Pef spent the next day at his palace, healing his body and nourishing his soul, by enjoying his wives and playing with the kids.

'How long do I have?' he asked next morning, as he felt Cellia return towards his palace at high speed.

'Could be days, could be years. There is no precise timer, Aspirant. You should really prepare, and gather ingredients for the next meridian pills.' the glove warned him in a more stern voice.

Pef kissed Erin again, then rose and flew at speed towards the kitchen, where Yuan and Cellia were having tea already.

Sometimes he could swear that women had a secret coded language, talking behind his back, even with him right there.

Lia had been here, he knew it as he could trace her movements now, but she flew away just before the Saint arrived.

"My lady wife, and esteemed cold blooded teacher. Good morning!" he proclaimed in a cheerful tone, passing them by and starting his breakfast routine.

Since Cellia was here, he made a fruit salad and porridge with cheese, and finished in only 10 minutes. Cooking was becoming faster and the meals even tastier with each day, as he put his soul into it, and now his soul was actually tangible.

It had to be, since he used it constantly to reinforce his sword qi, and his own defenses as well.

Still, he wasn't satisfied, knowing that the Patriarch was a whole realm above him in combat strength, despite his lower qi rank.

The Orange Meridian Pill had made Deng even stronger, and the spots on his skin had vanished, but the old monster still couldn't cross into Monarch rank, being stuck at the peak of Sovereign, for as long as it took for his soul to warm up to love. From the Blue Xi delegation, six Emperors had managed to ascend to Tyrant ranks after digesting the Orange pill, while Lithos finally crossed into Sovereign rank at the respectable age of 60 thousands or so, after consuming a White and an Orange pill one after another.

Ventu had stayed back as a backup defense along with his fire partener, Sovereign Hestia, and he would likely ascend soon to Sovereign as well. It wasn't as he lacked practice or combat, after all. The energy of the White pill should have pushed him to the peak anyway, but he needed someone beside him, a woman to love and protect, as a reason to continue ascending.

After the breakfast, the Saint measured her friend with a frown. "You're planning to ditch training again, aren't you? Damn idiot, always pampering your weak wives like they can't endure a hundred years without you, while you get some training..." she grumbled while scanning the palace for signs of more exhausted happy women , drooling in their sleep. Surely enough, she found three of them sleeping off the hard cultivation of their husband.

"Silly woman! I'm trying to get them pregnant, isn't it right, my beloved fairy?" the Monarch asked his pregnant Monarch wife, who had also taken a Green pill and a hot bath into the Hot Ice lotus geyser.

"Indeed, my brave husband. And only took you a thousand failed attempts, with me. Pleasant attempts, I must admit..." Yuan said in a tiny voice, and blushing a little. She smiled cutely behind her tea cup, while her left hand patted her slightly inflated belly.

The Ice Saint stared daggers at the lecherous Monarch, although she sort of needed him for the same task.

"We'll roam the world for a month, dear Cellia. I want to gather ingredients for the next meridian pills, and since I am going to gift you one of each, you can help guard my back." Pef explained, and saw a bit of surprise and hope on his friend's face.

"You know where to find them?" she asked in a measured tone, controlling herself to appear calm and mysterious.

"At the bottom of the oceans, Lady Winter. You should know that 90 percent of our planet is covered in water. There will be a long search ahead, and I suspect the deeps are full of scary monsters and beasts." he said in a more subdued tone. It was kind of dangerous to go by himself, but with a Saint beside him it should be fine.

However, Cellia grimaced and scratched at her side, where the wound wouldn't heal completely, even after taking the Red and Black pills.

"We might both die, young Xi. There's some really scary beasts in some places." she whispered in a wary voice.

"So we call in more troops. The Fire Saint!" Pef exclaimed as he reached an obvious solution, snapping his fingers toward Etna.

Yuan blinked a bit confused, then closed her eyes in communion while her fire sprites sprang out as a conduit.

"Hah, silly Pef. You think that grumpy guy will just come and help, when you ask? I had to..." Cellia said after a snarky snort.

