Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Because of the meddling of the High Priestess, the battle had come to an end.

She was a half-Annulled expert, with an incredibly high psychic scale that was probably twice Yang Qi’s level or more. Of course, she couldn’t stand up to the Sage Monarch Empire as a whole. But she effectively organized the three dynasties’ retreat, giving them a chance to recover and make new plans.

Right now, the three dynasties had a lot of problems. For instance, their peoples weren’t united, which would make recovery difficult. However, given enough time, they would be back to full strength.

As for Yang Qi, he had a low population, but an incredible destiny. If he could deal with the population problem, he would reach even more unheard-of heights.

The three dynasties had the upper hand in numbers, while Yang Qi and the Sage Monarch Empire had the advantage in quality.

For now, the fighting was over. But it would only be temporary. There would be an even bigger battle to come, and the winner would take control of the god world and start the wheel of time turning in a way that couldn’t be stopped.

Yang Qi took his people back to the kingdom to rest and lick their wounds.

The empire had lost a fifth of its population in the fighting, with a heavy blow being struck to the Dragonfolk God-Lords. The Dragonfolk in general were now a small and pitifully weak force, and other people with God-Lords were in similarly bad condition. As for the sage monarch magistrates, there were only about a hundred million left.

How profoundly tragic!

Everyone in the empire wept at the knowledge that they had just been through an extremely brutal fight. However, the survivors had experienced the baptism of war, and would grow because of it. In the coming days, the empire would become stronger than ever.

Yang Qi knew that his people had experienced a major catastrophe. However, they had passed through the fire, just like a cultivator passing through tribulation. Now the empire needed to grow rapidly.

Once he finished pouring the ocean of faith into his net of law and destiny, his empire’s destiny would be vastly beyond that of the three dynasties.

That ocean of faith wasn't a normal resource, like magical treasures or medicinal pills. It was pure faith that could be converted into destiny.

Medicinal pills and the like could be stockpiled, but not turned into destiny. Thus, the ocean of faith was better than any sort of resource. And when he finished absorbing the entire thing, the sage monarch magistrates would once again begin proliferating.

There were just far too few of them now. After all, if he had had a few billion of them, the High Priestess would never have succeeded.

Yang Qi made some arrangements in his empire, assigning the surviving sage monarch magistrates to various tasks. He also had his friends and family help out. When everything was settled, he headed out to improve his cultivation base and repair the Ancient Road to the Gods.

WHOOSH!

A short moment passed, and he was in the Halls of Heaven.

He had gained a lot during the fighting. In fact, as long as he could get enough power and destiny, he knew that he could easily reach the half-Annulled level.

The High Priestess was mighty, but she was nothing more than a guard right now. She wouldn't dare to come pick a fight.

Yang Qi’s first destination was the ocean of faith, where he set up a huge teleportation portal to absorb the power and send it to the net of law in the Sage Monarch Empire.

Whizzz....

The net of law became even more crystalline as it expanded, causing the empire to slowly shift in the direction of another location that wasn’t in the god world. It was slowly developing into an even higher type of civilization.

The ‘water’ level in the ocean slowly started lowering, and in the Sage Monarch Empire, people’s positions as nobility stabilized as a result.

At the same time, the empire’s destiny grew, and slowly started transforming into something like a greyspace.

Destiny was invincible.

All citizens had been ordained as nobility, which had resulted in a huge drop in destiny. But now that was being made up for.

In fact, there was so much destiny now that, even if Yang Qi did the same thing again, it wouldn’t have any bad result. Once he opened the Ancient Road to the Gods, and saved all his people from below, he could ordain them as well. Then he would really be able to crush the alliance of the three dynasties.

With the ocean of faith handled, Yang Qi turned his attention to the Ancient Road to the Gods.

“God Legion Seal. Mahātmā Jade. Halls of Heaven. Passageway Creation. Ancient Road to the Gods, REFORM!”

BUZZ!

Almost instantly, hissing and popping sounds could be heard from the depths of the god world, like the sound of burning.

