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The Violet Pill allowed the user to produce soul spikes from his eyes, while the Indigo Pill allowed a chameleon like ability, to fade into the background and become invisible, though not to the Saint's senses.

After a month of exploring the depths, a hundred Monarch beasts were collected as meat and bones for soul forging, and enough ingredients for a hundred pills of Violet, Indigo and Rainbow colors, while the Vermillion pill final ingredient, a Vermillion Immortal Sea Grass, was only found once, and sadly lost in a failed refining.

The trio emerged on a tropical island to rest and refine the pills, and enjoy some delicious sea foods, while Cellia just lazed on the beach, and tried out her new swimsuit.

It was a shade of light blue one piece suit though, to cover up most of her scared torso, but it still made both of her friends gape in awe, as it was made by Lady Si with her special fashion skill, and it fit well with her jade white skin and the azure highlights of her hair. The azure sea and the white sand in the background only served to enhance the saintly scenery.

"I should grant you my qi method, Cellia. If you want to become whole and pretty again." Pef offered along a dish of grilled sea fruits and a tall glass with coconut milk.

"I can fight well enough, my weakling friend. When you reach next rank, and can best me in a duel, then you may offer again." the Ice Saint replied with a cold shoulder.

The Fire Saint glanced between these two, and kept silent. He didn't want to get beat up by a scorned woman. Pef might get away with speaking in such outrageous manner, but he wasn't that lucky.

After the trio finished their recovery break on the small paradise island, the Fire Saint flew away towards his refuge at Etna, to refine the large amount of pills they had gather ingredients for, while Cellia drew her robe over and sped with the idiot Monarch to drop him home.

As the exploration party had reached the opposite side of the planet, the Ice Saint took a hyperbolic trajectory, skimming the outer space to achieve her better speed.

Thus the travel time was greatly reduced, and Pef arrived home just as the sun was rising.

"You get a week to relax, my young friend. Then we're starting the sword training again. I have to finish building the shelter at Frigia." Lady Winter said in a soft voice, and glanced at her left hand with a complicated expression.

The gold ring had stayed there, a promise and a gift, for when there will be time for love. If it ever came.

But for now, Cellia prepared for the more important task of ensuring the survival of a small portion of humanity.

'We could also prepare disaster shelters in the Monarchy. With some work and formations, we should be able to save some of the population here on Saint continent. Perhaps not Yellow Tear and Stoneport. Those two places...are too far away from the coast.' the glove commented at that, projecting a schematic of a disaster shelter in Pef's mind.

Tunnels leading towards deep undersea and underground cities, with storage rooms and various quarantine and triage formations, and space to host thousands of people for decades.

As Pef rushed to greet his beloved wives and check on the kids, he mulled over the plans, with some dread in his heart.

'We'd need thousands such shelters only here, in the Lacrimosa perimeter. Without fresh water and air filtration...oh. You mean to have water and air sages work as life support. Still, is a last resort measure. We'd still lose 99 percent of humanity's numbers'

The glove didn't add anything else. The loses always stayed at 99 percent, even for tier 7 Legion Soldiers. Lucky ones had skills or other means of prolonging the odds, like a grasp of a powerful Edict, or whatever else a trillion universes would crop up ever so rarely.

The user would have to face the truth, and learn to deal with it. Predictions and calculations ran through it, but the energy requirements for any kind of tactical or strategic victory were just not present. Even if the combined firepower of the entire humanity on Lacrima faced off with the Saint Rock Worm, it would be a stalemate at best.

Pef leaned over the wooden cradle and peered at the tiny Hero inside. Lady Aria smiled at him from the other side of the cradle, her face looking a bit tired and unslept. 'Don't wake him, my hubby. I barely got a couple of hours of sleep.' she sent with a short qi pulse.

He nodded and flew around, kissing her forehead and eyelids. 'Come Aria, I'll make breakfast and feed you with my own hands.' Pef sent back, then sped away towards the kitchen.

Lia was already up, brewing tea and somehow expecting him, in her usual mysterious way. "How's my dearest oracle wife?" Pef asked with a large grin, and stole a hug and kiss while pawing over her body with practiced moves.

"Just upgraded Ling and Ren to Emperor rank. There was a major beast wave at Myrrth." the oracle replied with a soft sigh.

Pef blinked a bit confused, not expecting such news. "How major of a wave?" he asked after a few seconds.

"Thirtythree Tyrant Black Termite Queen Ants, three Emperors and hundreds of Sky ranks. And a quadrillion of normal ants. The Emperors were human Earth mages." Lia answered in calm voice, taking out a finger sized ant for inspection, then evaporating it with her solar domain.

"Loses?" the Monarch asked a bit worried. If the normal ants were this big already...

The oracle just shook her head. "We saved maybe half of the locals and transported them to Jovis. The city and everything around for 200 kilometers is ash and smoke now. Your five fire fairies incinerated everything and melted the bedrock to exterminate the ant hive below."

"They came from below. Built up numbers and dug tunnels..." the Monarch concluded, thinking how he would have assaulted a fortified city with walls and magic arrays, using only ants.

The other wives present on the continent arrived one after another, and Pef noted the former fire disciples were all absent.

After a round of hugs and kisses, Pef began cooking, delighting his lovely spouses with a dozen rare marine delicacies, from shark fins to shrimp and lobster and whale meat. Some two hours later, as the bellies were filled, the Monarch looked around to see his wives were still eyeing him with hungry eyes.

He gulped a bit scared and prepared mentally to be abused for a whole week. Luckily for our hero, his cultivation was as hard as an unbending tree, and the harsh constant training had made him resilient beyond any human norm.

Lady Si had to take over cooking again, as someone had to feed the family while their husband was kept cultivating.

Her skill progressed to the level Pef was when he was still at Earth rank, but her fire qi made it easier to control, while the extra open meridians helped Si circulate qi with more precision and extract even more taste and fragrance from every ingredient.

To Pef's surprise, Lia showed up three times during this week, and was more lovey-dovey than ever. Compared to previous years since they'd married, it was a complete reverse in behavior. Thus, he had to ask."What's changed, dear wife? You're never this eager for love..."

