Sage Monarch

The power of the Wilds God was mighty, and at the same time, felt like a vile poison that stuck to the bones and could not be expelled. No matter what he did, it seemed like escape was impossible.

He could only go all out.

Either the power would enslave him, or he would neutralize it.

It was a critical moment, and holding back wasn’t an option.

Rising to his feet, he expended every ounce of energy possible to summon fiend-devils from the void. By this point, the area outside the greyspace of the Rich-Lush Continent was virtually devoid of the things. The creatures popping out through the Hell Portal now were things like the giant snakes from the Hell of Nagas, or other bizarre entities.

Thanks to the influx of fuel, the fire burned even more brightly, and cracking sounds could be heard as the scales that covered the flames began to shatter.

The power of the Wilds God was actually retreating.

Snorting coldly, Ghost Emperor Yama said, “It's definitely miraculous that you can summon fiend-devils like that for fuel. Not even Great Sages should be able to do that. But if you think that’s enough to expel the power of the Wilds God, then you're more naive than I realized. His power can defeat anything and everything!”

“Oh really?” Yang Qi said, seemingly unfazed. In addition to fueling the flames, he began to absorb the five phases spirits.

“Azure dragon, white tiger, vermillion bird, black turtle, flying snake! Come here immediately.” Even as the words left his mouth, he opened the Lord's Eye again, which began to violently suck in the five phases power and use it to transform his true energy. The five phases spirits howled, but the Hellfire Crucible was too powerful for them. After all, it had been created to punish disgraced gods, and these preheaven five phases spirits had the same substructure as gods and spirits. In other words, the Hellfire Crucible was the perfect tool to destroy them.

As the five phases quintessence energy entered him, his own true energy grew stronger and stronger, and the Hell Portal grew more true and real, and thus more capable of summoning fiend-devils.

“Sagely-grade spirit stone!” Yang Qi shouted. Crushing the stone, he sent heaps of immense power into the Hellfire Crucible.

As of this point, the power of the Wilds God was in full retreat.

A moment passed, and then the power began to surge back, as though it had been absorbed by Yang Qi’s energy, and was now ready to use it to launch a counter attack. The stronger Yang Qi got, the more viciously the power of the Wilds God fought him. In fact, within the seed, it was possible to see numerous scaled creatures writhing about in fury.

They were beasts of the wilds, creatures with ancient wills that wanted to enslave Yang Qi.

“Heaven-demon seed! Golden will! Emerge!” Yang Qi waved his hand, and two beams of light shot out, one of them green, the other golden. They swirled through the air until they formed a golden-green taiji symbol, which smashed into the Wilds God power seed.

In the blink of an eye, the wills of three Great Sages were clashing.

The heaven-demon seed had the will of Great Sage Shroud-Heaven in it, a fierce entity from the Hanging Mountain. His name actually gave a clue into what he was like. ‘Shroud-Heaven’ was a reference to the saying use a single hand to enshroud heaven; how arrogant and powerful would someone have to be to despise the might of heaven itself? [1]

The golden will Yang Qi referred to was the will of whatever Great Sage had forged the Heaven-Dominating Golden Swordbreaker. Whoever that person had been, he was definitely on the same level as Grand Emperor Rich-Lush.

Those two wills were now fighting the Wilds God seed, the power of which was treating those two opponents like Yang Qi’s own true energy.

The Wilds God seed was a domineering item which sought to transform anything and everything it encountered into wilds-slaves.

This was the opportunity Yang Qi had been looking for.

AAAAOOOWWWW!

The will of Great Sage Shroud-Heaven howled from within the heaven-demon seed. After all, that will could sense that it was being challenged, and considering the challenge came from other Great Sages, there was no way it could tolerate such an insult.

Suddenly, an emperor of the Demonfolk appeared, clad in a voluminous cloak, with a Crown of the Peaceful Heaven on his head. [2]

From somewhere in the depths of the universe, boundless green light was filtered through the heaven-demon seed, shooting out to transform anything it touched into a heaven-demon!

In this respect, the heaven-demon seed and the Wilds God seed were almost exactly the same; as the power of the two Great Sages clashed, the resulting explosions caused the Grand Emperor's Pagoda to rock back and forth.

Meanwhile, a war god appeared, clad in a golden cloak that covered golden armor.

“I am the Golden King!”

Roar!

The shout of the Golden King seemed intent on turning everything around it into a golden kingdom.

‘Alright, it seems to be working. Now I can go about absorbing the five phases power.’ Under the shocked eyes of Ghost Emperor Yama, Yang Qi settled down quietly to begin working with the vital energy of the five phases spirits.

‘Where did he get the will of two Great Sages?!’ Ghost Emperor Yama thought, suddenly feeling a bit uneasy.

Yang Qi chopped his hand out in front of him, shattering the azure dragon. Then, a black hole appeared which completely absorbed the thing, and caused the true energy around him to transform into something like a primeval forest.

Next, he quickly shattered the vermillion bird, black turtle, white tiger and flying snake. As they were added into his true energy, he pulled out another sagely-grade spirit stone and crushed it, causing sagefire to rage around him.

The five phases spirits could compare to Half Sages, and if they combined their power, could tackle a Great Sage. Unfortunately, Yang Qi was like the bane of their existence, and could fight them with hardly any effort at all.

