Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

“It doesn’t matter who I am. You just need to know that I'm the bane of your existence. You monsters are all hoping for a chance to plague humanity and commit the most horrific of crimes. So I’m going to cut down as many of you as I can.”

Yang Qi’s fingers interlocked in an incantation sign, at which point his platinum sagefire churned, revealing azure dragons, white tigers, vermilion birds, black turtles, qilins, shimmering palaces, flame trees, silver grass, all of which seemed to thrum with the power of the God Legion Paradise.

Of course, it wasn’t the true pure land of the God Legion Paradise, but rather, a mere expression of it.

However, it made his sagefire more intense, and as it burned King Bloodcorpse Devil, Yang Qi could sense himself benefiting.

His true energy coursed through him like a river, causing the fire to immolate the surrounding wretch energy. Any nearby corpses were transformed into ash, the blood of the swamps turned dry, and the ground began to melt into lava. Everything truly was being purified.

This part of the Heavencorpse Dimension, true kingdom of devil-ghosts, was temporarily becoming a paradise.

A paradise that belonged to Yang Qi.

Trembling with the effort, King Bloodcorpse Devil made yet another attempt to break free.

“The Blood Emperor Cometh! I Rule the Cosmos!” A figure appeared wearing a blood-colored robe, with a blood-red crown on his head. Simultaneously, a raging sea of blood sprang up around him.

Yang Qi could tell that the fighting had come to a climax. King Bloodcorpse Devil was using the ultimate energy arts of the Devil Sutra of the Blood Emperor, summoning a blood emperor from the netherworld for a final explosive attack.

“Blood Detonation! Lightning of Blood!”

Masses of blood formed into a lightning bolt that slammed into the platinum sagefire and the Hellfire Crucible. Simultaneously, the blood emperor waved his hand, causing a blood-colored light to stream out, filled with the curses of ghosts and the wails of gods.

“Sagefire Mirror!” Yang Qi barked, causing a mirror to form in front of him, formed of pure platinum fire. As for the blood-colored light, it slammed into the mirror, and then bounced right back.

It was yet another facet of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth.

Now that he was in Quaternary Lifeseizing, Yang Qi was even more familiar with the infinite variations of the technique.

Although the Lightning of Blood shook the platinum sagefire, it couldn’t break through the Hellfire Crucible.

With Yang Qi keeping the crucible closed tight, it didn't matter what King Bloodcorpse Devil did, he was incapable of shaking Yang Qi’s true energy, or his confidence.

The process continued for eight hours, until King Bloodcorpse Devil’s true energy finally began to run out, and he began to weaken visibly. He was now like a fish on the chopping block, just waiting for the end to come.

In a moment like this, Yang Qi had no intention of holding back.

“Hellfire Crucible!” he shouted. “Melt blood to dispel devils! Exterminate all vicious fiends! Establish a pure paradise! With an empty hell, the legion of gods can never be vindicated!”

WHIZZZ!

Power poured into the Hellfire Crucible, and King Bloodcorpse Devil screamed as he slowly melted into a glob of blood and vital energy.

Magical symbols flitted throughout the glob, which seemed to exist between a state of liquid and solid.

‘Wow. That’s going to make some powerful life force quintessence. In fact, I think it might enable me to seize life a fifth time! King Bloodcorpse Devil definitely deserved to be a devil king in the alternate dimension that was the Heavencorpse Dimension.’

There were many danger zones in the Rich-Lush Continent, various alternate dimensions, some small, some large. Many contained vast treasures. There were some that contained no entryways or exits, and could only be discovered by Legendaries. Those that could be traversed to by lower-level energy artists contained permanent entryways which were almost always guarded by powerful monsters and fiends.

The Heavencorpse Dimension was among the latter.

Most experts focused on killing the monsters first before they looked for treasure. After all, spirit bodies were in and of themselves treasures, and could be converted into medicinal pills or magical items.

King Bloodcorpse Devil was as powerful as a Septenary Lifeseizer, and yet, had not been able to hold out against Yang Qi.

After all, Yang Qi cultivated a technique that was a bane to all sorts of evil and wretched energy arts. If Yang Qi had been facing a practitioner of orthodox energy arts, someone in Septenary Lifeseizing, at best he would have been able to fight to the death in bitter fashion, with only a slight hope of coming out on top, or even escaping. But when fighting wretch-devils such as this, he was actually much stronger.

In the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, the ‘hell-crushing’ aspect said it all.

‘Now, into my sea of energy you go.’ Of course, King Bloodcorpse Devil was still struggling, just like the old saying a centipede does not stop wriggling even after being stomped on. Just as Yang Qi was preparing to toss him into the Hellfire Crucible, a bright beam of light shot up from deeper in the Heavencorpse Dimension.

Then, a powerful rumbling like thunder could be heard, followed by a lightning-like streak of light.

It was sword energy!

Sword energy that crackled like thunder!

It was massive, and cut through the sky like a white dragon as it headed directly toward Yang Qi.

