Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

The ancient city of Krorän was a huge place, filled with too many buildings to count. How could anyone ever find treasure storehouses in a place like that?

And Yang Qi couldn’t use his true energy to check, not with a Lifeseizer somewhere in the city.

Therefore, his plan was to capture an important person among the vampire brigands and force the information out of him. Then, he would loot the treasure and pack as much of it as possible into his thumb-ring of holding.

Yun Hailan and Chu Tiange were definitely planning to try to take out the Lifeseizer, and therefore, he would seize the opportunity to take the treasure before they could get to it. That would surely infuriate them.

“And who are you?” the red-furred vampire brigand growled.

Because of how much hair covered his face, it was impossible to read his expression, but from his tone of voice, he was obviously a cruel and sinister individual.

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” Yang Qi replied. “Tell me where the treasure storehouses are.”

The red-furred vampire burst out laughing. “The treasure has already been sent to the Blood Demon Grotto. If you want it, go look for it there.”

Suddenly, a mysterious, blood-colored shadow appeared behind Yang Qi, which transformed into a huge hand, reaching toward him aggressively.

BANG!

Yang Qi’s true energy smashed the Humanoid True Energy into bits, completely destroying it.

“So, seems you want me to force it out of you. I wanted to be nice, but I guess I’ll do it the hard way. You must really think I'm an idiot. Considering the size of the army here, and how much wealth it would take to sustain it, there’s no way you sent all the treasure away.”

Seemingly not in the least bit frightened, Yang Qi thrust his hand out.

As his hand moved forward, the Infernal Deity Spear formed in it, making him look like a god of death preparing to take the life of a mortal.

“Bloodshadow Godshield!” The red-furred vampire’s energy swirled out to create a tower shield decorated with a blood-colored ghost head that spat flames out of its mouth.

Unfortunately for the vampire, when the Infernal Deity Spear stabbed into the shield, the shield shattered into pieces. Then, enormous arms of true energy sprouted from Yang Qi's back, which reached forward and pinned the vampire to the ground.

All it took was one move for him to capture his opponent.

Of course, the vampire’s red fur was naturally poisonous, and could kill anyone who touched it. But Yang Qi was using true energy arms, ensuring that he wasn’t hurt at all.

“Ready to talk?” He sent a burst of true energy into the vampire, just a touch of the destructive power of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, which began to wreak havoc on the vampire’s meridians.

The vampire screamed as its red hair shriveled away, revealing a middle-aged man with an ashen face.

Yang Qi had used his true energy to force all of the man’s blood demon energy arts into his sea of energy, and was now exerting so much pressure that it was obvious he intended to cripple him.

“I’ll talk!” the vampire shrieked. “I’ll talk! There’s a secret passageway thirty meters below the imperial palace, right in the middle of the city. That's where the treasure is. Everything we pillaged in the northwest is there.”

With that, Yang Qi went on to get more information, such as the layout of the city, where the top experts were located, and what other dangerous things lay about.

After the time it takes an incense stick to burn, he had extracted all the information he needed.

Crunch!

With that, he ended the vampire’s life and took his blood demon core.

It was a beautiful thing, covered with countless swirling magical symbols that were the color of blood. This core contained the incredibly strong and pure blood demon true energy. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be used for cultivation purposes by humans. Anyone who tried would find that they suddenly needed to consume blood on a daily basis lest they experience terrible pain worse than death.

In some ways, cultivating blood demon energy arts was like being addicted to a powerful drug. It was only because of how one could progress in cultivation ten times faster than normal that people were often seduced by it.

“One blood demon core is worth at least five merit points.” After examining it closely, Yang Qi put it into his thumb-ring, which he was currently wearing openly.

“Infernal Deity Aegis!”

Rumbling sounds echoed out as his true energy flowed out, creating a dark, golden suit of armor that covered him from head to toe.

The true energy armor looked like it was forged from black gold, and was ferocious in appearance. It had numerous razor-sharp spikes on the back, and two curved horns on the helmet that resembled those of dragons. The gauntlets were spiked as well; each one had nine finger-length spikes, a nod to nine being the ultimate number.

This was a new state his Infernal Deity Aegis could assume now that he was a Master of Energy, the Infernal Deity Plate Armor.

