Sage Monarch

Yang Qi dominated Lady-Princess Silvermoon, and used the Grand Emperor's Pagoda to completely overwhelm the vital energy of the city itself.

He wanted to refine the entire city, by placing the thing inside the Grand Emperor's Pagoda.

The remaining three War Gods were incapable of escaping, and were also sucked inside. Yang Qi didn't kill them. Instead, he would imprison them and save them for later use. It was the same with Lady-Princess Silvermoon, whom he could theoretically sell back to the Sky-Heaven Dynasty for a hefty ransom, as well as all of the citizens of the city.

Raging sagefire swept through every house, street, and corner of Silvermoon, subjugating all of the spell formations, and leaving Yang Qi’s mark on them.

Then, the fire continued into the foundations of the city, where countless precious materials of heaven and earth lurked. In the blink of an eye, that treasure was snatched up and pulled into Yang Qi’s pagoda. Some such treasures were protected by the powerful will of Lady-Princess Silvermoon, but Yang Qi didn't care. He simply destroyed such defenses and took what he wanted.

Meanwhile, he sent his own will into the core of the city magistrate’s mansion, where he discovered a private chamber constructed from spirit stones, which was none other than Lady-Princess Silvermoon’s lair.

‘Ah, finally, some sovereign-grade spirit stones.’

They were inset into a magical altar constructed in Lady-Princess Silvermoon’s chamber, thousands of them. There was also one particular spirit stone, the same size as the others, but filled with boundless amounts of radiance and spirit energy.

‘A sagely-grade spirit stone!’

Yang Qi couldn’t have been more delighted.

Countless individuals could only dream of seeing a spirit stone like this, which was something that Great Sages of past times would use in their cultivation. It contained a universal power that surpassed anything else in existence, and was far, far beyond the compare of sovereign-grade stones. They were precious beyond measure, to the point where modern-day Great Sages would fight to the death over them.

This was surely one of Lady-Princess Silvermoon’s most valuable treasures; furthermore, it seemed to be what she had intended to use to break into the ninth Legendary transformation.

After all, she was only half a step into that level, not a true Never-Dying Legendary. Otherwise, she would not have been so easily decimated by Yang Qi in their encounter.

‘I'm so lucky! If I can absorb the power in this altar, I’ll definitely have what it takes to reach a total of three hundred thousand megamammoths, and pierce the void. As a Space-Void Legendary, I’ll definitely be strong enough to kill the Crown Prince.’ As of this moment, Yang Qi knew that this trip to the Western Continent had been worth it. Although he had caused a huge scene, if he could reach the Space-Void Transformation, he should be able to find a suitable hiding place that could keep him safe even from Great Sages.

“Come here!”

With the wave of a hand, he ripped up the altar, plus all the other treasures and spirit stones, and tossed them into the Grand Emperor's Pagoda. In addition to the sovereign-grade spirit stones inset into the altar, there were also Astral-Star-level demon cores, and even a few from Never-Dying demonlings. They were formed into a Nine Stars Pearl Necklace, something that inherently resembled a constellation, and that could provide enlightenment in the dao of heaven.

This was obviously Lady-Princess Silvermoon’s top treasure.

RUUUUMBLE….

Suddenly, the Grand Emperor's Pagoda sent out boundless, godly might, causing a huge, fifty-kilometer black hole to spring into existence.

‘The power to move mountains and fill in seas,’ Yang Qi murmured to himself. Suddenly, a god-spirit with an elephantine head and a human body appeared, and the swish of its trunk caused all of Silvermoon to be surrounded with pulsing true energy.

The ground quaked as massive crevices opened up everywhere, and the cityfolk looked on in shock as Silvermoon began to rise up from the ground, lifted by some immense power.

What type of shocking godpower was this? It was definitely not the power of humans.

Slowly but surely, the city of mithril that was Silvermoon rose into the air, and was sucked into the Grand Emperor's Pagoda.

Even its foundations were ripped up and taken away. People looking on from a distance watched as the mithril city vanished, leaving behind nothing but a gaping crater.

An entire city, filled with incalculable wealth, one of the most important trade hubs in the Western Continent, had been literally taken away.

