Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Thus, the junior superintendent led Yang Qi deeper and deeper into the Great Necropolis. The pathways grew wider and wider, with more and more immortal worlds attached to them. Early on, most of the worlds were hundredth ranked. But after flying along for several hours, Yang Qi didn’t see any at that level. All of them were ranked two hundred or more. Then, after a few days passed, they were all in the three hundreds.

As would be expected, the power of the magical laws also grew more intense.

To Yang Qi, it felt like he was back in the Cave Temple of the Vajra Māyādevī. In fact, the pressure even surpassed that, to the point where only Terrifying experts could possibly fly. Thankfully, Yang Qi was being carried by the executors, so he didn’t need to worry about flying.

The immortal worlds that lined the pathways formed innumerable nations and civilizations. Because of the immense pressure within the pathways, the cultivators never left their worlds to explore what lay beyond them. Not even cultivators with power indexes of two thousand could do so.

Yang Qi found it strange. It almost seemed like the Great Necropolis was designed to raise humans like livestock. It stood to reason that three hundredth ranked immortal worlds would produce Terrifying experts, yet he didn't sense a single one. It was like they were being kept in check, and could only grow stronger if they were ejected out of the necropolis.

The deeper he went, the more Yang Qi clicked his tongue in amazement. ‘I guess the magical laws of the Great Necropolis must be keeping the immortal worlds from developing, or producing truly powerful experts. The necropolis is definitely far stronger than the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart. Before, I used to think that thirty-third ranked immortal worlds were the ultimate limit. Here in the Great Necropolis, I'm like a villager visiting the city for the first time.’

These parts of the Great Necropolis were actually very dangerous. There were occasional power tempests, or dense fog that would take hours to pass through. Sometimes lighting would fall, other times rain. Of course, it was no ordinary rain, but rather god rain. Even the Terrifying executors would pull out god items and magical treasures to protect against it, and even those treasures would eventually collapse into ruin.

Eventually, they had to rely on their energy arts alone to defend against the god rain.

“Dammit, this god rain is falling like mad. What a drain on our true energy! I've never seen anything like this.” The executors were surrounded by endless sheets of falling rain that constantly ate away at the true energy shields they had erected.

All they could do was keep pouring their true energy into their defenses. Every drop of this rain was like an entire world falling on them. It was definitely no picnic. And it was obvious that only cultivators with power indexes of at least three thousand could possibly survive in conditions like this.

At a certain point, one of the executors said, “Junior Superintendent, this god rain represents some of the most deadly power of the Great Necropolis. Maybe we should let this brat experience a bit of the pain it can bring.”

The junior superintendent nodded. “That's a great idea. Let’s see if that body of his can withstand a baptism like this!”

The further one traveled into the Great Necropolis, the more dramatic the meteorological phenomena were, and the more reminiscent it was of the god world. Actually, the god world did have rain like this that people under the Terrifying level couldn’t stand. Weak people who went out during such rainstorms would be dissolved into ashes.

WHOOSH!

Yang Qi suddenly felt himself being tossed out into the open, where he immediately felt the rain drops smacking into him. Sparks flew as they hit, and he could feel the destructive power piercing into him. It felt like a massive tribulation.

‘So this is god rain. Impressive!’

In the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, a god formation rotated, allowing destructive power to flow in through it. At the same time, Yang Qi allowed himself to slip into a zen samādhi trance.

The rain truly was powerful, to the point where not even Yang Qi could easily defend against it. Thankfully, by entering the trance and allowing the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart to absorb some of the power, he could endure.

‘Incredible,’ the immortal-slaying clone thought as he controlled the god formation.

Waving his hand, he summoned one of the raindrops onto his palm, where it weighed down so heavily it felt like an entire world.

Yang Qi observed the raindrops in shock; they clearly contained the power to destroy worlds, like the raving madness of gods.

The rain grew heavier and the explosive power grew more intense, to the point where the god formation was nearly destroyed. The immortal-slaying clone even had to summon the sheepskin scroll and place it in the formation to stabilize the power fluctuations. As the attack power hit the scroll, the characters on it emanated a mighty aura that subjugated it and made it tame.

