My divine beast is a foodie.

Lin Fan stared at the Star Meteorite Ring suspended in his palm, fine runes floating on the dark silver face of the ring. It was a trophy recovered from the wreckage of the Eclipsing Energy Core three days ago, and at the moment it was slowly rotating in the Association's quantum scanner. In the hologram projected by the instrument, those runes were strangely resonating with the sealing chains inside Taotie's body.

"Homology rate 99.8%." Su Yuqing tapped on the operation console, and Star Fox's tail swept the light screen over her shoulder, "These runes and Taotie's seals are from the same group of casters."

The gravity device of the training field suddenly hummed. Taotie was practicing the newly unlocked "Void Rift" in the center of the field, its right front paw had been able to briefly penetrate the dimensional barrier, but each attempt left scorching black burn marks on its scales - the vengeful backlash of those chains had become more and more dangerous after the fourth seal was lifted.

"The Starfall Soul Locking Formation is not a mere sealing technique." Chen Tianming's voice came from the communicator, "The Association's archaeological team discovered the Starfall Sect's altar under the Arctic ice, and the murals show that they maintain some sort of... through the Twelve Sacred Beasts."

An alarm interrupted the report. The Starlink monitor on Lin Fan's wrist suddenly lit up with a blood-red warning - a distress signal from Lin Xiaomeng popped up on the triple encrypted channel, and the positioning coordinates were being located on the top floor of the Starfleet Mansion in the city center.

Starlight Group's top floor banquet hall

The crystal chandelier rustled with energy vibrations. Lin Xiaomeng was trapped in front of the floor-to-ceiling window by a cage made of seven star trails, and the Star Fox was curled up in her arms, its beautiful star-colored fur stained with scorch marks. Twelve black-robed men hovered in mid-air, the Starfall insignia on their chests glowing with an icy light.

"One last time." The masked man at the head had dark red runes flowing from his fingertips, "How did that kid called Lin Fan destroy the Ember Energy Core?"

Lin Xiaomeng wiped away the blood at the corner of her mouth, and the Star Fox's tail suddenly exploded with bright starlight, "You Starfall remnants..." The contract seal on her wrist suddenly glowed, "Are also worthy of knowing?"

The starlight cage suddenly twisted and distorted. Star Fox turned into streams of light and merged into the young girl's star chain, and the majestic power of the stars shattered the tempered glass into pieces. However, the black-robed man only sneered, and twelve chain shadows appeared out of thin air-exactly the simplified version of the Starfall Soul Locking Formation.

"Watch out!" Lin Fan, who had broken the window, threw out three spatial blades. The "Star Gap Shuttle" that he had just comprehended was not stable enough, and his right arm was cut by the spatial turbulence and drenched in blood.

Taotie's roar shattered the remaining glass walls. It slammed into the chain formation with a dark devouring vortex, but was recoiled from the chains the moment it made contact - the chains were actually devouring its origin power!

"Stupid." The masked man raised his hand to summon more chains, "The Starfall Soul Locking Formation specializes in you people..."

Before the words left his mouth, Su Yuqing's Shield of Starburst descended from the sky. Pho Pho's seductive voice resonated marvelously with Star Fox's star power, and the frequency of star power in the entire space began to disorganize. Lin Fan seized this momentary gap, and the double contract bit on the Star Chain lit up at the same time.

"Star Chain Liberation-Fourfold!" His left hand grabbed Taotie's devouring vortex, and his right hand pulled Star Fox's astral light stream, "Dual Pole Annihilation!"

A torrent of black and white intertwined energy swept through the banquet hall. When the light dissipated, the twelve black-robed men had been reduced to ashes, leaving only the masked man relying on the Starfall Ring to hold up his shield. His mask shattered, revealing a face covered in star-shaped tattoos.

"The Starfall Sect... Forever and ever..." The man laughed maniacally as he crushed the ring, dark red runes instantly wrapping around his body, "You have no idea what you're fighting against..."

The void suddenly cracked open with a bloody mouth. Without waiting for the crowd to react, the man was already dragged into the dimensional rift, leaving only mournful screams echoing in the air.

Early in the morning of the next day - Imperial Beastmaster Association's Forbidden Vault

Under the cold blue light of the lamp, Lin Fan was studying the remnants of the Starfall Ring. After lifting the fourth seal, his Star Chain could clearly sense the malice flowing through these runes - it was an icy will that viewed spirit beasts as energy batteries.

