Preparing for Conquest

Although it was just a single exchange, this conflict with the Astral King, an Earthly Deity, allowed Yaan to gain a much deeper grasp over his power. He felt certain that if he faced any of this world's current Earthly Deities in one on one combat, then so long as nobody else interfered, he would be able to kill his opponent without too much difficulty. Of course, he understood that divinities all had countless cooperative relationships and survival contingencies; it wouldn't be so easy to actually kill an Earthly Deity in reality.

'I see, so this is the difference between Deities and Empyreans…both are 'divinities', but a Deity is really only able to exist as a divinity thanks to their reliance on the Heavenly Dao, whilst Empyreans possess a complete dao heart, making them a divinity with their own dao alone. The difference between the Divine Power possessed by the two is like night and day. Even so, I can't just ignore the Deities' strength; they're not difficult to overpower, but killing is never so simple, since everyone has their own ace for survival.'

The 15 Deities all looked towards Yaan and the Sage, waiting to hear their instructions. They had already been told the general plan, but knowing the Primordial Sage, it was likely that she had kept several important details to herself. This was how she operated, taking every precautionary measure and distrusting even the most trustworthy of individuals to ensure that nothing could go wrong.

"This turnout will simplify the roles." The Primordial Sage spoke, looking across the group calmly. "There are 15 Deities present, and 15 sectors in the Four Divine Star System. With this lineup, each Deity will take one sector; we shall take the Four Divine Star System and establish our order's territory on the Qi Plane rapidly. We must achieve absolute authority before the Divine Court is able to quell the chaos in the Divine Star System."

Immediately, the Deities felt stunned. They hid their shock, but Yaan could see past their facades…clearly, the Sage had failed to mention the true scope of their ambition this time.

The Primordial Sage continued.

"Unfortunately, it would seem that the Divine Court has revealed one of their countermeasures – one half of the life-planets in the star system have just been destroyed. Regardless, the true value in this star system remains; once we own the star system, we will own every True Inheritance and Primordial Treasure from the Spirit Plane. Everyone who participates in this mission will have the chance to pursue the True Inheritances and use the Primordial Treasures. Priority will naturally be given to those with the greatest contributions."

The Sage stopped speaking there, but continued to relay individual instructions to each of the Deities as they were still processing what she had just said. 

Even Yaan was startled by her sudden claim…

'The Divine Court destroyed half of the life-planets in this star system? Such an immense attack, how could they do something like this without any of us even noticing?'

When he cast the Sage a glance, her voice appeared in his head. She informed him that the Divine Court had activated one of their secret measures. Law Empyrean really hid this well, nobody other than himself had known about this until now!

It was very likely that every life-planet occupied by a vassal of the Divine Court across the Qi Plane was equipped with similar self-destructive measures which could be activated by the Divine Court whenever they pleased.

This was a bit concerning. If the Divine Court was capable of something like this, then just what other secrets did they hold…?

Regardless, their plan remained unchanged. The destruction of those life-planets was a big loss, but the main treasures were all unharmed.

The True Inheritances, the Primordial Treasures, and…the four Divine Clans.

The four Divine Clans would bolster their forces substantially. Those clans possessed many powerful immortals and Transcendents, as well as inheritances and hidden measures passed down from their progenitors.

Immortals and Transcendents might be as weak as bugs to divinities, but they still had several irreplaceable uses that every force needed to consider. Firstly, every Transcendent was a potential divinity…that said, with the Divine Stairway destroyed, that potential had been cut off.

More crucially however, was the unavoidable fact that no matter how strong a divinity may be, they were still just an individual. Only the Primordial Sage could somewhat ignore this, but even she saw the value in the weak masses.

And that value? Information, production, and control.

For most divinities, Yaan included, they only possessed a single body. Aside from the Primordial Sage with her unknown number of 'bodies', most divinities would possess at most a few clones. 

Combat strength was just one facet of a divinity's 'strength'. Holding a grasp over the world was something that no individual could achieve with their personal strength alone, that was why organisations existed, even amongst divinities.

Transcendents and immortals were used to gather and report information on the countless goings on throughout the world. All the minor matters that a divinity wouldn't pay attention to were observed by those below them. After everything was reported and filtered up the chain, the most vital information would be relayed back to those at the top.

Using the weak for 'production' was a similar concept. Divinities had their own need for resources, but where did those resources come from? Anything useful to a divinity would always require a shocking quantity of ingredients, the likes of which would need numerous life-planets filled with hardworking labourers to produce. And indeed, this was exactly where those resources came from.

To control the world as a whole, to maintain a proper information network and production chain, Transcendents, immortals, Foundation Step cultivators, and even mortals, were all needed. They were assets, and whilst a few immortals meant nothing, an entire star system would provide more than just a few immortals.

In the Four Divine Star System, there were around 3.3 million stars. Of those stars, most were just ordinary and could not support life-planets which were crucial for the development of mortal life, but there were still 120,000 life-stars, which was no small number. The number of planets and life-planets orbiting a life-star could be highly variable, but an average life-star was orbited by 2-3 life-planets. It was common for there to be at least a few immortals on a life-planet, meaning…

Even after Law Empyrean used the 6th Divine Law to destroy half of those life-planets, reducing their number from 300,000 to 150,000, that still left close to a million immortals and hundreds of Transcendents in this star system!

Their own force consisted of just several thousand immortals, but every single one of these immortals stood at the peak of the Immortal Step - they were all Dao Immortals. The Sage had also accounted for the power of the Transcendents throughout this star system which the immortals could not match and the divinities didn't have time to deal with, so there were actually now more Transcendents in their force than there were throughout the Four Divine Star System!

