Sage Monarch

The sagely-grade spirit stone glittered with dazzling light.

Once again, massive amounts of power poured into Yang Qi, combining with the five phases power in him, and the spatial tempest fays. After it was thoroughly mixed with his energy, blood, and psychic powers, he sent it all into the Hellfire Crucible to brew.

In the end, what came out was preheaven five phases power in the form of Sovereign Lord True Energy.

The Five-Phases Transformation was the fourth of the Legendary transformations.

At this point in his cultivation, his true energy was imbued with the power of the five phases. And thus, it could transform easily. Icy cold true energy could become scorching hot. Beyond that, it could become true energy of wood, earth, or metal. Being able to mix and match with the five phases was the foundation of forming a personal domain.

Virtually everything in creation was imbued with the elements of the five phases. And it was by adding the five phases into one’s true energy that it became ‘true and real’.

Without the elements of the five phases, true energy was not really true energy. The five phases and yin-yang transformations were about making one’s true energy more ‘true and real’.

Although Yang Qi’s Sovereign Lord True Energy was already extremely high-level, it did not have the five phases, and as for the yin-yang elements in it, they were impure. Ordinary Half Sages would never be able to see that, but to the eyes of a Great Sage, it would be obvious, and the flawed elements of the energy would be easy to exploit.

Therefore, Yang Qi very much wanted to succeed with both the Five-Phases Transformation and the Yin-Yang Transformation, preferably at the same time.

It wasn’t a process that could be rushed. Thankfully, absorbing the five phases treasures had given him five spatial nexuses that could pull in the mysterious elements of the five phases from other dimensions, which allowed him to advance his cultivation dozens of times more quickly than normal.

Most Legendaries who reached this level would need to spend hundreds of years, perhaps even more than a thousand, absorbing the quintessence energy of the five phases until it reached the appropriate level.

Once they had enough of that energy, they had to make sure it was absolutely pure in every sense of the word. The slightest impurity would make it highly counter-productive to use, and would take a huge amount of life essence vital energy to cleanse.

The most critical element involved was time, and there were no exceptions. Even the most powerful of Great Sages had to pass this point early on.

Circulating his true energy, Yang Qi took the five phases treasures that were in his five viscera and unleashed their power. At the same time, he drew on his Sovereign Lord True Energy to touch the five spatial nexuses. All of a sudden, he could sense the five worlds they connected to, each of them enormous spheres that were far larger than the Quake-Dawn Continent. One of them was bright red, like a burning sun. The others were green, blue, golden, and yellow, all of them corresponding to planes connected to the essence of the five phases. To lock down the spatial coordinates for such distant places in space-time was no easy task. Only a Great Sage who could struggle to acquire good fortune from creation, and be enlightened regarding heavenly workings, could do so.

However, thanks to the five phases treasures that had once belonged to Great Sage Shroud-Heaven, Yang Qi was able to accomplish what few others could accomplish.

All of a sudden, he burst into motion, tearing an opening in space and then appearing outside of the Quake-Dawn Continent.

After piercing through layer after layer of space, he caught sight of the boundless devil energy of the hell monsoon, where countless fiend-devils were arranged in an enormous spell formation that battered at the Quake-Dawn Continent.

Yang Qi couldn’t help but wonder why the Quake-Dawn Continent had come under such assault by the fiend-devils. The energy of hell that was on display was so intense it seemed like it might solidify.

In fact, he could even spot areas in the hell monsoon where the energy had taken the form of cities, palaces, buildings, forts, and the like. They were formed from energy, and yet, were no weaker than corporeal objects.

‘I need an asura,’ he thought, looking around. For now, he didn’t plan to use his Hell Portal.

At the moment, he was incapable of summoning Never-Dying asuras with the Hell Portal. The eighth Legendary transformation was his limit, and that was based on his cultivation level, not his strength.

However, he could definitely target an asura within the army itself.

Hopefully, he could find a Half Sage asura, and see if he had what it took to capture one. That would be his ticket to several sagely-grade spirit stones.

He unfurled his Angel Wings, then transformed them back into Fiend-Devil Wings. On a substructural level, they were just as strong as before, but with an evil and fiendish aura, it would make it a lot easier to traverse the hell monsoon.

At a certain point, he suddenly lashed out with his psychic tempest and Hell Portal, locking down onto an Astral-Star asura.

Then, he shrank the Grand Emperor's Pagoda down to the size of a speck of dust, and entered the thing's body.

He quickly possessed it and seized control of its will, then sent it into one of the enormous palace halls of devil energy.

Almost as soon as the asura entered the palace, another asura blocked his path. 

