Medanzo cried out with such force that Qianye felt like tripping over. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “Do you think a surrender will work?”

“Why not? We have no unresolvable hatred between us. Even if we do, it’s nothing compared to a thousand years. Descendants are no longer important once you reach my level of achievement. There are dozens of geniuses among them, and it’s fine even if half of them end up dead.”

The Lightless Monarch spoke as if it was all right and proper. In fact, he did make a certain degree of sense—those at the great dark monarch level lived much longer than their descendants. It wasn’t a rare sight to see primogenitors living well even after the descendants of their...