Sage Monarch

'Dammit, I can't believe that's one of the missions!' Yang Qi's heart tightened upon hearing the mission and killing intent surged within him, although he made sure not to show it. He was already coming up with a plan for how to deal with the situation.

Children of Brahma were going to kill Princess Jadefall, destroy the imperial court, and by extension, end both the Titan Emperor Heaven and the Sage Monarch planetary system. Obviously, he couldn't allow that.

Therefore, he took note of the names of the children of Brahma who had been assigned that mission. If worse came to worst, he would simply kill them.

If missions were checked every hundred years, then it would be that much time before the act were discovered. Although that was a short time for cultivators, it was enough for him to work with.

By the time a hundred years had passed, he would definitely be strong enough to stand up to the Godmyth patriarchs. In fact, he might even be a Godmyth himself by that point.

It was amazing to think of what he had accomplished so far in his life. Back in the days of Yanhaven in the Rich-Lush Continent, he had been crippled, only to rise to the point of nearly being a Godmyth in a few short decades.

Considering that, it was almost impossible to imagine how strong he would be in a hundred years.

"Hu Latu. Hu Yanmeng. Luo Dan. Wang Chen. Su Zhen. You five are new children of Brahma, and are thus unfamiliar with the brutality that comes with your lofty position. Presumably, today's meeting has left a strong impression on you. If you fail in your missions, you will be punished by expulsion or death! Listen carefully to your new assignment." At this point, the Godmyth patriarch switched to communication via divine will, as the details of the mission were top secret. "The five of you will travel to the fifth ranked immortal world, the Regal Event Heaven. There, you will seek to acquire 'imperial snakecharms', which are animadestiny talismans left behind by King Heaven-Devourer. Based on our intelligence reports, a certain top expert in the Regal Event Heaven has collected one thousand of them. You need to seize as many as you can, and then return them to the society. Unless you acquire at least two hundred, you will be severely punished. Of course, if you succeed you will be handsomely rewarded."

'What?' Yang Qi thought. At first he was stunned, but then delighted. 'Imperial snakecharms? A thousand of them are in the Regal Event Heaven? I have to get them! You can wear out iron shoes in a fruitless search, then find what you're looking for without even trying. Who would have guessed that this would happen? If I tried to find those imperial snakecharms on my own, I might never have succeeded. The Brahman Society really has a good intelligence network, that's for sure. If I could get a thousand of them, how much immortal world essence could I absorb? I could probably suck an immortal world dry in a few decades!'

Right now, he had a bit over eight hundred of the talismans, so an additional one thousand would more than double his collection and make him vastly more powerful. It would take him almost no time at all to absorb all of the essence of a place like the Titan Emperor Heaven, leaving it nothing more than an empty husk floating in the universe.

That was what it meant to devour heaven!

It would lead to cultivation speeds thousands of times faster than normal and would make him much more confident in being able to deal with Proud Heaven. Furthermore, it would put him in command of more than half of the total collection of imperial snakecharms, which in turn would make it possible for him to detect the aura of the others and track them down. If he could get all three thousand of them, reaching the Godmyth level wouldn't be any trouble at all.

"What do we do, Milord?" Hu Latu said nervously. "The Regal Event Heaven is a fifth ranked immortal world just like the Brahman Immortal World. It's a bit weaker, but still nothing to take lightly. It's not going to be easy to just sneak in there and take those imperial snakecharms. How are we supposed to succeed in only a hundred years? And what are you going to do about the children of Brahma who were assigned to go take care of things in the Titan Emperor Heaven?"

"Don't worry about those five," Yang Qi replied coldly. "I'll stop them. With the five phases arts I have, I can kill them as easily as turning over my hand. That said, I'll hold back from striking a deadly blow. If they got killed, the institute would definitely run a further investigation, which would cause even more problems for the Titan Emperor Heaven."

"So you have some other plan, Milord? What are you going to do, capture them? Maybe wait for a hundred years until your energy arts improve, and take out the Brahman Society patriarchs?"

