Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

After taking over the building previously occupied by the House of Blood Sacrifice, the disciples of the Sage Monarch Society got to work. Three months passed, during which time Yang Qi continued to create godnotes, which the disciples used to pay for everything they needed, including medicinal ingredients, exotic building materials, god items, magical treasures, corpses, and whatnot. Anything that could be valuable for cultivation purposes was stockpiled.

The Sage Monarch Consortium was already making a name for itself in the Wasteland Bazaar, expanding operations and erecting new outlets for various aspects of the business. Given the level of Yang Qi’s energy arts, it was easy for him to create puppets to help construct buildings or set up spell formations.

Numerous structures sprang up on the banks of the river, all of them belonging to the Sage Monarch Consortium. Hosts of experts could be seen frequenting the area.

The Heaven-Wretch Continent was a haven for fugitives, loners, and people in desperate situations. Many such people sought places of refuge, and the Sage Monarch Consortium offered it to them.

This continent was a place where, as long as you had enough money, you could hire people to do any type of dangerous job you wanted them to do, even assassinations or robberies. Of course, if you weren’t strong enough, you could easily fall victim to such people.

Many of the experts who now worked for the Sage Monarch Consortium were actually people who had originally been hired to spy on them. It was a given that as soon as a new business popped up, other experts in the area would want to find out more information about it. When it came to the conflicted paths of the righteous and wretched, there was always mutual slaughter and robbery to worry about.

Sadly for the people who opposed the Sage Monarch Consortium, they had Yang Qi to deal with. Those people who caused problems, but were too weak to be an asset, ended up killed, while the higher-level experts were turned into puppets.

During the three months that passed, he acquired three early Consummate God experts, nineteen Greater Gods, and a larger group of Common Gods. The Lesser Gods were useless and were just killed. It seemed as if, in the Heaven-Wretch Continent, good people simply didn’t exist.

The new captives had their brains washed, and were given tasks such as guarding the warehouses, operating the sales booths, dealing with enemy incursions, or powering spell formations. Despite the progress Yang Qi was making, it wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy given how large the Wasteland Bazaar was. Nobody even knew how many organizations operated there, and a company that had been around for three months was like nothing, considering there were others that had existed for thirty thousand years.

During the first month, all the customers were all Lesser and Common Gods; the Greater and Consummate Gods would do little more than try to gather information about the new business. In the second month, business grew. And in the third month, the Sage Monarch Consortium was getting so well-known that they finally had Consummate God customers.

As business boomed, Yang Qi finally erected a spell formation leading directly back to the god kingdom of the House of God Ordainment. His cultivation level was such that he could create teleportation portals now, albeit with some difficulty, and only with the assistance of the God Legion Seal.

With the portal in place, he could start sending goods into the House of God Ordainment, providing immense benefits to the disciples of the Sage Monarch Society there.

Meanwhile, Jadefall and the other leaders arranged for a rotation of disciples to head to the Wasteland Bazaar and gain experience. The fighting and killing that went on with people from the dao of devils could provide immense benefits to the cultivation base.

Another thing that happened during the three month period was that membership in the Sage Monarch Society soared.

Unfortunately, no Perfect Gods had come to patronize the new business, thus Yang Qi had not yet acquired any unique treasures, boundless medicinal pills, or other incredible items. That was only to be expected. After all, the type of things he needed would be of interest even to Paramount Gods, so how could they appear in place like this?

In any case, business was booming so much that the Sage Monarch Society could be considered fabulously wealthy now. Doing business in the Wasteland Bazaar was vastly more profitable than doing business in the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty. After all, this was a place where people constantly fought and killed enemies, looted their corpses, and returned to sell that loot for profit. And considering the Sage Monarch Consortium always had godnotes to pay for such things, it was quickly becoming a favored destination by many people.

Back in the god kingdom, Jadefall smiled broadly as, on a daily basis, she had to assign people to sort through the goods that poured in through the teleportation portal. Soon enough, word spread in the House of God Ordainment that the Sage Monarch Society was getting very rich, very quickly.

And of course, that only led to even more people joining.

If things went on like this, it seemed a given that the Sage Monarch Society would eventually control the entire sect.

**

At a certain location out in the void was a place called the Heaven-Devil Dimension, where countless heaven-devils roamed. Right now, over a thousand members of the Sage Monarch Society were there under the leadership of Sword Seventeen, fighting with their godpower and thoughts in perfect unison.

“Everybody get ready: Sword Energy Megabeam!”

CRASH!

