Beastmaster of the Ages

Worried about Zi Zhen's safety, Tianming gave chase. A sea of invisible metal moved toward the direction of the Bloodtower Cult. However, he eventually realized that he wouldn't be able to stop Zi Zhen at all.

She had shown up in the lair of the cult, having lost all reason, and was fighting anything that moved according to Yin Chen's reports. The members of the cult didn't know who she was and were quite confused, but soon they discovered that the elder had fled and were completely flabbergasted.

Fortunately for them, a few members who had interacted with the nascent mediums recalled who the beast was.

"I heard those outworlders mention the fugitives of the New Shrine! This specter matches their description!"

"Is this Zi Zhen?"

"Yes, that's her!"

"Quick! Notify the others."

Soon, the second and fourth heads decided on a temporary truce and joined the fray in the fight against Zi Zhen.

"Don't kill her, capture her! She's worth a fortune!" Both of them wanted the bounty for themselves.

As the fight progressed, Zi Zhen underwent another huge transformation, greatly hampering her ability to resist.

"How’s it going?" Tianming asked.

"She has... been captured... kept in... a cage!" The cage Yin Chen mentioned was a cosmic artifact the cult had imported from the astralscape of order, known as the Ninefold Blitzhell. It was made of top-tier divine ores and contained Universal Lightning Impulse. No matter how much Zi Zhen struggled, roared, or slammed her body against the bars, she wasn't able to emerge from it. The sudden development was completely out of Tianming's control.

"This is bad. Now that she's captured, the cult will soon send her to the New Shrine to claim the bounty and she'll fall into Li Fan's hands." Tianming furrowed his brows as he neared the lair. He heard crackles of lightning accompanied by howls and slamming sounds.

The second and fourth seats of the cult stopped their infighting and sent people to hunt down the elder while they dealt with Zi Zhen. Tianming could hear their discussion through Yin Chen, and it appeared that they had opposing opinions. In the end, they decided to keep things quiet from the New Shrine, since they believed that the bounty of three hundred million soulstones was too low. In fact, the bonus they would get for capturing both Tianming and Zi Zhen was even higher.

"Let's just wait. Either way, they'll raise the bounty if they don't capture them after enough time passes."

"That makes sense. The New Shrine’s never really offered a bounty like this before. Since they went out of their way to break a precedent, it must be rather important."

"That's right! Do they really think that three hundred million is enough to get people to do their bidding?"

In the end, they settled on waiting until the bounty reached 1.5 billion before they would consider handing Zi Zhen over.

"Those two should be a unit. Maybe that white-haired kid is also nearby. We'll use this lass to lure that outworlder kid out. Make sure to have more people stationed nearby."

That decision gave Tianming quite a bit of relief. Had they really chosen to send her off to the New Shrine, he would be facing a much worse dilemma. He knew that he couldn't just barge in and take her with him, especially with her having lost control like she had. All he could do now was have Yin Chen stay nearby to monitor the situation.

"Maybe I'll stand a chance if I strengthen myself." Tianming was feeling rather anxious about the time. He had quite a few grade-two order fragments with him, and at that point, he didn't really care about wasting them anymore. He began to absorb and refine them near the lair of the cult. It wouldn't be long before he broke through to the next level.

"As expected, grade-two order fragments aren't nearly as good as grade threes." It didn't help that Tianming's eight streams of order made things much harder. It was clear to him that his orders didn't react much after he ingested the order fragments. He was treading a far different path from the rest. For normal people, as long as there were enough grade-two order fragments, there would still be some substantial effect, especially at the ninth astral phase.

"Fuck!" He was losing it. Consuming the fragments without any benefits was just a waste. "If I had given them to my godfather, it would've strengthened him quite a bit!"

It hurt, and worst of all, he wasn't any closer to saving Zi Zhen. He monitored the movements of the cult members, but still wasn't able to come up with anything.

"There is... something we... can do," Yin Chen said, seeing Tianming's troubled look.

"What?" After a short chat, he understood what it had in mind. It mentioned that there was a spot with quite a few grade-three order fragments called the Fiendhunt Gorge. It was actually a large trading area in the Ninth District that remained open even during the blackout period.

Tianming could definitely buy a grade-three order fragment from the administrator of the gorge, the Fiendhunt King. However, that person was one of the top elites of the Ninth District, being incredibly close to being a foundationeer. It would be suicide for Tianming to meet him with all that money, so the normal way was out of the question.

Fortunately, Yin Chen could infiltrate through so many other ways. After much observation and analysis, it had discovered that the administrator had an illegitimate son that nobody knew about. He kept that fact a secret to protect his son while he matured.

The son's name was Gu Tianyue, and like Lord Guang Ling of the New Shrine, he was an antiquitean with two different colored snake heads. He was young and praised as a rising star in the Fiendhunt Gorge, with everyone oblivious to the fact of who his father really was except for Yin Chen.

"So we can kidnap Gu Tianyue to threaten his father!" Knowing that staying here wouldn't achieve anything, Tianming was ready to jump at that opportunity.

"Then, do we force the Fiendhunt King to give you the order fragment for free?" Ying Huo asked.

"No. That’d be too big of a loss for him and would considerably complicate things. I plan to establish a channel of commerce through Gu Tianyue, not just for this purchase, but future purchases as well. That’ll be my main way of converting soulstones into order fragments."