Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

“You….” Patriarch Promoter had been soundly put in his place by Sectlord Nine Yangs. Taking a few steps back, his face drained of blood and he said, “Sectlord Nine Yangs, I'm one of the old-timers in the Dao Defense League too. In fact, you could say I'm one of the founders. There’s no need to be so aggressive. We don’t want to get into a life or death struggle here!”

“Life or death struggle?” Sectlord Nine Yangs said in a menacing tone. “What qualifies you to talk about having a life or death struggle with me? Considering how much higher my cultivation is than yours, if I feel like putting you in your place, I will! Even if you had eighteen copies of yourself working together, you couldn’t do a thing to me. In fact, I would slaughter you as easily as slaughtering a chicken. So back down immediately! If you keep pissing me off like this, I'm going to run out of patience.”

Considering that Sectlord Nine Yangs was a majestic Chaos God, his fury could easily strike fear into the hearts of just about everyone present.

Back when the Immortal-Slayer’s Sect had caused such problems, even the terrifying Leaf Dao-Denier had been forced to think long and hard before causing too many problems for Yang Qi. And that was because he had sought refuge in the Nine Yangs God Sect, who had Sectlord Nine Yangs lurking in the shadows.

But now, things had turned around, and Sectlord Nine Yangs viewed Yang Qi as an enemy.

“Hold on a minute!” Yang Qi said, taking a step forward and placing himself right in front of Sectlord Nine Yangs. “There’s no need to be so aggressive, Sectlord Nine Yangs. Considering all of us have much lower cultivation bases than you, what exactly are you planning to do here? What rule or regulation can you cite to justify your actions? All of the founders of the Dao Defense League are here today, so you can’t just unilaterally make a bunch of decisions.”

“Oh?” Sectlord Nine Yangs looked over at Yang Qi like a viper eyeing its prey. But then he realized that Yang Qi wasn’t flinching or averting his gaze in the least, which caused his anger to flare. “You think you qualify to talk to me? Patriarch Promoter is a Buddha God, and even he hardly qualifies. Who the hell are you? How dare you ask questions of me!”

“You people invited me here, otherwise I wouldn’t step foot in the Heaven-Dao Operation God-Temple. I really don’t care what titles or positions any of you have, I’ll talk to whoever I want to. Also, Sectlord Nine Yangs, you need to answer a very important question. How exactly did I offend the Nine Yangs God Sect, and what gives you the right to act like such a bully? I helped your sect to fill your coffers with a lot of magical treasures, and then, instead of protecting me, you let the God Dragon Tribe pick on me. So what's your explanation for that? Did you really expect me to just stick around making money for you after that, like some sort of tool?”

“That’s right,” Sectlord Nine Yangs replied. “You’re a tool to earn profit for the Nine Yangs God Sect, nothing more. Understand? If we want to protect you, we’ll protect you. If we don’t, then we’ll toss you aside. There’s no room for you to complain about that, it's just how things work. You have two choices here. One. Dismantle the Sage Panacea Sect and sever all ties with whatever old-timer you have backing you. Either that, or have that old-timer join the Nine Yangs God Sect as a slave. Two. Accept whatever punishment we choose to give you today. Those are your options. Got it?”

With that, Sectlord Nine Yangs settled back into his throne and looked at Yang Qi, waiting for his response. He spoke without even trying to sound reasonable. He was domineering, arrogant, and outright said that he planned to take things that didn't belong to him. But he was too important and powerful to argue with. Although some of the other old-timers frowned disapprovingly, none of them wanted to risk stirring up trouble.

As for Yang Qi, he was actually glad things were so out in the open. It was obvious that the Nine Yangs God Sect wanted to take advantage of him, and, truth be told, he wasn’t in the mood for arguing. Looking around at the other old-timers, he said, “Patriarchs, what is your stance on this? The Nine Yangs God Sect is acting like it makes the decisions in the Dao Defense League. And if things continue in this way, they will. That wouldn’t be good for the rest of you, would it?”

“Oh?” one of the old-timers said. “Are you really that important, Dragon Proudheaven? Are you the kind of person who can affect the Dao Defense League as a whole? We all know that you can do astonishing things, but in this day and age, the alliance is far more important than most individuals. That’s just how things are. If you can prove that you’re valuable enough, then maybe you’ll get the support you seek. If not, you’ll lose out.”

His face twisted with rage, Sectlord Nine Yangs said, “Patriarch Kingheaven, are you really saying you’re going to oppose the Nine Yangs God Sect?”

