Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

At a certain point, Profound Valor stopped, formed a cage out of primal-chaos, and threw Yang Qi’s power double into it. The cage was so secure and tight that Yang Qi immediately realized that not even detonating his power double would do him any good. Profound Valor’s enlightenment of magical power and natural law was just too advanced.

After throwing Yang Qi into the cage, Profound Valor devolved into a fit of coughing that ended with him vomiting up several mouthfuls of blood. Then he sat down cross-legged and began to meditate. Moments later, streams of white vital energy began to rise up from the top of his head and then vanish into the void.

After working with the powerful, mysterious technique for some time, Profound Valor looked much better. He radiated a healthy light, and seemed just as mighty as before. As he rose to his feet, cracking sounds rang out from within him; he was now completely and utterly recovered.

Yang Qi was dumbstruck.

Profound Valor had clearly been very seriously injured, yet he had recovered in almost no time at all. Not even Yang Qi’s true self could compare to an opponent like this. It seemed to him that he would need to push his own power index to the level of two thousand before he could even consider fighting someone this strong. Yang Qi was at only about seven hundred, which meant that Profound Valor was about three times beyond him.

At this point, Profound Valor looked at Yang Qi stuck in his cage. With Profound Valor’s flowing beard and fierce expression, he looked like some sort of mighty general, ready to pronounce a sentence of execution on a captive enemy.

“I'm impressed,” he said. “You’re the first person that’s ever hurt me like this. If it weren’t for that will convergence attack of yours, and the despicable backstabbing attack of the people from the future world and the Joyflower Palace, I would’ve come out of that fight on top. Not many people in existence can possibly hurt me. Talk. What’s the nature of your cultivation base? What exactly was that will convergence attack? If you don’t tell me, I’ll make you wish you could die!”

“You’re going to make me wish I could die?” Yang Qi laughed. Calmly brushing some dust off his shoulders, he said, “Presumably you already know that I'm just a power double, so threats of death don't really mean much to me. No magical treasure or medicinal pill of yours could destroy my true self, and if you do anything to my power double, you’ll make a very big enemy.”

Profound Valor looked at the power double with an unreadable expression and then asked a seemingly unrelated question, “You're not with the Joyflower Palace?”

“How could you tell?” Yang Qi replied.

Profound Valor continued looking at him for a long, silent moment. Then he said, “You look like a consort from there. But with a cultivation base like that, how could the Joyflower Palace possibly keep you captive? I'm going to guess you infiltrated them with secret goals of your own. Am I right? There’s no real enmity between us, so why did you join the ambush?”

“It’s funny you should ask that,” Yang Qi answered. “You’re right. I infiltrated the Joyflower Palace with the goal of killing Empress Joyflower. I used to lead the Dao Defense League, which is an alliance of a hundred trillion immortal worlds. But the Joyflower Palace stole it from me. It was a grievous blow, and the only way I can vent my anger is to kill her.”

“Oh really?” Profound Valor said, although he seemed skeptical. “Empress Joyflower is no one to take lightly. She’s extremely skilled and powerful, and what’s more, she’s vicious and merciless. Her ultimate goal is to rule everything in existence. I'm afraid not even my Profound Killing Dao Sect can stand up to her, which is why I've tried to keep my distance. Despite that, she still sent people to try to kill me. Well, I can’t just sit around and let her do that. I need to strike back.”

“You seem unusually strong,” Yang Qi said. “My guess is that you recently came across some sort of good fortune that significantly boosted your energy arts. But what, exactly? It couldn’t be some ordinary god item or medicinal pill. And even if you got some godhood, you shouldn’t have power and will as terrifyingly strong as yours.”

“Very clever, boy,” Profound Valor said, his expression flickering. “You guessed all that after having just met me? I’d say that is terrifying. I bet I could make use of you to accomplish some amazing things.”

“Make use of me? Your energy arts are strong and your will is incredible, but whatever good fortune you came across, it wasn’t enough for you to reach the Terrifying level. That’s not going to be enough to force me to do anything for you.” In response to his words, an angry gleam appeared in Profound Valor’s eyes, so Yang Qi quickly changed the direction of the conversation. “However, we could join forces. What do you say? We can work together to take down the Joyflower Palace and kill the empress. By the way, I have a very deep grudge with the future world. They kidnapped some people that are very important to me, and one of these days I'm going to put an end to that Magister Proud Heaven.”

