Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

“Life-Killing Sword Technique!”

The interior of the bottle gourd was cramped, making it difficult to unleash much in the way of a variety of moves. But Yang Qi had immense battle experience, so as he danced back and forth, he unleashed the sword dao of King Life-Killer, sending one deadly move after another toward his opponent.

“Bloody Slaughter of the Dome of Heaven!”

“Setting Sun Pursues the Soul!”

“Stars Bury the Vast Lands!”

“The Bane of All Existence!”

“Darkness and Light; Waxing and Waning Moon!”

Yang Qi was using the sword dao of King Life-Killer to full effect, and was actually improving with every moment. He had just taken eighteen sword pellets, so it was an easy matter to add their aura to his own sword energy to crush the Chaos-Cavern Grand-Magnate Pill energy arts being used by the pill daoist.

“This is really pissing me off!” the pill daoist growled. “How could a Quasi-God last for so long in a fight against me!?” It almost seemed as if this was the first time the pill daoist had ever been in a fight. He was backing every move with full power, which seemed impressive, but was really an empty effort. Although his energy rocketed out with mountain-toppling, sea-draining force, Yang Qi could easily negate it. The attacks were like thousand-kilogram cotton balls, and Yang Qi was like a tiny embroidery needle that could pierce through them with ease.

“Check out this fist technique!” the pill daoist shouted, proceeding into a consummate martial art that had once been practiced by the daoists of the Pill-King’s temple. The pill daoist had those memories, and was therefore able to send a huge mass of fist energy rumbling toward Yang Qi.

SNICK!

Yang Qi was nearly laughing out loud at how extremely shoddy this pill daoist’s fighting technique was. He had immense godpower, but no idea how to use it effectively. In fact, Yang Qi was convinced that he had probably possessed better skill than this pill daoist even back in the impure lands, when he had just learned the Hundred Paces Divine Fist. [1]

The fact that the pill daoist was coming at him with such arrogance, claiming to be about to kill him, was actually really funny.

He swept his hands out in an arc, releasing a soft energy art filled with numerous transformations. In fact, it was so profound that a taiji symbol actually appeared right in front of him, which absorbed the incoming fist energy and shattered it into countless tiny medicinal pills.

Purr.

Yang Qi sucked those medicinal pills into his sea of energy, and the virtual godhood therein, which did a lot to bolster his godpower.

This daoist was actually a medicinal pill, so when Yang Qi negated his godpower, it turned into ordinary medicinal pills. By absorbing that one attack, Yang Qi had just gained godpower that would normally require two or three years of bitter cultivation to get.

Yang Qi suddenly felt quite enlivened, and his cultivation base had even improved.

“Damn you!” The pill daoist had apparently just learned something, as he sucked his godpower back and stopped attacking. He had realized that his successive attacks weren’t doing anything, and that he was just wasting godpower. Even worse, his opponent was actually benefiting from the attacks.

‘My godpower is so incredible that this brat shouldn’t be able to do anything to me. Damn him! I guess my fighting experience really is inferior. But as long as I can escape this place and get a few years of practice under my belt, I’ll definitely be a domineering figure. And when that time comes, I’ll beat this boy senseless!’ Clearing his throat, he said, “You’re strong, boy. I suppose you do qualify to be my friend. Why don't we join forces? Turn weapons of war into gifts of jade and silk? Just give me some of those antidote pills, alright? Say what you will, but I am your Senior, which means that you owe me some respect.”

Yang Qi laughed. “Senior? You’re my Senior? You’re nothing but a medicinal pill! And I have no reason to work with you. I'd rather consume you to help form my monarch godhood. As you obviously know, I haven’t yet reached godly ascension, yet I have Paramount will convergence. The only thing I lack now is godhood. And I want monarch godhood. How about that?”

Originally, he had found this pill daoist’s godpower to be very intimidating. But after finding out that his fighting experience was so shoddy, Yang Qi was left right in the middle of laughter and tears. Now he wasn’t worried at all, but was mostly interested in exploring the rest of the Chaos-Forge God-Shrine instead.

Without waiting for a response, Yang Qi made another move, drawing deeply on his godpower to attack with his Unspoiled Body, Purrfect God Art, Great Necropolis God Art, Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, and Seventy-Two Monarchs Energy Art, combining them into a river of death that smashed into the pill daoist.

“Die!”