And as for the divinities…

Yaan had been informed about the divinities they might be facing, as had the other 15 Deities. Nobody knew whether or not the Sage was withholding anything from them, but it didn't really matter - she wouldn't do anything to hinder her own plan. If she was withholding information, it was likely just out of caution.

Honestly though, even the Sage couldn't be perfectly certain about the divinities who remained in this star system. She could observe the world through the senses of all beings below the Divine Step, but if a divinity chose to completely hide themselves from the world, she would struggle to locate them. This was the Sage's one weakness when it came to observing the world. She somewhat made up for this using her many bodies which could investigate any regions that left her feeling suspicious, but this wasn't perfect.

Even so, her information network was indisputably the number one throughout the world, nobody could compare. And when combined with the Primordial Sage's intelligence and experience, her ability as a strategist of war was notoriously terrifying.

After all, she had developed this entire plan by herself, and right now, she was telepathically relaying individual instructions not only to the 15 Deities, but also to the thousands of immortals and Transcendents.

She had observed the situation across the entire star system, and deduced individual roles for every single solider. In this world, who else could do such a thing?

Nobody.

As the Sage silently informed their soldiers of their roles in this battle of conquest, Yaan's gaze drifted away from the people before him, towards a certain direction. His eyes shone with a light of indiscernible colour as he used Reveal Truth, his dao spell that had grown with him as he reached greater heights. Now, like all of his abilities, Reveal Truth had become part of his Divine Power, and its effect was quite terrifying.

Karma had vanished from this world…but Yaan could still see it.

In Yaan's eyes, countless illusory chains manifested between himself, and everything in this world that had some degree of connection to him.

These were not the karmic chains that had once operated under the Heavenly Dao. These were the karmic chains of fate that only Yaan could see.

Even if the Heavenly Dao's karma no longer existed, karma itself still existed, as did 'karmic fate', and simply…fate.

Dao itself had no limitations. The Heavenly Dao might seem endlessly grand, but how could it measure up to something truly boundless?

On the Sage Plane, whilst comprehending his newly developed power, Yaan realised that he could 'feel' the karmic fate between himself and the world. He could feel the faint threads of fate that existed between himself and others, and the stronger the connection, the stronger the fate.

He could follow this vague feeling, but by using Reveal Truth, the direction became much more clear, and the feeling far more profound.

'My fate with the Sage is the strongest, this isn't surprising. There are two other powerful connections with a strangely similar feeling to the Sage's…these are no doubt the Primordial Spirit and Primordial Asura. If only those three shared this feeling of similarity, I would attribute it to them being the Primordial Demons, but there are actually others. There are other karmic chains of fate between me and other people in this world, much weaker, but similar in feeling to those three. And the strongest one…is in the Divine Phoenix Sector…'

Yaan's eyes returned to normal. Using his illusory Spirit Sense, he spoke to the Sage silently.

"I'm going to the Divine Phoenix Sector."

The Sage seemed to pause for a moment, before continuing. She didn't ask him why he wanted to go somewhere other than the place she had suggested as the best choice, but simply adapted the plan accordingly. In the end, she deduced that they had a good chance of encountering a divinity in 6 of the 15 sectors, and the Divine Phoenix Sector was one of them, so it wasn't a big deal for Yaan to go there first.

The general plan wasn't too complicated. Each of the Deities was assigned to a different sector within the star system, where they would take their subordinates with them. Once there, the Deities would send their subordinates across the sector, helping them to quickly conquer the many life-planets, taking everything over for themselves. The Deities would then move onto the next part of the plan, which was to wipe out any possible traces of the Divine Court which remained in each sector.

But of course, the biggest challenge wasn't these minor details, but instead the other divinities hiding throughout the star system, waiting for the opportunity to take the True Inheritances and Primordial Treasures for themselves. They were going to deal with these individuals as and when they found them, in a relatively simple manner…

They could either join the Primordial Sage and World Demon, or they could die. 

Well, perhaps they might be able to escape, but this was the choice that would be presented to them. 

Of course, divinities wouldn't be so easy to subjugate. And so…

Finally, the Primordial Sage finished relaying her instructions. As soon as she was done, her body split into 15 separate bodies, each of which looked identical to the original. It would be hard for others to discern the difference between these 15 bodies and the original, but Yaan could feel that her power had been split into 15 portions.

None of these bodies were particularly strong in fact, but their strength wasn't important to begin with. What mattered, was that having the Primordial Sage by their side was completely different compared to the Deities showing up alone. With this, it was likely that at least some of those concealed divinities would be convinced to join them.

The reason nobody had made a move despite so many treasures being right there before their eyes, was because all of those treasures were being watched by the Divine Step world. As soon as someone made a move, it was very likely that others would show up to ambush them. Everyone was waiting for the chance to make their move, but joining Yaan and the Sage was probably the safest move they could make.

And so, the preparations were now complete. There was no need to say anything, the Sage had already given the order to move out. Everyone turned and flew towards their respective targets, heading in 15 different directions.

Yaan turned into a blur, vanishing from everyone's range of senses almost instantly.

He was heading for the Divine Phoenix Sector, following the strongest karmic chain of fate which for some reason shared the same resemblance as the other three Primordial Demons. The coming battle would be chaotic, so he wanted to ensure that he at least met with the person at the end of this chain before they got swept up in the chaos and vanished.