The oracle rested her head on his chest, and bit her full lips, while basking in the afterglow of being cultivated by her Monarch husband. "I feel something is coming. A dark storm front, clouding the future and blocking my powers. Like a wave of immense darkness and death, wiping away everything..." Lia murmured in a bit of daze.

"Hmmm. You're not wrong, my love. The Saint ranked worm in the Tian Mountains is waking up. Our family will be immune to the disease, but Saints can move so fast, and are quite hard to kill. I will order building of shelters and prepare the Monarchy.

If you can sense already, even with your Sovereign rank, it will come soon." Pef answered in a low tone, while caressing her flawless skin in a gentle manner.

The oracle nodded in a sad mood. Now it all made sense. The Pef Monarchy would be the first line of defense, and suffer the worst while the Saints would battle with unfathomable powers.

"Just like Myrrth, back then..." she mused while envisioning various probabilities. One percent chance, to allow her husband a lucky shot, and somehow snatch a win from the certain defeat.

"Exactly like that. Keep training with the mirrors, I flew to the cold and airless orbit just for you. The sun always shines, and even a reflection of sunlight will strengthen your domain a hundred times. But just light, is not enough. You will need to put your soul into it." the young Monarch whispered in her hair, the glove measuring her aura and qi with a dispassionate manner.

'You're placing too much hope on a mere Sovereign, Aspirant. Even if Lia was a Monarch, and skilled at entanglement, it wouldn't be enough. Have you found a solution for lift-off?' the glove asked curious.

'Water jets, won't be enough. But we do have two Saints. A Saint ring filled with water could be dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen, then cooled till both gases liquify. We don't have rockets, but a magic array could be forged to combine these propellants and then ignited to lift off a mountain sized worm.'

The glove would have blinked if it had eyes. With sufficient amounts of water and pressure, a magitech chemical rocket could be crafted, even with this low level of technology. But the payload wouldn't stay still, to be transported like a cattle to be butchered.

'The design is feasible, Aspirant. But you still need a way to immobilize the target during transport.' it explained in a stern tone.

Pef smiled sadly. 'A solution is still being formulated.' he replied with a weird old memory, which seemed appropriate.

Suddenly, he picked up the Ice Saint on his soul radar, descending at speed towards the palace. Fortunately, she entered his sauna, and didn't bust into his room.

"Gotta go, my saintly teacher is back." Pef whispered to his oracle, only to find her asleep and crying. He tucked her in gently and flew silently out of the bedroom, sliding carefully the Tyrant ranked feather door behind him.

The door anchored into a locked position by a magic array, transforming the bedroom into a teraton nuclear shelter.

Sovereign Lara had all kinds of ideas about construction and then implemented them with speed and accuracy, taking her job as builder of the Empire very seriously. From granaries to aqueducts, then forts and roads and bridges, Lara had a knack for figuring out how to make them, and organize the jobs of the people she used in the projects.

Some of it was her training as a Wall Guard Major, whom had commanded a fort for a thousand years, but other things were insights and intuitions passed to her by her golden aura and millions of years of learning and experience as a tier 7.

A blue haired woman waited outside already, and caught Pef in a warm hug. "You like the new doors, husband?" Lara asked with a coy smile, since she had first only tried for some privacy seals, and then went a bit overboard using stronger materials and dampening formations.

"I sure do, Lara. Pretty sure nobody can hear you moan, behind this kind of closed door..." Pef replied in a wry voice.

"M-moron. It's natural to make a bit of noise, when you cultivate me so hard..." the blue haired Sovereign replied with a shy tone, and hugged her husband a bit too hard.

Pef flew towards the sauna, and undressed them both in the wardrobe room, then walked in the steaming sauna with Lara in his arms. He then proceeded to cultivate Lara for an hour, knowing the Ice Saint was sitting and watching on the other bench.

Cellia might have kept herself invisible, but she was also naked and getting a bit sweaty from the hot steam or maybe from the free show. Still, once the pretty Sovereign was injected with sufficient Monarch qi, she was spanked on her muscled posterior and sent to do her day job, while the Monarch leaned on the bench to relax and recharge.

"Had enough fun, idiot? You knew I was here." Cellia asked in a bit of icy tone, once Lara left with a spring in her step.

"Oh, it's the pervert saint, spying on the low ranks cultivating. You're lucky I need you, or else..." Pef exclaimed in fake outrage, pointing at the now visible saint, who was blushing a little.

"Or else, what?" Lady Winter asked curious, summoning an icicle to cool her hot cheeks.

"I'd bend you over, and spank you a little. Then shower you with icy water. Then, lick the ice..." the idiot Monarch proclaimed in a glorious manner, miming the acts with slow gestures.

Cellia became still and blurry eyed, possibly seeing the scene in her mind and thinking, how was it a punishment at all. In fact it seemed a bit excit..."Anyway. You seem fit and ready, my apprentice. Let's go train you more, in the sword." she declared after measuring Pef's naked body with professional eyes.

"Water is formed from two gases. Can you separate them, and then freeze the gases to become liquids?" Pef asked instead.

The Ice Saint raised an eyebrow, and held the icycle floating in front of her, while straining her Saint powers to the task.

Soon the icycle transformed into a cloud, and began separating, into two completely different clouds.

Pef copied her actions, but halted at the separation phase. Disentangling gases wasn't yet possible for him. Cellia continued on, cooling the clouds until they became two bubbles of floating liquid, held afloat by her gravity control and water domain.

"It's doable, but not easy. Almost as hard as helping Firali with his captured messengers. But different. There's no soul resistance, only the two parts trying to do something, like attack each other..." she murmured in a surprised voice.

"The sun is made of hydrogen. It's a very flammable gas, which is why suns burn so bright. Oxygen serves as an accelerant and maintains burning. It's the gas all animals consume when they breathe, humans or snakes, even fish or whales. Plants instead, they breathe out oxygen and inhale carbon dioxide, which animals exhale. Now, you'll need to fill two storage rings with these liquid gases. When they burn together, they'll produce a powerful jet of flames, strong enough to lift the worm to the moon." the Monarch explained in a wise tone, while walking next to the Saint, and holding her right hand up.

With a flash of his neo knife, he sliced off a millimeter of saintly finger nail, then caught the falling fragment and held it in his palm beside two gold rings, the clipping bridged between the two rings.

