Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Four apex experts were leaving everything behind and heading into the depths of the Great Necropolis, where they would face untold dangers and challenges.

Thankfully, the Sage Monarch League was secure.

With the Preeminent God Pillar and the Nine God Mountains defending the league, any enemy that tried to cause problems would be crushed. There was always the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart as well.

The truth was that the spell formation that Yang Qi had set up was profoundly powerful. It contained all of the numbers from one to nine, ensuring that not even the executors would be able to pierce it. Plus, Yang Qi had added elements of the Purrfect God Art and Great Necropolis godpower, among other aspects, to ensure that it was mighty to the extreme.

There were also mid Terrifying experts in place. With all of those defenses, the league would definitely be able to withstand an assault from even six or seven mid Terrifying opponents.

Of course, that wasn't to mention the other deadly god formations that were available, or the god corpse. For example, they had the replica of the Unbounded Sword River, which would easily slaughter early Terrifying experts.

Yang Qi himself was stronger than ever. In his sea of energy, he had ten thousand pieces of godhood sealed with the Devil-God Seal and arranged into a spell formation.

If one was able to look closely at the sealed godhood, it would be obvious that it was under the control of two types of true energy, one of them pitch black and the other shining with radiance and light. The two of them made a perfect taiji symbol.

The black was a representation of wretched evil, and of tribulations and kalpas.

The radiance and light represented righteous justice, and the ultimate level of power.

Of course, it was the dual energy art Yang Qi had created, a combination of the Unspoiled Body and the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth. Because of it, the godhood was like a sphere, with an exterior resembling that of the Great Necropolis.

Yang Qi was gradually assimilating the collection of godhood, turning it into his own, and using it to push his cultivation higher and higher, getting closer and closer to the mid Terrifying level.

In fact, he was now about ninety-eight percent confident that he could successfully achieve the breakthrough.

However, he still wanted to wait until he was one hundred percent sure.

That breakthrough was a trump card that he didn't want to use until exactly the right moment. It would also be the same moment in which he finally became a Grand Emperor. He was currently still on the fifth stair of the Deathless Heavenly Stairway, the Stair of Fearlessness.

Given that, he actually had two trump cards. Although Doom, Proud World, and the Shepherd all knew that he would be experiencing more breakthroughs, there was no way that any of them could guess that he was in the middle of assimilating ten thousand pieces of godhood.

RUMBLE!

He had an immense, wild power brewing inside of him, although it wasn’t apparent on the outside.

“The depths of the Great Necropolis have such wild energy flows that it might as well be primal-chaos,” the Shepherd said, sighing.

WHOOSH!

A blade-like stream of energy suddenly appeared, like a scimitar, slashing into the Shepherd’s defensive empyrean energy, creating a long, burning streak.

Face falling, he struck out with two fingers.

“Devil King Curse!” His move blocked the scimitar, but the blade continued slashing at his defensive energy.

The mists around them were growing stronger and denser, making travel much more difficult. It felt like trudging through a quagmire, in which every step was slow and took much effort.

Bam!

Yang Qi struck out with his fist, and the mist ahead of him made a booming sound like metal being struck. The mist collapsed. With that, he proceeded forward, followed by his three companions.

However, the primal-chaos vital energy quickly formed together again, even stronger than before.

“This is incredible,” Doom said, unleashing his own Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth to help Yang Qi carve out a path for them.

As they proceeded, it felt like an ancient god was waking up within the primal-chaos, causing their surroundings to solidify into stone, making advancement impossible.

“It's so hard to travel around in the depths of the necropolis,” Proud World said. “No wonder most other experts never go past the three thousandth ranked immortal worlds. If we go any further, the primal-chaos vital energy is going to petrify into stone. Each step requires immense strength! I wonder if this is what the god world is like.”

“The pressure in the god world is much greater than this,” Doom said. “Ordinary people would have a hard time moving an inch there without being crushed to death. Remember, the deeper we get into this stone-like primal-chaos vital energy, the greater our chances of getting immense benefits. Look! Over there! Isn't that some godhood?”

Even as he spoke, his eyes emitted two golden beams of light that melted some of the vital energy ahead of them, revealing something floating in front of them.

It looked like some sort of fossil set in an enormous boulder.

He deftly reached out and pulled the boulder toward them, revealing that it really was a translucent piece of godhood, bereft of any aura of the legion of gods.

‘Newly formed godhood!’ Yang Qi thought, not saying the words aloud.

“Strange,” Doom said, frowning. “This godhood... doesn’t seem to belong to anyone. It wasn’t left behind by any god. It looks created. It’s too bad we can't get it, and use it to reach godly ascension. After all, godhood is the only way to become a god. Sadly, in the mortal world, it's only possible to use external godhood to create your own.”

Everyone knew that it was impossible to actually reach godly ascension in the mortal world.

It was an ironclad rule.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” Yang Qi said. Looking ahead, he saw that everything in all directions was filled with the stone-like vital energy. It was incredibly difficult to proceed forward, but thankfully he could still sense his connection to the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, so he wasn't too worried.

Even a mid Terrifying expert who got lost in a location like this might end up being eternally trapped in stone, and ultimately petrified. And from where they stood, it was impossible to tell how far this stone-like vital energy stretched on for.

However, they felt certain that, if they could get through it, they would reach the ends of the Great Necropolis, and perhaps even emerge onto the Ancient Road to the Gods.

Regardless, there were immense profundities to be discovered here.

With great effort, they sped up.

Most of the work was done by Yang Qi and Doom with their Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth. It created a golden light that surrounded them almost like a ship of some sort, allowing them to pierce through the vital energy, causing sounds like a metal drill bit boring into a piece of metal to ring out.

“There’s a corpse up ahead,” Proud World said. The corpse had been infused with so much of the surrounding vital energy that it was now a stone statue, lifelike, with a long saber in its hand.

“I recognize him,” said the Shepherd. “He’s one of the top saber masters from the Ancient Road to the Gods, Saber Gentleman Ghostwar. He was a mid Terrifying expert who once dominated the ancient road, rebuking armies and fighting all opponents. Who would’ve guessed that he actually died here in the Great Necropolis?”

He struck the corpse with a palm, hoping to break what he assumed was a simple exterior stone shell. However, he quickly found that every aspect of the corpse, from the skin to the bones, had been petrified. The statue crumbled into dust.

Even his saber, a god item and second nascent divinity, had been turned into stone and was now crumbling.

The Shepherd had hoped to find at least some treasure on him, but obviously, that was impossible.

The Shepherd was visibly taken aback by that. He was the weakest of the group, and was only now coming to realize the dismal fate he would suffer if he didn’t make it out of this location. In fact, if the four of them split up, he would probably have only a sixty percent chance of making it out alive.

“That was definitely Saber Gentleman Ghostwar,” Proud World said. “I heard that he even fought with the magisters of the future world, although I didn’t personally witness it. What a pity that he died here. I wonder if our expedition here will end with us running out of true energy and ending up like him.”

“Don’t worry,” Doom replied. “With myself and Brother Yang Qi here, we’ll get through this area. After all, Brother Yang Qi is an Inheritor, so he can move through this vital energy like a fish through water. Isn't that the case, Brother Yang Qi?”

After a moment, Yang Qi replied, “My powers as an Inheritor are limited. This vital energy is really strong....”

Suddenly, Doom’s eyes flashed. “Watch out!”

A deadly beam of sword energy shot through the surrounding vital energy, and before anyone could react it was right at Yang Qi’s back. Apparently, this was the sword strike of some consummate assassin!