Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

The wretch-god believers were vicious to the core. However, they were all brainwashed, and believed that their acts of wretched evil were actually manifestations of holy piety.

Yang Qi watched as men and maidens alike screamed curses as they were beheaded, giving birth to towering rancorous energy. As for the wretch-god believers, they bore expressions of zealous reverence, without a hint of compassion. In fact, they looked as pleased as farmers harvesting a field of golden wheat.

The souls that they were taking from the victims provided them with abundant wretch-god power, and truth be told, it was something the Shepherd might have done, except that he couldn't in the current circumstances, lest he be hunted and killed.

Also, Yang Qi wouldn’t permit him to do so. Yang Qi couldn’t allow wretched evil to overcome that which was just and righteous. The last thing he wanted was to allow the world to descend into chaos.

Wretched evil thrived on the power of chaos, while righteous justice thrived on the power of order. The truth was that they had started out as one, with righteousness and justice prevailing much later on. Considering Yang Qi’s deep understanding of both righteousness and evil, in the end, he had chosen the path of order. That meant that he would suppress the path of chaos. He cultivated the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, which suppressed the chaos of hell and could assimilate wretch-gods.

“We’re here,” Lightning Dragonriser said. “There are plenty of Quasi-God experts among these wretch-god believers, and we can’t afford to underestimate them. And there are likely disciples from the Hell-Breaking Church. Considering how rich they are, it’ll benefit us a lot to fight and kill them. In any case, remember that our main goal here is to destroy their wretch-god altars, slaughter as many wretch-god believers as possible, and weaken the wretch-god himself.”

Even as he made his announcement, a group of experts shot higher up into the air, then dropped down toward the enemy. They were disciples of the Proud Clan, and they were obviously taking the initiative in the fight. Yang Qi spotted them and immediately recognized the sword energy of the Seven Killings of the Black Turtle Heaven.

Crack!

One of the battleships made of human bones collapsed into pieces.

Looking around at his people, Yang Qi said, “Everyone stick together. Don’t split up, got it? Although this might seem like a simple fight, we have to be careful.”

They nodded in response, then spread their windsail wings and headed into the fray. As soon as they arrived at one of the ships, Brahma launched an attack from his Cardinal Grand Brahman Five Phases Energy Arts. It slammed into one of the wretch-god believers, shattering his five viscera.

Cackling loudly, the Shepherd said, “I can finally gorge myself!”

The Shepherd was by no means a virtuous fellow, so he didn’t spare any effort on being merciful. As soon as he descended from above, his claws latched onto a wretch-god believer and crushed him to bits. Then the Shepherd sucked in the believer’s soul, causing the faint weeping of ghosts and wailing of gods to echo out.

“A mid Terrifying expert, absorbed like that!” The Shepherd almost seemed like he was enjoying an afternoon snack. “What could be better than a soul like that? I could never get stuff like this in hell!”

The Shepherd’s quick victory came as no surprise. After all, he had acquired all sorts of godly-class energy arts during his time in hell. In fact, Yang Qi’s people all had more godly-class arts on an individual basis than any of the average locals. It only made sense, considering they were apex individuals from the impure lands.

In the Lightningbolt Continent, even Wang Juan only had access to the energy arts of Lesser Gods, which couldn’t compare to what people like the Shepherd had. He and his compatriots had godly-class arts that were virtually on the level of those practiced by the Sovereign Lord himself.

That was one reason why people who had ascended from the impure lands were so prized.

The addition of their godly-class energy arts would be a huge benefit to any sect in the god world.

The Shepherd had just reached the peak Terrifying level, and his godpower was currently weak compared to what it could be. Therefore, he was using powerful godly-class energy arts to absorb the souls and quintessence energy of the wretch-god believers. And with the power of the God Legion Seal to back it up, the harmful side-effects could easily be negated, making him vastly stronger.

One after another, he slaughtered the wretch-god believers, transforming them into desiccated corpses. He was even able to use some of King Heaven-Devourer’s techniques that Yang Qi had taught him to speed up the process.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh...!

