Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

“So do you finally realize how strong I am?” Yang Qi said, brushing his hands off. He had used the power of the Engine of the One God just now, making it more than easy to defeat this group. Unfortunately, the engine was now running very low on power, so hopefully the threat he had created would be enough. “Killing you would be as easy for me as flipping my hand over.”

Trembling, Wave Wind said, “If you're so strong, why didn’t you fight the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court for control of the Dao Defense League?”

Yang Qi snorted coldly. “At that time, I hadn’t reached this level. But now I'm not afraid of the emperors. So acknowledge allegiance. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t devour you.” Even as the words left his mouth, an enormous primal-chaos elder-snake appeared behind him, its mouth gaping like billions of trillions of black holes put together.

The essence of the Unrestrained Heaven immediately began streaming into the snake’s mouth.

RUMBLE!

The entire immortal world began trembling as countless expressions of will burst into activity.

Heaven-devils everywhere began howling in defiance, but that did no good. King Heaven-Devourer gobbled them up, which in turn caused his snake form to transform, the head turning human.

“King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans! All three thousand of them! The will of King Heaven-Devourer’s talisman is back! My god! All of the seventy-two brethren of ancient times had powerful magical treasures, and if you combine them they’ll bring ultimate disaster. They’re inauspicious! But you collected all three thousand of those talismans and kept King Heaven-Devourer’s will under your control?”

The four suzerains of hell were deeply astonished and longed to be able to flee for their lives. Unfortunately, Yang Qi had impressed them so deeply that they didn’t dare to make a single move. Perhaps it would have been effective to flee from an incomplete set of King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans, but the complete collection was a different story.

King Heaven-Devourer was second only to King Immortal-Slayer, a Paramount God who was completely and utterly famous in the ancient god world. People would blanch with terror at the mention of his name, and it was impossible to even say how many ancient gods he had devoured.

These suzerains of hell were little more than gang leaders in modern-day hells, and couldn't compare at all to King Heaven-Devourer. The ancient leaders of the hells were either dead now, or on the Ancient Road to the Gods.

Eyes wide, Devil Lord Wave Wind said, “Emissary of Radiance and Light. Yang Qi. What exactly do you want? Why don’t we make a deal? There’s no need for you to rob us by force. What do you say?”

“That’s right!” Suzerain Mahānata said. “We’ll cooperate with you, Yang Qi. We’ll help you kill the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court and become the new league-lord. We're not your enemy.”

“You’re not my enemy?” Yang Qi burst out laughing. “That’ll be the day. You were planning to help the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court to kill me! You even included a Myriad-Sages Devil-Tempering Necrosius Truth Pill in your plan. Did you think I didn’t know that?”

“That was then, this is now,” said Suzerain Misery. “We’re not interested in being your enemy. Why don’t we just sit down and talk things out? We can figure out how to deal with the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court, and split the profits afterward.”

“What?” Yang Qi said, frowning as if in confusion. “Split the profits? What's that supposed to mean?”

“What, don’t tell me you’re not going to give us our fair share!” All four of the suzerains were completely taken aback.

Snorting coldly, Yang Qi said, “I'm not giving you the tiniest scrap of profit. I want your complete and utter allegiance. And by that, I mean, if you show the slightest bit of disloyalty or duplicity, then you immediately die. Got it? If you want to live, then you serve me like slaves from now on.”

“You!” the suzerains all blurted, leaping to their feet.

“Don't push things too far, Yang Qi,” said Wave Wind. “Otherwise we’ll switch our loyalties back to the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court and join forces to kill you. You couldn’t match up to all of us at the same time!”

“Oh? You’re getting angry, just like that?” Yang Qi chuckled. “Fine, go ahead. I won’t stop you. Go to the emperors and see how things turn out for you. But remember, you don’t have unkillable bodies. I can take your lives as easily as killing a baby chicken.”

Yang Qi was truly feeling some killing intent. It would be difficult to kill one of these suzerains right now, but if he drained the Engine of the One God, it might be possible. But if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to rely on the engine when it came time to face the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court, which would make things difficult.