Then the glove sent her a thoughtform with a mental image of a rocket engine, changed a bit, to allow for spacial storage and saint ranked materials immune to heat or wear.

Lady Winter was a bit shocked, seeing her nail being sliced off with so much ease. But she should have expected it, as Deng could do the same with his own Legion knife and sword qi.

"Like that steam engine of yours, but a billion times stronger." she mused while going over the mental blueprint.

"Saint Ji should be the one to Ignite the rocket engine, I think. You'll be busy keeping the Saint worm imobile, with your frozen domain. And I'll use the Heavenly Lightning the keep the worm's ganglia and nerves constantly under electric shock. What do you say?" the naked Monarch asked looking the naked Saint in the eyes.

"It's crazy and dangerous and irresponsible. But if it works, you can spank and lick me all you want." Cellia whispered while glancing at the items in her palm, and gathering her soul to project it for a soul forging.

Pef sat beside her and hugged the wounded saint with one arm, waiting for the Ice Saint to finish forging. It took a few hours, as the small Saint ranked nail was as durable and unyielding as a neutron star fragment.

When the double-ring was ready, Cellia looked at her side, to find Pef asleep on her shoulder, smiling in his dreams for some reason.

She left unseen, and flew to the South Pole, deep under the frozen ice, to begin filling the rings with the transmuted gases, while leaning on Artus for some strength. Both the Ice god and his Ice Saint learned a lot about the nature of water and cold while filling the storage with liquid hydrogen and oxygen.

It more than made up for the energy consumption, since this kind of knowledge and practice wasn't something stone age cultivators ever normally encountered. The Ice Saint benefited the most, since this time she wasn't refining water qi for her god, instead getting a divine qi infusion to help her finish faster and without errors.

A week later, Cellia opened her eyes, sensing the rings were full, and a Beastgod messenger prowling about, trying to spy on her actions. She smiled amused and sprang into motion, grabbing the Vermilion Sea Lion Monarch and freezing it solid.

'Guess I can give you to Firali. He would need more energy to finish those meridian pills faster.' the Saint mused inward, accelerating towards Etna, with an imobile beast some 200 meters in size, held with two fingers, in her tow.

It wasn't a Divine Vermilion Sea Jaguar, like the one who took a bite from her side, but it will do.

On her way towards the surface she passed a green boulder floating in between two layers of salty and warm water, and she suddenly stopped, recognizing three Vermilion Immortal Sea Grass stalks growing unnoticed and untouched on that rock, right in front of her. 'Lucky! If the moron refines one pill, it's mine. If there's two...well. The idiot can get it. I wonder how it feels to be spanked...'

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PefVersed in the lewd.

Pef sat beside Blossom, who was holding their daughter Rose in her lap, and was singing a muted lullaby in a sad voice.

"I want you and Aria to leave for a while. Go visit Green Gea." he said in a gentle tone, while patting her hair in a loving gesture.

Lady Yen stopped singing, a bit surprised. But, then she nodded a bit hesitantly. "If that's what you want..." she replied in a composed manner, while her eyes narrowed in displeasure.

"Yes. I grew up as an orphan and don't want this to happen to my kids. Rose will have a mother, and Hero too. Mia is going with Gene to Celestial City on Blue Xi, and Yuan to Etna." Pef explained in the same gentle voice, and kissed the foreheads of both of them, mother and daughter.

He placed another ring on her hand, loaded with pills and weapons, then books and metal items. 'Legion indoctrination to self-initiate at age 16. Duration, 13 months.' he ordered to his glove, as he rose and flew out of his wife's rooms, a single tear forming in his eyes, for some reason.

The palace was half empty now, and getting emptier with every hour. For the past month the Monarch had worked tirelessly to evacuate and shelter young people and some children into underground shelters, then fit them with furniture or other comforts, and also set up defensive formations and maize plantations to serve as a life support system, for food and air.

Other people were transferred to Black Magma colonies, or sent to his private city quarter in the Celestial City. They would have a larger chance to survive, maybe.

But sadly, there was no time or even possible to evacuate an entire continent. The Guardians will try to protect the large cities as best they could, and with the updated Legion method they should be resistant to whatever plague was coming.

Even now the Guardians were working non-stop to create temporary shelters for the people under their protection, digging and reinforcing shelters in every city. Might help, maybe.

Pef stopped in mid-air, high above the Xi Palace, when the Saints arrived next to him, armored from head to toe this time, like he asked them.

"I'll head in first, and create a firebreak along the mountains. Might even help..." the Fire Saint declared in an uncertain tone, then sped forward.

The Ice Saint had made herself a white and blue set of armor from some Monarch beast bones, and had added a dozen magic formations to it, especially on the helmet and breastplate. Her hands were bristiling with Saint ranked rings full of water, to ease the drain on her powers later on.

The young Monarch was armored as well, and equipped with layers of magic arrays and storage rings. Although, he wasn't very hopeful to survive a direct hit from a Saint in any case.

'Go now, Aspirant. The firebreak has woken the worm.' the glove advised him, just as Cellia blurred and vanished away, streaking at hyper speed towards the Tian Mountains.

A minute later, the skies and the distant mountains exploded in a conflagration of sword qi and water qi, then fire qi and death qi, as the Saints began the battle in the earnest.

Pef gathered an ice armor around himself and flew up, and approached slowly. An hour later he entered visual range, seeing the worm for the first time.

The Rock Worm was a dozen kilometers long and half that wide, thus definitely the largest living creature that he ever saw or imagined. And it was surrounded by a huge cloud of poison and death qi.

The Ice Saint kept its lower half frozen, by spraying it constantly with her water rings, while the Fire Saint was bathing its maw and upper side with a torrent of white-hot flames. Once every minute Cellia would blast the rock worm, with a wave of sword qi, cutting a dozen gashes in the upper side of the beast, and allowing the fire jets to scorch the softer flesh underneath.

'Tell me when.' he asked his glove, as the young Monarch felt a bit overwhelmed.

'Dive here, and travel the yellow corridor. Your skill would be best used from below.' the glove replied while creating a flight corridor for the user, going a few kilometer under the mountains.

