Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

“Sage monarch magistrates?”

Jadefall, Yang Zhan, Yang Immortal-Slayer, Yang Manifestation, Yang Memory, Yang Doom, Yang Proudworld, and everyone else was completely taken aback. How could they have guessed that Yang Qi would already have a name for his new type of thrall?

“That’s right,” Yang Qi said. “Sage monarch magistrates. They’ll be the most powerful type of thrall troop in the Sage Monarch Society. They aren’t slaves, but rather a higher form of existence. Eventually, they’ll run daily affairs, administer justice, assess disciples, and handle important business. In any organization, corruption is a big problem in the administration. And one corrupt administrator can cause problems for the destiny as a whole, eventually leading to the downfall of the organization. But our sage monarch magistrates will be both powerful and selfless. Their minds will be clean, and they’ll serve public interests with complete loyalty. Imagine the purity of our organization, and the nature of the destiny.”

Everyone nodded in approval and provided their own input.

“True.”

“It’ll be good to have them in charge of things like breakthroughs, medicinal pill distribution, assessments, arrests, law enforcement, and whatnot. It’s important for administrators to be impartial. The House of God Ordainment isn't large, but as the saying goes, the sparrow may be small, but all its vital organs are there. For example, in the past, many disciples formed cliques for personal gain, making unity difficult and resulting in an overall reduction in power. But after prohibiting personal conflict, we experienced dramatic growth. Without corrupt disciples, we’ll be much stronger.”

“That's right. Calling them sage monarch magistrates is appropriate. Very appropriate.”

Everyone seemed to be on the same page.

“Exactly,” Yang Qi said. “That said, don’t be too quick to rejoice. This is only the nascent form of a sage monarch magistrate. I still need to add in the martial-god soldier-kings to make the complete version. I'm going to the Harvestland to look for Eternal Millennium. With my Unbounded will, I can subjugate him and get him under control. Then I can work on the larger plan of taking over the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty and seizing its destiny.”

“Do you need our help?”

“No. I can do it on my own, and bringing you along would only be beating the grass and startling the snake. If the higher echelons of the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty found out what was happening, it could lead to open war, and that would harm all my plans. Although we could beat them in a fight, it would most assuredly attract the attention of the League of Academies, the League of Wretch-Gods, the League of the Devil-Dao, the Nacrelight Sageland, and other major powers. And some of them would surely try taking advantage of the situation.

“So I want to accomplish this task with Eternal Millennium as surreptitiously as possible. If he were in the middle of the court, it would be very difficult to subjugate him. But he’s far away in that Harvestland he set up, harvesting destiny. No one in the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty will have any idea what's happening.”

“How long will it take? Do you already have all the information you need about him?” Jadefall asked. She had full trust in Yang Qi, especially after hearing the results of his assessment, as well as his plan.

“I know everything I need to know. What’s more, even though his Harvestland is a profound place, I have his will convergence clone, which will only make it that much easier for me to take control of the place. I’d hoped to prepare more for this moment, but I'm out of time.”

WHOOSH!

Yang Qi vanished, and when he reappeared, he was right outside the Harvestland. The place was enormous, and it was sucking in massive amounts of destiny, both to temper Eternal Millennium’s physical form, and also to grow the martial-god soldier-kings.

Yang Qi had taken a lot of destiny from the Deva Dynasty, and most of that had been given to Eternal Millennium.

Eternal Millennium was spending all of his time cultivating his energy arts, and wasn't even bothering to check in with his formal duties at the court. To him, power was the most important thing. Without it, how could he ever control the dynasty?

Meanwhile, Yang Qi was looking over the Harvestland as a whole. If he hadn’t been secretly funneling destiny to it, it would have been very difficult for him to find, as it was hidden in the middle of enormous spatial tempests.

Even Paramount Gods would get lost trying to come here without teleporting directly in.

But Yang Qi was different. Locking onto Eternal Millennium’s position, he quickly set up a spell formation to lock down the area and make sure no messages could be sent out of the Harvestland. Meanwhile, the crown prince was working on his cultivation inside, completely unaware that he was already trapped.

