The smell of burning flesh woke the grieving oracle from her revelry, and made her glance surprised towards the Fire Monarch.

Wasn't it kinda fast to burn their husband already? She could have stored him and let the other wives have a last goodbye...

Then she glanced around searching for the loyal puppy of her husbands, and saw it work together with Yuan to chop organs out of his burning corpse.

"Okay, what the hell! Are you cooking him and making a last meal of his dead flesh?" Lia asked a bit outraged.

"Pef's fire sprite is fine. He is not departed yet. Dead, but not dead for good. Lara, you keep his brain frozen. And you, Lia, see what the silly knife is doing." Yuan ordered in a composed manner.

A minute later, the sizzling and melted flesh of their husband chest had already been cut out and vanished somewhere. Then the crazy knife flew around, and stabbed itself in Pef's remaining lung.

Lia could only stare with a small hope in her heart. The dual white and silver soul was still there, being tied around the Neo knife, the god tier blade which was made to sever souls. She chuckled a little, already running percentages of what must have happened.

Their stupid and inventive husband must have trained his puppy knife to stitch together his soul to his body, by sleeping with a damn soul knife in his chest.

Her hand poked the glove with a gentle finger, asking about Pef's status.

There wasn't a voiced answer like Pef must receive, but it was an answer. All good.

The new Sovereign let out a breath of relief, and hugged her eldest friend, Lin Xi. "He's fine. Well. In a half melted body, kind of fine." she explained while tears of joy fell on her face.

Yuan wiped her tears as well, and caressed her young husband's lips. "You're not dying on me, damn idiot. You haven't even loved me properly... He would want the snake I think." she muttered with a more serene voice, and flew down to let the glove store the Sovereign rattlesnake.

A 500 meters long beast wavered and folded to a point and vanished as the glove moved by itself and waved up with Pef's slack right hand.

The Fire Monarch nodded at that. If the knife could move, of course the glove could move as well.

Damn god-level artifacts!

They held powers so strong and unfathomable, no wonder even Volcanis was wary of them. Pef seemed to have an unlimited storage in his glove, and the knife could store blood and meat or sever souls with ease. Her Monarch ranked rings were amazing and large inside anyway, but they would never store things on their own.

After a second of thinking, Yuan decided to fill one of her rings with sand, as this sand seemed finer and smoother than anything she's seen til now.

Perhaps she could try glassmithing and create that perfect glass that her husband kept failing to make.

Though he was mostly trying to create a weapon of sorts, for Lia. Yuan knew that glass was fragile, if quite sharp when broken. But how it could be made in a weapon, she had no idea. Even the sharpest material blade, like the thin neo knife, was unable to scratch a Monarch. Not unless further enhanced with sword qi.

'Don't worry, fire fairy. You did as asked, and allowed the Radiance to feel again. Head to Etna now.' a thought form entered the Monarch's mind, just as years before, when she was told was her skill did.

A line of fire appeared in her vision, pointing the way for a second.

Yuan sighed but obeyed. It was probable that Saren Xi was at the Etna fire cone, if Arachne kept pressing the offense for the Yellow Marshes.

"Form on me, sisters! Time to go." Yuan said in a qi pulse and flew up with Pef's disfigured body in her arms.

It seemed now the fates had reversed, and she was the one to nurse a see through spouse back to health.

At Sovereign speeds, the travel times were much shorter, and the party crossed the distance in less than week.

The knife remained asleep inside Pef's lung, even as his skin and some flesh grew back and covered the gaping holes.

But Yuan wasn't worried. Not anymore. She had been in similar state and had healed and even ranked up.

Miracles happen every day, and her tears could cure anything. Even soul poisons. Or maybe that was the Green pill? Maybe the White?

Anyway, by the time the party arrived at Etna, Pef was still asleep, but his fire sprite came out to play with a tiny water clone, and chase one another in mock sparring.

Yuan added her own sprites and a fire clone kept tiny, and then Lia made a tiny sun fairy with wings of light to mother over all the tiny creatures.

Lin and Lara nodded at each other, then glanced at the visible fire cone fort in the distance.

It seemed they wanted their own clones as well.

As their party landed at the Fire Disciple base, Pef open a tired eye and just glanced around, before falling asleep again.

'Your stomach will be functional in two days, Aspirant. Continue training like before.' the glove chided him, for wasting energy without purpose.

The user had a damn qi clone, so he didn't need real eyes to see. Or just use his soul, like any intelligent being, even the glove itself or the knife.

It wasn't like they ever had, or needed eyes.

Next day, Pef figured out how to speak with his clone, modulating water waves like vocal cords.

It was still hard work, as his qi reserves were quite low, being used for regeneration.

But enough to ask for Saren, and drop a ring with Orange Pill ingredients in his hand.

The poor uncle failed the first two pills, before figuring out the correct sequence. But by next day he managed to refine one pill.

Then Pef was helped up and fed the first Orange Meridian pill, making him glow like a sun.