Some five minutes later, Pef arrived at the indicated destination, not feeling any safer from having a kilometer of rock between himself and the Saint beast, even while using the Indigo cloaking.

However, a yellow triangle appeared on his retina, and his Legion Knife smiled in his gloved hand. It was ready. Well, as much as possible anyway.

The second the targeting triangle blinked, signifying a clear hit, Pef released his Cutting Skill.

A beam of solid light emerged from beneath the worm, slicing the bedrock of the mountain like paper, and impacted the worm's underside. The Saint worm was pushed up a dozen meters, despite being as large as a mountain and possibly heavier.

Then 50 more Cutting skills arrived in quick succession, propelling the immense worm up like a ping pong ball. Still, its durable skin was barely scraped, perhaps a few meters in depth.

The skies above the Tian Mountains became blacken with dark and angry clouds, indicating that Heavenly Lightning was about to fall.

Guatian Ji sped up and positioned himself under the worm's center of mass, and ignited his lift-off magi tech engine, barely counteracting the mass of the worm, despite the prodigious force emitted by the Fire Saint and his magic engine.

Cellia completed flash freezing the exterior of the worm, using her water storage rings, and started helping with lift off as well.

Meanwhile Pef waited, and waited, until the last moment before flying up at high speed and stabbing his knife into the ice shell, beneath the hovering worm.

It was probable the worm didn't even notice him, but the worm wasn't independent. Its patron deity was watching, a dozen messengers circling the battlefield to capture the fight from every angle.

'Tian Rock Worm, age 438 millions, rank Saint. Patron deity: Harvester.' The glove explained as the user made contact with the worm, and the first lightning bolt fell.

The Monarch would have wanted to ask questions, but right now he was busy being electrocuted. The pain was unimaginable, as the lightning was imbued and entangled with the divine soul of the Heavens, as appropriate punishment for a Monarch defying the heavens. Just a qi lightning wouldn't even tickle a Monarch after all.

Even protected by the bulk of the worm, the heaven's lightning still pierced through the Saint and entered through the Legion knife, then the orange glove and lastly it coursed through Pef's meridians and into his soul.

Luckily Pef had 11 meridians open now, and had digested the Grey pellet, along with the White and Orange pills, increasing his soul's defenses to 85 percent, since every open meridian added 5 percent to the White Pills effects.

The Rainbow meridian pill was an overall enhancer of all abilities and defenses, adding 5 percents to everything, thus raising the defense to 90 percent. The magic formations added a little bit more, thus the effect wasn't deadly. Just painful.

But our hero was trained in the Legion method. Pain was like his second home, by now. The lightning was digested and absorbed into his dantian, fueling another sword qi blast.

The worm was temporarily paralyzed by the electric punishment, and its body began raising higher and higher, under the constant impulse from the magi tech engine, the domain of the two Saints and perhaps a bit more by Pef.

They struggled to achieve escape velocity and continued for hours, luckily after the initial cascade of lightning bolts the Rock worm was pacified for a dozen minutes. Pef began resuming his attacks, but much rarer, only once a minute or two.

However, once the trio had driven the worm into orbit and lower gravity, the speed increased dramatically. A third of the way to Moon however, the fuel in the dual rings on the Fire Saint's hand ended, and the extra propulsion cut off.

It was okay though, the job was done. As long a lightning kept falling to electrocute the worm, and its outer shell remained encapsulated in frozen water, the beast wasn't able to fight back.

The trip to the dark side of the moon took three days now, and Pef had unleashed thousands of Cutting Skills on the way, each one gouging deeper and deeper wounds into the worm, although the first ones closed, by the time the worm was crash-landed into a frozen lake inside a largish crater on the moon.

Pef's energy level remained at maximum, being fueled by cheating the heavens but now he had to take a step back and let the Saints duke it out again.

He was however exhausted mentally and physically, both from being in outer space and electrocuted constantly.

He remained in a high orbit, while Firali and Cellia unleashed their own skills and powers, without care for civilian loses or collateral damage.

Some time later he woke up, and glanced down, finding Cellia battering the worm's immense maw with huge club made from a 200-meter beast spine, while the Fire Saint sat cross-legged behind her.

The Moon had become dark, having acquired an atmosphere of sorts, full of poisonous gases and death qi.

'How long have I slept?' he asked inward, a bit horrified.

'You have hibernated for 22 hours. But now you have to go help. Start from the tail and slice the worm to bits. And stay below it, if you care about your health.' the glove said in a warning tone, and projected a course for the user to take.

Pef renewed his defense spells, and transmuted a bit of oxygen from his water shield, letting the hydrogen gas escape outward.

For the next month, Pef and the saints worked in turns, keeping the beast busy while chopping small bits off, and incinerating them.

It was good practice though, both in sword qi and soul refining, while the worm was being diminished meter by meter.

Our hero didn't have time for introspective thoughts and clever jabs during this fight. Simply struggling to keep attacking and stay out of friendly fire kept all his focus.

The worm was reduced to only 10 kilometers in length, then 5 kilometers, then one. By the second month, it was only a mouth full of teeth and a bundle of black qi clustered around. Pef had grown in ranking tremendously, reaching the peak of Monarch rank, from injuring a Saint to such extent and being a lower level as well as digesting thousands of divine lightnings.

As the second month ended, the worm finally died, and Pef got his reward, along with a last Monarch ranked divine punishment, but he didn't feel that.

The knife did a fast orbit around the moon, like a puppy glad it was outside the house, and the glove was busy digesting all the updates it had received from tens of thousands of lighting bolts.

To its surprise there was only some 9 percents from the total database, but that still gave it decillions of bytes to analyze and inventory. Especially news about wars and the Legion.

It appeared another Tier 8 had emerged, called Nu-Hualitep, and it had come from a different multiverse, breaching the Highest God Realm membrane somehow.

With it, came an insidious mind plague, forcing the existing powers in the multiverse to isolate and contain the infected areas. Or sometimes just sterilize them. The Tier 8 invader had thousands of Tier 7s called Mu-goliths, each of them more than a match for Legion Captains of their equivalents of other realms.

Only the Vaajra Devil Realms had remained undefeated, due to their overpowered skills. The rest of the multiverse was in chaos, and some entire sectors of reality were lost or vanished when their inhabitants got infected.

