Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

The army of the Invincible Dynasty had divisions devoted to warfare, martial law, training, assassination, and the like. The army was very influential, and when it came time for war, it would become even more powerful, and resources would be poured into it. It was hard to say how many threats to the Invincible Dynasty had been destroyed by the army throughout the years.

The confucians weren’t easy to subjugate, as they had special cultivation techniques and abilities, and were closely linked to the destiny of the nation. Yang Qi wasn’t inclined to waste time on them, thus he shifted his attention to the army.

The members of the army were top experts who specialized in fighting and war. They weren’t particularly adept at matters relating to the heart or destiny, therefore, they would be easier to deal with.

Once the leaders of the army were subjugated, Yang Qi would have truly inserted himself into the Invincible Dynasty like a parasite. He was like a tumor that was slowly leeching away at the dynasty’s force.

“That’s the army just ahead.” Yang Qi caught sight of an enormous military base that resembled the encampment of the Army of Radiance and Light in the Bastille of the One God. It thrummed with killing energy, and troops were pouring into it constantly through teleportation portals.

The destiny of the army was linked with the destiny of the nation, creating a power that could conquer every obstacle in its path.

‘The army has quite a formidable killing energy. Should I try subjugating it from the bottom up, or the top down?’ He had to make a decision whether to start with a peak Paramount God with a psychic scale of only one billion, or to aim higher, such as a marshal with a psychic scale of ten billion.

The weaker target would be easier to subjugate, the stronger one would obviously be harder.

Unfortunately, subjugating weaker individuals would clog up the bandwidth of the God Legion Seal, and make its functions less efficient. Even Yang Qi’s mind had limits, just like how photonic computers had limitations.

He had only recently subjugated the Spritefolk and the Dragonfolk, and monitoring all of the thoughts of the people involved was no simple task.

There seemed little point in wasting time on the underlings. He would aim for a peak Paramount God!

‘I’ll subjugate some of the army leaders, get more destiny, then start working on that Heaven-Burying God Pill with power from the halls of heaven. All I have to do is advance my cultivation base one more step, and Proud Heaven won’t pose a big threat.’

He was really looking forward to acquiring some of the quintessence of the Great Necropolis via that Heaven-Burying God Pill.

Proud Heaven had hoped to get Emperor Sprite Totem under his control. How could he ever have guessed that Yang Qi would beat him to it? And not only that, but Yang Qi would also use the power of the halls of heaven to unlock the trap of the god pill he had provided as a gift, then use it to learn more about the Great Necropolis.

Yang Qi knew he would eventually have a showdown with Proud Heaven, the result of which would determine who got the Great Necropolis.

Obviously, subjugating important people in the army was the best way to get more destiny. And the more destiny he had, the better. That would increase the number of his sage monarch magistrates, and enable him to control the thinking of his government officials even better.

With that, he blurred into motion as he entered the army and looked for the most impressive aura he could find. It didn't seem like it would be a difficult task. This was the location where all the marshals resided.

However, after searching through several parts of the base, he found that most of the army officers weren’t present. His first guess was that they were all in a meeting somewhere. Quickly drawing on his Life-Death Void-Destruction God-Lightning and the Myriad Worlds Greater Teleportation, he headed deeper into the base.

It was such a huge place that even a Paramount God who tried flying from one end to the other would need a long time. Thankfully, Yang Qi was far beyond the level of an ordinary Paramount God.

All of a sudden, he noticed a part of the camp that had been built out of a mountain chain. It looked almost like a temple of stone that had been built to resemble the word Invincible.

Within that temple were numerous auras that could only belong to elite experts. ‘Why are there so many top experts gathered here?’ he thought. ‘These are people with psychic scales of ten billion! The Dragonfolk only had twenty-eight of them. I knew the House of the Invincible surpassed the Dragonfolk, but the fact that they have thousands of these people is terrifying. There might even be tens of thousands of them! They’re almost as numerous as the God-Lords from the Sovereign Lord’s Age.’

