Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Yang Qi was being closely watched by Mu Yexi as he circulated his true energy, which now contained the characteristics of the Great Necropolis. However, he was also using his Life-Death Void-Destruction Lightning to bypass the constraints of the Heart-Linking Hex, and was thus able to communicate with his immortal-slaying clone in the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.

If the clone tried to pass power to him, it would be detected, but it was no problem to share thoughts with each other. Much of this had to do with the immortal-slaying clone’s ever-increasing command over the chart.

The immortal-slaying clone was currently working with a purring bubble of the Purrfect God Art, and Yang Qi was imparting as much knowledge and information to him as possible.

The Purrfect God Art was incredible. It was like a combination of all types of magic, yet also like something that existed outside of all magics. It surpassed all other types of divine abilities and daoist techniques, and was completely mysterious and unfathomable.

By now, Yang Qi had mostly combined the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body with the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, resolving any lingering side effects. He could now push himself to the level of a hundred tribulations without worrying about his body stiffening up and becoming immobile.

As the clone worked with his cultivation and examined his true energy and blood, he could see heterogeneous true energy within it that he would then extrude. He was slowly tempering his own fleshly body in preparation of separating himself from the shackles of King Immortal-Slayer.

King Immortal-Slayer had hoped to use his successor as a pawn, but the clone was forging a different path, much like Yang Qi himself was doing. He was freeing himself from the legacy medallions and the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.

Yang Qi had long since come up with the plan to rid himself of the God Legion Seal, but it was easier said than done, as he constantly relied on the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth. However, with the Purrfect God Art, the clone was finally in the position to free himself.

The clone began spinning faster and faster, causing impurities to fly away from him as he began glowing with a bright radiance.

He inhaled, and a pure stream of true energy rushed into him, as wild as a dragon or a tiger. It was none other than the true energy from the emperor of the executors, which Yang Qi had acquired from the Shepherd.

The pure power entered him and quickly created a perfect cycle.

The bubble popped and the clone appeared in the open, whereupon he drew on his imperial-heaven pre-beginning powers. The Engine of the One God stirred, and the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart trembled. The clone chuckled coldly. “Excellent, my cultivation base has reached an even higher level, and I’ve made some progress with the Purrfect God Art. I feel more free than ever from King Immortal-Slayer.

“Now, there’s no way I’ll allow this bullying from the Woodfern Couple Palace. Those two think that just because they have mid Terrifying cultivation bases they can do whatever they want. When the time comes, I'm going to bury them!”

He exhaled a stream of fire and began refining the godpower seed, modeling his work after what the imperial couple had done. And thanks to the godhood stars in the chart that were powering the Engine of the One God, he was capable of rivaling what their two cultivation bases could do.

The Engine of the One God could match the cultivation base of gods, much less two mid Terrifying experts.

The godpower seed was slowly but surely refined, releasing all sorts of rancorous and pestilential energy as it reverted to its original state.

All of a sudden, one of the godhood stars up above shrank down and fell like a meteor.

He had completely and utterly exhausted that star.

It was a shock to the clone, as this was the first time something like this had happened. From that, it was obvious how amazing the godpower seeds were. If a tiny seed could do that, then what was the Great Necropolis in general capable of?

Of course, the clone wasn't planning to assimilate the seed for himself. After all, there was some sort of connection that existed between Inheritors that forced them to fight and kill each other. It would be quite ironic if he forced a relationship like that to exist between him and Yang Qi, and one of them ended up killing the other.

Instead, he would give the seed to Yang Qi.

Yang Qi was making all sorts of preparations to deal with the current circumstances.

**

Meanwhile, in another location, Mu Renwang and Su Xin were completely focused on studying the Mahātmā Jade. They were using all sorts of secret magics in an attempt to unlock its power, but unfortunately, nothing they did brought any results.

RUMBLE!

Mu Renwang launched a palm strike at the jade, and although it shifted in place, nothing else happened.

Truth be told, if it weren’t for the fact that he was a mid Terrifying expert, he wouldn’t even have been able to move the jade.

“The stories are true,” Su Xin said. “Unless you cultivate the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body, it's impossible to do anything with Mahātmā Jade. What a pity that nobody knows the location of the sheepskin scroll that contains the cultivation method of the Unspoiled Body. Perhaps the Shepherd has it. If so, I doubt we’ll ever get it.”

“You’re probably right,” Mu Renwang said. “The Shepherd won’t be easy to take down. You know, if we weren’t in the mid Terrifying level, I don’t think we could even move this piece of jade. Hey. Wait a second! I just thought of something. Yang Qi isn’t in the mid Terrifying level, so how could he hold it in his hand so easily?”

“Don’t tell me....” Su Xin thought for a moment, then continued, “do you think he cultivates an Unspoiled Body? That would explain why he's so tough, and how he resisted being petrified by the Great Necropolis godpower. That’s got to be it! The legendary Unspoiled Body is the only explanation. And that means he must have the sheepskin scroll! If that’s the case, then we need to—”

“Hold on!” Mu Renwang interrupted. “Even if that’s the case, it won't do us any good right now. The reason he gave the jade to us in the first place must be because he actually understands the fundamentals of how it works. If we try forcing him to hand over the sheepskin scroll, it's highly likely that he’ll do something desperate. We need him to be obedient and easy to control, so for now, we can’t do anything dramatic. Don’t forget, even a scared rabbit will bite!”

“This brat has too many secrets,” Su Xin said with a cold harrumph. “And he’s far too ambitious. There’s no way he really wants to be a puppet. Maybe we should just kill him and go back to square one. We need someone loyal to us, not some crafty schemer! If he really was loyal, he would’ve already explained all his secrets to us instead of holding them back.”

“Of course we’ll kill him. Eventually. For now, he’s still useful as an experiment. Considering he knows that we can create new Inheritors, we obviously can’t let him live for too long. Besides, he’ll eventually slip out of our control. But if we kill him now, and really go back to square one, how would we find another suitable candidate? Strong people are always ambitious, so what would we do if our next candidate was the same; kill him, too?”

“Well, that’s true,” Su Xin said. “We don’t have time to groom someone else, so I suppose we can only hope this brat really can beat Bastard Seacliff. I guess if he’s hiding some of his true strength, it just means he stands a better chance of winning. You know, that Star Swordlife doesn’t seem too bad. Maybe we should groom him as well, to use as a counter to Yang Qi. Pitting two pawns against each other is always a good strategy.”

“Star Swordlife? He won’t do as the league-lord. He’s far too obstinate. Although, he is profoundly gifted, perhaps no less so than Yang Qi. Furthermore, it might be safer to work with him, as he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would fight back. He claims to follow a dao of life, to the point where he even refused to kill the Flower-Seizing Marauder. Yes, I think setting him up against Yang Qi would be a good idea. Let's bring him in and offer to help him. If things don’t work out, we can just kill him and take his Inheritor’s godpower seed.”

“We’ve killed eighteen Inheritors so far,” Su Xin said, “which means we have eighteen godpower seeds. And we've already refined and cleansed them of any wretch energy on them. What a pity that we can’t absorb them. If we could, we’d have access to the secrets of the Great Necropolis, and possibly even a chance to reach the legion of gods.”

“Don’t worry. We’re already half finished with our uses for Yang Qi. It won’t be long before we can turn him into a pure research subject.” A vicious smile appeared on Mu Renwang’s face. “His fate is in our hands. If he’s loyal, maybe we can give him some of our collection of eighteen godpower seeds. But if he's too ambitious and refuses to be our puppet, we can just kill him.”