“What are you doing here, Waabusžt!? The commander put you in charge of that million-strong army. You’re supposed to be training the bronzeblaze fiend-devils, amunling fiend-devils, and eastbrute fiend-devils in the use of spell formations!”

This particular asura was covered in scales, and was in the Never-Dying Transformation. To asuras who were weaker than him, he would seem inherently mighty and worthy of respect.

However, as for this Waabusžt, his eyes glittered with malicious light, and he lunged forward in attack, unleashing authentic energy arts from the martial disciplines of asuras.

“Have a death wish, Waabusžt?” the other asura shouted, his killing intent immediately boiling. After all, he was in a higher cultivation level. “Where’d you get the guts to attack a superior!?”

He splayed his fingers, revealing the webbing between them as he unleashed a massive palm strike. Immediately, rumbling sounds echoed out as he shredded Waabusžt to bits.

But then… RUMBLE! An enormous golden swordbreaker shot out toward the Never-Dying asura’s face.

Snap! Crack!

The asura was forced into a kneeling position, his true energy having been completely and utterly vanquished by the Heaven-Dominating Golden Swordbreaker. In fact, he himself had already turned a golden color.

The asura instantly realized that he had come into the presence of a powerful enemy, so he drew upon the self-destruction power that existed inside of him. Before it could be unleashed, though, Yang Qi slapped him with the Devil-God Seal, causing magical symbols to settle down all over the asura’s body.

When the asura’s true energy encountered the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, it was innately subdued, and forced into retreat.

A moment later, a huge cage appeared.

It was a spatial jail which dropped onto the asura, sealing him tightly, until he was like nothing more than a statue. Then, the cage transformed into a glittering sagepearl.

Just barely visible inside the pearl was the asura, sealed and immobile.

Only Sovereign Lord True Energy could possibly subdue an asura’s true energy like this.

Of course, it was also a huge drain. If it weren’t for the might of the Heaven-Dominating Golden Swordbreaker, it would likely have been too taxing.

After all, Yang Qi was still in the lowly third Legendary transformation.

The gaps between cultivation levels were still relevant, no matter how strong he was.

“Who’s out there? Who dares to cause trouble in my palace? A mortal?! A despicable bug?! Only your blood can cleanse this blasphemy! The glory of asuras is not something that mortals can sully casually!”

A stream of devil energy poured out of the depths of the palace as another asura leader appeared. This one was almost the same level as the one that had been sealed in the Heavendawn Quarry, a Half Sage!

Even ten human Half Sages who joined forces to fight this thing would end up getting slaughtered. Unfortunately for him, Yang Qi was the bane of such creatures.

“Tell me your name, despicable mortal! I am the mighty Marshal Agghedḑa of the asuras! I won’t kill a despicable mortal unless I know his name. So out with it! Lest I torture you for all eternity!”

Devil energy raged around the asura as it glared at Yang Qi, and it sent so much sura flame surging toward him that the palace in the area began to tremble on the verge of collapse.

“You think a sealing magic like that can trap me?” Yang Qi said. He laughed. “Well that’s a joke if I ever heard one! Get over here, asura!” He flapped his wings, tearing space open and allowing him to quickly exit the palace. Obviously, he wanted to fight the asura alone in the spatial tempests. If he could capture and seal this thing, then the sagely-grade spirit stones the Grand-Wilds Mansion would give him would definitely be enough for him to reach the sixth Legendary transformation.

With his Angel Wings, it was easy for him to reach a distant area in the blink of an eye. There, surrounded by countless black holes and wormholes, he turned to face the Half Sage asura.

RUMBLE!

The tempests in the area were swept away as Agghedḑa arrived with murderous intentions. Suddenly, a weapon appeared in his hands in the form of a flag, attached to a spear. The flag featured a bloody scene of battle, as well as numerous ancient magical symbols. It was clearly some sort of magical treasure.

“You think that running out here will give you better luck, despicable mortal?” He chuckled loudly, sweeping his flag out in front of him, and causing devil soil to build up around him. Shockingly, he was summoning aspects of the hell monsoon to form an asura domain.

“Heaven-Dominating Golden Swordbreaker!” Yang Qi shouted, funneling Sovereign Lord True Energy into the sword breaker, complete with preheaven five phases power. After being powered up in this fashion, the swordbreaker could smash mountains and drain seas, much less deal with the devil qi in the energy.

Golden waves filled the sky as a golden sea swept forth, as well as enormous mountains that radiated astonishing pressure.

BOOM!

The swordbreaker hit the flag, and the flag exploded!

Yang Qi had the power of six hundred thousand megamammoths, plus a swordbreaker backed by the will of an ancient Great Sage.