Sage Monarch

The enraged Ascendant Beheader had whipped up all of his fellow disciples and elders into a frenzy, hoping to make it a situation where the law cannot be enforced when everyone is an offender.

Even the disciples from the Hegemon’s Society and the Everlasting Society seemed ready to fight Yang Qi.

These three organizations had so many members that, when combined together, they formed a force of over a hundred million. That was a group that could shake the heavens and topple the earth, and was not something that anyone could look down on. If they truly went all out, even the supreme rector would have to think twice before taking them on.

However, Yang Qi was far fiercer than the supreme rector, and wasn’t the type of person who cared about keeping the peace. He was more than willing to cause a big scene. Furthermore, it was obvious that this mob was being secretly egged on by powerful entities hidden in the shadows, possibly even the initiators. Therefore, Yang Qi decided to simply suppress the mob and quell the uprising.

Sadly for them, his way of doing so was to simply kill them all.

Even if all of the students in the entire collegium rose up against him, he wouldn't care. He was the representative of the legion of gods, and with his Wheel of Fate, could pass judgment on all the masses in heaven and earth. Considering that his perspective came from gods who could create and destroy the universe, this handful of rebels were like nothing to him.

“Fine, go ahead and try to kill us all!” Ascendant Beheader shouted.

“I will,” Yang Qi replied. “Anyone who refuses to submit is going to die, even if it means wiping out every disciple and elder in the entire Hall of Beheadings and Executions.”

He drew on all the stances of the Hand of the One God, and they were filled with the power of the five phases, six directions, seven stars, eight trigrams, nine palaces, and ten daos. [1]

“Fiend-devil!” Ascendant Beheader shouted, falling back.

Unfortunately, he was too late.

Yang Qi could kill heaven-immortals, much less this measly Ascendant Beheader. The Hand of the One God unceremoniously destroyed his magical treasures, defensive true energy, and minor world. Then it slammed into Ascendant Beheader himself like a sledgehammer hitting an egg.

“Aaaiiiieee!”

Ascendant Beheader didn’t even have time to react before he became a pile of skin on the ground, with his flesh, blood, soul, and everything else that made him up absorbed. The only thing that remained was a magical treasure in the form of a small box covered with ancient, flowery text, which Yang Qi grabbed.

‘What a nice treasure,’ he thought. ‘It’s from a high-level immortal world! Ascendant Beheader was only a Universal Demi-Immortal, but he could use this treasure to unleash the power of a Paragon Demi-Immortal. This will be a great gift for mother.’

He put it away.

Then he blurred into motion and began slaughtering the elders of the Hall of Beheadings and Executions.

POP!

Blood fell like rain and heads flew. To the shock of everyone present, multiple elder kings were being executed by Yang Qi.

“Kill him! Death before surrender!” one of the prime paragon elders shouted. Rushing forward with no regard at all for his own life, he continued, “Disciples of the Hall of Beheadings and Executions, prepare to die for justice! Don’t hold anything back!”

“Die for justice!”

“Die for justice!”

“Die for justice!”

Numerous students threw their heads back and howled at the tops of their lungs.

“You want to die for justice? Fine. I’ll make sure you see justice. In death. The Hall of Beheadings and Executions has chosen to stand against me, and they’ll die because of it.” Yang Qi lunged forward again without the slightest hint of mercy.

RUMBLE!

Flames burned as the God Legion Paradise spread out, destroying any attacks that hit it. Yet again it was like the situation with the Destruction of the Heaven-Dao Tribulation.

“Let the world come to a halt!” he said. As his words spread out, all of the disciples in the area suddenly stopped moving. Their bodies began to expand, almost like inflating balloons, and the bloody explosions began.

“Oh, the horror! This is a nightmare!”

“Why? Why can’t I move? AGHHHH!”

“I don’t want to die!”

“Forget dying for justice!”

One after another, agonized screams rang out as elders and disciples exploded into clouds of blood. No matter how they struggled, there was no escaping. This one short move killed well over ten thousand individuals, all of them top experts from the Hall of Beheadings and Executions.

“You don't want to die for justice? Well, then you can just plain die.  Everyone who just jabbered about justice a moment ago is doomed. Nobody can save you!”

Yang Qi’s words couldn't have been more cruel and ruthless. As the rivers of blood flowed, he waited to see if anyone else shouted about dying for justice.

WHIZZZ!

As he continued with the slaughter, he abandoned the use of any particular energy arts. The mere shockwaves from his movements were enough to cause any nearby disciples to explode. Not even their nascent divinities were left behind.

He was like a dragon of death, killing people wherever he went.

A rare slaughter was being carried out.

The Hall of Beheadings and Executions had become a place of gore and carnage, and as of this moment, there were only explosions, and definitely no cries of dying for justice.

“Aaaiiiieee….”

