Sage Monarch

Yang Qi's plan was to take two courses of action. He would use his incredible cultivation to strike with lightning speed and subjugate the leaders of some of the Spritefolk empires. At the same time, Yang Susu would take the newly established Knights of the God Shrine to take control of the temple she had mentioned. By the time she called her meeting, he would already have some of the empires under his complete control.

The Spritefolk were numerous, and had countless empires. In fact, they were larger than the Dragonfolk in terms of population. The only reason the Dragonfolk had such incredible destiny was that one dragon was worth ten thousand humans in that regard.

That was why conquering all of the Spritefolk nations wouldn't be a simple task. Doing it with pure force would take a lot of time, which was why he wanted to take advantage of Yang Susu's divine authority to get more people on their side more quickly.

The best way to conquer a people wasn't to forcefully subjugate them, but rather getting them to willingly join up.

Yang Qi had no idea of the total population of the Spritefolk, but he did know that they were scattered throughout the god world. Subjugating them one by one was simply too unrealistic. But if he could establish a grand empire with divine authority, based on the faith power of the Spritely Sage Grail, they would flock to it.

Spritefolk were actually human, and they had a lot of potential. Their vast numbers ensured that they would be difficult to rule, but if he had the destiny of a few powerful empires to work with, it would make things a lot easier.

Right now, he had ten million sage monarch magistrates, which wouldn't be enough. He wanted more. A hundred million. With that many, he could manage an organization as large as the House of the Invincible, at least with some effort. For things to be run absolutely smoothly, he would need three or four hundred million. And if he wanted the destiny to be absolutely pure and clear, it would require a billion.

The more sage monarch magistrates he had, the better.

"Look, Yang Qi. That's the Spritely God-Temple. I'll lead the knights there. Use the maps I gave you to travel around to the most powerful Spritefolk empires. I'll take care of everything else." Yang Susu spoke with the manner of a ruler. After coming to the god world, she had obviously experienced and done a lot.

Yang Qi looked over at the temple, and found that it was a complex of buildings filled with the enormous trees that were the trademark of the Spritefolk. And streams of Spritefolk headed into the temple, where they would offer sacrifices and worship.

It was a marvelous location. Every hundred years, countless Spritefolk would travel to it in a mass pilgrimage.

As luck would have it, this was just such a year.

"I know a lot of the secrets of the Spritefolk," Yang Qi said. "So subjugating them won't be very difficult. You do your work here at the temple and wait for my signal. When the time is right, unleash the power of the Spritely Sage Grail."

The grail was so powerful that it didn't matter where the Spritefolk trees were located in the god world, it could connect to them and urge the Spritefolk there to come to the temple.

There were even powerful experts who could use the power of the trees to teleport here. That was one reason why the Spritely Sage Grail was such a coveted item.

If it weren't for the fact that Yang Susu had a powerful cultivation base, other Spritefolk would surely have already taken it away from her. She was now a figurehead that most Spritefolk wouldn't dare to disrespect. On the other hand, controlling her was controlling a symbol that would lead to immense power.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Yang Susu and Yang Qi parted ways. As he flew off, he referenced the maps he had memorized and identified an expansive continent upon which had been built a sprawling empire.

Getting around the god world was easy for him. There were distances that ordinary Paramount Gods would take thousands of years to span via flight, but he could cross in the blink of an eye.

That was the result of his combination of a high cultivation base with the Myriad Worlds Greater Teleportation and Tribulation Wings.

As for his fighting prowess, he was already at the peak of what ancient God-Lords were capable of.

Of course, future breakthroughs would only get more and more difficult.

'So, this is the Totem Empire? It has incredible destiny!' He stopped just on the borders of the empire to examine it, and was thoroughly impressed by the destiny and net of law, which would repel anyone who tried to invade.

It was a huge empire that rose high into the sky and far under the ground. There were huge trees everywhere, atop which were built various palaces and temples.

The Spritefolk in general couldn't ever stay far away from their spritetrees.

They were born under those trees, and their life force would be linked to it throughout their life. And the spritefruit that grew on the trees were holy fruits to them.

The height to which a spritetree grew was a reflection of how much power and influence its Spritefolk wielded.

Some of the trees were so enormous that they stretched millions upon millions of kilometers into the air. Some even reached deep out into the void. The sky of the god world was filled with chaotic vital energy and deadly killing energies, but the spritetrees had an innate power that could shield against such danger. In fact, the trees could absorb those chaotic energies and convert them into something beneficial to the cultivation bases of the Spritefolk who lived in the trees.

The trees were like naturally formed cities or even castles. It was actually rare for them to be gathered into an empire, as each tree was a world of its own.

However, they did exist, and when they were gathered into an empire, there would always be common people and high-level leaders. At first, Yang Qi just took some time to look around.

The destiny was incredibly strong, far denser than anything from the Dragonfolk kingdoms. Dragonfolk destiny was always chaotic and scattered, whereas this destiny burned like the sun.

It was definitely nothing to look down on.

After some basic calculations, Yang Qi came to the conclusion that the destiny of this empire was equivalent to three or four hundred million lands in the House of the Invincible.

It was little wonder the Invincible Dynasty was drooling over the prospect of getting the Spritefolk on their side. The boost in destiny would be immense. If a single empire had the equivalent destiny of three or four hundred million lands in the House of the Invincible, and they could get a few such empires, along with some other smaller nations, they could acquire billions, or even tens of billions of times as much destiny as before.

Not even Yang Qi could prevent himself from licking his lips in anticipation. Using his Lord's Eye, he examined the structure of the society here, and analyzed its destiny transformations. The Totem Empire was ruled by a single dynasty, and although the place was very orderly, there were obviously places where the destiny was weak and could be improved.

He could also see that it was connected to the destiny of the House of the Invincible. Obviously, this empire paid them fealty.

There were also many teleportation portals leading to the House of the Invincible, which were used to conduct business. And business was obviously booming.

If nothing else, the rare spritefruit were a source of immense profit. Spritefruit could be used to concoct medicinal pills, or as materials in equipment forging. Although the Spritefolk had rules regarding their holy fruit, the rules had changed in recent years, if for no other reason than survival.

After examining the destiny, Yang Qi could see why the old-timers here wanted to get rid of Yang Susu. It would mean they could benefit even more from the House of the Invincible. They were definitely very ambitious.

'They just want to use Aunt Susu for their own benefit,' Yang Qi thought. 'I'm not going to forgive them for that. That said, this emperor's cultivation base is no weaker than that of Paragon-King Sage Dragon. And he's hidden in the depths of his empire. It's not going to be easy to subjugate him. I have to come up with a good plan.'

This mission was going to be a lot harder. For one thing, he had subjugated Paragon-King Sage Dragon in the Myriad Dragons Lair, where Yang Qi controlled the natural laws.

It would actually have been much more difficult outside of the lair.

A second reason this would be harder was that Yang Qi had crushed Paragon-King Sage Dragon's kingdom, making him unable to tap into its destiny. Here in the Totem Empire, it was going to be different.

A person with numbers in the level of twenty billion, plus the power of an empire to back them, could brush off an attack from Yang Qi. He could theoretically destroy the empire, but he didn't want to take over a patch of scorched earth.