“C’mon, what’s with the long faces?” Li Hao smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever mistreated you guys, have I?”

The two smiled and didn’t say a word. Yeah, right! Have you forgotten when you literally beat us almost to death?

Whatever, it’s so stressful hanging with you.

The two exchanged looks of shared sympathy. Let us treasure our last moments of freedom!

......

Li Hao’s general rage was much abated after encountering the western queen and Great Li king again. Although these two were sometimes quite irritating, they were sometimes quite adorable as well.

They were proactive go-getters who didn’t like sitting around!

They could start a farm if given a bit of sunlight, or turn the world upside down if given a little bit of support.

As the three conversed, the big rat listened with dawning horror. It was still alive, so it could wonder who this human was. He was so strong that he’d immobilized the rat. While regular mid ranks could kill it, they would not be able to so casually suppress it.

The rat was an exalted emperor, after all! And it seemed that the two troublemakers were this person’s subordinate.

The rat suddenly understood—the Silver Moon king!

This was the Silver Moon king that everyone viewed as a New Martial vassal!

Li Hao had been under New Martial’s halo all this time. Although he’d accomplished a lot of things, including conquering Red Moon, credit for that was assigned to New Martial in everyone’s eyes.

The young man didn’t mind that the lion’s share of the work was being attributed to someone else. He didn’t try to change anyone’s mind. However, he would not always stand in New Martial’s shadow. Contrary to everyone’s opinions, they would understand sooner or later than New Martial was New Martial and Silver Moon was Silver Moon.

He concluded his conversation with the Great Li king and queen, then chuckled as he gazed out over the world.

“You two have built a nice foundation for yourself here. Why don’t you go for something even bigger today? Execute this rat beast in front of the world. You might receive the gratitude of an entire world of humans then!”

Killing a world master would be immensely beneficial for the duo. They looked at each other, then at the rat beast.

“Go on!” A smiling Li Hao waved a hand, sending the rat beast tumbling through the air. “As for this rat beast, I’ll unseal you by eighty percent. If you can defeat them, I’ll give you a chance to live. If they kill you, well, that’s that.”

The rat’s strength began returning the moment it somersaulted through the air. Joy bloomed! So the Silver Moon king was no longer suppressing it!

Well, some of its strength was still contained, but perhaps it could escape now!

However... renewed horror returned the next second.

It wasn’t the only one, the Great Li king and queen both gaped with wide eyes. Incredulity spread across their faces as dozens of exalted emperor presences appeared in the surroundings. Not one, not two, but dozens!

They looked at the people who’d just appeared, too taken aback for words! These were familiar faces!

All of them were familiar faces!

The fuck?! All of them have verified their dao?? How is that possible?!

Since when had Silver Moon produced so many exalted emperors? There’d only been a few before, so why were there fifty to sixty now??

Indeed, Li Hao had suddenly released all of the exalted emperors. They’d been waiting in Panther’s stomach all this time, observing and listening to everything. Hence, everyone was fully in the know.

Some of them bore complicated expressions on their faces, such as Jiang Li!

He looked at the Great Li king. My king... even I am an exalted emperor now... And you... don’t seem to be one yet...

The Great Li king nearly bit his tongue into two. Fucking what?! A bunch of guys who were weaker than him before were all exalted emperors now! Was this what resulted from relying on Li Hao?

If he’d known...

Alright, that was enough of that. He was just a bit rueful that striking out on his own seemed to bring fewer results than Li Hao. Just look at the rest of these guys!

“Stop watching the show, everyone!” laughed Li Hao. “Round up all of the monster spirits and chaos beasts in this world. Herd them toward the center. Don’t overlook a single one!

“You can start running now, big rat. You don’t necessarily need to fight. If you can escape before all of these exalted emperors surround you... then that is your destiny. I will let you live!”

The rat beast that thought of fleeing before could only mentally gibber with panic. There were so many exalted emperors around! Fifty to sixty was the complement found on a seventh rank world. Not even a sixth rank world would have so many!

Its urge to run spontaneously withered. There was no way it was getting away!

Not only that, but the fact no ripples were ensuing from so many exalted emperors appearing at the same time meant that the world had been completely isolated.

With that dreadful thought lingering, the rat beast vanished.

“It’s the master of the world, after all.” Li Hao looked at the two. “It’s much stronger than regular first ranks. I’m keeping twenty percent of its strength in check, so it’s more or less on par with a regular first rank at the moment.

“I’d like to see if the two of you can kill it. Have you improved at all since leaving me?”

The Great Li king looked at the queen; her eyes darted around briefly before she focused on Li Hao.

“Very well,” the woman laughed. “We shall let the Silver Moon marquis see if the two of us have improved or not!”