The culprit had not gone on a killing spree, or robbed the people of the city in general. He had simply used incomprehensible levels of power to simply take the place for his own. Everyone who saw it happen was gobsmacked. There were a few people who were so stunned they ended up falling into the crevices that had opened up in the ground, however, being energy artists, they were able to fly back out again.

After Silvermoon disappeared into the Grand Emperor's Pagoda, the pagoda shrank down, then shot into the sea of clouds, where it disappeared.

The city was gone, and everyone from the Rich-Lush Continent had been taken away with it as well. The only people left behind were the natives from the Western Continent.

“What an astonishing nightmare! Quick, send word to the Sky-Heaven Dynasty. This is huge! It could lead to a revolution!”

“Silvermoon vanished? What do we do? What do we do?! Are those damned barbarians from the Rich-Lush Continent actually starting an invasion? We have to get revenge!”

“Vengeance! From here on out, we have to kill anyone we see from the Rich-Lush Continent. It doesn’t matter if they're men or women, old or young!”

News immediately began to spread through the continent, prompting many people to fly over to see for themselves the spot that Silvermoon had once occupied.

Of course, the Sky-Heaven Dynasty ruled over the entire continent, and Silvermoon had been a location of important strategic value. The fact that someone had literally taken the city away was shocking to the extreme. It hardly took any time at all for all of the dynasty’s capital city to be shaken to the core.

The entire continent was abuzz.

However, the culprit, Yang Qi, was nowhere to be seen.

The truth was that he was somewhere else deeper in the Western Continent, far from the original location of the coastal Silvermoon. Right now, his main priority was to stay hidden and break through to the Space-Void Transformation. Afterward, perhaps he would sow some more chaos.

He had not come to these lands with the goal of causing such pandemonium. He had gone in good faith to trade demon cores for spirit stones, only to be bamboozled. Not only did they demand he hand over his goods in exchange for an IOU, they then tried to imprison him. That wasn’t trade, that was highway robbery. Therefore, he would treat them the same way they had treated him, and cause more problems than they could ever have guessed were possible.

Thankfully, he ended up benefiting more than he had ever thought he would. With Lady-Princess Silvermoon’s altar, something designed specifically to reach the Never-Dying Transformation, it was all worth it.

Thankfully, he could hide using his Devil-God Seal, which would make it easier to fish a needle from the sea than to find him. Obviously, returning to the Rich-Lush Continent right now wouldn’t be a good option, considering that it would be much easier for people to find him out in the open. And that would be dangerous.

Eventually, he found himself on a wide, desolate plain in the middle of the continent, where he entered an abandoned mine, the perfect place to secretly work on his cultivation.

There were many such mines in the Western Continent, places that had been mostly ignored ever since they ran dry. Occasionally, mortal citizens would enter such places in the hopes of finding precious metals or gems, but that was all.

Using the powers of the Grand Emperor's Pagoda, he burrowed deep into the earth, where he hewed out a small cave which he protected with various sealing marks.

After all, if he drew too deeply on the surrounding vital energy, it was highly likely that other energy arts experts would notice.

In one of the dimensions inside the Grand Emperor's Pagoda, a large group of people from the Rich-Lush Continent were huddled together in terror. These were the people that Yang Qi had collected from the vicinity of Silvermoon. There were no Legendaries in the group, only Lifeseizers. Generally speaking, Legendaries who came to the Western Continent would handle affairs on their own. They were considered very important individuals. Because of that, Lifeseizers generally had to stick together, for their own protection.

Among the group present was the imperial trading caravan.

After gathering his senses, the leader of the caravan looked around. 

“Brother,” he cried out into the pagoda, “who exactly are you? And what are you doing?”

A whooshing sound could be heard, and Yang Qi appeared. “There’s no need for panic. I saved you all. If I hadn’t brought you here, the enraged locals would definitely have killed you. My name is Yang Qi, holy neophyte from the Demi-Immortal Institute. Presumably you’ve heard of me before?”

At first the leader of the caravan looked shocked, but then, his expression turned into one of delight. “Yang Qi? You're Yang Qi!? You’re the one who fixed the Planar Pearl and saved the entire Rich-Lush Continent?”