Yang Qi was melting the essence of the god world to rebuild the Ancient Road to the Gods. However, the process would take many hours.

A passageway began taking shape, like an enormous ancient road, right beneath the Halls of Heaven.

Yang Qi’s immensely powerful psyche, as well as his wildly strong destiny, was helping him accomplish the most shocking of deeds. Reestablishing the Ancient Road to the Gods was only the first step in his plan.

Meanwhile....

There was a very depressing atmosphere in the Central God-Temple.

The three dynasties had suffered a major defeat. They had failed to defeat the Sage Monarch Empire, and only escaped with their lives thanks to the High Priestess. Without that last-minute save, their armies would have been wiped out of existence. Then, mass desertions would have followed.

They had been routed, and the Sage Monarch Empire had established a reputation of might and glory that was unrivaled. After all, if the Sage Monarch Empire could vanquish their three dynasties, what existed in the god world that they couldn't destroy?

“We lost,” Proud Heaven said gravely. “Badly. Thoroughly. The prestige of the god world is at an all-time low. And there were plenty of old-timers out there, watching the whole thing. During this period of rest and recuperation, there’s no doubt that many empires, organizations, and individual old-timers will join Yang Qi. They’re going to get stronger and stronger, while we get weaker and weaker. We should be happy we haven’t had more people defecting. Do we just sit around and wait to die? Do any of you have any good ideas?”

“We have to bring more people into our alliance,” Hailan said. “Either that, or merge our three dynasties into a single empire. The Sage Monarch Empire doesn’t have anywhere close to our population. Maybe ten percent, at most. And they lost a lot of people. It’s not going to be easy to come back from that. Our downside is that we aren’t united. We lack a true leader. If our dynasties accept the leadership of the High Priestess, then given her cultivation base, we should be capable of great things.”

As Hailan spoke, everyone turned to the High Priestess.

She sat unmoving in the seat of honor, looking almost like a statue. It was almost as if she hadn’t heard Hailan mention her becoming the leader of a new empire.

However, her lack of response didn’t make anyone present feel any less repulsed by the idea.

Whether it was Yang Chiliocosm, Proud Heaven, or the Dugu patriarchs, they were all people who had been working for tens of billions of years to become top figures in the god world. They had all suffered big defeats. However, an emaciated camel is still bigger than a horse, and most of them would rather go back and work hard to rebuild their forces.

If they combined their dynasties, they would become like government officials, and the destiny they had once commanded would belong to someone else. How could any of them just accept an arrangement like that?

The High Priestess was simply the leader of their alliance, and although she could benefit from its destiny, she couldn't make major decisions. That had to be decided by the three dynasties together.

A league-lord and an emperor were two different things.

The Dugu patriarchs were all thinking roughly the same thing. ‘That Hailan is a real plague. Fuck. If the High Priestess had stepped in earlier, we wouldn’t be in this position. She only showed up when we were about to be destroyed!’

They were old-timers who excelled at intrigue, so how could they not realize what was going on?

The High Priestess had obviously planned this all along. She set things up so that she could steal the fruit of other people’s labor without spending any effort of her own. And if she ended up combining the three dynasties under her leadership, it would be a perfect outcome for her.

The old-timers knew that she could have struck at the Sage Monarch Empire at any time. If she did it when the three dynasties were at their peak, the Sage Monarch Empire would have been done for.

Instead, she waited until just the right moment, so that she could be a savior and seize some power in the process.

None of these old-timers wanted to give up everything they had worked so hard for over the years. Even Proud Heaven’s eyes glittered with hatred for Hailan.

There was no way he would let an emperor rise up and take control over him.

“The idea of combining our dynasties into an empire is no trivial matter,” Proud Heaven said. “We need to discuss this in detail. Right now, Yang Qi is strong, but not strong enough to invade our empires. He has to focus on defense, and that means we have the upper hand. As long as we can get our troops in order, we may yet be able to seize victory. What do you say, Lord of the Chiliocosm? Don’t you agree that our current alliance is enough? We don’t want to complicate things and cause further chaos.”