Right now, he could descend into the magma of an active volcano and not be hurt at all. No type of ordinary true energy could possibly hurt him either.

This was another reason he was confident that he could take Chu Tiange on in a fight.

Not even his Cosmic Sunflare Sword could pierce the Infernal Deity Plate Armor.

Another good reason to wear his Infernal Deity Plate Armor was that the helmet made it impossible to see who he was. No one would recognize that he was Yang Qi.

“I can’t wait to run into Chu Tiange. And you too, Yun Hailan. Don’t think that because you have him to back you up you can do whatever you want. I'm going to kill him right in front of you. And then you’ll realize that all your arrogance is worthless when it comes to me.”

Thus, clad in Infernal Deity Plate Armor, Yang Qi yet again blurred into motion, speeding through the buildings of the city as a gust of snowy wind that not even top experts would realize was a person.

Before long, he was in the city center, where he saw the imperial palace, a mighty and grand structure that was ten times as large as Yanhaven. Even the roof tiles were covered with gold leaf, and as for the floor, it was paved with gold bricks.

Although gold was no longer used as currency in the world, it was still recognized as being extremely valuable, so to be able to use so much of it for mere decoration went to show how rich the imperial household of Krorän had been.

As Yang Qi neared the palace, he could sense that there was some extremely powerful entity lurking there.

It was like an enormous beast from ancient times, filled with such vast power that its mere breathing would affect the weather around it. He could also just barely make out a pillar of blood-colored true energy shooting up to connect to the sky.

That was definitely something that only a Lifeseizer could do.

“I’ll worry about him later. First things first: the secret passageway and the treasure.”

He dropped to the ground at the edge of the imperial palace. Thanks to it being night, and him being surrounded by the ‘winter snow’ true energy of the Four Seasons Swordplay, no one noticed him.

Furthermore, the sounds of fighting from further out toward the city’s edge were distracting, making it even easier for him to proceed along undetected.

After landing, he found himself at the edge of a frozen moat.

It was fully a thousand paces across, but the ice was as thick as a person was tall.

During the course of the interrogation moments before, he had learned that there was a subterranean pipe linking the moat to areas beneath the palace. The palace actually had many passageways beneath it, a virtual labyrinth that had been used to store the wealth that Krorän had built up over the past hundreds and even thousands of years. And the vampire brigands had only added further to that accumulation of riches.

Although the labyrinth was rife with traps and snares, Yang Qi’s energy arts were so advanced that he didn’t need to worry about them.

Crunch!

He quickly sent a blast of true energy out to pierce a hole in the ice, and then jumped in, sinking down to the bottom of the moat.

It was very dark there, but Yang Qi could still make out fish swimming about to and fro. Considering he was capable of Mind Incarnation, it was easy for him to see in circumstances in which there was no light.

He swept the area with his true energy, and quickly had a complete picture of it in his mind.

Of course, the moat was deep enough that the freezing temperature and the water pressure at the bottom was significant; most top energy arts masters would have difficulty staying there for too long. But Yang Qi had no problems.

The area was free of any sort of silt or sludge; even the moat was made from glittering gold that was kept clean by the flow of the water.

After proceeding along for some distance, he suddenly chopped his hand out, carving a hole into the moat floor that revealed a large metal door. Clearly, it was made from some sort of metal that didn’t rust, and upon opening it, revealed a passageway.

Yang Qi allowed the flowing water to suck him into the doorway.

Cruuuunch!

As soon as he entered the door, he heard a loud grating crunch. Scanning the area with true energy, he realized that the door had an enormous grinder built into it that activated once water flowed past it; if anyone tried to enter, the door would slice them to pieces.

However, it didn’t matter how sharp it was, it couldn’t damage his Infernal Deity Plate Armor.

Looking at the meter-long blades with their hundreds of razor-sharp teeth, he murmured, “Good thing I'm a Master of Energy, otherwise I would have been dead.”

After destroying the trap, he stepped out of the water and into the secret passageway; thanks to the ingenious construction of the trap, the water was actually channeled back out into the moat.

“Alright. Secret passage: found.”

Yang Qi knew that he was heading into a dangerous area; the closer he got to the treasure, the more traps there would be.

As he proceeded along, he found too many to count, including needles, poison, bladed wheels and flamethrowers. And yet, not a single one could do anything to hurt him.