His qi levels soared, raising the qi energy by 20 percent, and giving him a tiny taste of entangled qi.

'This is good, right? I feel much stronger!' Pef jubilated inside, a few hours later.

'Yes. Now there's about 8 years left to the next rank. The various soul poisons like all the snake venom and divine bubbling qi will be reduced in effects against you. By 20 percent.' the glove said serenely. It was a huge boon. Not for a weak Sovereign, but further along, at equal strength the user would be guaranteed an effective defense.

Even more, the extra meridian helped the soul expansion due to the White pill increase again.

His soul would be comparable in size to that of the Sword Saint, the user liked so much.

Her qi would be much more potent and dense, like it was normal for a Saint, but their souls would be equal.

Three weeks later, Pef opened his eyes to find two visitors in his room, Tyrants Lucia and Mengue, the later he recognized as well, since she gave him the first hug for a While Meridian Pill, back in Vesuvius.

"Hello." he spoke with some difficulty, as he still had about one week left of growing his spine.

"Lord Pef! Thank god you're all right!" Lucia exclaimed and jumped from her seat, then sat back with an embarrassed face.

"Wives?" he asked with a pained voice, while searching with his senses as well. There weren't any signs of their auras in a 60 kilometers radius.

Mengue blushed for some reason, then shook her red hair and spoke softly." Helping defend our lines. At Lamia and Loa. Another push from the spiders."

The injured Sovereign blinked in acceptance then closed his eyes. 'They left me bodyguards while they go out to have fun?'

'Yuan can return in 300 seconds, if there's any problem. And three Sovereigns can match 30 Tyrants with ease.' the glove explained in a relaxed manner.

Pef called his water clone instead, since moving it wasn't any pain. "Hold the glove for a second, both of you." he demanded while speaking through his clone. The Fire Tyrants did as asked, and he soon had a report on their progress and latest life stories. They were getting strong, though countless battles.

It seemed the leadership of the Volcanic Fire sect was sending all the new Tyrants outwards, into combat or expansion. A dozen of them had died already, but they haven't managed to produce a new Sovereign. Instead, they have obtained a hundred new Sky ranks, which were recalled to refine fire qi, at various volcanoes.

"What's going on, my ladies? Why so many loses?" he asked a bit confused.

Lucia sighed and refused to answer. The other Tyrant drew a bit of qi for a privacy array, then answered in a wary voice. "Our Lord Sovereign thinks we are impure. And after Ardent Hestia remained on Blue Xi, and the Lady Ignited married you...he fears you're suborning our sect."

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Pef agreed inward. He kinda was converting a good chunk of their fire sisters into Fire Guardians. Completely on the Saint continent, in fact.

"I see. Well, the Sovereign is not wrong, but not right either. I aim to unite all humans on this planet, and deny all the godlings human followers." the water clone explained in a distorted voice, and patted both senior disciples on their heads, with careful movements.

Lucia stared at her ring, given to her by Pef some time ago, while Mengue nodded while she thought deeply.

"And after that? Who will charge Volcanis, or even Gaia to fight against the evil deities?" Lucia asked after a minute.

"Who charges me, or you, for that matter? Who can stand against a Saint?" Pef asked rhetorically.

The women hesitated and glanced at each other. Lucia stepped off, and began boiling some tea, almost using the qi balancing right. Her fire domain had grown, as did her control. Pef brought his clone close and dropped two rings from his glove, old ones from his Emperor days.

Then the clone placed the rings on the table, in front of Mengue and Lucia, an Orange pill along with Sovereign ranked set of armor for Mengue, and a White and Orange pill in the ring for Lucia.

Pef only had 4 White pills left, but since Lucia didn't get one from her bosses, he could help. And Saren had made him 200 Orange pills, and took 50 pills with him when left toward Vesuvius. With three meridians open and some love, both of these women could ascend to Sovereign rank in a week.

They already had digested a Red pill, as former high ranks in the Fire sect, which helped maintain their health and beauty for thousands of years, combined with their purifying fire qi.

But it was the short Awakening at Phobia which really transformed them both, giving them a more voluptuous and muscled body, while smoothing their skin and making them glow with beauty. They reminded Pef of Jian, when she emerged transformed from the basement with a mere Spirit rank.

Just a bit more love, and the new Tyrants will become superpowers and supermodels. If they took the rings and became his wives.

Sadly, Pef was still weak and recovering, and his water clone dissipated into vapors as he drifted asleep. Thus, he never saw what happened after, although his glove watched amused.

It watched even more interested when white and orange light mixed to create interference patterns, and give it more clues on what exactly was going on in this universe. To block off the Legion communications, meant that a powerful Tier 7 entity or any Tier 8, was involved and had sectioned off a sector of reality, for whatever was going on here.

But the Heavenly Lightning still coming through, with bits of information and extra energy, meant it wasn't a closed system, just restricted.