Meanwhile, Pef landed beside Cellia and grinned mischievously, then offered a hug. The poor witch was tired and drained, so she leaned into the hug for support, only to be tripped and spanked on her bottom. And not once or twice, but three times!

While she gaped in disbelief, the new Saint blew her a kiss and flew away, collecting a hundred Saint ranked worm teeth on the way, then setting course for his home planet, Lacrima.

'You didn't see anything!' Cellia sent towards the Fire Saint, who gulped and nodded as the Ice Saint sped after her young idiot friend.

Behind them, the moon was dark and covered in black qi and bio weapons, with only a poor Fire Saint left to clean up and incinerate everything. 'Damn idiots! I need better friends...' the man complained tiredly.

Sadly, there weren't other Saints anywhere near.

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PefVersed in the lewd.

As Pef arrived in low orbit above the Saint continent, the moon behind him was engulfed in flames, like a small second sun in the sky.

From space, the Saint continent was also engulfed in flame and smoke and death, and only a few thousands qi signatures remained in a corner, and ten times more non cultivators, in deep underground shelters. The Monarchy was gone, with a tiny corner of the Lacrimosa perimeter barely resisting.

The rest of the continent was a pulsing mass of writhing worms, and dead bodies. Animals, beasts, people...everything had been devoured and converted into more worms.

A dozen of such worms were assaulting the Continental Canal fortifications, somehow having reached Monarch rank and resisting everything the defenders threw at them.

Billions of smaller worms were supporting the assault, and getting incinerated, crushed or frozen, but the advance continued meter by meter.

Pef accelerated and arrived at the Carthage second fort just as it was being overwhelmed. A swipe of his hand and millions of worms became icicles and shattered. The Monarch worm leading the assault paused for a fraction, and was hit by a sunlance fired by an exhausted Lia. It wasn't enough to kill it, so Pef sent his neo knife into his wife's hand.

A second strike, this time condensing sword qi and her own solar domain flashed with bright golden light, evaporating one third of the worm.

The new Saint didn't wait, and flew along the canal, flash freezing the nearby worms, and reaching the next fort and then the next. In one hour, the perimeter was relieved, and all the assaulting worms destroyed, or in the messengers cases, contained in a block of Saint ranked ice.

Pef did a quick inventory of his family, noting who was missing, and who was supposed to be missing.

He stopped beside Yuan and Xie, who had been fighting side by side and were rather worn and tired. "Where is everyone else?" the new Sword Saint asked with a worried tone.

"I've sent Qin to Etna, til she heals. Lin is guarding her. And the rest...sorry, husband." the Fire Monarch replied in a cold tone, holding a fistful of wedding rings in her palm.

Pef dropped on the stone battlements, his mind going blank. Names and faces played in his mind, while grief and anger nearly overwhelmed him.

'Jian, Mengue, Lucia, Pela, Erin, Lara... and Si. Chief Quing and Zhong are also deceased. I will remember them for you, Aspirant.' the glove said in an impassioned voice, while plucking certain memories from the user's mind, and paving the way for the legion method to heal and strengthen him.

'They were Sovereigns! Except Si, with her new Sky rank. How could they all be dead?' Pef muttered in disbelief.

'Loses are quite low, per total. Much better than 99 percent. Containment and extermination for now, Aspirant. The plague hasn't spread far, yet. I suggest you erect ice walls along the continent's shores and incinerate the rest. This can even be seen as a tactical victory, if you upgrade your surviving wives to Monarch rank.' the glove added while compiling loses and population numbers on the planet.

Cellia arrived next to Pef a second later and looked around with calm eyes. "Not as bad as I feared. Still need to channel an ice age and expel all the infected at the moon, but we'll be finished in a year at most. The worst is over."

The Ice Saint began straining her domain, lifting a huge water wave from the sea and curving it above the city, creating a solid ice barrier. By the time she had completed her work, Pef had cooked some meals for the Guardians and his wives, and Lia returned as well.

The oracle handed the Legion knife to Xie, holding it easily by the blade. "Took me 6 kills, sister. Go finish the job." the new Monarch explained with a strange voice, while pointing at the 10-meter Monarch worm frozen solid just outside the ice barrier.

The knife flew from the wife's hand, and drove in an orbit around Xie, then stabbed itself in her left palm. Pef looked up from his stove with sad eyes, then looked away without saying anything. It was then that the other wife emerged, or tried to, eyes flashing silver then constricting in pain and vanishing.

Lia nodded to herself and sat down to rest, her predictions coming true indeed, and yet countered so easily by a more powerful oracle.

"Well then. This is for our sisters!" Xie proclaimed, drawing the knife with her right hand and holding it up. It was spotless of blood and her left hand had no wound. The knife could choose what to injure or sever, and Xie was a loyal recruit. The other soul wasn't. It was that simple.

She then sped through the ice barrier, glowing white for a second, then began slicing at the worm with methodical strikes. The ice reformed in her wake, while Cellia was gathering bodies and piling them up inside her rings.

It took a few days to clean up the perimeter of dead worms or people, and by the time the job was finished, Xie returned as a Monarch as well. She wasn't as practiced as Lia, but she was loved and that counted for something. Killing the Monarch ranked worms just pushed Xie over the peak, since she had 10 meridians open after all.

Xie lacked the Green and Vermilion meridians, just like Lia, Qin, Lin and Mia. Only Yuan, Aria and Blossom had digested that dangerous pill, beside Pef and Cellia. When Xie returned with her own Monarch rank, Pef had recovered a bit, his eyes no longer glazed and distant.

"What do we do now, husband?" Xie asked sitting at the table and pouring herself some wine, while the knife flew into the glove on its own.

The Saint husband watched her white aura for a second, then sighed in regret. "Now, we contain and eradicate the plague. And after that, we rebuild and grow. This is the Saint continent, and I don't see that many Saints." Pef answered with a piercing voice, reverberating in a strange way, making the ice barrier glow with his words.

Cellia turned to stare at the young Saint for a second, before gulping her wine and heading west along the beach, and raising a hundred-meter ice wall in her wake.

Pef nodded and headed eastward, doing the same, at half the speed Cellia was progressing.

It didn't matter anyway. He had all the time in the world now.

