Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Crack!

As Yang Qi sped through the catacombs, he accidentally stepped on a bone.

Although his surroundings were pitch black, with his energy arts, he could see as clearly as if it were day.

As he went along, the tunnels grew wider and taller, and before long, he began running into skeletons walking around here and there. It was hard to say what these skeletons had been in life. However, the bones that made them up were as tough as iron, and they still possessed the energy arts they had in life. Because of the baleful energy in the catacombs, these spirits of the dead were now skeleton warriors.

One thing was certain; they were the result of human sacrifices. Complex black carvings covered their bones, apparently the product of an energy art designed to automatically absorb baleful energy.

Only Lifeseizers who followed the dao of devils could possibly create spell formations like that.

That seemed to indicate without question that a Lifeseizer was lurking somewhere in this sprawling catacomb complex. Perhaps it was even one of the rumored thousand-year-old corpse kings.

Yang Qi knew that the Fiendcorpse Mountains were massive, and that the catacombs beneath them were a sprawling maze. Even powerful Lifeseizers who entered them would have their true energy slowly corroded by the baleful energy. Under those circumstances, if they actually met that thousand-year-old corpse king, they would be killed beyond the shadow of a doubt.

But Yang Qi was different. Because he relied on true energy that surpassed the Lifeseizing level, he could venture into the depths of the catacombs with ease. Furthermore, his Hellfire Crucible could actually refine baleful energy and corpse energy and change it into something useful.

As he passed along, all of the baleful energy and corpse energy within several dozen paces of him would begin to bubble and boil, causing a smell like that of sulfur to fill the air. At the same time, the stone walls began to sag as if they might turn into lava at any moment.

With each intersection that Yang Qi passed through, he saw more and more skeletons. Soon, he saw some that had bits of skin or hair still attached to them; a few even had ghostly flames flickering in the black pits that were their eyes. Unexpectedly, those were corpses who were using true energy to become demon-devils.

One skeleton appeared, splattered with blood. As soon as it saw Yang Qi, it clenched its hands into fists, which then burst into intense, toxic flames, the manifestation of some sort of toxic flame energy art.

Even more surprising, this corpse’s cultivation base was in the eighth phase.

However, this toxic flame energy art was useless against Yang Qi, and didn’t affect him at all. A moment later, the blood-drenched skeleton’s head exploded into bits, and a demon core flew out of the thing.

With the stomp of his foot, Yang Qi then crushed the rest of the skeleton into dust.

By this point, he had already passed through over a hundred intersections, and was deep underground. As the army of skeletons grew more numerous, he saw scattered zombies, as well as ancient corpses.

All of a sudden, a powerful aura locked down onto him.

Then, blade light flashed, and a zombie lurched out at him from a connecting corridor. This zombie wore a full suit of armor that was so ancient it was impossible to tell what type it was. However, it was clearly the armor of a general. Furthermore, the zombie wielded a massive, triple-spiked greatsaber, fully as long as a person was tall. The zombie was strapping and well-built, with pulsing true energy, and remnants of some consummate energy art. Howling, it slashed its saber out, backed by the power of the ninth phase.

The Fiendcorpse Mountains were essentially a huge burial complex where some grandmaster of the dao of devils had bestowed intelligence to the ancient corpses.

In life, they had been Masters of Energy. But after dying, they were transformed into corpse-demons with one-track minds. Now, they could advance in their cultivation even faster than before, and because they were zombies, were even tougher than in life.

The ancient corpse shouted in an incomprehensible tongue as it sent its blade flying toward Yang Qi.

In response, Yang Qi waved his hand casually, shattering the greatsaber. Then, he flicked his finger, sending out Silk Rain of the Spring Silkworm. Numerous strands of sword energy pierced into the head of the ancient corpse, ripping a jade pellet out of its mouth.

The pellet, roughly the size of a longan fruit, was covered with veins, making it look very much like an eyeball.

Yang Qi could sense an immense true energy in the jade, something akin to the entire sea of energy inside a Master of Energy. This was definitely a rare piece of spirit jade designed to hoard true energy.

Yang Qi remembered hearing that Yan Gufeng had possessed a thumb-ring that had a similar function, which was considered priceless. Although it didn’t quite measure up to the Heart of the Sea ring that he possessed, it was still something that students in the Demi-Immortal Institute would drool over.

