Sage Monarch

Immense power filled the courtroom hall, cutting it away from the space it occupied. In the blink of an eye, the place came to exist as a unique aspect of space and time, and was then taken away by Yang Qi.

Once he took it into the Hell of Mahānata, everyone inside the hall would die. The Hell of Mahānata was Yang Qi’s home ground, and not even Kingly Beheader could survive there. Furthermore, Yang Qi could break into the Demi-Immortal level there whenever he wanted.

At his current level, he could only fight an elder king to a draw, but as a Demi-Immortal he would definitely be able to kill one.

This had been Yang Qi’s plan all along.

He knew that if the situation kept developing, the highest echelons of leadership in the Hall of Beheadings and Executions would get involved, and possibly even top experts from the Titan Emperor Collegium in general. And if that happened, he wouldn’t be able to hold his own. After all, the collegium was a massive place that dwarfed even the Hall of Beheadings and Executions.

It was impossible to say how many students were arrested by the Hall of Beheadings and Executions on a daily basis. Therefore, Yang Qi’s ‘trial’ was not really anything special; the number of trials that were held every day was impossible to even count. However, the vital energy shockwaves that would roll out from Yang Qi fighting Kingly Beheader would not go unnoticed.

Therefore, he decided to go all out and do the most vicious thing anyone could imagine. He would make sure that no one ever dared to look down on either the Invincible Society or himself. By climbing mountains of corpses and swimming through seas of blood, he would establish himself as someone that no one could ever trifle with.

He called upon the God Legion Paradise, the Eternal Heavenly Aria, the Hand of the One God, his primal-chaos elder-snake, and his primeval godworm. With all of that power at his disposal, he grabbed the Hall of Beheadings and Executions and vanished.

There were tens of thousands of courtroom halls like this in the Hall of Corrections.

For one of them to suddenly vanish would definitely be noticed, but in the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t really cause a massive stir at first. In fact, some of the students and elders outside who sensed the fluctuations assumed that it was Yang Qi being killed by Kingly Beheader.

POP! 

The courtroom hall appeared just outside of the dark golden greyspace of the Hell of Mahānata.

This time, the passage through the greyspace was much easier. In fact, it actually parted for Yang Qi, allowing him to enter without any obstruction.

Instantly, devil energy rushed in and nearly crushed the courtroom hall. Pillars collapsed and spell formations shattered. Empyrean energy, immortal energy, and everything else was destroyed by the force of expulsion that suddenly hit everyone and everything.

Fiend-devils would not be rejected by the Hell of Mahānata, but human cultivators would. And the stronger they were, the stronger the force of expulsion would hit them. As for Great Sages and Legendaries, they were weak enough that the essence of the hell would only try to devilize them.

But Demi-Immortals could not be simply devilized, and would thus be violently rejected.

Even worse, all of the people present cultivated energy arts that conformed to the dao of immortals, and they were all in the Demi-Immortal level. Because of that, the essence of the Hell of Mahānata immediately took action against them. In the blink of an eye, their cultivation base power dropped by a third, making them even weaker in comparison to Yang Qi, who was like a fish in water in this place.

“Where are we? This devil energy is so strong! It's eating away at my defensive empyrean energy. If this keeps up, we’re going to get devilized….”

“Hell. We’re in hell!”

“What? How could we be in hell? This devil energy is so strong! It must be a high-level hellish plane!”

“Be careful, everyone! Yang Qi and Sword Seventeen have already turned into monsters!”

Kingly Beheader immediately pulled out a magical item that spread out to form a protective covering filled with immortal energy. It was an immortal item called the Pure Space Immortal Rampart, which Kingly Beheader had painstakingly forged with his own hands. It was designed to turn an area into an immortal land and was very beneficial when used in cultivation.

“That’s right, everyone,” Yang Qi said. “We're in the Hell of Mahānata now, which is where I ensconced my nascent divinity. You see, Kingly Beheader, if we fought back in the Titan Emperor Collegium, I'm afraid you would have eventually called some other elder kings to gang up on me. I brought us here to the Hell of Mahānata so that we could fight fairly.”

Yang Qi looked around at the several hundred experts of the Hall of Beheadings and Executions, and for some reason, he looked like a butcher eyeing a group of caged pigs.

Kingly Beheader was no exception.

“The Hell of Mahānata?” Kingly Beheader said. “This is the fabled Hell of Mahānata? No wonder the devil energy is so strong.” He, Heavenly Beheader, and Earthly Beheader were all visibly taken aback. However, after looking around, he focused on Yang Qi and said, “So, evil creature, it turns out you really are a monster, just like I said. It seems I really will be ridding the world of devils and demons today, and the Titan Emperor Collegium will be freed from a dangerous, hidden threat.”