While she was surprised by the number of exalted emperors in the surroundings, that shock wore off after the initial reaction. Magical things tended to happen around Li Hao. It seemed normal that he could bring forth so many exalted emperors. It was just a lot more than they’d anticipated.

The queen vanished and a bright moon appeared in the sky. Her voice reverberated through the world—she was the Sky God now.

“I am Sky God Ling Yue!” Her voice echoed with divine majesty. “I have come to experience the trials of living and descended upon the mortal world. Today, I work in tandem with the mortal sovereign, the Great Li king, to eliminate evil and restore justice...”

The strength of the brilliant moon scattered down over the land; blinding radiance shot forth in all directions. She was bringing her previous experience in holding sway over Divine Nation to play. Li Hao did not measure up to the queen when it came to grandstanding or lulling onlookers.

For the moment, the public saw only a bright moon in the sky. They... wanted to cry. A god had come to save them!

Their lives were too miserable. All humans in Dragon Region were too wretched!

They’d heard of this god before, and that she’d supposedly saved a lot of people and delivered them from suffering. But it was also said that she wasn’t as strong as the world master. In the people’s eyes, the rat beast was the strongest existence in the world.

But today, Sky God Ling Yue had come to save them!

......

“Ling Yue!” Lin Hongyu suddenly snorted. “That wasn’t her name before, was it?”

Ling Yue? Ling, as in the character for soaring over, and ‘yue’ as in moon? Does she want to lord it over Silver Moon or what?

Lin Hongyu was hugely irritated. She was a relatively tolerant person, but there was one type of person who always got on her nerves—pretty, young, and strong women.

The queen was very young as she’d been part of Li Hao’s era. Which meant... that they were the same age.

She’d set herself against Li Hao time and time again, but Li Hao had always let her off the hook. One had to know, the young man once suffered his first ever loss in the queen’s hands. He’d been resoundingly defeated!

Today, he helped her make the trillions of humans in Dragon Region hers... and now she’d changed her name. It was incredibly annoying.

And so, Lin Hongyu took advantage of the opportunity to vent her spleen. The more she saw of this woman, the more pissed off she became. She’d been very happy when the queen ran off, so why had they encountered each other again?

What a damn headache!

Void sized up Lin Hongyu, then at the queen illuminating the world. He smiled—how interesting. He then looked at his friend again and transmitted, “Is this Sky God Ling Yue another sister-in-law?”

“......” Li Hao stared at him with some confusion. Void actually liked to gossip, didn’t he? He’d been so cultured and enlightened when they first met, but now look at him. He’d sunk into the dust of mundanity!

How droll!

“We need to think of a way to get our hands on a map of the Dragon patrols... We’ll devour the region step by step before the patrols arrive!” Li Hao didn’t bother to answer the question because it was so nonsensical.

“We have a lot of people now and a lot of exalted emperors,” he laughed at his idea instead. “We can let them out to stretch their legs. I need to acquire a more accurate map of Dragon Region and a detailed listing of each world’s strength...”

Void’s head hurt, he couldn’t provide this. He could do so for Skyward Region, but not even his father might have a detailed map of Dragon Region!

“It’s probably only Dragon Region’s stronger worlds that have a detailed understanding of their region,” he said when his thoughts traveled here. “Didn’t Senior Orchid Forest say before that there is an Ironeater major world here that is enemies with the dragons? The enemy of our enemy... maybe a friend.”

Li Hao inclined his head.

“We also need to be on guard against passersby discovering something being off!” said the young man. “There’s one benefit in operating in Dragon Region—regular exalted emperors won’t dare set foot into another exalted emperor’s territory without the Dragon master’s express command.

“But powerful existences will be able to sense a thing or two from the world, even without venturing inside. They might detect something amiss.”

Void nodded.

“Therefore... we need to hide what we’re doing here! At least enough to misdirect anyone traveling through the area. I have an idea, a not-so-mature idea that I need your help with.”

“Shoot.”

“I want to put a jacket around the world!”

Huh? Void blinked at Li Hao.

“I want to comprehend the dao of the chaos beast and manifest a minor world to devour the main world! That will make two layers of worlds. The external layer will appear business as usual, whereas the internal will be where humans are active...”

Void understood! He took a sharp breath. “You... are going to create a real world?”

“Not really, since I lack a world origin. Therefore, I will share it and plant my world in the original world. I have a very bold idea in mind!” Li Hao laughed. “I need too much energy at present. Since we can’t take down another seventh rank world, we’ll nurture a world with another world!

“Take this minor world, for example, it can nurture one of my worlds. I’ll extract all of the energy from it, including its world origin. That will break the world so it can support mine! My ultimate thought is to smash Dragon major world, seize it, and nature the humans of the region with it!”