted him respectfully.

One of the youths around three thousand meters in height came to his side with a smile. "Marshal Jun, that lass, Mu Ziyan, is a naughty one with a stubborn streak. You need to teach her a good lesson today."

"Very well, a lesson it is." Marshal Jun entered the jail and looked through the prisoners. His eyes settled on a cosmic goddess who was four thousand meters tall. She was clad in black armor and had unkempt hair and wounds all over. Her arms were broken and her body glowed dimly from not having enough chaotic power to recover her injuries.