Sage Monarch

Chapter 1504: Shadow Emperor

Yang Qi had reached a psychic scale of forty billion, which was a feat that would cause anyone who learned of it to gasp in amazement. There were old-timers who had spent forty billion years working on their cultivation base without reaching that level.

Destiny was the foundation of everything. Not even tens of thousands of years of cultivation could compare to getting even the tiniest scrap of destiny.

It was similar to how, in the impure lands, an ordinary person might spend their entire life building up some wealth. But other people would take the imperial examinations, whereupon money would pour into their pockets without cease. In the end, there wasn’t any better way to get rich than becoming a government official.

Thanks to the immense destiny Yang Qi had access to, he was like a shadow emperor that existed behind the scenes.

It was the same for the Chiliocosm Dynasty.

After all, the marshals in the armed forces were all important people who had access to even more destiny than the important government ministers. In any government, military credit was worth more than anything else.

‘Now that I've reached a psychic scale of forty billion, I'm stronger than ever. The God Legion Seal works even more efficiently, and I can send even more resources from the halls of heaven into the Myriad Dragons Lair!’

Yang Qi was very excited.

The Myriad Dragons Lair was already a hundred times what it was before, and was well on its way to becoming a true minor god world.

With every new landmass that popped up there, Yang Qi gained more destiny. At the same time, the explosions led to more preheaven treasures and god medicines. And there were preheaven aboriginal humans who would appear in the new landmasses, which led to even more destiny.

As Yang Qi’s cultivation base improved, the God Legion Seal worked better, making the growth in the Myriad Dragons Lair increase. It was a virtuous cycle that led to constant improvements.

Of course, he still wasn’t content with how strong he was. Next up, he had two generalissimos to subjugate.

Yang Primal-Chaos had a psychic scale of more than fifty billion, while Dugu Sheji was at sixty billion. If he subjugated them, he would get an even greater influx of destiny, and would probably be able to break into the level of fifty billion himself. Perhaps even higher.

It was almost impossible to imagine what kind of destiny they had access to as top leaders of the armed forces.

Considering that they were the primary factors in the Purification Thorn, he absolutely had to subjugate them. Before, it would have been very difficult, but now that he had an additional hundred experts to back him, along with the Purification Thorn, it wasn't going to be a problem.

However, the most pressing matter at hand was figuring out a way to get them apart.

Time was of the essence, so he chose to focus first on Yang Primal-Chaos.

‘I have a few more days to work with. With all of these experts, and the resulting increase in destiny, I could probably subjugate that confucian expert.’ He was doing everything possible to further his master plan; therefore, he headed into the depths of the Invincible Dynasty like a ghost, planning on subjugating as many top experts as possible.

WHOOSH!

The next target was someone named Dugu Gaishi, who had a psychic scale of ten billion. He was the type of person whose destiny was so strong he could vanquish opponents who were stronger than him.

Sadly for him, there was nothing in this army that could stop Yang Qi.

Yang Qi slipped into where Dugu Gaishi was cultivating his energy arts and drawing on his destiny.

Yang Qi pounced, devouring him in a single move, like a snake swallowing an egg. Just like that, Dugu Gaishi was gone from the world.

A moment later, Yang Qi spat him back out.

Dugu Gaishi dropped to his knees immediately. “Milord.”

“Just stay here and keep working on your cultivation.” The combination of King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans with the God Legion Seal was extremely effective.

Without King Heaven-Devourer, the Sovereign Lord never would have been able to subjugate the legion of gods.

Neither Proud Heaven nor King Immortal-Slayer could have subjugated people in the House of the Invincible like this. The destiny would have revealed them, and they would have been attacked.

Transforming into an incorporeal snake, Yang Qi continued threading his way through the military encampment, arriving next at a marshal named Dugu Xin, who was in the middle of reading a book. In the blink of an eye, Yang Qi devoured him, then spat him back out.

Next came a marshal who unexpectedly wasn't surnamed Dugu. His name was Wang Xilai, and he was a faithful adherent of the House of the Invincible who had a long and successful military career. It was a bit strange, as most of the higher-level members of the House of the Invincible had imperial blood and were surnamed Dugu. Not many people without the surname Dugu would reach such a high level of influence, and it went to show how skilled he was.

Upon devouring him, Yang Qi found that he was actually hiding his true strength. He looked like he had a psychic scale of a bit over ten billion, but the truth was that he rated more than thirty billion! He had been keeping the truth hidden, in the hopes of revealing it in dramatic fashion at a critical moment.

Upon being devoured, he struggled mightily, unleashing a host of deadly techniques.

Sadly for him, Yang Qi’s cultivation base was simply too high. He just unleashed the Sovereign Lord’s Holy and Far-Reaching Consummate Omnicurse, and moments later the man was subjugated.

Again, Yang Qi received a significant benefit of destiny.

“Milord, I’d been concealing my strength for many years, all in the hopes of making a meteoric rise. But now I’ve been subjugated by you. I guess I'm just unlucky. I’d always hoped I would eventually become the ultimate leader of the House of the Invincible.”

“Don’t worry,” Yang Qi said. “Now that you're working for me, you’ll reach amazing heights.”

Over the course of the following days, he was like a specter that went about subjugating dozens of marshals. He even found spies from the Central Dynasty. One of them was Dugu Baihuo, who was actually operating under an assumed name. His real name was Proud Baihuo, and his destiny really came from the Central Dynasty. Furthermore, his psychic scale was actually forty billion, not the ten billion he displayed as a front.

There really were hidden dragons and crouching tigers everywhere. However, Yang Qi crushed them one after another, causing his destiny to constantly rise.

Nine days went by, and he had subjugated fully two hundred marshals!

Thirty were from the Chiliocosm Dynasty, and a hundred and seventy were from the Invincible Dynasty. As of now, the destiny they provided had pushed his psychic scale and godhood rating to the level of forty-five billion.

By now, he knew that the House of the Invincible’s army had a total of six hundred marshals, and he had subjugated a bit less than two hundred. It was about a third of the total number of marshals.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any more time to work with, as Yang Primal-Chaos and Dugu Sheji had called another meeting. The hundred experts tasked with the mission all flew over to them.

“Yang Primal-Chaos, where exactly is Yang Voidprime?” Dugu Sheji said. “We’re supposed to go on the mission now.”

“Don’t worry about it. He's ready to take action, he's just hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment. He said for us to make the first move. The Central Dynasty and Proud Heaven have spies everywhere, and he doesn't want to alert them to his presence. As long as Proud Heaven isn’t willing to make an open move, he won’t do so either. So we need to use the Purification Thorn to attack the destiny of the Spritefolk kingdom before striking our blow at Sprite Susu.”