"My Queen, let's attack him...maybe..." a scarred warrior ant said while glaring at Pef.

Pef shook his head and began pressing the foolish ant into the ground. Soon, the chitin began to crack and the ant bit the ground, leaking white juice between the cracks. "Don't mistake compassion for weakness, warrior. Your armies only fought our new recruits, serving as target practice."

The Ant Queen stepped forward and began morphing, changing her upper body into a humanoid form. "Please don't kill him, my dear T'lik warrior isn't even a million years old." she explained in an embarrassed tone, like apologizing for a child.

Pef nodded an offered the Queen his hand, then drew her into his inner world.

She looked around in wonder, as the inner world was already the size of a galaxy, filled with stars and planets...and many of them inhabited. "I thought my constellation was great..."

"Well... I am a bit special." Pef replied a bit smugly. " But still, most of this is because of the Legion's cultivation method. I reached the second tier in 80 years. My third tier ascension took a thousand years. And I'm close to 4th tier."

"My name is Shiara, the 87th of this name. And it took me 12 million years to ascend to High Queen Realm...or the third tier, like you call it." the ant queen said hesitantly.

"Do you want a human body shape, my dear?" Reason wondered while examining the ant with a curious glance.

"She is?" Shiara asked a bit confused.

Pef smiled kindly. "Reason. The weapon. A Veritas Legion power word gun. Her maker is a tier eight divinity, our General."

"...We never stood a chance, die we?" Shiara whispered to herself, eyes wide with awe.

Pef shrugged. "We will begin converting your people to the Legion's cultivation. Soon we will be ready for the final expansion plan, and your trillion ant soldiers will have their role to play as well. That's if you want equal rights. I don't have much use for slaves." he explained politely, while arranging a table and some tea.

"Equal rights, huh? The whole universe then." she mused softly while sipping a touch of warm tea.

"For a start. I had planned to try for the next sword stage, One with the Void. Sadly, this is only a tier 1 universe, and the Heavenly Tribulation will not allow me. So we need to leave the universe." Pef said with a raised eyebrow.

"That sounds...intriguing. How would this mass conversion occur?" she asked in deep thought.

Pef smiled and glanced at Reason. "That's simple. You just listen to reason."

The woman dressed in the metal armor opened her mouth and began to sing.

Meanwhile, the real Pef spread his coresense over the entire ant homeworld, and clenched his gloved fist, drawing the planet and all the locals inside.

Then he sped up, Blinking towards the other ant inhabited planets. In a few days, thousands of colony worlds were absorbed into Pef's inner galaxy, while the ants themselves began converting to the Legion's indoctrination method.

'Set course towards NE quadrant. Let's recover the other gun, before some savage manages to take control. That would be pretty bad.' the glove advised him while plotting a course on his retina.

'Pretty bad you say.' Pef muttered while pulsing his void blinks at high speed, leaving the Purple Veil galaxy devoid of life behind him.

The Legion's troops continued their training in the relative safety of his inner universe, while Aria joined Pef's Avatar on his private beach.

"Hubby, you're back!" Aria exclaimed happily and jumped into his lap.

At her bosom, a black puppy tilted his head and blinked at Pef.

"That's the Xi Patriarchy knife?" Pef asked to make sure.

The puppy growled menacingly and tried to bite the hand fondling Aria's peaks. The teeth slid off, finding no purchase.

"...Well. The Patriarchy is long gone, folded into the Legion about...three thousand years ago." Aria said with a shrug.

"And my dad just gave you the knife?" Pef asked curious.

"Nah. We fought and I beat his ass. Your sister rules the Blue regiment now. Mine is Green." Aria replied in a childish voice, while examining Shiara with piercing eyes.

Pef sighed and sipped his tea.

'How long was I lost to the world?' he asked mildly.

'....The harsh truth or the kind truth?' his friendly glove asked teasingly.

Pef grit his teeth and pushed his speed even further. A billion light years to go.

As he passed through clusters of galaxies, he began spreading his Legion's regiments, like seeds for new colonies.

Once in a while, Pef stopped if he detected cultivators, and promptly absorbed their worlds into his galaxy.

More and more new races were converted into the Legion, while thousands upon thousands of new galaxies were seeded with Legion regiments.

His inner galaxy was producing new recruits at an astounding rate, given they were functionally immortal while birthing dozens of children per couple.

Shiara was birthing entire regiments at once, millions of ant eggs, all nearly trained recruits. Even the new larvae were already at Earth rank. It took less than a decade for each birth cycle to reach maturity and then grow into adult soldiers.

Crossing into divinity was still difficult, but Monarchs and Saints by the millions were not too shabby.

'That's our target. The Singularity Galaxy. And as you can see, they might pose a bit of a problem...' the glove said in a grave tone.

Pef waited a few minutes while observing this galaxy intently. He could sense trillions of cultivators, many of them into the Sovereign, Monarch and Saint ranks. And a few hundred much higher.

'Devils.' he concluded with a tired voice.

'Luckily they are not real ones, like the scary devils from the Great Realm. White eyes, not violet. No hexapod power armors. Very likely only the leaders have strong soul attacks. Still...be careful.' the glove advised him in a strange tone.

Worried? No...more like challenging.

Pef's summoned his water clone then the fire one, and began fusing them together. This fusion took a lot of work, even for a Peak Tier 3 god.

Slowly, a devil simulacra formed from this combination, and he grinned widely at Pef, before Blinking towards the nearest planet.

Pef began assembling more divine messengers, and sent them as spies towards more planets with lower ranked devils.

Soon enough, new information began filtering in, language, customs, the Dynasty organization and ranks and everything else.

'They have two Archdevils...' Pef muttered in dismay.

One of these tier 4 was already a difficult opponent.

Two of them however...it was impossible.

Inside his inner world, Pef's Avatar and Reason stood in front of a holographic map of the Singularity Galaxy.

"We have parity in soldier numbers, but our cultivation method is better. If we achieve surprise, a victory is possible." Reason said in a thoughtful voice.

Pef glared at her for a second, before returning to study the map...and the projected enemy disposition.

"If." he answered in a mock tone, then closed his eyes.

Direct conflict would be horrible, and would cause at least 90 percent attrition, even with surprise.

He could take on the tier 3 devils, even a dozen at once, most likely. In a long campaign, opportunity for catching some of them off-guard was a certainty, especially with the glove's guidance.

But two tier 4?

No.

'We need the devils to fight among themselves. And then...' he decided.

Reason glanced at him and nodded. 'Yes. Start working on a plan then, Commander.'

Pef smiled and turned towards his Ant Queen. "We can sell ant soldiers as slaves..."

Shiara glared at him. "Nothing above Sovereign rank." she muttered in a defeat voice.

Pef nodded eagerly. "Sovereign soldiers will do."

With a huge slave army, a daring devil could conquer a galaxy, right?