The Fire Monarch opened her eyes and interrupted. "He is coming. Like in 10 minutes."

Pef rose an eyebrow, and took out his own fire sprite, as he was Ignited and favored by Volcanis as well. "I got connections with his boss, stupid witch! I say jump, he asks how deep." he explained in a sarcastic tone, gesturing with his fingers pointing down.

A dozen minutes later, a grumpy old man, like a million years old, arrived and sat in front of a steaming tea cup. He wore his red and white hair and beard in braids, and with his red breastplate he looked quite funny.

"Hello and nice to meet you all, again. I was busy, I mean...reading the new books on metal." the Saint muttered while tasting the tea.

Pef offered a handshake after the tea inn his cup was consumed, and gleaned everything he needed from the few seconds of contact.

'Guatian Ji Firali. Lord Ignited of the Fire Circle, Saint rank, age about 900 thousands, very distant ancestor to Yuan Ji Xi. Heat immunity, favored activities: alchemy and formation arrays.' the glove presented the man in a short snippet.

"No problem grandpa. Yuan here is pregnant with your great, great child. A girl, but a regular one." the Monarch said in a pleasant tone. The guy was family after all, if a thousand times removed.

The Fire Saint raised a bushy eyebrow, examining the Fire Monarch for a few seconds. "Really? She's kind of...too pretty, even for my clan's exquisite bloodline."

Pef drank his beautiful wife with his eyes, before confirming his previous statement. "Yes, Guatian Ji. Although the Legion method had helped a bit, she was almost as pretty when I met her, before we sieged Myrrth together and got married."

"Hmph! So I've heard, young Xi. You burned half a million men there, making god notice you, as the funeral pyres were seen even from heavens. And now you're both Ignited Monarchs, and hated by Locust with a vengeance." the Saint replied in a warning tone.

Our young hero shrugged not that concerned. "I've killed messengers before. Now, let's armor up and go. Take care of the Monarchy, dear wife." Pef said with a smile, and leaned to gift Yuan a parting kiss.

"How deep do we have to dive? I don't like deep waters that much..." Guatian muttered as he placed a thin gold bracelet in front of Yuan.

When the pregnant wife poked it curious, the bracelet swirled around her arm like a snake, and sank in, then became a golden tattoo on her forearm, depicting a firebird with open wings.

"Thank you, Lord Ji. It looks wonderful." Yuan said in a respectful tone, while examining her new tattoo with her qi senses.

Cellia snorted a bit amused at the display of forging skill, then glanced at her two friends. "Let's go already, you morons. The sooner I hunt something nice, the sooner Pef can cook another great meal."

Between the three of them, they soon found plenty of beasts to hunt and eat, as the depths were infested with sea monsters of all ranks. Not Saint ranks, fortunately, as those were very rare indeed with only three of them living on the entire planet, and only one of them a beast.

Pef directed the group, collecting algae and corals, mollusks and plankton, rare sea shells and pearls and all kinds of strange ingredients, even diving into sulphurous geysers for some Toxic Violet Lotus or into deep underwater caves for hidden Indigo Fluorescent Lotus.

Tribes of Rainbow Gardener Octopi were raising a garden of Rainbow Ephemeral Lotus, behind a underwater village made of strange buildings made of colored rock and shells, and some Vermillion Gastric Lotus were found inside a huge Vermillion Monarch Smiling Whale, growing inside its stomach.

Truly the depths of Lacrima were as amazing as they were dangerous, as Pef noted while being stung by a Rainbow Soul Poison Sea Ray and dying again, for a short minute.

He kept the sting to craft a weapon one day, when he wasn't busy, and used the pain to entangle his soul even more, which helped him in turn to produce stronger sword qi.

The Sovereign ranked Rainbow sea ray was eaten in the week it took him to heal back to strength, and the Fire Saint refined a Violet and a Indigo Meridian Pill after a dozen failed trials.

Pef tested them on himself, to learn their dangers and bonus abilities.

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.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

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...'