Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Yang Qi was off on his own, slaughtering the enemy within their own ranks.

He was surrounded by a seemingly never-ending sea of vicious faces, a horde of Demonfolk, all of whom wanted to kill him. No matter how many he killed, more were there to replace them.

“Die!”

A squad of demon soldiers appeared. They had human heads, the torsos of wasps, and were the size of horses. Their wings buzzed as they flew forward and launched clouds of what appeared to be poisoned arrows.

They were actually poison stingers that were the product of these wasp-like demon-immortals’ cultivation and were capable of piercing through all sorts of defensive empyrean energy. In short, they were completely fatal.

Thankfully, Yang Qi had his God Legion Paradise.

Ping. Ping.

The stingers all shattered upon impact. Then Yang Qi unleashed the Hand of the One God.

RUMBLE!

Space shattered as if an ancient god had personally smashed it, and the wasp demons exploded. With a wave of his hand, Yang Qi collected their quintessence energy, souls, and demon cores, crumpling them down into a huge composite demon core which he then absorbed into his internal pellet.

In the shortest of moments, over ten thousand of the wasp demons were wiped out of existence.

POP!

Next, Yang Qi went on to a group of flying spider demons, all of whom were the size of mountains. As soon as they saw him, they released heaps of spider webs to try to bind him. The webbing was also the result of the demon magic they cultivated, and when used in a formation was something most ordinary people would find impossible to escape.

“Complete crap. I can’t believe you’re trying this move on me.”

He waved his hand and the God Legion Paradise appeared again, filled with King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans, which quickly devoured the spider web and sucked the spider demons in as well.

A moment later, they were refined into another demon core.

As of this moment, he had acquired four composite demon cores, one from the eagles, one from the snakes, one from the wasps, and one from the spiders.

It was almost as if the battle had turned into a contest to see how many demon cores Yang Qi could get.

Cores such as these would be incredibly useful, whether to work on his internal pellet, to craft magical treasures, or to form spell formations. The more of the essence of the Hanging Heaven he could build up, the more beneficial it would be toward his upcoming breakthrough.

After slaughtering the spider demons, a roar of rage echoed out, along with a string of magical symbols from a dhāraṇī incantation. This roar was no divine ability of the Demonfolk, but instead the function of an ancient spell formation designed to suppress wretch-devils, something created by some almighty figure from an ancient buddhist school.

The Lionfolk were considered divine and holy, the kings among all of the beasts. Long ago, members of the ancient Lionfolk had sat in leadership positions in the buddhist schools, which was why modern-day Lionfolk inherently had strange buddhist divine abilities at their disposal.

“Bamiḍala… Höng. Höng. Höng… Țuluo’duoluô, Yeshejué….” [1]

Over a hundred thousand lions appeared up above, formed into ranks that caused an immortal kingdom to spread out from them, sending holy light out in all directions. It looked like the constellation Leo, and the dhāraṇī incantation they chanted created golden magical symbols that swept forth to crush Yang Qi.

The symbols took numerous shapes. Lotuses, vajras, kāṣāyas, alms bowls, banners, flags, and wheels. There were also countless golden buddhas, making this attack seem like something completely invincible. [2]

After all, those golden buddhas were things that could destroy all types of wretch-devils. Unexpectedly, this was a godly-class energy art that came as a spell formation.

“Namaḥ Myriad Buddha Vajra Great Compassion Mantra Art!” As soon as the power of the dhāraṇī hit Yang Qi, it was like millions upon millions of golden mountains crushing down on him, power that would make it almost impossible for anyone to breathe. [3]

These holy lions were vastly stronger than the eagles, snakes, wasps, and spiders from before. They were true elites, lion immortals with fur as pure and white as angels’ wings. Furthermore, they were all immortal officers at the very least, which went to show how indescribably powerful they were. And their godly-class energy art was completely unique to Lionfolk.

RUMBLE!

The magical symbols grew denser, and the power of the mantra grew more intense. Yang Qi’s God Legion Paradise was even starting to crack and crumble.