Staying in tight formation, they became a huge beam of sword light that slashed this way and that, cutting a wide swath through the heaven-devils and causing many of them to fall in death.

“Now, switch sword techniques!” Sword Seventeen said coldly. “Kill All Life under Heaven!”

The disciples bristled with killing energy as they switched to King Life-Killer’s sword technique, instantly causing a mass slaughter of heaven-devils.

The disciples of the Sage Monarch Society were training so smoothly that they seemed like soldiers in an army.

After the training was over, they headed to the Heaven-Wretch Continent, where they gained more experience hunting dangerous godlings, and fighting powerful devil-gods. Thanks to their efforts, their borders were expanding in the Wasteland Bazaar.

Of course, during the process, they earned plenty of loot.

A few months passed, during which the territory they commanded had expanded to cover an area of three thousand square kilometers.

However, the Wasteland Bazaar occupied an area of a trillion square kilometers, so three thousand square kilometers within that was like one hair on ninety thousand oxen. No matter what activities they were involved in, it still wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things.

After all, the Heaven-Wretch Continent had countless powerful organizations on it. Furthermore, it was considered a buffer region between the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty, Nacrelight Sageland, and League of Wretch-Gods, all of which were thousands of times larger than the House of God Ordainment.

That said, even though their business only occupied a three-thousand-square-kilometer area, it was still a bustling place. Eventually, Yang Qi didn’t even need to make godnotes to ensure the business was highly profitable.

‘Ah, what a pity. The business is only bringing in goods that can be useful to Consummate Gods or lower. Business is booming, but there’s nothing I can personally use.’

It really was a disappointment.

At a certain point, Zhang Jufang hurried in. “Milord, a group of experts arrived, and I’m pretty sure they’re Perfect Gods. They claim to have some Unbounded medicinal pills, plus talismans created by an ancient Paramount God. They want to know if we're interested in them.”

“What? Perfect Gods? So after all this time, some Perfect Gods have finally come. Excellent, maybe now we can finally do some big business. I’ll take however many Unbounded medicinal pills they have to offer.”

Zhang Jufang led him to the audience chamber, where he saw a group of about fifteen experts, all of them wearing hooded cloaks that made it difficult to read their auras. However, after scanning the group, Yang Qi came to the conclusion that they were all Perfect Gods. Furthermore, they all emanated the auras of devil-gods and wretch-gods.

“This is our number-one boss. If you want to discuss a big business deal, he's the one to talk to.” Feeling uncomfortable because of the auras present, Zhang Jufang left after making the introduction.

“Please, have a seat, everyone,” Yang Qi said, gesturing at the chairs in the middle of the room. “What sort of deal are you interested in? I heard you had some god pills created by an Unbounded expert, and some talismans left behind by a Paramount God. If you bring them out, I can assess them.”

“So, you’re Yang Qi?” one of the experts said, throwing back his hood to reveal a treacherous-looking face. He looked middle-aged, with bushy eyebrows, an aquiline nose, sunken eyes, and black teeth. He looked quite terrifying, and his aura was so sinister it would make most people faint from sensing it.

Frowning slightly, Yang Qi said, “Yes, I'm Yang Qi. I'm honestly surprised you know my name, Sire. Who might you be?”

“I'm King Blacktooth, Perfect God,” he replied, flashing a mysterious smile full of black teeth. “And you, boy, are only a mid Consummate God. Normally speaking, someone like you wouldn’t even qualify to talk to me. But your Sage Monarch Consortium has been making waves lately, and I know you’re important in the House of God Ordainment. Furthermore, you have the support of that girl Jadefall, as well as your brother Yang Immortal-Slayer, the apprentice of the Lord of the True Void.”

“Ah, you really do know a lot about me.” Yang Qi studied this King Blacktooth, and immediately realized that he pulsed with toxic poison. That was especially true of his teeth, which were a result of his cultivation of a dao of wretches. Even his mere breath caused a poisonous mist to fill the area. Thankfully, there weren’t any employees present, otherwise they would have been killed by it, melted away until nothing was left but their godhood.

“The fifteen of us are all wretch-gods and famous experts from the dao of devils. We're here today to talk business.” With a flourish, King Blacktooth went on to introduce the other fourteen experts present. “This is Arhat Blackheart, and this is King Banehand. Over here is—”

“Enough, King Blacktooth,” someone said in a screeching voice. “What’s the point of introducing all of us? This brat is nothing but a Consummate God. What exactly is the point of telling him our names?”