The Shepherd was like a butterfly that had just emerged from the cocoon, dancing in the breeze as he cut down the enemy and grew stronger in the process.

Meanwhile, Proud World also couldn’t hold back from using some devil techniques to improve his own godpower.

The others weren’t inclined to use such techniques, so they simply stuck close to Yang Qi. Together, their group was like a meat grinder that destroyed the wretch-god believers in their path with astonishing speed.

“Be broken!” Yang Qi landed on a battleship and struck out with his palm, sending out godpower that blasted a huge hole in the deck. In response, a Quasi-God shot out, sending out streams of wretched light that resembled centipedes.

However, Yang Qi simply grabbed the centipedes, and they shattered. Then his hand latched onto the neck of the Quasi-God, who he threw over to the Shepherd.

“A Quasi-God!?” the Shepherd shouted in delight. He quickly began devouring him like a gourmet delicacy, causing his own godpower to rise rapidly.

In the blink of an eye, the Shepherd’s godpower doubled.

With that, Yang Qi led the way into the ship’s hold, where massive amounts of godstones were piled up alongside chests filled with medicinal pills.

Crack!

Yang Qi chopped out with his hand, breaking open one of the chests and causing a host of crimson, walnut-sized pills to spill out.

“Those are Blood-Coagulation God-Recalling Pills,” Brahma said. “They’re concocted by taking a rare god herb and soaking it in fresh blood. It can improve the energy and blood, and transform the godpower even more effectively than Godsieve Pills. Those are going to be very useful!”

All of a sudden, a voice reached their ears. “What do you wanderers think you’re doing? Keeping the loot for yourselves?”

A group of Proud Clan disciples poured into the hold, and when they saw the Blood-Coagulation God-Recalling Pill, their eyes flickered with greed.

“You people can have one pill each. The rest belong to the Proud Clan!”

“In your dreams!” the Shepherd said, and he was just about to make a move on them when Yang Qi reached out to stop him.

“One pill a piece isn’t enough,” Yang Qi said. “These are our spoils of war, and we’re taking all of them. Don’t even think of trying to cause problems for us.”

“Can you even take all those chests with you?” one of the Proud Clan disciples said. “Proud Radiance has a storage ring that can contain all kinds of items. Do you really think you can just walk off with that much loot?” He burst out laughing.

“That's right! How will you wanderers take the loot away?”

“Our Proud Clan won’t do a thing about all these pills. Just eat them all right here and now! As long as they’re in your stomachs, of course we won’t take them.”

“Blood-Coagulation God-Recalling Pills are so powerful that you can only take one per month. There’s no way you could survive eating so many at once. And if you want to try, there’s nothing the Proud Clan will do to stop you.”

Although these Proud Clan disciples didn’t dare to actually fight Yang Qi, they weren’t going to just stand by while he took so many valuable pills.

“Is that so?” Yang Qi replied. “Actually, this one chest isn’t even enough for us.” Waving his hands, he pulled all of the medicinal pills over to him. Then he used some true flame energy arts to melt them into a blood-colored conglomeration of medicine that looked like a dragon. Next, he split the dragon into a host of smaller dragons that shot directly into his people.

They all burst out laughing. After all, with their experiences with the Godsieve Pills, and their God Legion Seal powers, how could they have any trouble with such pills?

All of them had small versions of the Heaven and Earth Furnace within them, making it an easy thing to turn medicine like this directly into godpower.

Crack. Crunch.

Sword Seventeen suddenly grew several times larger, and from the cracking sounds that rang out inside him, it was as if he had experienced a growth in his power and cultivation base that would normally take dozens of years. Not even people who had been Quasi-Gods in the god world for decades could measure up to him. It was almost like he was cheating in some way.

“You people...” blurted the Proud Clan disciples, who were stunned by what they were seeing. “You’re actually absorbing all of those pills without exploding? Your cultivation bases are improving more than they should in decades! How could you be doing this...?”