A month later, the continent was completely encased in ice, and the Fire Saint arrived to help with incineration, beside Pef and Yuan who were kinda slow at erasing all life from an entire continent.

Lin returned with Qin as well, and they began adding their Sovereign powers as well, to speed up the decontamination, just like Lia with her solar beams.

The continent took years to burn, but no more divine messengers approached, after the first was caught by Pef and then ripped apart to fuel more divine Grey pellets. Pef and Cellia scoured the Tian Mountains for more pockets of worms or plague spores, finding caverns full of them, which they froze and stored,

In a decade, the continent was declared clean, and the shelters were open for the few survivors to emerge. The world that awaited them was different now, as the lands had been infested, frozen and then burned, and everything would have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Still, Aria and Blossom had also returned after a few years, and taken deep under the oceans to hunt Monarchs and advance.

With Aria and Blossom, the Monarchy had 5 Monarchs after 5 years, and 8 of them after a decade, once Qin and Mia and Lin trained and practiced a few more years.

After 20 years, a number of changes occurred all over the world, as Hestia underwent her Awakening, and then became a Monarch fire disciple, living in the Xi Patriarchy. Emperors Remi and Wu remained there as well, to lead their own province.

But now, those from the Patriarchy who wanted to emigrate, and try out their luck in the Pef Monarchy could, and would board a Monarch ranked ship to be ferried 30 thousand kilometers to the land of the free. Slowly, the area around Lacrimosa City was populated again, with immigrants and new born people, reaching a million 'saints' in these two decades.

Ventu became a Sovereign, once his wife Hestia revealed her more loving side, and Madam Shen became an Empress, under the training and tutelage of the Patriarch.

Old Deng still wouldn't die, and was happily beating up the new generation of Xi younglings, under the guise of teaching them the sword. A dozen Xi Majors, children of the Tyrants, were promoted to Emperor rank and were being trained to defend their own provinces.

Technology progressed as well, with the invention of the microscope and telescope, then magnets and a dozen new metals. A thousand new inventions and a million smiths began an industrial revolution on Lacrima, while schools kept producing more and more literate people.

And while the Red and Blue continents were focusing mostly on material progress, and harsh education, on Green Gea and the Monarchy things went more towards genetics and life altering methods, trying to increase fertility and the qi regulating genes for the regular people.

Aria and Blossom pioneered the research in this domain, aided by helpful advice from Pef and Xie. They had a bonus with their wood qi, which at Monarch rank allowed them to shape plant life to some degree. Nothing like a druid in communion with Gaia could do, but also not trapped in a mystic relation of life draining and changing things without understanding.

It was the beginning of a scientific method, with charts and experiments. Lots of failures and dead plants, but once in a while a success appeared, a better fruit or medicinal plant.

Monarch Lia focused on researching gravity and light, using her oracle skill to glean more useful information from every experiment, while Lin kept trying to build more efficient magi tech engines and ships.

Also, the first children, Rose and Hero became Emperors in their own rank, and had to watch over a dozen new siblings, of which Lily and Paragon were also gifted with qi powers. Pef did some searching for more pill ingredients, opening their meridians and easing their cultivation, but mostly had them read books and learn.

And Pef...well, he did like he always did, cultivating his wives and meditating for hours in his sauna, although he didn't feel much from it now. Once a month, he flew to the moon, and blasted away, sparring with Cellia and trying to obtain more insight. It worked, but very slowly.

"If you want to ascend from here, my young apprentice, you can't simply gather and refine qi. Not that it doesn't work, but it takes very long. Artus has me meditate on the nature of ice, but you're not that patient, are you?" the Ice Saint asked him as they arrived to the Xi palace for some food and wine.

"No, I am not. Not in a hurry, but wasting millions of years is foolishness. Look, my Saint storage ring is only 1000 cubic meters. Yours, have 3000 cubic meters. That's all you've gained, wasting this much time. I just need to practice my divine dao. Three of them, to establish a foundation." Pef said in a low voice, sitting back to drink his chilled wine, while his water clone was busy cooking for them.

"Three dao? Wait, liquid, solid, vapor! I can train three dao as well, and complete my insight into the nature of water..." Cellia realized with a start, and vanished as hyper speed.

Pef sighed and sent a qi pulse to Mia, as she was pregnant again and always hungry. No point wasting all this food.

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PefVersed in the lewd.

Years flew by, and the Monarchy grew back, even stronger than before.

Having saved the smiths and the teachers in protected shelters made rebuilding civilization faster and easier.

New cities and schools, supported by monthly immigration of adventurous people from the Patriarchy,

as well as vigorous population growth which was somewhat based on Pef's example.

Families of ten children, even twenty, began emerging often clustered around a Guardian, both for protection

as well as a higher chance of a qi blessed child.

Visits to the Fertility Spring from the White Continent became a yearly pilgrimage, for the newer Emperors with water spirit.

Cultivation also became easier once the Saint worm was exterminated, without the constant qi drain which the beast had enforced in the past.

The Legion indoctrination method wasn't promoted to everyone anymore, instead being used as an incentive and reward, for the new Guardians who trained in the Taichi method that Pef had invented for Lady Si.

This new method allowed even young children to cultivate peacefully and then achieve their Nascent Soul before the age of 25, and possibly Emperor rank later in life.

Also, the Saint continent was now a huge grass plain, due to the forced incineration of all its surface, which forced the locals to become inventive, and use coal and oil as

fuel for heating and industry.

Trees and crops like maize were being planted again, but it would take centuries to rebuild the huge forests.

Still, this also meant most diseases were eliminated at the source, since insects and other carriers were also mostly eliminated.

Monarchs Aria and Yen, along with their daughters, Rose and Lily, were constructing a new ecosystem, importing various plants and animals from other continents, while Hero and Paragon were fighting on the new front lines.

Various dark cults and beast waves still needed to be fought, on the rest of the planet.

Although the war between the gods had stalled, everyone knew it was only a respite period, for fresh troops to be conscripted.

Still, the Saint was rarely seen anymore, his workings unfathomable and mysterious.

For example, a huge castle made of eternal ice had appeared at the spring of the river Agathe, with walls going kilometers high.

However, access to this castle was restricted to everyone, event the Xi family.