Meanwhile, Yang Qi’s body was floating in midair, being baptized by a constant fall of god rain. Sparks continued showering off of him as the rain hit, and internally, his energy arts flowed as another tribulation character formed. By this point, he was roughly halfway finished with the nineteenth character.

Suddenly, one of the executors blurted, “This is bad. He's so strong that he can actually use the god rain for cultivation purposes! We have to stop this baptism immediately!”

Just as he was preparing to send out a stream of true energy to grab Yang Qi, thunder crashed, and a lightning bolt descended. Startled, the executor quickly reined in his true energy, aware that lighting such as this was a punishment sent by the gods and would definitely injure him.

Meanwhile, the lightning slammed into Yang Qi, covering him with electricity for a moment before it was absorbed. Creaking sounds rang out, and although at first it was hard to say if he was being hurt or not, after a moment, he suddenly surged with an even more powerful aura than ever.

WHOOSH!

The four executors all sprang to action, dragging Yang Qi back out of the rain. Thanks to the quintessence aura pulsing out of him, they were all convinced that he was in the middle of cultivating some boundlessly powerful divine ability.

“Dammit!” the junior superintendent cursed. “He's using the power of the rain to form more of those tribulation characters!”

“We're just helping him! Although, considering we're going to crush him eventually, I guess it doesn’t matter. As long as he doesn’t develop Terrifying will, it doesn’t matter.”

“Let’s go, Junior Superintendent. Don’t let him do any more cultivation. Let's get back to the headquarters before trying anything else to subjugate him.” Having learned their lesson, the executors didn’t allow for any more delays. They flew deeper into the Great Necropolis at top speed, passing increasingly large immortal worlds. Soon, worlds in the five hundredth rank appeared, but despite how grand and magnificent they were, the magical laws of the necropolis still had them tightly under control and would not allow breakthroughs past a certain point.

Of course, five hundredth ranked immortal worlds were places so huge that not even experts with power indexes of three thousand would be able to explore them. Yang Qi suspected that the experts in these places actually had no idea that there were worlds that existed beyond their own. They probably thought the Great Necropolis itself was the god world, and that they just needed to break through the power of the magical laws to get there.

Occasionally, god rain, god lightning, and god wind would find its way through the greyspaces of such worlds, wreaking havoc in the form of god tribulation.

Yang Qi shook his head. It was almost as if the inhabitants of these worlds were stuck inside some sort of inescapable game.

Eventually, he sensed an immense aura from ahead, as a grand and magnificent kingdom ahead, almost like a mirage. This was the lair of the Executors of the Ancient Road, their headquarters.

Before Yang Qi could react, or even get a sense of what this lair looked like, they landed on a teleportation portal and were whisked into a palace inside.

The palace was richly decorated, but seemed ancient. And there were god items everywhere. The god formations that those items formed surpassed anything from the Will Manifestation Heaven Sect by many times over.

“Milord, you’re back!” said the people who were now kneeling on the ground in front of the junior superintendent and his group. Yang Qi could sense that all of these people were cultivators with power indexes of over three thousand. From the obstinate and unruly aura he sensed from them, it seemed they were former sectlords from first-tier sects, but they had been subjugated and now lived as slaves.

Whack!

The junior superintendent kicked one of the slaves to the ground and said, “Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Y-y-yes!” said another of the servants, who was apparently the steward in charge. “I heard that Prince Ningxiao destroyed a few superpower sects and brought back plenty of new slaves. He also had a big fight with an expert from a buddhist sect, but ended up losing. Even the Terrifying experts he had backing him up were all severely injured. All of the other princes are talking about it.”

“What? This expert from the buddhist sect is that strong? What sect was he from?”

“It’s a new buddhist sect that’s become very powerful in the immortal dao civilization. It seems they’re thinking about trying to conquer everything in existence. They have a lot of universal fortune, too. It's called the Doom Sect.”