Kingly Beheader strode forward, bringing his blessed land of immortal energy with him. Although his Pure Space Immortal Rampart was impressive, Yang Qi’s eyes could see that the essence of the Hell of Mahānata was eating away at the man’s power. Even more relevant was the fact that the entire group from the Hall of Beheadings and Executions had no way to get back home.

Obviously, Kingly Beheader didn’t want to kill Yang Qi, but rather capture him and use him to get free.

“Your end has come, Kingly Beheader,” Yang Qi said. “I'm going to establish a legend today. I, a mere Great Sage, am going to slaughter an elder king from the collegium. I’ll take your head back and put it on a spike above the entrance of the Invincible Society.”  His killing aura surging, Yang Qi leaped forward and started fighting.

RUUUUUUMBLE!

He started with the Hand of the One God, using all the stances he knew. Creation. Destruction. Nature. Undying. Aeon. Reincarnation. At the same time, he drew on halos of blessing from the Eternal Heavenly Aria and cursed Kingly Beheading with halos of damnification.

He exhaled some true energy and a projection of a godmammoth appeared above his head, the Infernal Deity Spear in its hand as it lunged forward to attack Kingly Beheader.

Killing Kingly Beheader, Heavenly Beheader, and Earthly Beheader was a dangerous undertaking. If he really did put their heads on spikes at the Invincible Society, it would likely have major repercussions in the Titan Emperor Collegium. Maybe the vice-rectors and elysian children would come to cause problems for him. But he didn't care. The fact that he was willing to kill an elder king would strike fear into the hearts of all, and would ensure that everyone thought twice before dealing with him.

As the deadly fighting began in the Hell of Mahānata, the disappearance of the courtroom hall back in the Hall of Beheadings and Executions had finally been noticed. When people went over to check the situation, they saw the mass of primal-chaos energy that was all that remained of the hall and were flabbergasted.

Soon, three elder kings showed up to investigate.

These were people who had roughly the same standing as Kingly Beheader. They were Imperial Beheader, Sovereign Beheader, and Godly Beheader.

“What happened here?” one of them asked.

One of the students dropped down in front of them and kowtowed. “Unmerciful Beheader went to arrest Yang Qi and Sword Seventeen and bring them in to be interrogated regarding the murder of a noble student from the Hegemon’s Society. However, those two rebels refused to cooperate. They started fighting and one of the elder kings came—Kingly Beheader. But then Yang Qi started fighting him. The energy fluctuations were shocking, but then the entire courtroom hall just vanished, almost like it was teleported away by some incredible force. We didn’t dare to take charge of the situation, which is why we notified you.”

“What?” Imperial Beheader said. Turning to his companions, he said, “I can’t understand incoherent babbling like this. Why don’t we use our Reverse Light Stream technique to just see what happened? I refuse to believe that some puny student from the Invincible Society actually caused such a scene here in the Hall of Beheadings and Executions.”

“Sure. The people from the Invincible Society are far too arrogant. We need to find out what happened and report it to our superiors. At long last we can give the Invincible Dugu the punishment he deserves: execution!”

Without wasting any time, the three elder kings set to work, sending streams of reflective light out. Soon, a shadowy projection was created that showed everything which had played out earlier.

“Well, I suppose I’ll just kill you all.”

“Once Master is out of seclusion, I think I’ll suggest using more human skin as rugs for the floor.”

“You three old codgers are all about to die.”

“Alright, Elder King. Let’s fight.”

They heard all of the arrogant, domineering, and fearless things Yang Qi said.

“He killed Unmerciful Beheader?” Imperial Beheader said, looking completely astonished. “And all of those elders? And even Mortal Beheader? And he picked a fight with Kingly Beheader? What gall! How did he get so strong? How could a puny Great Sage be so domineering? Don’t tell me he got possessed by an immortal or something? Maybe a fiend-devil took him over. That must be it.”

Managing to keep his cool, Sovereign Beheader said, “Keep watching. Let’s see where they went.”

Soon, their magical technique revealed a dark golden greyspace far out in the void. At that point, the image faded away.

“Hell. He took them into a hell. But which one? Which hell is that? And how come its aura was so incredible?”

“That was the Hell of Mahānata, one of the most grand of all of the hells! We couldn't get in there even if we tried! It would take immortals to do that. How did Yang Qi get inside?”

“This is big. Sound the alarm! Call the vice-rectors! He’s collaborating with hell! This is a defiance of heaven!”