Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Yang Qi essentially walked up to the front door and just entered the Hanging Heaven.

Even Princess Jadefall felt that he was being recklessly greedy. Thankfully, his charge through the Demonfolk army had left a virtual chasm in their ranks, leading directly to one of the teleportation portals. And Princess Jadefall was the type of person who didn’t hesitate to take advantage of any opportunity she came across.

“Push onward to the teleportation portals! Follow the Marquis of Military Security into the Hanging Heaven!”

With a wave of her hand, she sent her own forces pouring into the gap that Yang Qi had created.

“Yes ma’am!”

“This is awesome. Our experts are all slightly weaker than the soldiers from the Hanging Heaven. Thankfully we have the Marquis of Military Security to carve out a path of blood for us to follow!”

“Attack! Kill our way into the Hanging Heaven, then kill our way out. This is unheard of! Once word gets out of the battle today, it will bring glory to the Titan Emperor Heaven!”

“That’s right. Morale has gotten low back at home, with everyone thinking that our immortal world is going to be destroyed soon. If we can crush the enemy today, it will definitely lift everyone’s spirits. Maybe we can finally restore our glory!”

“We're the restorers of glory! And that means we’ll get handsomely rewarded!”

“Charge! Attack! Follow the Marquis of Military Security! His cultivation base is unfathomable. After he killed Grand Duke Bloodstabber with mere words, I heard he entered the Kingdom of Titan to cultivate for seven days in a row. Who knows how much more powerful he is than before?”

“You’re right. And look, he just took out a hundred thousand Lionfolk with godly-class energy arts. Who could match up to strength like that?”

“The Marquis of Military Security is a genius! He’s going to save our immortal world! Who would ever have thought that the lousy imperial house would first produce an almighty being like Princess Jadefall, and then the Marquis of Military Security, Titan Dragonguard? I guess the will of heaven just doesn't want the imperial house to fall.”

Everyone was buzzing about Yang Qi’s performance and felt their morale surging as they leapt forth to battle their way to the teleportation portals.

The Demonfolk lines of battle were already wavering, and some of the demons seemed to be on the verge of fleeing. It certainly looked as if Princess Jadefall’s forces would gain victory this time.

**

‘This is amazing,’ Yang Qi thought. After emerging from the teleportation portal, everything changed. He was in an enormous new heaven and earth, a place filled with demon energy. Mountains, rivers, and everything else were suffused with demonic miasma. There were enormous trees, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, that stretched tens of thousands of kilometers into the sky like worlds unto themselves.

The Hanging Heaven was not a place of culture and civilization, but rather one of savagery and barbarism. It was only in such places that wild, powerful, and bloodthirsty Demonfolk could rise up.

Of course, there were Demonfolk armies pouring through the surrounding forest toward the teleportation portals.

Almost immediately, Yang Qi felt killing intent locking onto him. Looking around, he realized he was surrounded by more moonlight devilwolves. They had wolf heads and furred human bodies, with crescent moon sigils on their foreheads.

Howling, they rushed toward Yang Qi with deadly intent.

One of the leaders of the wolves, an immortal general with particularly long claws, leaped forward and cried, “Stormwind Devilwolf Claw!”

Normally speaking, a savage and deadly energy art like this would cause an opponent's cultivation base to drop just from the fear. Humans were usually at a disadvantage when fighting demons, even when those demons had lower cultivation bases. That was because Demonfolk had killing intent and a disregard for safety built into their genes. It created an instinctual fear within the hearts of human cultivators.

In fact, even the legion of gods could fear them, much less mere immortals.

Wham!

Yang Qi reached out and casually crushed the devilwolf’s head into a cloud of blood and gore.

Looking back, he saw that troops from Princess Jadefall’s armies were already heading in his direction, which provoked a slight smile. Then, he transformed into a stream of magical symbols that resolved into a primal-chaos elder-snake.

In response, all of the moonlight devilwolves dropped to the ground and began howling submissively. In their souls, they felt as though they were in the presence of the lord of demon-devils, making it impossible for them to use their energy arts, or do anything else for that matter.

When Yang Qi backed his primal-chaos elder-snake with the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, the results were very terrifying.

The helpless wolves were consumed by the primal-chaos elder-snake, which then went on to devour the essence of the immortal world in the area. Trees. Soil. Demon energy. Spatial dimensions. The snake ate everything.