"I doubt we could drag things out for a hundred years. There are too many things that could happen during that time. My current plan is to use an aspect of the Wheel of Fate to weaken them, draining them of their true energy and leaving them in complete agony. The Titan Emperor Heaven belongs to me, and I won't take any threats to it lightly. Thanks to the Wheel of Fate, not even the Godmyth patriarch will be able to see what's happening."

At this point, all of the missions had been assigned.

"Very well, children of Brahma, now that you have been assigned your missions, the time has come for another important announcement. Henceforth, missions and assessments won't come every hundred years, but rather every three years. And that applies to your current mission. Understand?" The Godmyth patriarch might as well have just dropped a bomb onto the children of Brahma.

"What? Three years?! We only have three years between assessments now? But why? And how can we possibly accomplish our missions in that short a time? Even a hundred years doesn't seem like enough."

"Three years? What can we do in three years?"

"Why? Why would they do this? Why would they reduce the time we have for the missions?"

The children of Brahma couldn't hold back from making loud exclamations of shock.

"As children of Brahma, you wield incredible power, but at the same time have a duty to serve the institute. We Godmyth patriarchs have deduced that, in the coming days, the Brahman Society will face a dangerous crisis. And you children of Brahma are the primary defenders of the society. Therefore, we are increasing the pressure on you now in the hopes of bringing out your full potential. When the future crisis comes, you need to be ready. For all we know, even many of us Godmyth patriarchs will perish when the time comes."

Some of the children of Brahma reacted with shock.

"What? What kind of crisis is he talking about? Even Godmyth patriarchs might fall?"

"It seems this matter really is serious."

"But still, three years? We can't accomplish our mission that quickly!"

Others reacted with cold chuckles.

"If you scum can't finish your mission, you'll be expelled!"

"If a crisis is coming to the Brahman Society, and you people can't do your job, then you deserve to be either killed or expelled."

And there were others like Yang Qi who simply stood there without reacting at all.

"Enough!" the Godmyth patriarch shouted, and the entire square went silent. "These are the new rules, and those who refuse to follow them will be considered rebels deserving of execution! You're all dismissed!"

Without any further ado, he faded away into nothing.

"Let's go. We don't have much time to work on these missions. Only three years!"

"Go, go, go! Come on, hurry up!"

"We have to work together on this, otherwise we'll never accomplish the missions. Why don't we help your group, and you people help us? The more hands we have working on an individual mission, the easier it will be."

"That's true. Our mission is to kill a wandering bandit and take his stash of treasure. That shouldn't be too hard."

"Okay, let's work on that mission first."

Some of the children of Brahma were forming alliances, although others refused to cooperate. Some seemed excited, while others seemed crestfallen. A few were even secretly scheming of ways to take advantage of the situation.

Just as Yang Qi and Hu Latu were preparing to leave, three people flew over, two young men and a young woman.

"Hold on, you two!" one of them said, a grave, stern man who looked down his nose at Yang Qi and Hu Latu. "The patriarch gave us the mission to go to the Regal Event Heaven and get those imperial snakecharms. We have to work together on this if we want to succeed. Since the two of you are the newest here, you don't know how things work around here. First of all, don't go off and do anything crazy. Second, you take orders from us. Got it? If you cause problems for the mission as a whole, the consequences will be grave."

Irritated, Hu Latu looked over at Yang Qi and saw a vicious gleam in his eyes. Turning to the person who had just spoken, he said, "Who are you? And what makes you think you can talk to us like that?"

"What incredible gall!" the man replied, his eyes flashing like swords. "I'm Luo Dan, and you can call me Elder Brother. If you refuse to be polite, I'll take you down a notch or two, got it?"

"That's enough, Elder Brother Luo Dan," said the young woman. There's no need to try to scare these little brats. As long as they cooperate with us to finish the mission, we don't need to make things hard for them."

1. Luo Dan: Luo is a surname which also means "gauze, net, collect, gather, catch, sift". Dan means "pill, pellet, red, powder, cinnabar".