Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Yang Qi unleashed godly might, cutting down a Godmyth and forcing Young Lady Green Blaze to acknowledge allegiance. He then forced his faith into the souls of the other two Godmyths. In the past he had used a similar technique using devil seeds, but this was something far superior. And it was such a subtle thing that no casual observer would ever realize what had happened to them.

Eventually, the light of faith faded away. Now that Young Lady Green Blaze had been subjugated, she became much more docile. Flopping onto her knees, she said, “Oh exalted lord, your slave servant offers greetings!”

“Excellent!” Yang Qi said, nodding. “You may leave now. If you have anything to report, do so via your soul. And avoid meeting personally with Young Master Leaf as best as possible. He’s mysterious and unpredictable, and if he realized what happened to you and these two Godmyths it could turn bad very quickly. Be very careful. Understand?”

“Yes, Milord!”

The three of them all kowtowed, then rose to their feet and flew away.

Eyes glittering, Yang Qi looked at the group from the Nine Yangs God Sect.

Thump!

They all dropped to their knees and looked at him for a long moment, then the burly man said, “Boss, we never would have guessed that you’re some consummate, invincible expert. Henceforth, we follow orders from you, not the Nine Yangs God Sect or the Dao Defense League. We’ll serve you faithfully and follow your orders to the death!”

“That’s right,” the other disciples shouted. “To the death! To the death!”

“Stick with me and I’ll reward you well,” Yang Qi said. “Take the corpses of the several hundred future warriors I just defeated. There are three Godmyths among them. Hand them in for service credit rewards, and your positions within the sect and the Dao Defense League will rise to new heights.”

Yang Qi waved his sleeve and a host of corpses and mechas tumbled out.

“Right now, your nascent divinities and daoist techniques are too weak. If you get hit hard enough, your immortal bodies will explode and you’ll never form them again. I'm going to improve your life force, genes, and instincts, pushing your fighting ability to a new level. Take this genetic serum!”

A host of bottles flew into the hands of his followers.

As they drank the contents, their genes transformed, causing their energy to grow stronger and making them pulse with the aura of primeval devil-gods and primal-chaos beasts. Their fleshly bodies had completely changed, giving them raw power that could shatter space and detonate magical laws.

As they felt the new power coursing through them, they let out whoops of delight. That was especially true of the bare-chested burly man, who threw his head back and roared at the top of his lungs. “Power! This is power! My fleshly body is strong enough that I could fight a Godmyth!”

“Yes. If the sect elders ask how you got stronger, just say that you ambushed some future warriors and took their medicinal brew, which you used to improve your fleshly body and transform your genes. When the Nine Yangs God Sect hears that, they’ll definitely groom you for leadership positions.”

With that, Yang Qi waved his sleeve, gathering up his followers and moving as fast as a lightning bolt toward the main headquarters of the Dao Defense League.

Out in front of the headquarters were mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Buildings and structures lay in ruins, bodies floated through space, and enormous stretches of gore could be seen everywhere. Shattered bones drifted here and there, and unbonded magical treasures flew chaotically about.

Also on the seemingly endless battlefield were hordes of immortals and locust-like swarms of future warriors, locked in fierce combat.

The future warriors were bizarre; although they had the auras of Future Ones, those powers would dissipate in almost the same moment they died, making it virtually impossible for the immortals to take their powers.

They had to be captured alive and have their power extracted by force.

As soon as Yang Qi noticed this, he looked closer and realized that the Future power had been altered to contain an element of self-detonation. As soon as a Future One called on that power, they would disappear into a destructive mushroom cloud strong enough to wipe out an immortal world.

Even worse, the resulting explosion would send their flesh and blood scattering out in all directions, and if it touched any immortals it would stick to them and burrow inside them. Afterwards, strange things would happen to them; they would grow spikes, become more muscular, gain scales, and transform into entities that resembled wild beasts.

It was extremely terrifying.

Thanks to his knowledge of the future, Yang Qi knew exactly what he was looking at.

‘Morphlings!’

In the future, scientific research led to the creation of a poisonous serum that would be released upon the violent death of a future warrior. It could pierce through space to find the nearest and strongest living being, infect them, then turn them into a morphling. That morphling would then go on a destructive rampage.

It was an extremely dangerous weapon in the arsenal of the future warriors.