Some of the experts retreated and activated the spell formations of the Hall of Beheadings and Executions, hoping to escape into the vast starry sky.

However, in the moment before they left, Yang Qi hurled his spear toward them, stabbing them through.

“Be destroyed!” he growled, floating up above the Titan Emperor Collegium.

He waved his hand and a sea of lightning descended onto the disciples below, causing bloodcurdling screams to ring out.

In the end, they all died. From common students to elysian children, everyone who had been present in the Hall of Beheadings and Executions had been wiped out of existence. From this moment on, there would be no organization with that name.

“The entire Hall of Beheadings and Executions was wiped out…?”

“It was an enormous organization, but it was wiped out as easily as crushing an egg. How could this be possible? Isn’t Yang Qi risking universal condemnation here? Did he really kill everyone? No way. I must be dreaming.”

Everyone was completely taken aback, especially the elder kings and prime paragon elders from the Hegemon’s Society and the Everlasting Society. Most could hardly believe their eyes.

At this point, Yang Qi turned to look at the rest of the assembled crowd. “Hegemon’s Society. Everlasting Society. Your two organizations really seemed to be itching to do something a moment ago. Are you also looking to die for justice?”

RUMBLE!

An enormous hand appeared, locking down space-time, then descended to crush ten elder kings from the Hegemon’s Society into pulp. Not a single one of them was anywhere close to being a match for Yang Qi.

Then, Yang Qi prepared to carry out further massacres.

Plop. Thump.

Countless disciples dropped to their knees and began to wail piteously. 

“We’ll acknowledge allegiance! We’ll even become slaves. Just don’t kill us! We acknowledge your strength, and we don't want to die for justice!”

As of this moment, the disciples and elders from the two remaining societies understood what true mercilessness was. Considering how mighty Yang Qi was, the expression there is safety in numbers was nothing more than a joke.

Yang Qi paused for a moment as he considered what to do. After all, he could kill everyone present with less effort than it would take to blink.

“Hmph! I guess this is enough,” he said, letting his hand drop to his side. “A wise man submits to the circumstances, and so can you. If you want to live, obey this one simple order: bring out all the treasure and wealth of your societies and take it with you to the Sage Monarch planetary system. You’ll work for the Yang Clan there, and will spend the next ten thousand years forging magical treasures and concocting medicinal pills. At that point, you’ll regain your freedom. For all intents and purposes, you are no longer noble or royal students. You’re slaves. Understand?”

Even as his words rang out, he waved his hand to open a wormhole leading to the Sage Monarch planetary system. Moments later, friends and family of his emerged, all of them with very high cultivation bases.

When his older brother Yang Yunchong looked around and saw the blood, gore, and kneeling disciples, he was visibly stunned. “Third Brother, what did you do?”

“Hello, Eldest Brother,” Yang Qi said casually, “these students are now slaves of the Yang Clan in the Sage Monarch planetary system. Please take them and their riches away with you.”

“This is the Titan Emperor Collegium!” Chancellor Sun-Moon said in astonishment.

Yang Qi snorted coldly, then said, “It won’t be long before the entire Titan Emperor Collegium belongs to the Yang Clan. When you think about that, the wealth of these fallen societies doesn't count for much.”

Thus began a great migration.

The wealth of the Hall of Beheadings and Executions, the Hegemon’s Society, and the Everlasting Society was hauled out from where it was hidden, including rare treasures, daoist texts, spirit pills and medicine, and other rarities. And all of the disciples of those organizations were enslaved.

As these things happened, the members of the other societies in the collegium trembled in fear, aware that major changes were underway. Perhaps the collegium might even have a new leader soon.

On the Plane of Initiation, the initiators watched helplessly. Not a single one of them dared to put a word in edgewise, or interfere in any way. Soon, the wealth of the three defunct societies was gone, and Yang Qi had vanished. 

Only at that point did one of the initiators tremble and furiously shout, “Shocking! Outrageous! This is heresy! Outright heresy from a wretch-devil!”

“Supreme Rector! This is intolerable! Yang Qi isn't even human!”

After a very long moment passed, the supreme rector replied, “We have to go along for now. Notify the heaven above, and let them decide what to do….”

1. I think most of you have heard of the five phases and eight trigrams. As for everything else: The six directions are N, S, E, W, plus heaven and earth (above and below). The seven stars are those that make the Big Dipper. The nine palaces are a complicated aspect of philosophy/divination. And the ten daos, well actually, that's something new to me. They come from a relatively obscure Buddhist sutra, and are somewhat akin to the ten commandments from the Bible. They are: do not kill, do not steal, do not perform evil acts, do not lie, do not doubletalk, do not curse, do not engage in erotic speech, do not be greedy, do not be wrathful, and do not be wicked. Interestingly, from my research, these ten daos actually came to exist in roughly the 700’s during Tang Dynasty China. And in what is quite the coincidence, that was the same time Christianity was introduced into China.