“Calm down, Sectlord Nine Yangs,” Patriarch Kingheaven replied calmly. “I'm asking Dragon Proudheaven how important he is. If he has a good enough answer then we can resolve this situation peacefully.”

“Fine,” Sectlord Nine Yangs said coldly. “I'm curious to see how this punk responds.”

Yang Qi laughed. “How important am I? I think you people are really underestimating me. Right before coming here, I helped Patriarch Promoter clear a cultivation blockage, allowing him to take control of the śarīra of a powerful god. And that took almost no effort on my part. I also revealed certain profound mysteries to him, ensuring that he’ll become a Chaos God very soon!”

“He’s telling the truth!” Patriarch Promoter said, allowing his energy to surge as proof of what Yang Qi was saying. Looking at Sectlord Nine Yangs with a cold smile, he said, “You can rely on your higher cultivation base to chide me today, but I’ll soon be a Chaos God. I’ll come to settle things with you then.”

Quite a few gasps could be heard among the patriarchs, many of whom exchanged awkward glances. After all, Patriarch Promoter's hidden injuries weren’t secret, and everyone could tell that he had been healed.

Most of these patriarchs were Buddha Gods with hidden injuries of their own that caused problems for their cultivation. If those problems could be removed, giving them hope to become Chaos Gods, it would change everything.

“Hmph! You talk big, brat. So what if you happened to heal Patriarch Promoter? You just got lucky, that’s all. Do you really expect us to believe that you can help all the Buddha Gods present become Chaos Gods?” Sectlord Nine Yangs was talking in a very sinister tone of voice, but the truth was that he was astonished by this development and scrambling to keep control of the situation.

In response, Yang Qi said, “You might be a Chaos God, Sectlord Nine Yangs, but you have hidden injuries too, don’t you? You forcibly cultivate nine types of immortal energy, including the Profound-Yang, Lesser-Yang, True-Yang, Jade-Yang, and others. You successfully combined nine godly-class energy arts and gathered nine types of preheaven yin energy. By combining the yin and the yang, you achieved a great dao and reached the Chaos God level. But the truth is that you’ve walked an errant path, and will never be able to reach the Deathless Throne. In fact, you can’t even become a demigod.”

Many of the other patriarchs looked over intently to see how Sectlord Nine Yangs would respond.

“That's utter nonsense!” Sectlord Nine Yangs said, his cheek twitching. “If I hear any more sensationalist talk like that from you, I’ll just kill you!”

Yang Qi laughed. “Very bombastic, Sectlord Nine Yangs. Let me ask you a question. When you cultivated the transformations of primal-chaos and created a perfect cycle of yin and yang, it created nine vortexes in your sea of energy, didn’t it? Vortexes that fill you with intense pain. Vortexes that threaten to split apart your soul.”

“What?!” Sectlord Nine Yangs blurted. Yang Qi had hit the nail on the head and perfectly described the problems he experienced in his cultivation. The only thing he could do about it was forcibly keep his soul stable during the outbreaks. Although he hated to admit it, it was very painful. Thankfully, it hadn’t had a negative effect on his fighting prowess. “The only person who could possibly know about that is a taiji master like me, someone who has cultivated nine yangs and nine yins, and combined them into the nine taijis. How could you know about it?”

Yang Qi laughed again. “Are you insane? Have you experienced cultivation deviation? You think that an imbalance of yin and yang makes you a taiji master? No. There is only one taiji, not nine. Your nine yangs and nine yins are unstable and beyond your control. You think that your path of cultivation is correct, but the truth is that those nine vortexes are mutations of your own true energy. They are nine conglomerations of preheaven chaos that constantly eat away at your soul. One day, you’ll lose focus and they’ll succeed. You’ll either die, transform into nine medicinal pills, or become a yin-yang hybrid heaven-devil, the kind that exist in the Unrestrained Heaven. If you don’t believe me, use the power of your own soul to inspect those nine yin-yang vortexes and you’ll see the devilishness yourself.”

“You….” All of a sudden, Sectlord Nine Yangs felt a profound sense of terror rising up within him as he realized the true nature of the nine yin-yang vortexes within him.

He knew that Yang Qi was correct; he couldn’t truly control the deadly vortexes, and really was on the razor's edge. Those who cultivated the dao had to exercise extreme control, otherwise they could easily slip into cultivation deviation.

For example, in the beginning Yang Qi had been unable to control the God Legion Seal. But as his cultivation base grew more powerful, he slowly gained control and could release more of its power.