‘What’s that? Such intense sword energy! I’ve never encountered anything this strong before.’ Fully aware that he couldn't fight something like this, he shot down, spiraling through the air to slam into the ground and dig deep under the surface.

The earth was a quagmire of bloody swamps, so as soon as he entered it, the powerful wretch energy began to eat away at him.

However, he wasn't afraid. Like a loach, he burrowed downward and then vanished without a trace.

When the massive beam of lightning-like sword energy hit the ground, the blood in the swamps evaporated, and the soil quaked as the wretch energy therein was eradicated.

A massive shock wave rolled out, and by the time the dust settled, the only thing left behind was a huge crater. Although the soil was still blood-red, not a single moving being could be seen in the area.

A single sword attack had decimated the entire region.

It was the type of sword energy that could destroy mountains and divert rivers, like an expression of rage from a heavenly being.

Obviously, it had not originated from some ordinary energy artist, but rather, some transcendent expert.

After the rumble of thunder faded away, a white-garbed individual appeared in the air above the crater. He had long eyebrows that extended all the way to his temples, and a sword in his hand. However, the sword immediately dissolved into energy that he pulled back into his body. His skin was as fair as jade, and he had a silver sigil on his forehead that looked almost like a lightning bolt.

This was a human, not a devil-ghost, and his sword energy had been pure and orthodox, the type designed to conquer the wretched. Even the sound of it would be enough to shake most wretch-devils.

‘Whoever that was, did he burrow into the ground? Was he human, or a devil?’ The man in white looked down at the crater, and then over at the Deathly Devil-Eye passageway. ‘That way leads to the Blackcorpse Mountains, an area packed with devil-ghosts. There’s no way someone came in through that passage. The area surrounding the Blackcorpse Mountains is barren countryside, with no big sects or organizations there. So how did this guy get in here?’

Swooosh!

Even as he muttered these things to himself, another man approached, accompanied by a woman, both of them moving so quickly that they left behind a string of afterimages behind them.

These were clearly people favored by the heavens, consummate experts.

Of course, that was to be expected; only the best of the best would come to the Heavencorpse Dimension.

“Elder Brother Lei,” the young woman said, “your Grand Thunderclap Swordplay has really reached the pinnacle. Even from five hundred kilometers away, you were able to raze this entire area to the ground. Although, why exactly did you unleash it with no warning, and then vanish?”

“I could sense some vital energy fluctuations from this area that indicated a fight was going on.” The man who had unleashed the thunderclap sword energy was Lei Tao. Looking around, he said, “Unfortunately, whoever it was, they escaped, making it impossible to determine if they were depraved or righteous.”

“You're saying there’s someone else here in the Heavencorpse Kingdom?” the other man said. “This place belongs to our Demi-Immortal Institute, and only conclave students can come here to work on their cultivation and slay wretch-devils. That’s a well-known fact, so there’s no way people from another organization would come here, lest they arouse the wrath of our institute. Considering that, I would venture to say that you detected the fluctuations of a fight between monsters. After seeing your sword technique, Elder Brother Lei, there’s no way they’ll show their faces now. And if it was a righteous individual, he wouldn’t have burrowed into the ground. The ground here is a toxic sludge of decaying flesh that only devil-ghosts can tolerate.

“Elder Brother Lei, our mission has taken us from the Fiendcorpse Mountains all the way to here, looking for life force springwater for the Crown Prince. Come on, let’s continue the search. If we don’t hurry, our mission will be a failure, and the Crown Prince won’t be happy.”

“By the way, Elder Brother Lei,” the woman added, “do you have any idea why the Crown Prince was so adamant about us finding some life force springwater? Considering the level of his cultivation base, it's not like he needs it.”

“It must be for that woman,” the man said. “What's her name again? Yun Hailan? Ever since she showed up, the Crown Prince has been showing her a lot of favor, and helping her this way and that. I wonder if the rumors that have been going around are true…. Well, we’ve all been following the Crown Prince for a long time. I doubt he would fall for some random hussy. He’s a god from heaven, and is pursuing the heavenly dao. He exists outside of the law, and will soon break into the Great Sage level. How could he possibly get distracted by a woman?”

At this point, Lei Tao's eyes snapped open. “It's not like we can figure out what the Crown Prince is thinking, so what’s the point in random speculation? There’s definitely a purpose behind all this, something that plays into his master plan. Besides, Yun Hailan is no ordinary woman. In addition to the blood of the sea god that runs in her veins, she also has some of the aura of a dragon. I can attest to that personally. The aura of a dragon god is inside of her, and I felt it calling to me. There’s definitely something special about her, so it's obvious that the Crown Prince is grooming her for a specific reason.”

“The aura of a dragon god?” the woman said. “No wonder the Crown Prince asked Patriarchs Wind and Cloud to take her as an apprentice. I've heard that her energy arts have been advancing by leaps and bounds.”

“Having someone like this suddenly join our ranks puts a lot of pressure on us,” the other man said. “We need to keep working hard on our cultivation and break into the Legendary level as soon as possible.”

With that the group flew off into the distance.