Sage Monarch

'I'm finally a Never-Dying Legendary! Next up, the Half Sage level. Or maybe not. I have enough resources that I could theoretically jump right into the Great Sage level.'

Yang Qi circulated his true energy, and found that both it and his blood were now closely tied to the magnetic field of this heaven and earth. The Hell of Mahānata and the God Legion Paradise were now connected, and the devil energy around him, which was the spirit energy of this heaven and earth, flowed freely into his Hellfire Crucible.

Once inside the crucible, it was converted into the type of power that he could use, and was then sent into his meridians.

The devil energy of the Hell of Mahānata was essentially equivalent to immortal energy. Normally speaking, humans who absorbed and worked with it would eventually turn into monsters of some sort. Furthermore, the competitors were all Great Sages who were also connected to the immortal energy of the ranking list outside, which offered protection against the encroachment of devil energy.

Without that protection, anyone who entered the hell would almost immediately be converted into a fiend-devil.

Thankfully, Yang Qi was different.

Unfortunately, no particles within him awoke during his breakthrough. However, the images of his current group of megamammoths grew clearer, and their armor made them seem more like godmammoths. There were also changes to the God Legion Paradise.

During his successive breakthroughs, he had been assaulted by the Jambudvīpa Deluge, the Night Queen Flame and finally the Amber Avalanche. That indicated that the next tribulation he needed to experience would be a tribulation of wind.

The four great elements of all worlds were earth, water, fire, and wind.

Normally speaking, Great Sages would experience all four of those types of tribulation during their breakthrough. However, Yang Qi was very different. If he could converge all of those tribulations into his God Legion Paradise, it would truly begin to transform into an actual world, instead of an illusory dimension.

He sent out a tendril of true energy, which smashed into the metallic-looking ground, and then dug hundreds of meters down until it found a vein of black ore.

Then, he waved his hand, and a chunk of the ore flew up and landed onto his palm. It was covered with vicious faces, like devils, and even sent devilish will piercing into his sea of consciousness in the hopes of turning him into a monster.

Normally speaking, a Great Sage who even just touched a rock like this would be instantly devilized.

But Yang Qi wasn't worried about that. It took almost no effort to transform that devil energy into sagelight. Radiance and light were the complementary opposite of darkness and gloom, and the two could easily be switched back and forth.

A moment later, the devil energy was in his personal domain, in the form of a holy tree.

As for the ore, it was now a glittering crystal that emanated immortal energy, the most pure and eternal power possible.

'Heavenly-grade spirit stone!' At first, Yang Qi was shocked, but after reminding himself that the Hell of Mahānata was equivalent to an immortal plane, it made sense that the spirit stone veins here would be extraordinary. In fact, he wondered if he could find places to dig up godly-grade spirit stones, or perhaps even immortal stones.

'I wonder if anyone other than me is able to purify the spirit stone here, and expunge the devilish will. If I took a whole bunch of them, I'd be rich! Maybe even the richest person in the Hanging Mountain!' He stamped his foot down, and the golden soil cracked and split apart, revealing a five-hundred-kilometer-long vein of ore deep beneath him.

Generally speaking, the ground in the Hell of Mahānata was incredibly tough, and a Legendary who tried to break it open would completely fail. Not even using powerful weapons would help.

That golden soil could be used to create invincible devil items, and was essentially the same as immortal soil.

However, Yang Qi could unleash the power of ten million ancient megamammoths, which was more than enough force to work with.

He inhaled, and the entire vein of ore was sucked out of the ground and sent into his God Legion Paradise. Immediately, Yang Qi could sense the domain gobbling up the devil energy, and using it to provoke transformations.

He still had plenty of spirit stones that he had taken from the Western Continent, and yet, they weren't enough to push him into the Great Sage level. But now, with virtually limitless spirit stone ore available to him in this hell, including sagely-grade and heavenly-grade, he had more than enough.

There was nothing standing in his way to reach the Great Sage level.

The only thing to do next was seek further enlightenment via combat, and also grasp the ultimate meaning of the Hell of Mahānata.

He suddenly burst up into the air, then sent out a shock wave that rolled out and slaughtered any fiend-devils it encountered.

Unexpectedly, this was very similar to what Mammoth Manyvoids could do.

Now that he was a Never-Dying Legendary, he was definitely in the position to fight fifth step Great Sages. As of this moment, if he ran into Mammoth Force, he could easily hold his own.

Not long after Yang Qi left the area, a young man appeared, with a flowing mane of golden hair that shone as brightly as the sun. Based on his energy fluctuations, he was obviously a fifth step Great Sage. Looking down in shock at the scene of destruction and carnage, he said, "This was a tribe of yamas, and based on the auras present, there must have been a few dozen Great Sages among them. The strongest was in the fourth step. Not only did someone kill them, but there's also tribulation energy in the area. This was definitely Yang Qi. He's a Never-Dying Legendary now! It's too horrible to contemplate what will happen if he achieves another breakthrough."