Off in the distance, a group of immortals had a single future warrior surrounded and on his last legs. In the moment before he fell, he violently exploded.

Blood splattered in all directions, landing on all of the immortals, suddenly transforming them into morphlings. In fact, the blood moved so far and so fast that it pierced through Yang Qi’s true energy defenses and landed on his skin. It instantly caused his skin to ripple and distort as something like a fungus began to spread out over him.

Not even a bit worried, Yang Qi sent out some fire to burn the poison away, leaving behind a small bit that he took into the Cruiser of Civilization for study and analysis.

‘Excellent. The Cruiser of Civilization has science and technology like this, but the future world’s version is even better.’

[Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.] The photonic computers blazed to life, and a moment later began speaking. [Future science and technology. Data acquired. Analyzing. Improving.]

‘The more science and technology I can get,’ Yang Qi thought, ‘the better my fragment of the Cruiser of Civilization will become. I wonder what benefit this bit will provide.’

ROOOOAAAR!

Meanwhile, the newly transformed morphlings all rushed aggressively toward Yang Qi.

In response, he waved his hand, sending out a stream of vital energy filled with magical laws toward them. Instantly, the half-human, half-beast entities were locked in place and incapable of movement.

“Allow me to extract the contaminated poison and cure you!” A stream of godlight shot out and entered the morphlings, slowly extracting the contaminated blood, which he then melted into nothing.

Their transformation had been something like a disease which, upon being cured, returned them to their previous form. All of them looked stunned and could do little more than exchange speechless glances. After a long moment, they focused on Yang Qi.

“You cured us?” one of them asked. “You can actually neutralize the contaminated blood?”

“At first I thought we were hallucinating! The morphblight from the future world directly infects your genes and transforms your true form. It’s a variation on the vital energy of heaven and earth and can even affect you if you inhale it. It’s so strong that there’s no cure.”

“You saved our lives!”

“So there is a way to save people who’ve become morphlings.”

“I wonder how many people it could bring back.”

All of the immortals realized that they had been given a new lease on life by this enigmatic and mysterious person.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Dragon Proudheaven from the Dragonfolk, a member of the Nine Yangs God Sect and the Dao Defense League. I did save you just now, but it wasn’t because of my own power. One of the elders of the Dragonfolk, a Chaos God who has almost reached the Deathless Throne, deduced ahead of time that the future world would invade and knew that they would bring this morphblight. The morphblight virus is incredibly strong, far beyond any ordinary devilblight. It can thoroughly vanquish the dao of immortals.”

Of course, Yang Qi made up the story about a Chaos God from the Dragonfolk in the hopes that it would squash any suspicions. “Later, that elder happened to acquire some relics from the ancient mechanical civilization. Studying them helped him come up with some ways to deal with the future world, one of which is a cure for morphblight. If you have any friends or family who were infected by the virus, send them to the Nine Yangs God Sect. I’ll give the rest of the antidote I have to the elders there, and they can use it to save as many people as possible!

“Now, I have other matters to attend to, so I’ll take my leave. Remember—I'm Dragon Proudheaven from the Nine Yangs God Sect!”

Swish!

Leaving the deadly battlefield behind him, he entered the main headquarters.

Obviously, he had a plan.

Considering that he had a way to cure the morphblight virus, it was impossible to say how many top experts would want to be his ally now. One thing was for sure: all he had to do was sit and wait in the Nine Yangs God Sect and benefits would start rolling in.

Not long after he returned to the Nine Yangs God Sect, one of the Godmyth elders rushed over urgently and said, “Dragon Proudheaven, you’re finally back! The situation outside right now is critical. The future world broke through our blockade and is finally starting to fight back. The fighting is fierce! If you have nothing else important to do right now, do you mind joining a meeting with the other elders to try to decide what to do?”

“That’s fine. Certain elders among the Dragonfolk gave me magical treasures that should be of help. Also, the disciples I led out earlier ended up killing a bunch of future warriors. Their corpses are intact, and they have mechas as well. That should earn them a big reward from the Dao Defense League, right?” He waved his hand and the several dozen disciples flew out and handed over the corpses and the mechas.

“What? You took out so many future warriors!? And their corpses are whole? These warriors are very dangerous, and they’re infected with a deadly virus. If they explode, they’ll turn anyone nearby into morphlings and there’s no cure!” The elder immediately took a few steps back, a look of terror overtaking his face.