Various contingencies and conjectures were proposed and discarded. A prisoner camp? A demilitarized zone? Refugee camp? Disaster area? War memorial? Private hell? Tourist attraction? Amusement park? Weapons testing area? Contaminated laboratory?

Some features fit one description, but not the rest. Skills were normally gifted and supported by a higher entity, testing various abilities in a controlled environment. Golden auras were normally dispersed over multiple universes, to allow a rapid and non synergistic ascension. Legends and myths were easier to establish for a single person, rather a whole group.

Divine pantheons took a lot of energy to set up, and were weak to wide area attacks, like it had happened to the Veridian Legion, in a distant past.

The expert system continued mulling over discrepancies and energy readings, until morning, when the neo knife decided it had hibernated enough, inside Pef's lung, and sliced its way out. The two Fire Tyrants were still groggy from digesting their pills, and they didn't notice the curious puppy left its crib and roamed around.

The knife didn't use halls and doors to explore, since stone was same texture as air for it. It bobbed and weaved, doing a whole circuit of the Etna fire cone, before diving, and entering a secret cellar.

A Fire Disciple of Earth rank was tied to a slab of boiling magma, the fire and heat slowly tempering the man and his qi pathways, while a couple of Spirit-ranked disciples chanted mysterious mantras around the altar.

The knife dove even lower, into a more secret chamber, with a magma golem caught between a dozen formations, which kept it immobile and suppressed.

An old man with red and white hair and beard was dialing and turning various metal and crystal arrays, while two blinding white fire sprites were keeping guard over him.

The puppy did a happy run around the room, bouncing off the golem and being swatted away with a backhand by the old mage.

"Go away, damn knife. I'm busy." the man muttered a bit annoyed, although the blade didn't even scratch him.

In other rooms next to this one, on the same level, the brave bladed explorer found other creatures kept prisoner by magic barriers and arrays, even spiders or locusts or tiger beetles.

The knife did a last tour then flew up, so it didn't see a woman dressed in a white robe appeared in the golem room.

"Another one! What do you want, Cellia?" the man asked in a grumpy tone.

"Nothing, just checking on my apprentice. He still needs to grow a spine though..." the cold Saint said in a level tone.

"Well, if you're here...grab the end of this soul strand and pull for an hour, damn messengers are damn hard to disentangle." the other Saint muttered and passed her a soul filament, while he kept the qi part anchored with his sprites.

The pair worked for an hour to separate the divine strand from the golem, before grabbing it with magic tools and refining it into fire qi, into a red crystal cauldron inscribed with a hundred formations. The golem became ordinary stone, and was folded into a ring with a careless gesture.

After that, the two old monsters sat to drink some tea in silence.

"That's like the fifth messenger this year, isn't it?" Cellia asked to be sure.

"Hmph. I'd still need a thousand more, if I only relied on Volcanis. Too bad I'm not a pretty woman, to beg for meridian pills from horny youngsters." the old Saint said in a sarcastic tone.

"Yea, about that. Make me two Divine Grey Ice pellets, my young friend. I don't like being in debt to people." the woman murmured and set a storage earring on the tea table.

"Oh, you found two Grey Divine Sea Anemones? I thought them extinct..." the Fire Saint asked in some surprise, examining the contents of the earring.

"There are a hundred left, you fool! They just cluster together in the Nether Frost Arctic trench. Took some hard work to steal two and escape alive..." the female Saint admitted with a grimace, while pointing at her half melted sandals.

They both shuddered while examining the damage. Saint ranked items didn't get damaged. Unless something truly terrifying hit them, like a dozen Monarch ranked Divine beast spikes.

"You must really like this guy, Cellia! Maybe you plan to get married again?" the Fire Saint asked in a teasing tone, before a sword blade appeared on his shoulder and tapped his neck playfully.

"S-shut up idiot! I'm just being a good friend. I'll come back next year, for my pellets." the Ice Saint muttered with a slight blush, and vanished without a trace.

The Fire Saint sighed and sipped his tea, pondering the task ahead. Six months for a Grey pellet? Harsh mistress, his old teacher.

Then again, he did have two more divine messengers in captivity. He could be ready in 2 months if he used half of that energy for the pellets.

'Sorry Volcanis. Cellia is scarier.' he whispered inside, and cursed his fate again. Why couldn't he have water qi and live an easy life?

In the room above him, the Earth ranked disciple advanced into Sky rank, and became an Ardent, immune to fire and heat.

Poor guy would be happy, for a while. But for the next million years he would refine qi for their god, if he survived that long.

It wasn't impossible, it just took long and boring hours. And not get eaten by some beast or another.

This million years early Saint was proof it was possible. Too bad nobody remembered he existed, living deep underground and hidden from the world.

Well, except Cellia...which was possibly worse. Those sandals? They were made from his own skin.

'Damn it. I have to make her new sandals.' he realized a few hours later.

He sobbed in self-pity while he decided which leg to skin next. 'Why did I have to take the Red pill?' the man muttered while reviewing his life choices, again.