Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

There were only ten days left.

More realistically, there were only nine.

During that time, the Sage Monarch Empire had to make the Invincible Dynasty an impregnable fortress. Thus, the entire place was being locked down.

Countless troops were mobilized and sent to the border regions to defend them.

Entire cities were moved to create a line of defense. The end goal was to make sure the place was impossible to invade. The area covered by the Invincible Dynasty was just too immense.

As it stood, the place’s destiny was scattered and weak, which meant people with psychic scales anywhere from ten to a hundred billion could sneak inside unnoticed. And if they did, they could wreak immense destruction.

Thankfully, Yang Qi had all of the top experts of the Dugu Clan on the move, creating a stable base and borders. And part of that involved shrinking the area covered by the dynasty by about fifty percent.

Everyone was abuzz as the dynasty was locked down and the borders were thoroughly. inspected

By reducing the total area of the dynasty by fifty percent, it concentrated the destiny by five times. From afar, the destiny almost looked like a turtle shell covering all of the lands of the dynasty. Even experts with a psychic scale of a hundred billion would think twice before trying to sneak in now. Of course, it was nowhere near as impressive as the Sage Monarch Empire.

The Sage Monarch Empire and its Everlasting Aegis had destiny so intimidating that not even half-Annulled experts would try breaking into it.

Unfortunately, shrinking the Invincible Dynasty came with some downsides. The population was immense, and resources were insufficient. Thankfully, since the Everlasting Aegis was constantly producing masses of new resources, the deficits in the Invincible Dynasty could be made up for.

Of course, the sage monarch magistrates were taking the lead throughout the Invincible Dynasty, leading the people in prayer on a daily basis and helping set up spell formations.

Each spell formation would be powered by trillions of people, and were essentially independent aspects of space-time. Together, they made a greyspace that would help the Invincible Dynasty live up to its name.

Because the populace constantly had things to do, the dynasty was growing stronger and more consolidated.

Normally speaking, something like this never could have happened. First of all, the Invincible Dynasty was too big, and with the Dugu patriarchs in charge, it would have been impossible to galvanize the hearts of the people. Thankfully, Yang Qi had dispatched the top experts of his empire to work with the Dugu patriarchs, ensuring that everything operated smoothly.

Second, even if the Dugu patriarchs could have stirred the hearts of the people in this way, they simply couldn’t have handled the militarization aspects, especially when it came to the production requirements. Normally speaking, they would have run out of resources within days, and everything would have fallen apart. But now, the citizens were praying on a daily basis and creating spell formations, and they had the Sage Monarch Empire to keep them going.

Furthermore, as the new emperor of the Invincible Dynasty, Yang Qi could feed some of its destiny into the Everlasting Aegis, which would increase its production capacity.

This was only the beginning. Yang Qi planned to grow the Invincible Dynasty to roughly the same level as the Sage Monarch Empire before integrating the two. And he needed to cleanse the place as well. After all, he didn’t want to bring the impurities of the Invincible Dynasty into the Sage Monarch Empire.

Sadly, that couldn’t happen in ten days. It was a process that would likely take years.

It was a given that when the High Priestess and Proud Heaven emerged, they would launch an invasion of the Invincible Dynasty.

Yang Qi was ready. He wanted the people of the Invincible Dynasty to fight a bloody battle resulting in high casualties, in which the citizens risked life and limb. Then he would step in at the critical moment to tip the scale of battle. To temper the hearts of the people in war was the best way to build a strong empire.

The hearts of the people were ready. The dynasty was ready.

In the past, it was rigid and rotten, but now it had been born again, and its people burned with passion.

Of course, it also created a very precarious situation. If Yang Qi didn’t protect the Invincible Dynasty and keep it whole, it would devolve into destruction. However, he didn’t have any other options. This was the key to bringing about the destruction of the alliance.

In ten days, Proud Heaven would rise as the emperor of the ‘three dynasties’, with the High Priestess there to back him up, creating a force the likes of which had never existed before. Everyone in the god world knew that a unified empire was the most proper arrangement.

It seemed that the Sage Monarch Empire was in big trouble.

However, the unification of the three dynasties was nothing more than a mirage.

Whether the Invincible Dynasty remained whole as part of Yang Qi's empire, or was completely destroyed, there would only be two dynasties left to form Proud Heaven’s allied empire. At that point, the people of the god world would view Proud Heaven’s ‘empire’ as nothing more than a joke, and would flock to the Sage Monarch Empire.

During the ten days that passed, Yang Qi had his brethren taking care of the Invincible Dynasty, along with the sage monarch magistrates. Meanwhile, he focused on thinking of a way to rescue his Master, the Invincible Dugu.

If the Invincible Dugu hadn’t set things up in advance, and the triple alliance hadn’t been forced, he would likely have been in a very dangerous situation. Thankfully, he was living up to his reputation as an almighty entity from ancient times. It almost seemed like he had foreseen how everything would play out, and had set things up for Yang Qi’s advantage.

That said, Yang Qi was constantly on guard against the essence of the god world. The essence was far more worrisome to him than Proud Heaven. After all, it was trying to fuse with his own mother, and if it succeeded, it would be his mother. What would he do then? Kill his own mother? How could he possibly do that?

Unfortunately, he was powerless to do anything about that now, and could only hope to awaken the Invincible Dugu and ask him for advice.

Sending his divine will into the Invincible Dugu’s body again, he started working at excising the essence of the god world. The enormous gateway in his Master’s sea of consciousness was surrounded by all sorts of destructive energy, so he had to be very careful as he worked. It was like reeling silk from the cocoon.

Already, the Everlasting Aegis wasn't part of the god world; it was its own entity that could absorb primal-chaos paleo-energy and use it to create preheaven treasures.

In this regard, it was different from the god world. The god world took in primal-chaos paleo-energy to grow larger and stronger, whereas the Everlasting Aegis used it to create resources. For the Everlasting Aegis, growing stronger was a very different process. As it created resources for the people within it, they would pray to the empire, causing the empire to grow stronger and the aegis to expand.

The god world didn’t need the help of the people within it to grow. But the Everlasting Aegis had a more symbiotic relationship with its people.

Of course, Yang Qi was aware of this fundamental difference.

The dao of the god world was a lonesome one.

But Yang Qi’s dao involved working with the people to help them transcend. And that ensured that he would be completely at odds with the god world. As such, he would use his own dao to help the Invincible Dugu get rid of the sealing mark placed in him by the essence of the god world.

He could use sagelight to slowly get rid of it, the same way that drops of water could be used to eat through stone.

‘Oh, right. The bane of the god world is the Great Necropolis. I wonder if I should try using the Great Necropolis God Art.’

Exhaling, he used the final move from the Sage Monarch Grand Magic: Annul Death; Eternally Bury. Instantly, an image of the Great Necropolis appeared around the Invincible Dugu.

As soon as it appeared, the essence of the god world was sent into retreat.

‘It’s working!’ Yang Qi thought in delight. The sealing mark seemed to be calling out for more power, except it was in the Everlasting Aegis now. The Everlasting Aegis didn’t need the god world to exist, and as a result, the god world couldn’t get inside of it.

Whizz!

A sound like the buzzing of locusts could be heard as the sealing mark trembled, constantly spitting out spell formations to protect itself. It was almost like a saint writing calligraphy in the form of articles.

Countless magical symbols spread out, creating a marvelous defense.

Meanwhile, Yang Qi wielded the will of the Great Necropolis in his battle with it. As he did, the essence of the god world unleashed trillions of daoist techniques that surpassed the power of even the Sovereign Lord.