The four emperors were about as strong as the four suzerains, but the difference was that Yang Qi’s energy arts were specifically designed to target the latter, and not the former. He could probably defeat one of the emperors in a fight, but not kill him. And if all four emperors worked together, they might not be able to defeat Yang Qi, but he wouldn’t be able to defeat them, either.

At least he was stronger than before. Before, he would have lost in a fight to even one of them, and all four together would have killed him beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Don’t press your luck, Yang Qi,” Wave Wind said coldly. “Even a rabbit will bite if you back it into a corner. Besides, we really are suzerains of hell. We have all sorts of ways to deal with you, including ones in which we all die together.”

“Die together?” Yang Qi laughed as though he had just heard the funniest joke in the world. “You four think you’re going to take me down with you in death? Even if you destroyed your own hells to do it, I wouldn’t die. You know full well I have the God Legion Seal, which means I have the blessing of the gods. And you talk of dying together?”

“Well…” Suzerain Mahānata began, but even he knew that talking about mutual destruction with Yang Qi was pointless.

“I'm done wasting my breath on you,” Yang Qi said. “If you don’t acknowledge allegiance, I’ll kill you. I've been holding back up to this point because I wanted to see how you would react. Help me kill the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court, and I’ll reward you. Fight back, and you can die right here and now. I’ll give you ten breaths of time to make your decision. Keep being pigheaded and I’ll make my move. And if any of you think of trying to run, you’ll be the first to be destroyed.”

His killing intent boiled as he finally resorted to outright threats.

For millions upon millions of years, it had been the suzerains of hell who issued threats. They were never the ones who were threatened. But right now, these four suzerains were so threatened that they felt cold all the way down to their toes.

Just now, Yang Qi had seemed like an enraged god whose every individual strike was like the majesty of the One God. And then he had pulled out King Heaven-Devourer’s Talismans. On top of that, they also knew that he had some of King Immortal-Slayer’s legacy medallions and access to the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.

“One,” Yang Qi said, seemingly unconcerned with whatever the four suzerains might be thinking.

“Two. Three. Four…. Five. Six…. Seven….”

The suzerains trembled, as if in torment. They wanted to flee, but didn't dare to make the attempt. The Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth was just too dangerous, and all of them feared godmammoths deep in their hearts.

“Eight…. Nine….”

Upon reaching nine, Yang Qi’s killing intent reached a boiling point. If he had to, he would completely drain the Engine of the One God to kill them. If he assimilated the quintessence-blood and vital energy of the four suzerains, he might be in a position to take on the four emperors. At that point, the Four Emperors of the Heavenly Court would be trying to clap with one hand in dealing with him.

“We submit!” Devil Lord Wave Wind said. “We’ll acknowledge allegiance! Just tell us your rules. We only have one stipulation of our own, which is that we won’t open our souls and give faith to you. If we did that, you would have complete life-or-death control over us. We simply can’t accept that.”

“Fine,” Yang Qi said. “A wise man submits to the circumstances. If you hadn’t spoken up just now, you would all be dead already. For now, I won’t demand your faith. But I do require you swear an oath of loyalty.”

He wanted to take things slowly, and knew that he couldn’t force the issue of faith right now. Although that huge influx of faith would be immensely beneficial to his immortal-slaying clone, and even the seventy-one patriarchs, he couldn’t just force the four suzerains to give him their faith. For people with cultivation bases like them, giving faith to someone like him could result in an eternal loss of power that could never be recovered from.

Later, after he had recharged the Engine of the One God and gained full enlightenment of the Aeonic God Temple, perhaps he could take their faith.

For now, everything was going according to plan.

“I, Wave Wind, lord of the Unrestrained Heaven, swear loyalty to the young sir. If my heart sways, I will never reach the Deathless Throne, and will be executed by the young sir. This is my solemn oath.”

The other suzerains quickly made similar oaths.

Of course, Yang Qi knew that promises like this weren’t worth very much. Perhaps they would work on ordinary monsters, but not on devils among devils like this.

But for now, they would suffice. And if they broke their oath, he would just personally kill them.