In the past, Yang Qi’s cultivation base hadn’t been superior to Eternal Millennium’s. But with four pieces of the Mahātmā Jade, and the time he had spent cultivating in the Deva Dynasty, he had replaced hunting rifles with cannons.

The crown prince sat cross-legged, slowly working, not with his energy arts, but with the magical laws of the universe. Doing this allowed him to gain a greater understanding of the great dao of the universe itself, and by extension, allowed him to grasp at the workings of heaven.

BAM!

All of a sudden, one of the heads of wheat collapsed, and a martial-god soldier-king appeared, its aura immense, with psychic fluctuations around the level of a hundred and fifty thousand.

The War God Commander’s Tally only produced troops in the range of eighty to ninety thousand! The martial-god soldier-kings were living up to their reputation. And these weren’t prototypes, but the final version, albeit not in a complete state of growth.

Eternal Millennium threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I’ve finally produced a juvenile martial-god soldier-king! Such power! I'm not disappointed at all. Just this one version is many times stronger than a peak Perfect God! But this still isn’t good enough....”

“You're right,” a voice echoed out, “it's far from good enough. That juvenile martial-god soldier-king has a psychic scale and godhood rating of a hundred and fifty thousand. That just won’t do. It needs to be more like three hundred thousand.”

“Who’s there? A hundred fifty thousand? Three hundred thousand? What are you talking about?”

Eternal Millennium was already on his feet looking around. Of course, he had no idea how the Cruiser of Civilization assessed cultivation, so he had no idea what Yang Qi was talking about.

“Ordinary Lesser Gods have a godhood rating of one, and a psychic scale of one. It's an ancient assessment method passed down by the Lord of Civilization, designed to gauge fighting prowess.”

“Who are you? How did you get into my Harvestland? Show your face!” Baleful energy surged within the crown prince, causing screaming winds to fill the Harvestland.

That was when Yang Qi appeared, standing only a few dozen meters in front of Eternal Millennium.

The crown prince had no idea how he had come to be there, but as soon as he saw him, he recognized his face. “Oh, it’s you, Yang Qi. You—”

“Yes, it's me. What do you have to say for yourself? Did you think that just because I joined your Crown Prince Society and gave you some destiny, that you controlled me? The truth is that I control you! I know everything about you, including the fact that you’re too weak to fight me. You wanted to turn the Sage Monarch Society and the House of God Ordainment into puppets. Sadly, what’s actually going to happen is that I'm going to take over the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty.”

Eternal Millennium stared at Yang Qi for a long moment, then burst out laughing. “For the first time ever, I actually misjudged someone. So, you’re some sort of top expert? I knew that although Yang Immortal-Slayer had reached the Unbounded level, Jadefall was still the leader of the Sage Monarch Society. But in the end, you were running things from behind the scenes. You’re the real villain behind the curtain, aren’t you? Not even a Paramount God should be able to sneak into my Harvestland without me knowing. Who exactly are you?”

“Yang Qi,” he said. “That’s my real name.”

“There’s no way. It’s impossible that someone as powerful as you would be a complete unknown.” The crown prince smiled coldly. “You’re definitely the patriarch of some top organization.”

“The god world is a big place. There are probably a lot of top experts out there you’ve never heard of. Furthermore, the Eternal-Life God-Dynasty is little more than a village that’s hardly worth mentioning. You really are ignorant and ill-informed, Eternal Millennium.”

“If you want to be like that, then prepare to die!”

Eternal Millennium suddenly launched an attack.

Thrusting out a palm, he drew on the power of the Harvestland, exerting such immense pressure that the magical laws of the god world, and even the great dao of the universe, started collapsing. Then he sent all of that immense power rumbling toward Yang Qi.

“Heaven-Fate Martial-God Palm!”

A domineering, invincible power was bearing down on Yang Qi.

However, he just laughed.

As the palm neared him, its force vanished as surely as a statue of an ox tossed into the sea. In the end, Eternal Millennium’s hand stopped about three inches away from Yang Qi, and couldn't proceed any further.