The golden-haired young man was flanked by a group of burly men, all of whom had similarly golden manes.

"Should we chase after him, Young Chief Lion?" one of them asked. "Or do we notify Mammoth Force first?"

"Forget Mammoth Force," the young chief replied, smiling coldly. "I'm no weaker than him. The only reason I take orders from him in the Hanging Mountain is that I'm a head shorter than him, and also don't have the August Patriarch as my father. But I don't have to listen to him here. I'll kill Yang Qi on my own, get King Immortal-Slayer's medallion, and then advance by leaps and bounds. Pretty soon, Mammoth Force is going to be taking orders from me!"

"You're absolutely right, Young Chief Lion," one of the other Great Sages said. "We Lionfolk are definitely going to rise to prominence soon. From what I've heard, there are actually nine fragments of King Immortal-Slayer's medallion. If you get all of them, you'll acquire his legacy, and become the next King Immortal-Slayer. Then you can sweep through the immortal planes and slay immortals left and right."

"I, Lion Hightower, will soon experience a major shift in fortune. There's no time to lose. Let's go. If I don't kill Yang Qi soon, he might become a Great Sage, and that would be troublesome. Luckily for us, we're the first ones to have caught his scent."

The air rippled and distorted around Lion Hightower as a pair of wings unfurled behind him, which were none other than his famous Skylion Wings. Without any hesitation, he shot after Yang Qi.

The other Lionfolk Great Sages followed him, roaring as they created a unique spell formation called Roar of the Skylion.

The combined roar of so many Lionfolk Great Sages was enough to pierce through mountains, rivers, seas, lakes, and valleys to kill all sorts of fiend-devils.

In addition, the spell formation was built around the core element of Lion Hightower's soul aura, and therefore, all of the points went to him. Because of that, his name continued to climb on the immortal ranking list.

"What's that?" Yang Qi murmured as the sound of a roar reached his ear. Narrowing his eyes, he looked off into the distance to see a group of Lionfolk flying directly toward him.

Instead of fleeing, he stood his ground and calmly waited for them to approach.

RUMBLE!

An explosive wave of vital energy shattered the air in the area as Lion Hightower landed in front of him, looking as imperious as a king. At the same time, his attendants landed nearby and surrounded Yang Qi, making him look like a cornered rat.

"You can wear out iron shoes in a fruitless search, then find what you're looking for without even trying. Oh how true that saying is!" As Lion Hightower stood there, his golden mane shone with dazzling light. He pointed at Yang Qi. "Give me King Immortal-Slayer's medallion. If you do, then for the sake of the Holy Mother, I'll spare your life. Presumably, you know who I am: Young Chief Lion Hightower of the Lionfolk. My cultivation base is higher than Mammoth Force's, so don't even think about trying to get away."

The other Lionfolk immediately began to add fuel to the fire.

"Submit, Yang Qi. Don't make the wrong decision here."

"That's right. If you don't hurry up, you're going to get killed."

This group knew that Yang Qi was strong enough to kill Great Sages, and therefore, they were ready to join forces immediately to fight him. At the same time, they were making sure that they didn't leave any openings for him to flee.

"Lionfolk, huh…." Considering all the fighting experience Yang Qi had, he wasn't flustered at all. "Back before the competition started, your chief cursed me and called me a bastard. I never got the chance to retaliate for those insults, but don't think I forgot them. Luckily, it seems I'm going to get my chance right now. You're the son of Chief Lion? Fifth step Great Sage? Even in the Hanging Mountain, that's pretty impressive. Killing you is really going to sting for Chief Lion."

Whoosh!

Yang Qi suddenly blurred into motion, and before anyone could do anything, was about to land a fist on Lion Hightower.

It was a strike that seemed strong enough to prop up heaven, and even shatter it. In the blink of an eye, Lion Hightower felt his spine creaking from the force weighing down on him.

Yang Qi was taking the initiative, and was attempting to take out the leader first.

'Not good!' Lion Hightower thought, the fist-wind bearing down on him like a mountain. In fact, his true energy and sage motes were already starting to crumble.

"Nine Spirits Elemental King Fist!" he shouted.

He stepped forward, and golden light erupted out, transforming into the constellation Leo, like the throne of a king that could crush all opponents.

1. There's some wordplay here that doesn't come across. In Chinese, the word "constellation 星座" consists of the characters for star 星 and seat 座. And all of the individual constellations all have the character 'seat 座' in them. So Leo is literally the "lion seat 狮子座". If you combine the character for king 王 with seat 座, then you get the word for "throne 王座". So, to say that the constellation Leo is like 'the throne of a king' makes visual sense in Chinese.