Yet he only smiled coldly as the enormous Wheel of Fate appeared above him and began turning. The mantra being used against him instantly went silent, the magical symbols fluttering down to land on his God Legion Battle Robe.

In the blink of an eye, the robe transformed, making it seem like a holy kāṣāya covered with buddhist iconography such as magical treasures, śarīras, golden buddhas, and the like. It was like an entire kingdom of buddhas.

“Grow!” Yang Qi said, and his God Legion Battle Robe suddenly swept out in all directions.

Hundreds of snow-white lions were swept into the robe and transformed to embroidery on its surface. In the blink of an eye, a huge hole was punched into the battle lines of the hundred thousand lion immortals.

“The God Legion Battle Robe can contain worlds….” Yang Qi exhaled some true energy and black holes sprang up everywhere on the God Legion Battle Robe, within which were coiled primal-chaos elder-snakes that began devouring the surviving lions.

Yang Qi was showing no mercy and didn’t intend to let a single lion escape. No, he would kill them all, then extract that buddhist godly-class energy art from them. There were also far, far more demon cores to be had from these lions than from any of the demons before.

Lions were being sealed left and right.

Then Yang Qi exhaled and used Mass Cloning to produce so many versions of himself that each lion faced a copy. The clones crushed the lions, and just like that a hundred thousand of them were destroyed.

Next, he transformed them into a huge śarīra, fully the size of a human head, within which were endless buddhist chants coming from a buddhist rite center.

‘What an incredible demon core. Or should I say a buddha core? There isn’t any demon energy at all inside of it. Just buddha energy on par with the holiness of the legion of gods.’ He placed the śarīra next to his internal pellet and the Heaven-Devouring śarīras. ‘If I could get a few more buddha cores like this, it would be great. I wonder what type of Demonfolk rule this Hanging Heaven. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were Mammothfolk.’

The ancient megamammoths were true rulers, and had the most advanced blood of all Demonfolk. After all, they were the descendants of godmammoths who had been created to suppress hells, as well as demons and devils.

By the time Yang Qi smashed through the eagles, snakes, wasps, spiders, and lions, he was close to the teleportation portals on the other side of the asteroid. They were all active, continuously funneling more and more Demonfolk from the Hanging Heaven.

‘This would be the perfect chance to get into one of the portals and head directly into the Hanging Heaven. Then I could directly absorb the essence of the place.’ As he drew closer, a pack of wolf demons leaped toward him. They all had crescent moon sigils on their foreheads, the mark of an ancient evil god, one of the suzerains of hell.

They were descendants of the Moonlight Wolf God.

According to legends, the Moonlight Wolf God was the suzerain of the Hell of Endless Night, and was either as strong as the members of the legion of gods, or was in fact a former member. If the latter were true, it meant that he had forsaken the glory of the god legion and the light of the Lord to become a ruler of hell.

These descendants of his in the immortal worlds were moonlight devilwolves.

The moonlight devilwolves were strong, but Yang Qi didn’t hesitate to leap into their midst, causing blood to rain down everywhere.

Every one that exploded added another demon core to his collection, and soon he was right in front of the teleportation portal. Without hesitation, he jumped in and vanished.

“Wow!” Grand Duchess Violet-Moon said, watching the battle using a magical mirror. “Titan Dragonguard went in on his own! He cut through the eagles, snakes, wasps, spiders, lions, and some wolves too. And then he went into the teleportation portal. He's going to the Hanging Heaven!”

“What nerve!” Princess Jadefall said. “He’s definitely got guts. And considering how many enemies he’s killed already, he's already earned himself the title of vice prince.”

1. These nonsense words are the chanting that would accompany a real buddhist dhāraṇī incantation.

2. Vajras are weapons from Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. More info here. And as I mentioned a while back, a kāṣāya is a robe for an ordained Buddhist monk or nun.

3. Namaḥ is essentially a greeting, although technically it means “to bow”. It's a part of the common greeting “namaste” you might have heard. The “Great Compassion Mantra” is an actual dhāraṇī from Buddhism, which you can learn about here.