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

The pill daoist tried to defend himself, but completely failed. From his perspective, Yang Qi was like a blur that he couldn't defend against.

“Defensive energy arts!” he roared, summoning a shield of godpower around him. However, Yang Qi just smiled and thrust his hands out, then vanished, leaving behind a crystalline structure that transformed into a primal-chaos elder-snake which quickly wrapped around the pill daoist.

Snakes devour mammoths!

When it came to devouring other things, nothing under heaven could surpass the great dao of King Heaven-Devourer. With the enlightenment Yang Qi had of this dao, he was completely invincible. Before the pill daoist could react, Yang Qi opened his mouth and began sucking his godpower inside.

The pill daoist roared in rage, but was too ignorant regarding the usage of godpower. He had no idea how to focus it, much less skillfully manipulate it. He was almost like a child who hadn’t been trained in martial arts and would just randomly flail around with fists and feet.

His shouting did no good, and within the course of a few breaths of time, it was obvious that Yang Qi was rapidly growing stronger while the pill daoist was weakening.

As the pill daoist’s godpower flowed into Yang Qi, Yang Qi’s virtual godhood grew more and more solid. In those few breaths of time, Yang Qi benefited as if he had just spent several years working on his cultivation.

“Your technique is just too shoddy,” Yang Qi said. “If you knew even a few good moves, I wouldn’t be able to absorb you. For example, the vajra techniques of the buddhist schools could make you as hard as a diamond. Or you could use prajñā void techniques to make your godpower seem empty. You could even use the free and unconstrained teachings of the daoist sects to make your godpower impossible to latch on to. In those cases, I wouldn’t be able to do a thing to you. Your godpower really is impressive, but sadly, you just aren’t complete.”

Yang Qi chuckled as his snake form tightened around the pill daoist, who screamed shrilly in terror.

The pill daoist was like a slab of cold iron that had been pulled out of a mountain after ten thousand years, but had never been fully forged into a sharp sword. And now Yang Qi was assimilating him. How tragic!

“Die! Just go and die! I'm going to self-detonate and kill you! We’ll end in mutual ruin!” All of a sudden, godpower surged inside the pill daoist.

“Self-detonation? And how many self-detonation techniques do you actually know? The most famous of them all is from the dao of devils. It’s the Heaven-Devil Disintegration Grand Magic. Now that is a good self-detonation method. And then there’s the Life-Death Extirpation Art from the daoist sects, which is probably the most explosive, and even destroys your soul. There’s also the Myriad Buddhas Nirvanic Extermination from the buddhist schools, or the Heaven-Earth Devastation Art. You see, there are all sorts of self-detonation techniques that use godpower to create a deadly explosion. Unfortunately, you don’t know any of them, so I don’t think you’ll be doing any detonating at all. Gunpowder can be dangerous, but you have to know how to use it. And you need a spark to instigate the detonation. Considering your experience, there’s no way you know how to truly self-detonate. What a pity....”

“My god...” the pill daoist shrieked. “Mercy! Spare me! I don't want to die! I don’t want to be assimilated by you!”

“Forgiveness is off the table,” Yang Qi said. “No one else knows my secret but you, and if word got out, I’d be hunted down no matter where I went. If they caught me, they’d do anything to drag my secrets out. Sorry, this world is a brutal place, and you’re not destined to keep living within it.”

The pill daoist was now as helpless as a trussed pig just waiting to be slaughtered and cut into pieces.

Hours passed. Then days. Slowly but surely, all of the pill daoist’s godpower was drained away. After a month, he had turned into the shape of a three-inch-tall medicinal pill.

Yang Qi then consumed the pill, which dropped into his sea of energy and cracked open. At that point, Yang Qi began a session of cultivation.

His virtual godhood was crystallizing, and his godpower surged mightily. A fist-sized piece of godhood was forming, but it was illusory and dreamlike, surrounded by dazzling colors. None of the kinds of godhood Yang Qi had encountered in the impure lands were like anything compared to his own godhood.

Most shocking of all, after this entire session of cultivation with the Chaos-Cavern Grand-Magnate Pill, his godhood was still only half-formed.

That said, he had just saved about sixty god world years of cultivation time. And sixty years for him weren’t like sixty years for an ordinary person. Thanks to the God Legion Seal, sixty years for him were like six hundred years for someone else.

1. To put things in perspective, Yang Qi used the Hundred Paces Divine Fist in chapter 3. Lol. This pill daoist really does suck.