A cloud of snow surrounded this castle's towers, even on the warmest days, while a wide moat of hot, scalding water encircled the ice castle.

As for what was going on inside, only Pef himself knew.

At his moment, he sat cross-legged in mid-air, while his fingers moved slightly here and there, like touching invisible strings.

"You still too slow, moron! That's the last divine messenger I will catch for you. You better not fail again." the cold woman's voice was heard from behind the Saint.

"Mn, so you said the last twenty times, dear Cellia. Locust is out of messengers anyway. But Harvester still has eleven. I will not rest until they are all dismantled." Pef answered in a soft but clear voice, imbued with certainty.

His Saint senses were growing though, much faster than the Ice Saint's did in her past. He could grapple and constrain even disembodied

divine strands. But he just couldn't refine them.

The last and most crucial tool for a fast ascension was still too hard to grasp. But Pef wasn't deterred. Cultivation was supposed to be hard.

If it was easy, then anyone and everyone could become a god.

If this universe was a Legion base, then other means could be used, from virtual or accelerated training, to more esoteric or profound methods. If this was a tier 5 universe, skills or just condensing qi would be enough.

But in this sad and isolated universe, Pef had to find another way.

And he did. String after string, and failure after failure.

The nature of water was even easier for someone like him. But the last step was not present in his method.

And so Pef copied the Harvester of Souls, the insane demonic cultivator. Atom or molecules, and quantum strings or qi strands, Pef didn't care.

He kept trying to refine them into his core, using his soul as a hammer.

Cellia left after shaking her head, platinum blonde hair swirling once then vanishing.

'I'm afraid, Artus. What if he never succeeds? Even worse, what if he does?' she whispered to the cold wind, while summoning her arctic sprite to keep herself cool.

"He already did, Lady Winter. But he is too young and a bit of an idiot, and doesn't realize it, not yet. Not until he wears his glove again." Artus answered with his real voice, and yet only making the icicle vibrate slightly.

"But...he can devour souls then? Just like..." the old woman asked with a shiver.

"Can? Yes. Anyone can, after some trials. What did you think your ice sprite is?" the winter god asked rhetorically, then shattered one of her icicles, halving the connection with one of his messengers.

Cellia poked her remaining sprite with wide eyes, while her cultivation climbed and climbed, while the qi stored for a million years returning in her dantian.

After an hour, she reached the peak of Saint rank, and felt the tangible door of Ascension in reach.

Lady Winter stopped in the middle of a icy cloud to think. Meanwhile, her body was transforming, old wounds and scars healing while the body was preparing for ascension.

A day later, she arrived at Etna, and entered the Fire Saint's underground abode, wearing a veil made of cold mists.

"Firali, you're the worst idiot on this planet." she said in a light voice, scaring the poor smith while he was anchoring a delicate formation to a pair of gold rimmed glasses.

The artifact fell on the floor, while the old man turned around in surprise.

"Lady Winter, what...you're young?" he asked, peering through the pair of glasses he was wearing.

"Oh? You can see me?" she wondered a bit amazed. Truly, her moron friend was pretty much the best soul smith of this era.

"Yeah...it's kinda the point of the new glasses. Triple Spirit-metal-cyristalline lensing, with a diffraction fact...and you're a goddess now..." the man muttered in surprise.

Cellia sighed and went to sit at the tea table. An hour later, the Saints finished their tea in silence. Words were sort of unnecessary between them anyway.

"Give me a fire sprite." she demanded while holding her palms up, and producing a single icicle.

Guotian Ji blinked and held his own palms up, producing two white-hot fire sprites, swirling and dancing for no reason. "I see. Truly, I am the worst idiot on the face of this planet. And I even wear the glasses to prove it." the old Saint replied in a subdued voice.

Slowly, a fire sprite formed in his palm then jumped and landed in the Ice Saint's free palm, and instantly dived and transformed into a tattoo.

"Still, you've been a good friend, idiot. I'll be seeing you." the cold woman whispered, as she rose and walked away with small steps. After a few steps, her shape became blurry, then she vanished.

As the Fire Saint stared into his remaining fire sprite, tears began forming in the corners of his eyes.

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PefVersed in the lewd.

Pef stood still as his saintly senses analyzed and discerned the profound nature of the divine messenger, that poor being still imprisoned into a cube of ice and qi.

Even though he was a new Saint, and not truly powerful yet, his comprehension of water spirit was rapidly reaching mastery, aided by memory fragments from another life, and his own experiments.

After a dozen divine messengers had died at his hands, the thirteen seemed to be a lucky one. Lucky for Pef, of course, and not for a Tangerine messenger, frozen in saint ice.

Every minute, a pulse of qi flowed through the ice block, and added more data for our emergent scientist mage.

Amplitude, breadth and depth, frequency and latency, all sorts of information was being extracted and analyzed by Pef. However, a few hours later, Pef opened his eyes and drew a deep breath, his face the definition of defeat.

"Another day, another failure. Cultivating is too damned hard..." he said in sad voice, and stretched his arms above his head.

The sound of ice cracking and the smell of ozone drew Pef's attention, to space towards his right.

A blonde haired woman with strands of blue highlights and a white robe appeared in that place, almost by miracle.

There had been no sign of her presence before, but now it seemed the Ice Saint had been waiting there for many hours.

"I've brought you a present, my stupid friend. Catch!" the woman said in a cold voice, and threw something with her left hand.

Pef intercepted the object with his right hand, and stared at it with some amazement. It was an Ice Sprite, looking like a blue cone of unbreakable ice, and yet the second it touched his hand, it instantly melted and became a water drop tattoo, inside his palm.

"...Errr. Isn't this a NetherFrost rank of your order?" Pef asked a bit confused. His left hand rose to scratch his cheek while he examined the wonder icicle.

"Mn. So it is. Then again, it's something else too. A refined divine strand, to be precise. Two million years of cultivation, in a compact package. A parting gift, in exchange for a future favor." Lady Winter replied in a softer voice, then lit up a fire sprite in her left palm.

He was a bit slow, but still, he was a Saint. Pef drew a sharp breath and lit up his own Ignited rank sprite. Then he clenched his palm into a fist, crushing the Volcanis messenger.

