Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

The Seven Stances of the God Dragon was the top technique in the God Dragon Tribe. It had evolved out of the Eight Tribes Godfist, and although it couldn’t match up to its progenitor, it was still very powerful—the perfect technique for a tense situation like this.

The seven stances he unleashed transformed into seven illusory projections of god dragons.

In the blink of an eye, it was as if Dragon King had transformed into seven versions of himself.

“Not good!” Winter Bloodless said. “He’s going all out! The Seven Stances of the God Dragon are profoundly enigmatic. They’re actually designed for a slightly lower cultivation level, but they essentially enable him to make seven copies of himself!”

“Fall back! Fall back!”

“We can’t block this!”

Even as the two patriarchs backed up in terror, Yang Qi said, “What are you scared of? He’s not that strong! Many Heavens God Seal!”

RUMBLE!

An enormous sealing mark appeared above Yang Qi, and in the shortest of moments, all seven of Dragon King’s projected images were crushed out of existence!

A moment later, he appeared alone, blood spraying out of his mouth.

“That works! What energy art was that? It was incredible!” As the two patriarchs reacted with astonishment, Yang Qi remained completely unfazed.

“I have him temporarily sealed, what are you waiting for?”

“Attack!”

The two patriarchs unleashed devastating attacks with their most powerful energy arts.

“Bloodless In All Creation!”

“True Dao of Heaven’s Origin!”

WHIZZZ!

Two fist strikes landed on Dragon King’s chest and he exploded, the resulting mangled blood and flesh transforming into a host of tiny, wriggling god dragons.

“I won’t let you off the hook for this!” he screamed. “Damn you animals! I'm not going to die here! I'm eternally indestructible! I'm a god dragon, and I can use the God Dragon Nirvanic Rebirth to be born again! I’m going to become the new Dragon God!”

“Complete nonsense!” Yang Qi said. “Heaven and Earth Furnace!”

He waved his hand, causing an enormous, fiery furnace to appear, which slammed down and captured all of the tiny god dragons. Once inside the furnace, they instantly began to sizzle and burn.

“The two of you funnel your true energy into my furnace,” Yang Qi said. “Help me assimilate him! Grand Sagely Sacrifice!”

“Alright!” The two patriarchs knew that there was no going back now, so they immediately began pouring their true energy into the furnace. As soon as the connection was established, the true energy was sucked in, where it transformed into sagefire that began melting Dragon King, provoking miserable shrieks.

“The God Dragon Tribe won’t forgive you for this!

“I have a very high position in my tribe. I curse you! I curse you to never achieve your dao. You can all go to hell and experience endless torment!

“DIIIIEEEE! I’m going to defy heaven and get out of here!

“You can’t assimilate me! God Dragon Defense!”

He drew on every energy art he could imagine to try to fight back, but unfortunately for him, Yang Qi negated all of them easily. If Yang Qi were doing this on his own, he would never have succeeded. But with two Chaos Gods providing him with true energy to fuel his sagefire, his Sagely Sacrifice was unstoppable.

The ancient halls of heaven appeared above, and slowly descended into the Heaven and Earth Furnace.

Dragon King’s defenses melted and the sagefire coursed into him.

“Agggghhhhh!” he cried. “You’re actually melting my vital energy and dragon body! Mercy! Mercy! I’ll acknowledge allegiance! I’ll become a believer. Just don’t kill me! If you kill me, the God Dragon Tribe will get revenge!”

His pleas had no effect whatsoever. It was too late. Yang Qi just continued assimilating him with the Sagely Sacrifice. It would’ve been very beneficial to have a believer like Dragon King, but instead, Yang Qi had already begun taking his soul, destiny, and quintessence-blood, converting it into godhood and power for his own use.

“I'm going to destroy the God Dragon Tribe, too. Enjoy your last moments of life!” Yang Qi’s hand flashed through more incantation gestures and more sealing marks descend into the depths of the Heaven and Earth Furnace, transforming into burning sagefire.

‘Time to send this true godhood into my fateless dao fruit!’

His sage child appeared overhead, along with his dao heart, which had nine lineaments on it. As the sagefire broke down the godhood, it entered his dao heart, which slowly began to bulge and expand.

“What's that?”

“That’s partially-formed true godhood!”