"The Starfall Sect was active three thousand years ago." Chen Tianming pulled up the holographic archive, "They believed that Mythic Spirit Beasts were pollutants leaking from the star cores, and that their power had to be sealed to maintain the balance of the world."

An ancient mural surfaced in the projection: nine Starfall Priests stood on a ring-shaped altar, with the remains of twelve Mythic Grade Spirit Beasts under their feet. Lin Fan noticed that Taotie's portrait was specially labeled, and the location of the broken horns in front of his forehead was exactly the same as in reality.

"Balance?" Taotie suddenly spoke as it was nibbling on a specially made dark energy cube, "It's just the fear of a mole cricket for a giant dragon."

The temperature of the forbidden vault plummeted. Lin Fan's Star Chain Monitor let out a piercing chirp - the five sealing chains within Taotie's body suddenly materialized, cutting the entire space into broken mirrors. In those mirror fragments, Lin Fan saw incredible images:

In the vastness of the starry sky, the adult-bodied Taotie was engaging in battle with a certain giant of light. Each of its movements triggered a supernova eruption, and its twelve origin powers transformed into brilliant star ribbons. But nine starfall chains suddenly ran through the universe, dragging it towards a pitch-black abyss...

"This is the truth." Taotie's pupils turned molten gold, "The Star Meteorite Sect sealed not only power, but also memories."

Lin Fan suddenly understood the loneliness behind those binge eating. When the Starfall Chains deprived the Taotie of its spatial and temporal perception, and even its memories turned into scattered fragments, perhaps the only way to confirm that it truly existed was to keep eating.

The alarm sounded again. The quantum computer in the Forbidden Vault suddenly ran on its own, and the starfall runes combined on the screen to form a three-dimensional star map - pointing right at a certain coordinate in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

"Seventh Eclipsing Energy Reaction Point." Su Yuqing rushed into the forbidden vault, "Form a Beidou formation with the previous six locations..."

Her words were interrupted by a violent vibration of the ground. Beasts roared one after another from outside the Association Building, and the night sky was dyed a bizarre dark red. Lin Fan rushed to the window and saw that twelve Star Meteorite Chains were intertwining into a net in the clouds, with the silhouette of a Mythic Grade Spirit Beast tethered to the end of each chain.

Taotie's roar shattered the bulletproof glass. Its size skyrocketed in anger, and the fifth sealing chain let out an unbearable wail, "Old Starfall Thief! How dare you... How dare you use the remnants of your compatriot's soul..."

Lin Fan's star chain suddenly resonated with those shadows. At the deep level of the contract, he felt the overwhelming pathos - it was the spirit beast spirits that had been imprisoned for ten thousand years, a torment that could not even be ended by death.

"Star Chain Liberation-Fivefold!" Lin Fan's eyes flowed with a molten gold-like light. The dual contracted bits erupted with unprecedented brilliance as the devouring power of Taotie and the star power of Star Fox spiraled and entangled, tearing open a huge dimensional rift in the night sky.

The moment the twelve shadows surged into the rift, Lin Fan saw the ultimate secret of the Starfall Sect - in some parallel dimension, nine star coffins were drawing power from the remnant souls of the spirit beasts, and the faces sleeping in the coffins were seven times similar to Chen Tianming.

The following day at dusk - Special Action Team Conference Room

"Effective immediately, the Association enters a level one state of combat readiness." Chen Tianming's voice came through the encrypted channel, "All Imperial Beastmasters of rank A or above head to the Pacific Ocean at the G-727 coordinates, we need to activate the seventh Eclipsing Energy Point before..."

Lin Fan turned off the communicator and gently wiped the Starfall ring. Taotie was lying next to him, gnawing on an energy block, and the cracks of the fifth seal were looming under its scales. When the sea breeze lifted the hem of his combat suit, it revealed a new other weapon at his waist - it was a double-edged sword made from the fragments of the sealing chains, with the star core gifted by Star Fox embedded in the hilt.

Su Yuqing's projection suddenly appeared on the deck, "Dimensional fluctuations detected, arriving at the battlefield in three minutes."

Lin Fan looked towards the gradually forming vortex of eclipsing energy at the junction of the sea and sky, the body heat of the Taotie transmitting a searing battle intent through the contract ring. Behind him, twelve starships were unfolding their attack array in the clouds, while deeper in the darkness, some kind of existence older than the Starfall Sect was awakening.