Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

A massive construction effort was underway.

There was a huge buzz of activity as countless organizations mobilized their forces and brought them to the vicinity of Destructionless Castle. Meanwhile, League-Lord Yang Qi, Houselord God Bastard, Su Xin, Mu Renwang, and Huangfu Genesis were working together to create a grand spell formation. The formation looked like an enormous necropolis that covered the entire area. Unexpectedly, there was actually a virtual god world inside, complete with a pulsing greyspace and killing intent. The vital energy that pulsed out of it was nothing ordinary in nature, and was in fact like a power from the god world that transformed everything it touched.

“Immortal World Seizing!”

Suddenly, Yang Qi reached out and made a grasping motion, plucking a thousandth ranked immortal world seemingly out of thin air. Even as it appeared, it shrank down, its greyspace melting away until it was nothing more than a fist-sized śarīra, which he then set into one of the spell formation’s eyes.

That was the power that Yang Qi was now capable of, and he wasn’t done. Next, he reached out and grabbed an immortal world with a rank of two thousand.

It was impossible to say how he was doing it, but one world after another shrank down and became a part of the spell formation. Even more shocking, people began to realize that godrelics were appearing from the depths of the Great Necropolis, many of them from locations just as deadly as Destructionless Castle.

In fact, one of the experts present noticed a volcano flying in their direction and exclaimed, “Is that the Nine Divisions Mountain of Flames!? According to rumors, one of the ancient flame gods perished there. Anyone who tries to explore the place ends up being burned alive. I ventured into the area around it once and found a god item created by a god of flame. But he’s just pulling the entire god item over here?”

“Did you just call him ‘he’?! He's the league-lord, show some respect! He’s as mighty as a god, and his acts are beyond our comprehension!”

“You’re right. The formation that the league-lord is building is incomparably fierce. At the very least, it's going to keep us very safe. There’s no way the Executors of the Ancient Road will be able to hit us with a deadly blow with the league-lord here to stop them.”

“That’s why we need to do our best to stay on the league-lord’s good side. Do our best, work hard, and fight the Executors of the Ancient Road.”

“The grand spell formation is starting to take shape. According to the league-lord’s instructions, we need to organize our sects according to the preheaven designs of the five phases, eight trigrams, and nine palaces. With those elements in the formation, not even a myriad of tribulations can hurt us.”

“I wonder if the House of God Bastards, Woodfern Couple Palace, and Genesis Sanctum will make a move against the league-lord. They obviously detest him!”

“It doesn’t matter. You can tell what’s really going on here: the league-lord has completely put them in their place. Hmph! They’re the kind of people who can only bully the weak and fear the strong, so they’re nothing to worry about. As long as we stick close to each other and the league-lord, they won't do a thing to us.”

Yang Qi was using his control over the power of the Great Necropolis to grab immortal worlds and godrelics and use them however he wished. They were from places that only mid Terrifying experts would normally explore, but it was an easy task for him.

It was like something that only the Creator could do, and it ensured that no one dared to say anything negative about him, lest they end up dead. It also lent further dignity to the situation.

Yang Qi felt the flows of destiny burning more brightly as they flowed into his Wheel of Fate. As for Houselord God Bastard and the others, they were cooperating begrudgingly, and at the same time, were coming to realize that Yang Qi’s cultivation base really was too powerful. That was especially true considering they were in the Great Necropolis. Here, he was essentially invincible. Su Xin and Mu Renwang continued wallowing in remorse, and were convinced that if Yang Qi hadn’t taken those eighteen godpower seeds, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.

Of course, Yang Qi didn’t have just eighteen. He had more than twenty, which meant that the power he could wield vastly surpassed that of any other Inheritor.

He had fully assimilated them, which meant they couldn’t be taken away, and that put him in a position of being able to cut down any other Inheritor he ran into.

There were other Inheritors who were members of the alliance, but Yang Qi didn’t need to do anything about them. He now saw that he actually didn’t need their godpower seeds. There was a location deep in the Great Necropolis where the seeds grew; if he traveled there, he would be able to absorb the essence of the necropolis and learn all of its secrets.

Just now, he had learned something new about the Great Necropolis, namely, something regarding the relationship between it and the Inheritors.

As the spell formation took shape, it grew more and more mighty, filling everyone with a feeling of safety. All they had to do was stay close to the formation.