Now that the five phases power was fusing with Yang Qi’s true energy, a kingdom of metal came to exist inside of them, then kingdoms of fire, of water, and of sand.

Then, the cycle of the five phases was completed; fire could become water, water could become wood, wood could become earth, and earth could become fire. [3]

The five phases could give birth to and transform into each other.

At the same time, immense power deep within him began to erupt.

In the blink of an eye, fifty thousand particles woke up. He was now at the level of seven hundred thousand ancient megamammoths.

‘There’s no way I'm going to stop here,’ Yang Qi thought. ‘I want the power of a million! I need to burn more sagely-grade spirit stones, and provoke the transformations of the five phases, and yin and yang.’

As the five phases quintessence energy fused more fully with his own true energy, the glow of the five phases began to form around him.

‘True energy, become five hells!’

Massive amounts of true energy began to transform into five unique hells, each of which was a kingdom focused on one of the five phases. This was an indicator that the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth had enough power to push the energy of the five phases to a perfect level.

These few short moments cut away the equivalent of a hundred years of bitter cultivation; most cultivators would require dozens upon dozens of years to push the power of the five phases to this level.

It was only at that point could someone truly reach the Five-Phases Transformation.

It was a profound transformation that was an absolute prerequisite to the Personal Domain Transformation. After all, without a full understanding of the five phases, as well as yin and yang, how could one possibly form a personal domain?

WHIZZZ!

Yang Qi’s arms trembled as cracks spread out in the space around him, and more five phases energy thrummed. Slowly but surely, five black holes were forming around him. More precisely, they were five colorful wormholes, each of which led to a different dimension associated with the five phases.

“You have the spatial coordinates to five phases dimensions?” Ghost Emperor Yama blurted in shock.

“Yup!” Yang Qi replied. “Watch and learn, Ghost Emperor Yama! I don’t need to use my God Legion Seal to subjugate the power of the Wilds God. And now, I’ll step into the Five-Phases Transformation!”

Immense levels of power poured in through the wormholes, entering Yang Qi to the point where heavenly tribulations were incited. Cracks spread out everywhere in the Heavencorpse Dimension, as lightning fell and tempests raged. Five phases flames raged, causing destructive power to completely inundate Yang Qi.

Soon, the entire Heavencorpse Dimension was a massive storm, which turned the blood swamps into ash, and caused numerous zombies to tremble in confusion. Although they wanted to flee, they were incapable, and in fact, they were sucked into the Hell Portal. Ghost Emperor Yama even saw some that were in the Legendary level, and yet were powerless to fight back.

The Heavencorpse Dimension was collapsing! A half-plane of profound evil and wickedness was being destroyed by Yang Qi’s heavenly tribulation.

‘What a pity! The Heavencorpse Dimension has existed for tens of thousands of years, and now it's being destroyed. The most powerful of zombie kingdoms is no more.’ Despite what was happening around him, Ghost Emperor Yama kept his attention fixed on Yang Qi, hoping to identify his weaknesses.

Meanwhile, the heavenly tribulation raged around Yang Qi; as he absorbed the evil power around him, everything was destroyed, making him like a destroyer of planes, a harbinger of the end of times.

And all the time, his energy arts grew more and more powerful; he wasn't worried at all about the heavenly tribulation.

In fact, the heavenly tribulation contained bugle cries from the legion of gods, protecting him as surely as the divine armor.

Seven hundred thousand ancient megamammoths. Eight hundred thousand…..

Nine hundred thousand…. Nine hundred and fifty thousand….

In the end, a million megamammoths awoke. Each strike of Yang Qi’s fist would be like heavenly tribulation; his true energy could create minor planes that conformed to the cycle of the five phases.

The intensity of the heavenly tribulation around him grew, and yet, he only got stronger and stronger.

With one fist, he could seal gods and become immortal. His fist strikes were those of sages and monarchs!

In the blink of an eye, the heavenly tribulation ended, defeated by Yang Qi. As for Ghost Emperor Yama he looked on with open shock.

As of this moment, Yang Qi’s Hellfire Crucible was ten times larger and more powerful than before. It was now decorated with images of five hells, whose flames were far beyond anything they had been in the past.

Suddenly, the Hellfire Crucible tipped over, spilling out the heaven-demon seed, the Wilds God seed, and a golden seed, which Yang Qi absorbed into his body.

“You lose, Ghost Emperor Yama. I've reached the Five-Phases Transformation!”

1. The expression ‘use a single hand to enshroud heaven’ or ‘cover over heaven with a hand’ or however you want to parse it, is a real-life expression that means “to abuse one’s power to hide something important or nefarious from the public”. It essentially refers to abusing power. However, in the context of the story, and in the context of many Chinese fantasy novels, the expression is meant to be taken more literally, and to actually involve surpassing/defeating heaven.

2. This crown is a term for the headgear traditionally worn by Chinese emperors, with a flat crown and a string of jade beads on either side. See here for a visual.

3. Based on my understanding of the five phases, this is not the normal way the five different elements interact. I’m not sure if it’s a mistake on the part of the author, or a different interpretation of the five phases that comes up later (and I either glossed over in my reading, or missed). In any case, I’ll leave it the way he wrote it.