Apparently, the jade eyeball in the mouth of the corpse general was what had prevented it from rotting away into nothing. Without it, the ancient corpse toppled over and exploded, taking out several nearby zombies with it.

“What a treasure. I don't really need something like this, but perhaps father could. Having a device that stores true energy can make you much more powerful in battle. Combine that with his airmastery plant, and he could probably come out alive in a fight with a Lifeseizer.”

Putting the eyeball away, Yang Qi eagerly continued on his way.

Whenever he encountered skeletons, zombies, or even corpse-demons with energy arts, he destroyed them and harvested their demon cores.

He found other ancient corpses with funerary objects, all of which he collected.

Unfortunately, he didn't find any other extremely precious treasures like the eyeball. Everything was ordinary in nature.

Despite fighting constantly, his true energy wasn’t draining away.

At one point, he suddenly heard a shrill cry from further ahead in the catacombs.

In response, the nearby zombies and skeletons retreated in other directions, vacating the area.

‘What’s that? It was so loud.’ Eyes flickering, he continued through intersection after intersection, heading deeper and deeper until he found himself at the entrance of a tomb.

It was very large, fully thirty meters tall, with walls covered in carvings of dragons, phoenixes and the like. The floor was engraved with images of mountains and rivers, and the ceiling was inlaid with pearls designed to look like heavenly bodies.

Right in the middle of the tomb was an enormous coffin, atop which lay a giant.

The coffin itself was crafted from bronze, and featured carvings of vicious beasts from primeval times.

One look at this tomb and coffin made it obvious that the person interred here had been very important.

Yang Qi stepped into the tomb, and instantly, the gigantic corpse flew off of the coffin. He was male, with a golden face, his body festooned with jewelry of gold and jade. He wielded a pitch-black scepter forged from unknown materials, capped with an enormous gem that was as bright red as the quintessence of fire itself, and pulsed with such power that Yang Qi felt like it contained a small sun inside.

‘What kind of jewel is that?’ he thought, shocked. From what he could tell, this jewel was probably of higher quality than the jade eyeball.

It was with profoundly evil eyes that this ancient corpse stared at Yang Qi, his aura rippling out with such power that it seemed capable of causing numerous Masters of Energy to collapse into unconsciousness.

This was a thousand-year-old corpse king in the Lifeseizing level!

And yet, Yang Qi wasn’t fazed in the least.

“A student from the Demi-Immortal Institute?” the corpse said in a grating voice. “A puny Master of Energy from the Outer Campus, here in the Fiendcorpse Mountains? How dare you come here! I am King Huaiyin, and this is my tomb. I guess you must be looking to die, right?!” In life, this ancient corpse had apparently been a king of some sort. “Well, since you're here, I’ll make you into a corpse slave of mine. Go to hell!”

King Huaiyin’s scepter erupted with a violent aura as he waved it through the air, causing a beam of burning red light to shoot out from the gem at its top.

Considering this was a thousand-year-old corpse king, and Lifeseizer, Yang Qi didn’t dare to react slowly. And since he was in the depths of a catacomb, he wasn’t worried about people seeing him. Without hesitation, he drew on the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, summoning his Infernal Deity Spear, Fiend-Devil Wings, and Infernal Deity Plate Armor.

Black armor rippled out over him, a long spear appeared in his hand, and massive wings flapped, causing a gale-force wind to pop up.

When the spear encountered the burning red light, it ate it up.

And then, innumerable spear projections appeared, bearing down on King Huaiyin. Yang Qi was attacking like a thunderstorm, hoping to destroy this Lifeseizer as quickly as possible.

No Lifeseizer would have been able to escape, especially considering that as a Master of Energy, Yang Qi now understood more about the spirit energy of heaven and earth than most Lifeseizers did.

Right now, he hoped to use this corpse king to prove to himself how strong he was, to temper himself, and to gain more enlightenment of heaven and earth, all in the hopes of achieving his next breakthrough as quickly as possible.

Besides, if he could get the demon core of a Lifeseizer to study, that would be of immense help.

The ferocious Infernal Deity Spear stabbed through the air, piercing the defensive true energy of the thousand-year-old corpse king, and stabbing into his raiment of gold and jade.

However, that was when intense light shone out from the gold and jade garment, and a sound like a booming bell could be heard. The spear was blocked! Unexpectedly, the garment itself was a precious treasure that the Infernal Deity Spear couldn’t stab through.