Everyone from the Will Manifestation Heaven Sect had immense power, especially the sectlord. They took the lead in keeping order amongst the various factions, similar to how, back in the original Dao Defense League, there had been the two emissaries, nine dharmarajas and twenty-four god-generals. [1]

The new power structure emerged so quickly that the other three major sects were unable to interfere. Besides, they all knew that if they dared to challenge Yang Qi, he wouldn’t let the matter rest until they were all dead. Right now, their only hope was to let some time pass, then put together a conspiracy to get rid of Yang Qi. After all, there was no way an alliance this large could be fully united.

‘Without getting some allies,’ thought Houselord God Bastard, ‘it won’t be easy to take down Yang Qi. It's too bad the Woodfern Couple Palace and Genesis Sanctum hate each other so much. I doubt they’ll ever resolve their differences, which means we might never have a chance to make a move. What should we do? Bring in some outsiders?’

**

Ten years passed in which the new alliance consolidated forces and built their power structure.

To cultivators, ten years could be like nothing more than the blink of an eye. In fact, to them, periods of time such as a thousand, ten thousand, or even a hundred million years could be considered trivial.

During the ten years that passed, the grand spell formation reached an embryonic form. Yang Qi added countless immortal worlds to it, and too many godrelics to count. Soon, people realized that the formation resembled the Great Necropolis itself, to the point where Destructionless Castle didn’t even exist anymore.

Numerous factions had been sent out into the Great Necropolis to occupy garrisons, and the destiny available to Yang Qi continually grew stronger. Thanks to his control over the formation, the three other major sects didn’t dare to defy him; for all intents and purposes, he controlled them.

RUMBLE!

Vital energy stirred in the void, even though the grand spell formation was still only in its early stages of construction.

“Excellent,” Yang Qi said, folding his hands in his lap. “The Sage Monarch Grand Formation has finally taken shape. Now it just needs some time to mature and come to completion.” During the ten years that had passed, his cultivation base had become more refined and his understanding of the energy arts of the Great Necropolis had deepened. Meanwhile, the other four experts exchanged awkward glances as they realized that, in contrast, their cultivation bases had done little more than recover in the last ten years.

In other words, Yang Qi was even more unimaginably powerful than before.

He was farther beyond them than ever, which meant that his authority was only increasing. Sadly for them, there was nothing they could do about the situation. It was obvious that the factions within the alliance all worshipped Yang Qi as their leader.

Furthermore, because Yang Qi had just spent ten years working on the spell formation, it was easy to tell how the balance of power was truly distributed. For example, although his immortal-slaying clone usually remained hidden in the Will Manifestation Heaven Sect, word had spread that Yang Qi had an expert there who was in the mid Terrifying level.

How could they possibly show any defiance when Yang Qi had a mid Terrifying expert up his sleeve?

That hidden expert was one reason why the four experts hadn’t tried to make a move on Yang Qi during the past ten years. A second reason was that they had heard that the person who really controlled the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart was another mid Terrifying expert.

With experts like that out there, it would be very easy to fall victim to an assassination attempt, and either get killed or seriously wounded. At the moment, no one dared to take on Yang Qi.

Perhaps if it had been him alone, they might have tried to plot against him. Instead, they had to bide their time. However, they knew that they had to do something eventually, otherwise they would never get a chance.

During the ten years that passed, the person from the Will Manifestation Heaven Sect that progressed the most was Jadefall. Thanks to help from Yang Qi, her psychic scale was already above ninety.

Considering how many organizations Yang Qi controlled now, he had access to virtually any spirit medicine, not to mention the destiny and power at his command.

Thanks to his Wheel of Fate, Yang Qi could easily help his followers improve their psychic scales.

Seeing that the countless superpower sects were well organized and the work with the spell formation was mostly done, Houselord God Bastard said, “League-Lord, we've been working hard for ten years, and really need to get some rest. Su Xin, Mu Renwang, Huangfu Genesis and I would like some time to work on our cultivation bases a bit. Is that possible?”

“Go ahead....”

The four experts exchanged glances, then said their goodbyes.

Yang Qi knew exactly what was going on; they would soon meet secretly to try to figure out a way to keep his power in check.

1. The author actually got this point wrong and mixed up the numbers a bit, so I corrected it. Originally there were nine dharmarajas and twenty-four god-generals (chapter 780), although that number later changed to eighteen dharmarajas and thirty-six god-generals (chapter 830) when Yang Qi took power.