A rush of qi and divine insight coursed through his hand and meridians, reaching his dantian in less than a minute. Ancient knowledge and various heat management techniques reached his mind, upgrading his comprehension by leaps and bounds.

The pain was unbelievable, but still somehow comforting, like biting your own nails. His energy levels rose abruptly, reaching mid levels of sainthood in a short burst.

"Huh, it was always so close, and yet I was too stupid to figure it out. Souls..." he whispered to himself.

"Yes, you are. See you in heaven, idiot." Cellia replied abruptly, crushing her own fire sprite.

Her body glowed a bright white light, and pulsed sharp beams of sword intent, piercing the impregnable castle and vanishing into the sky.

A waveform of cold and water qi exploded from her body, and the woman scattered into divine strands, leaving only a pair of leather sandals behind. They were a pair of saintly sandals, and not regular footwear. Pef poked them with his knuckle, and they vanished inside his storage ring.

Almost instantly, a new divine messenger arrived in front of Pef, lacking form or substance, but still radiating cold and sword intent.

It circled Pef body a few times, then condensed into a dagger made of blue ice.

"Happy Ascension Day, cold woman!" the young Saint said, smiling sadly. The dagger spun once, then stabbed itself into his left palm, becoming a tattoo depicting a tiny blue blade.

Pef ignored the new sprite, and instead turned towards the frozen ice cube with a divine messenger still inside.

He knocked lightly on the ice, listening for wails or curses, but the messenger was placed in forced hibernation and wasn't able to reply anyway.

Pef nodded to himself, satisfied with the state of his prisoner, for now. Then his senses expanded further out, searching for a certain green haired boy.

His inner map wasn't that accurate without wearing the glove, but locating his son, Hero, wasn't that much of problem.

'Still chasing after Lady Regia, huh?' he murmured a bit amused.

Regia was a new Fire Tyrant, one raised and nurtured by Hero during the Orange Base siege. One thing led to the other, and now Sovereign Hero was due to return from Vesuvius with a wife. Or beaten black and blue by the Fire Lord, if the offer was rejected and Hero argued back.

Either way, it would be a pleasant weekend.

The next second, the Agate-on-ice castle was left behind, as Pef sped up and flew towards the Monarchy Palace.

His speed doubled again, due to the increase in rank, and blessings of two tier 1 beings.

As he landed in the second courtyard, he passed through the light barrier set up by Monarch Lia.

A beam of solar light flashed from orbit, illuminating him with overcharged solar qi.

The next second, a fairy made of golden light arrived in front of him. The solar domain unfolded and revealed his favorite oracle.

"Pef? What did you do?" the oracle asked in a deceptively gentle tone.

"Why must you treat me like a teenager, always doing foolish things?" Pef asked in a defeated voice, and grabbed his wife in a warm hug.

Lia didn't bother to answer, of course. Even if Pef was now a realm higher than her, without wearing the glove he was easy to read.

"Hero is back, with a wife."she said instead, her eyes glancing towards the new palace wing.

"Black Meridian Pill?" Pef asked, just to make sure.

Lia slapped his head, then turned around, and rubbed her bruised hand while walking slowly towards the entrance.

"Her name is Ardent Regia. And yes, she was expensive..." the oracle said with a tiny smile.

"... One pill, for a daughter-in-law? That's not expensive at all." Pef murmured in a low voice, then sped up again.

Hero was showing Regia around, his gloved hand pointing here and there while the young Sovereign explained what every building around was for.

"... And that wooden shack, is my father's favorite sauna. He rarely uses it though, so we might as well visit it. You'll most definitely like it..." Hero said in a heroic tone, and no ulterior motive.

"Welcome to the Monarchy, Ardent Regia. And while my sauna is available for use, my son neglected to explain the particulars..." Pef added in an amused tone.

"Dad! S-shut up! Don't ruin the surprise!" Hero yelled in a startled voice, making Regia laugh in a melodic voice. Her red hair shook as she laughed, making Hero blush a little.

"Lord Pef...nice to meet you." Lady Regia said in a rather polite tone, towards the Saint father of her husband.

Pef held his palm up, and waited for Hero to throw a high five slap. The glove transferred owners with ease, appearing on Pef's right hand in an instant.

'Oh, you've grown some more, Aspirant! A decade more, and you'll be ready to try the next part.' the glove said hastily.

'Perhaps sooner, my orange glove. Cellia just ascended and left me her sword sprite.' he answered in a thoughtful tone.

'Indeed. Number thirteen and she's already in top ten of local divinities, just behind Artus. Lady Winter must have absorbed her Ice Sprite.' the glove mused while scanning local space, for energy readings and divine strands.

Pef drew his Legion knife and examined the blade. Most cracks and fissures had healed, only a dozen large dents marring the otherwise perfect edge. Not yet a god killer weapon, but it would cut meat and vegetables just fine.

"Come to the kitchen, you two. I'll cook something and listen to your adventures." the saintly cook explained with a faint smile.

Soon, the new daughter to the Xi family got to taste Indigo Blue Water Turtle soup, and salad made with Red Chili Peppers, Black Giant Onions and Violet Cherry Tomatoes, with a side of centipede and soy sauce. She survived, this time.

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kiorasVersed in the lewd.

Finally new ones, I remember reading to after the worm was defeated but it then disappeared. Not sure why you were banned either.

Aug 9, 2019Report

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AshenerdenNot too sore, are you?

Every time I see person presented as "50000 years" or more, it kinda makes me hate the concept of cultivators being very old and such. Perhaps that is because of the dissonance between their claimed age and their behavior and personality. They never quite manage to convey how truly old they are, and what changes their extreme age bring. After the first a few characters older than normal human lifespan, I kinda started snickering when I saw more and more outlandish ages.

Aug 9, 2019Report

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PefVersed in the lewd.

Well, imagine the top wuxia stories deal in chaos cycles, each cycle lasting about 1 trillion years. But wait, that's only how long it takes for a bottle of chaos elixir to condense. And the item you want to buy at action costs 50 thousands elixirs...

Then you have to grind some Dao or another for 100 thousand cycles, to be allowed to use the Eternal-class sword.

And then, your enemy shows up with the next tier of Universal-class sword, and you want one too...