Oppressive dark clouds seemed to cover the sky of the Ruinless Zone.

"Is that all it takes to push you all to your limits?" Tianming smiled as he headed back towards the Ruinless Zone. All of a sudden, someone stood before Tianming and stopped him.

It was Yueling Zhao, the rambunctious daughter of Imperator Ji. Glaring at him, she said, "I heard that you've strengthened the Primospirit Ancestral Tree's energy absorption a hundred times to torture a hundred million people, including my great grandad!"

"That's right. Your great grandad's screams truly were pitiful. He almost caved and called me his father," Tianming mocked.

Everyone thought he would try to keep it hidden and didn't expect him to reveal it just like that. How could they possibly ignore the fact that Yueling Hong, a distinguished figure, was being tortured like that? Countless curses were slung his way in an instant, but so what? This was the Adjudicator's arrangement, which Tianming answered with an endless stalemate and his skypole stars. The captured cosmic gods of Yueling and the violetblitzians were suffering while Tianming was out vacationing for three months! They couldn't afford to let it continue!

"Li Tianming!" Yueling Zhao's tears flowed uncontrollably. "If you're a man with balls, fight my eight brothers honorably! You're the Skyplunder imperial son, not some bandit! Can you still call yourself a man by using these underhanded tricks?!"

He didn't care about her provocation in the slightest. Instead, his curiosity about her eight brothers grew. He looked at the frosty visage of Imperator Ji and marveled at her immense beauty and elegant countenance. She was simply breathtaking, and yet, she had eight sons and one daughter...

"Don't they say the more elite the bloodline, the harder it is to have offspring? How did she give birth to so many?" Tianming whispered to Mu Qingqing. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"Hmm..." Mu Qingqing snuck a glance at the imperator. "I heard that it's a unique method. Those sisters are really proud and simply won't choose any normal man to marry. Yet, they are obliged to keep their legacy going. So, they used a secret method to extract legacy factors from Imperator Ji to match with legacy factors of other top males in their world and fused them together outside the body, before using something else to incubate them. They'll grow without needing to be carried throughout pregnancy and have an even higher chance of succeeding than normal procreation. It seems that the talents of the donors also carry over successfully."

"It works just like that?" Tianming was quite surprised. In other words, Imperator Ji didn't need to be involved with any male or bear the child, and she also had her pick of males to match her legacy factors with. She truly was Yueling Zhao's biological mother and she had eight other children too. That was more than enough!

"This is what makes Yueling Starcage a power to be reckoned with. Their methods are kept a complete secret. For now, only Imperator Ji has gone through such a process. The other three imperators will also be doing so and raise generations after generations of impressive progeny," Mu Qingqing said.

"Dang, they've mastered the art of mass producing offspring. I should learn a thing or two from them," Tianming said.

"You? I thought you'd be all for creating offspring the old-fashioned way," she said, giving him a side-eye.

"Hmm..." It did feel odd to him as it would take all the fun out of it. The men who donated their legacy factors to Imperator Ji were kept secret, so there was no point either. "Those four imperators are inhumane and go against nature's mandate. They should be punished."

Yueling Zhao got even angrier at being ignored. "Have you said enough?! Go in and get yourself killed! Yueling Starcage's eight future imperatores will send you to the afterlife! Surely, that's more honor than someone like you deserves!"

"Future imperatores?" Tianming had questions.

"Their talent is impressive, and they occupy the top eight in combat strength among those under a hundred thousand years old. There's a good chance that all eight of her brothers will become imperatores," Mu Qingqing said.

"Now that's amazing indeed." Hearing that made him quite excited. He walked past Yueling Zhao and looked at Imperator Ji.

"What do you wish to say?" Imperator Ji asked.

"Umm... I really don't want to be a stepfather, so you better make some preparations while I go take care of that. They do call me cruel, after all." He smiled deeply before entering the Ruinless Zone once more.

"What was he implying?!" Yueling Zhao asked as she rushed over.

Yueling Xiao's grimaced and said, "How arrogant and insolent!"

It didn't take much thought to know what Tianming had meant. He was going to kill all her children before marrying her! It wasn't just cruel, it was also completely inappropriate!

"The imperial son always goes too far..." Curses galore rained down on Tianming.

Imperator Ji, however, seemed calm and consoled her daughter. "I already told you. This is just a minor battle in the larger war. We need to be able to focus on the bigger picture to achieve grand ambitions."