It was almost as if this immortal world were a pancake, and Yang Qi was just gobbling it up. King Heaven-Devourer specialized in devouring heavens, and immortal worlds were heavens.

On the other side of the portal, Princess Jadefall was able to use the full power of her cultivation base to distract the powerful enemy generals, leaving Yang Qi free to slaughter the Demonfolk around him and take the immortal world essence.

In the Titan Emperor Heaven, he had to devour immortal world essence carefully and secretly so as not to disturb the general equilibrium. But not so here. And even better, the essence of the Hanging Heaven was much stronger, enabling him to make Heaven-Devouring śarīras much more quickly.

After slaughtering all of the Demonfolk in the area, and forming numerous composite demon cores, he headed into the mountains to look for treasures.

RUMBLE!

An enormous hand suddenly descended from above, wreathed in flame and covered in elemental fays and burning magical symbols.

“Since when did someone like you rise up in the Titan Emperor Heaven? How is your Titan bloodline so strong!?”

Yang Qi looked up and saw an entity that resembled an angel. Of course, he had created angels who were pure and pulsed with sagelight, so he could tell that this wasn’t an actual angel. This person was covered with fire and had wings with feathers made of pure flame.

Opening his Lord's Eye, he saw that the angel-like entity was actually a huge, fiery bird, whose fire was so intense it could burn up entire planets. It was none other than a fabled flamecrane. [1]

This particular flamecrane was a sixth stage Abstrusity-Demolisher.

“You’re from the imperial house of the Titan Emperor Heaven, aren’t you? What’s your name? And how did you get those snakecharms? Hand them over immediately and beg for your life, otherwise you’ll be nothing but ashes within moments! I'm Immortal Paragon Flamecrane Ascendant, and you’re no match for me! Ten Thousand Fiery Mountains!” The flamecrane waved its hand and entire mountains of fire descended to lock Yang Qi in place.

Next, its fingers flashed in a magical incantation as it sent out fire, forming a kingdom of flames to destroy the snake.

“River of Flames!”

“Moron!” Yang Qi said, and the primal-chaos elder-snake suddenly shrank down to a size of only three thousand meters long. Then it opened its mouth and devoured all of the fiery mountains, as well as the river of flames.

In the blink of an eye, all the fire was gone.

“The great dao is formless,” he chanted, “the sun and moon dazzle; yin and yang interact, swirling evermore….”

Suddenly, the primal-chaos elder-snake shrank down into a streak of sword light that shot directly toward Immortal Paragon Flamecrane Ascendant.

“Aaaiiiieee!” the flamecrane screamed, and a moment later was nothing more than a corpse. [2]

“Hand of the One God!”

He reached out and a crystalline śarīra appeared, which was all that was left of Immortal Paragon Flamecrane Ascendant. Within the śarīra, a fiery bird glided back and forth, going through the forms of some sort of fire-type energy art.

Flamecranes were god birds, and thus were born with inherent godliness. And their energy arts naturally had some deathlessness at their core. This flamecrane's blood was going to be very useful to the fire-type energy arts that Yang Qi had.

1. Flamecranes are birds from Chinese mythology. They are omens of imminent destruction, and the name in Chinese is “bi fang”, which supposedly resembles the sound of burning wood or bamboo. The “real-life” mythological bird somewhat resembles a red-crowned crane, except that it has one leg, blue feathers, red spots, and a white bill. Whenever it appears, it means that fiery destruction will soon occur. As is emphasized in this passage, they are often associated with fire. Astute readers who have followed my translations for some time might remember that this bird was referenced in the early chapters of AWE, specifically chapter 141 and 142 (and most of this footnote was lifted from there, haha).

2. I'm leaving out a passage in which the Divine Dreamwalker explains that Flamecrane is the surname and Ascendant is the given name. In Chinese it's not as obvious, because both terms have two characters and are also common words in their own right. Furthermore, there is no special way to identify proper nouns or names (such as capitalization in English). This is one situation in which translating the obviously contrived names actually makes them easier to understand in English. I'm also leaving out a few sentences in which the author basically just recaps the fight and emphasizes how powerful this flamecrane was, and that it was a pity he ran into Yang Qi.