“You want to join forces? Have you forgotten that you’re my prisoner? Although I might not be able to harm your true self, I can tell that you’ve put a lot of work into this power double. If I kill it, my prison will make it impossible for the will inside to leave. I could then take that will and use one of my divine abilities to learn your deepest secrets.”

It was a very vicious threat.

And he had hit directly at a very sore point for Yang Qi. As long as he was on guard, it would generally be impossible to strike at his true form through the power double. But if the will that was contained in the power double were captured, it could definitely reveal secrets of his true self.

For example, it could reveal information about the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, King Immortal-Slayer, and other such things. It was similar to how the science and technology of the future world could take a single cell belonging to an individual and create an exact duplicate or clone, which would resemble the original in all aspects. [1]

Worst-case scenario, it was possible that Profound Valor could learn about Yang Qi’s God Legion Seal, or even techniques from the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth. Even if it was just the techniques of the seventy-two monarchs, or the Secret-Ensconcing All-World Anything-Everything Fundamental-Law Magic, it would still be a devastating blow to Yang Qi.

There was no way he could allow something like that to happen.

At the moment, it was hard to tell what Yang Qi’s true self was thinking. Had he really made the decision to abandon his power double? In the face of the terrifying Profound Valor, would he sacrifice a chariot to defend the general? Although it didn’t seem possible to even destroy the power double in full, at the moment.

At this point, Profound Valor broke out into laughter laced with killing energy. “You listen to me, boy, and you’ll be fine. Agreed?”

“So you’re relying on threats to get me to be your follower? Sorry, that’s not going to work. As far as I'm concerned, it's better to be a broken piece of jade than an intact clay tile.” Yang Qi had made his decision. If Profound Valor really did make a move, he would come as his true self and use the God Legion Seal to free his power double.

Perhaps it meant that his secret of the God Legion Seal would be revealed, but that was bound to happen eventually anyway.

“It's better to be a broken piece of jade than an intact clay tile? So, you’re the ambitious type. In that case, let’s see what secrets your little power double can tell me.”

He strode over and entered the cage; considering he had created it, he could go in and come out as he pleased. In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of Yang Qi, where he flicked his sleeve and sent out raging waters containing powerful magical laws. Yang Qi was instantly tightly bound, unable to move, his will and thoughts locked down by the godpower and magical laws.

Profound Valor’s eyes glittered as he stared at the power double and wondered what marvelous secrets he was about to learn. Reaching out, he clamped his hand down onto the power double’s head and prepared to extract the will from within it.

However, it was in that same moment that a vortex appeared in the primal-chaos paleo-energy beyond, and a figure appeared and launched an attack on the cage. It was none other than Yang Qi’s true self.

Meanwhile, a strange smile appeared on Profound Valor’s face. “I did it! I lured your true self out into the open. The fish has been hooked! Let’s see you escape now! You could have just abandoned your power double and lost a few secrets. Instead, you offered up your true self to be captured. Fool!”

Profound Valor vanished from within the cage, then reappeared right above Yang Qi’s true self.

“Grand God-Dao Highest-Heaven Sealing Mark!”

He threw his hands out, and an enormous net appeared which began to drop down toward Yang Qi.

In response, Yang Qi’s eyes glittered, and he chopped his hand out like a sharp blade, slicing through the net and heading directly toward Profound Valor.

His true self had a power index of seven hundred and was far stronger than his power double. Furthermore, thanks to the tempering of the “such arrogance” will convergence attack, he had reached an extremely high level of strength.

A cruel smile appeared on Profound Valor’s face as he said, “You’re pretty strong, aren't you? But you’re still a far cry from being at my level. Watch and learn; this is the power of an Inheritor of the Great Necropolis!”

POP!

He thrust his palm out in an attack that was both hard and soft, like twisting dragons and leaping tigers. It was something that seemed to contain the quintessence of the universe, the god world, the immortal dao, the future, and the primeval past.

It was an attack that seemed impossible to evade or block.

Profound Valor had planned long and hard for this moment, first luring Yang Qi’s true self into the open, then holding back this devastating attack in the hopes of killing or capturing him.

Yang Qi was just too tempting a target to pass up.

1. This passage uses the more proper and scientific loan word 克隆 (ke long) for clone, which is basically a transliteration. Normally, the words that get translated as “clone” in these novels are actually other words. I talk about the subject in this video if you haven’t seen it already.