Considering that both patriarchs were Chaos Gods, they instantly recognized what Yang Qi was doing.

Their first instinct was to leap forward and try to take it for their own, but the energy of monarchs instantly locked them down and made it impossible to take even a step forward.

“Are you two seriously trying to rob me? I took this stuff from the Live Forever God Tree in the Tusita Heaven. I robbed it from the Tusita Dynasty! And I'm using my Sagely Sacrifice on Dragon King to take his godhood and use it to reach the Godmyth level! I've already taken all of Dragon King’s power, so if you want to suffer the same fate as him I'd be happy to comply!”

“What?”

“You just took them from the Tusita Heaven? You offended the Tusita Heaven?!”

“You’re willing to offend the Eight Tribes Heaven and the Tusita Heaven! Do you not even care about staying alive?”

“This is really, really bad!”

They were inextricably tied with Yang Qi now, only to find out that he had offended another extremely powerful group. It was nothing short of terrifying.

“What are you worried about? I'm the ruler of the Heaven Beyond Heaven, a thirty-third ranked immortal world. You really think they can do anything to me? When the time comes, I can take your sects to the Heaven Beyond Heaven to grow. Nobody would dare cause problems for you there.”

“The Heaven Beyond Heaven? You rule that immortal world? How is that even possible? That place doesn't have a ruler.”

Yang Qi snorted coldly. “Take a look at the power of that immortal world!”

RUMBLE!

Immense power appeared, descending like a pillar from heaven. It was pure, unadulterated power, the likes of which did not come from any known world.

It was power from the Heaven Beyond Heaven.

At this point, the two patriarchs lapsed into dejected silence, somewhat dumbfounded that they had thrown their lot in with someone who was still working on becoming a Godmyth.

To them, it didn’t matter how many amazing things Yang Qi had accomplished, he was still just someone from the younger generation. Even if he reached the Godmyth level, he would still be a junior to them.

As for Yang Qi, he ignored them and focused on using the Sagely Sacrifice to take Dragon King’s godpower, sending it into his fateless dao fruit.

Eventually, the dao fruit couldn’t sustain the influx of power and exploded.

POP!

Primal-chaos erupted everywhere, with primal-chaos projections appearing all around Yang Qi. There were palaces, god-spirits, and powerful experts on thrones, all looming over Yang Qi.

Tribulation had come!

These were no simplistic tribulations. And they weren’t expressions of the rage of the dao of heaven, either. Magical laws from the dao of heaven couldn’t punish Yang Qi, which indicated that these tribulations came from the will of the legion of gods. They couldn’t tolerate an existence similar to their own and would crush anyone who sought to reach the Deathless Throne.

RUMBLE!

One of the heaven-gods mounted a chariot and charged forth with a spear of lightning, causing everything to shake violently.

Gong!

In the blink of an eye, the spear was about to stab right into Yang Qi’s chest.

“That’s… Wrath of the Lightning God!” Winter Bloodless wailed. “This is true godly tribulation! According to the stories, tribulation like this comes for people who are trying to attack the legion of gods. What is it doing here for someone who’s only becoming a Godmyth!? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Since when does anything about this guy make sense? Everything he does is crazy! It’s useless trying to figure him out. Let’s just watch and see what happens. Now that he has Dragon King’s godpower, he’s no weaker than us. And if he passes this tribulation, he's going to be so strong that we could never do anything to him.”

“But how is he supposed to get past tribulation like this? My Sect Grandfather faced tribulation like this when trying to reach the Deathless Throne and ended up getting wiped out of existence. He nearly took the sect with him!”

“You mean he failed the tribulation?”

“Exactly!”

All of a sudden, the patriarchs’ eyes glittered. “So if he fails the tribulation, we get to divvy up all of his stuff!? We could rule the world! We would have King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions, the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, and some true godhood! I can’t believe we’re going to have a shot at all that treasure!”

“Keep dreaming, you two!” Yang Qi said with a laugh. “You think I'm going to fail this tribulation? Not even tribulation from the legion of gods can do anything to me. These paltry primal-chaos god-spirit projections are like nothing to me. I’ll vanquish them just like I did the fury of the dao of heaven. Be broken!”

Even as his voice echoed out, he lunged forward and attacked like a blue dragon bursting out of the ocean.