Even a few hundred God-Lords with psychic scales of ten billion would be difficult for Yang Qi to defeat and subjugate. And there were definitely more than a few hundred people of that level here.

In other words, he might as well forget about trying to subjugate them, and instead consider how to not get killed by them.

What exactly were they meeting about?

Thankfully, the palace was lit with numerous burning lamps, so Yang Qi simply called on the power of the Everlit Godlamp to insert himself into one of them and spy on the proceedings.

As he examined the situation, he saw that there were several hundred marshals, all of them on the level of God-Lords with ratings of ten billion, dressed in the clothing of the House of the Invincible. Opposite them were seated numerous experts from the House of the Chiliocosm. Unexpectedly, this was a meeting between two opposing armed forces.

There were hundreds of God-Lord-level experts here!

Even the combined experts of the Spritefolk and Dragonfolk who were in that level couldn’t surpass that number. He had the twenty-eight Dragonfolk patriarchs, the Second and Third Devil Generals, Yang Jian, and himself. That was a total of thirty-two. Add in the roughly forty or so from the Spritefolk, and it didn’t even surpass eighty.

Present in this hall was a group that numbered nearly a thousand. The nine patriarchs of the House of the Invincible even had ratings that went past a hundred billion.

If all of them acted together, there was no way Yang Qi could be a match for them.

If the group that was gathered here today went onto the warpath, he would be in a very dangerous situation. He might have founded a fourth dynasty, but its destiny wasn’t stable, and if he faced an enemy like this, it would probably be destroyed.

That said, he was fairly confident they wouldn’t take any such action. The casualties for them would be too severe. After all, the Central Dynasty was eying both of them like a tiger eying its prey, and the last thing they wanted was to be gobbled up.

In short, Yang Qi wasn’t worried. He could buy time if he wanted to. And every day that passed meant he had more time to get stronger. After he was done with this reconnaissance mission, he needed to head to the halls of heaven as quickly as possible. If he could push his psychic scale to a hundred billion, he wouldn’t need to worry about any sort of attack or invasion.

Yang Qi remained unmoving within the lamp light in order to avoid attracting the notice of those present with ratings of fifty or sixty billion.

The person to break the silence was a marshal from the House of the Chiliocosm, an expert with a psychic scale of fifty billion. “Dugu Sheji, there’s no need to talk about a minor matter like the Spritefolk empire. We brought the army of the Chiliocosm Dynasty here to talk about important things such as the Central Dynasty. Proud Heaven is working hard to recruit as many allies as possible, and we need to figure out what to do about it. The Central Dynasty could deploy troops against us at any time, and we can’t just sit around waiting for it to happen.”

Yang Qi looked over and saw that the man was dressed in a red cloak that burned with intense flame. Reaching out to Yang Jian for information, he found that this was one of the top experts from the House of the Chiliocosm, and his name was Yang Primal-Chaos.

He was strong, but he wasn’t on the level of Yang Voidprime.

The person Yang Primal-Chaos was talking to was Dugu Sheji, an expert who had a psychic scale of sixty billion. He was actually a generalissimo who reported directly to the emperor. He was so powerful he didn't even care about the Palace of Destiny or the confucian faction.

If Yang Qi could subjugate him, he would have control of the entire army.

Unfortunately, even on the outside, Yang Qi would have had trouble doing that. The difference between ratings of thirty and sixty billion was just too immense. Even a fight with him would be difficult.

Maybe if he could lure him into the Myriad Dragons Lair, where he could use the power of the halls of heaven, and also have all of his expert subordinates attack in unison with spell formations, then he might stand a chance.

He had no choice but to squash thoughts of subjugating Dugu Sheji right now. However, if he could subjugate everyone else, then turn them on Dugu Sheji, he might succeed.

“We absolutely have to deal with the Spritefolk,” Dugu Sheji said. “I think this newly formed empire of theirs is Proud Heaven’s doing. If we don't get rid of them, what will happen with all the other races who have been thinking of joining us? Everything will descend into chaos.”