Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

In the most critical moment of the fight, the Flower-Seizing Marauder showed his true, brutal colors. He suddenly attacked Star Swordlife, hoping to kill him and take his Great Necropolis godpower seed. He had long since come to the realization that Star Swordlife had amazing sword technique, and had also mastered his Inheritor abilities.

Assimilating Star Swordlife would obviously provide a big boost to the Flower-Seizing Marauder, giving him a big advantage in his fight against the junior sectlord of the Will Manifestation Heaven Sect.

There was no question that Star Swordlife had to die.

It didn't matter that he had saved his life; the Flower-Seizing Marauder couldn't care less about that. He didn’t care about showing gratitude, or living by the traditional virtues of compassion, duty, propriety and integrity. As soon as he saw a chance to profit from a situation, he would take advantage of it. Even if Star Swordlife had saved him a thousand or even ten thousand times, he would still do the same thing. Right now, he was dead set on killing him, taking his treasures, devouring his flesh and blood, and assimilating his soul.

It would be hard to find a person more wicked and vicious than this.

Everything had been a big trick. He had intentionally put himself in a dangerous situation to lure Star Swordlife to his defense. Then he had struck like lightning.

This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

CRACK!

His hands latched onto Star Swordlife’s head, and he sent his energy arts surging into his sea of consciousness.

In the blink of an eye, he made contact with the Great Necropolis godpower seed.

The Flower-Seizing Marauder was a powerful man. He had a psychic scale of fifty and a power index of over six thousand. On top of that, he was an Inheritor who had cut down multiple fellow Inheritors. That said, he normally wouldn’t have been able to pull off a move like this. It was only because Star Swordlife had already been badly hurt by Yang Qi that he could pull it off.

“Aaaiiiieee!” Star Swordlife screamed, turning to look in disbelief at the Flower-Seizing Marauder. “Why? I thought you said you wouldn’t do any more killing? Why would you ambush me? I saved you, to help guide you back to the right path! Why would you plot against me? Is it really true that monsters can’t be converted to the light by means of life force?”

“I’ll ‘convert’ your mother later tonight!” the Flower-Seizing Marauder shouted. “You stupid idiot! If someone like you could ‘guide me back to the right path’, I would have died long ago on the Ancient Road to the Gods. The scum beneath my shoes is better than you. Now give me that godpower seed. Don't worry, I’ll take good care of your wife, daughter, and mother. In fact, I’ll bang them to death! That's the thanks you’ll get for saving my life!” With that, he erupted into maniacal laughter as he dug his fingers into Star Swordlife’s skull, trying to extract his godpower seed.

“You...” Star Swordlife said, struggling to free himself. He even unleashed an energy field that he hoped would knock the Flower-Seizing Marauder away. Unfortunately, he was fundamentally weaker, and also badly injured. In that state, how could he possibly do anything to the Flower-Seizing Marauder?

He could only watch as his energy arts were drained away. And slowly but surely, the godpower seed was being pulled out.

Seeing this, Yang Qi snorted coldly and launched another palm strike at the Flower-Seizing Marauder. And at the same time, he sent some true energy into Star Swordlife.

The Flower-Seizing Marauder was forced to defend himself with his God Tombstone Palms. At the same time, Yang Qi’s true energy was healing Star Swordlife, allowing him to eject the Flower-Seizing Marauder’s energy.

Yang Qi’s palm slammed into the Flower-Seizing Marauder's palm, and at the same time, the wounds on Star Swordlife’s head closed up. He had been saved by Yang Qi!

Of course, this was a huge surprise; never could he have guessed that Yang Qi would actually save him.

Leaping backward, the Flower-Seizing Marauder pointed angrily at Yang Qi and said, “This guy plotted against you! You should have been happy to see him die. Why would you save him? According to my calculations, you clearly want to kill him!”

Yang Qi snorted again. “You calculated wrong, Flower-Seizing Marauder. Do you really think I'm as despicable as you? Maybe I do want to kill Star Swordlife, but I’ll do it in a fair fight. I wouldn’t stab him in the back the way you would.”

Turning to Star Swordlife he said, “Are you alright? You're always talking about saving people. How does it feel to be the one being saved this time?”

Star Swordlife hesitated. “Well done, Yang Qi. Thanks to my example, you've learned about the dao of life force, and know the delight of rescuing people. Going forward, you can advance the interests of life force, just like me. You’re not going to try to kill the Flower-Seizing Marauder now, are you?”

His words caused looks of blank astonishment to appear on the faces of the onlookers.

Who could ever have guessed that Star Swordlife would say that? Instead of thanking Yang Qi for saving his life, he claimed that he had converted Yang Qi to his own way of thinking. He wasn’t just kicking his benefactor in the teeth, he was being as rapacious as a wolf and as savage as a cur.

As a result, even more people began cursing him than before. Of course, many people were reading into his words and could tell that he was still intent on defending the Flower-Seizing Marauder. People were definitely starting to hate Star Swordlife as much as the Flower-Seizing Marauder. After all, at least the Flower-Seizing Marauder wasn’t a hypocrite.

As for Yang Qi, although he was stunned, he actually didn’t think of Star Swordlife as being a hypocrite. He just had a one-track mind, and at the same time was completely obsessed. Considering that, and considering Yang Qi knew he couldn’t change the situation, he wasn’t angry. He simply smiled and said, “It was my pleasure to save you, Star Swordlife. And the reason I want to kill the Flower-Seizing Marauder is to save all of the people who he would go on to kill in the future. Do you see what I mean?”

“Regardless, I can’t let you kill people in my presence,” Star Swordlife replied. “If you try to kill the Flower-Seizing Marauder, I’ll have to stop you.”

“I knew you were going to say that. In that case, if the Flower-Seizing Marauder tries to kill you a second time, I won’t save you.”

“Sadly, it seems I haven’t converted you to my side after all. You're indecisive, without a dao of your own. And in that aspect, you can’t match up to me. Even if the Flower-Seizing Marauder does plan to kill me, I’ll still save his life. As long as he agrees to stop killing.” Looking over at the Flower-Seizing Marauder, he said, “Promise to do no more killing, and I’ll keep you safe.”

The Flower-Seizing Marauder burst out laughing again, then flew over to his side. “I promise. I’ll never kill anyone ever again. You see, my sneak attack on you just now was actually a misunderstanding. Please don’t hold it against me. I, the Flower-Seizing Marauder, hereby swear an oath to treat you as a benefactor who I owe my life to.”

“Wonderful. It seems you’ve really made a change. That said, don't worry. Even if you ambush me a thousand times, or even ten thousand, I would still save you. That’s my dao. I wouldn’t ever abandon my dao just because you tried to kill me. You’re a natural-born killer, whereas I'm a natural-born lifesaver. I can’t abandon my inborn nature because of the inborn nature of others.” That was how Star Swordlife viewed things.

“What a pity,” Yang Qi said, shaking his head. “What a downright travesty. How did you manage to stay alive this long, Star Swordlife?”

“Because I'm benevolent and generous by nature. By saving the lives of others, I save my own life. Thus, I can turn ill fortune to good luck. For example, just now, when the Flower-Seizing Marauder tried to kill me, you saved me. But the truth is that it wasn’t really you coming to my rescue. No. I was saving the Flower-Seizing Marauder, and therefore, you were inspired in the heat of the moment to save me. And that is how I turned ill fortune to good luck. Understand? In the end, I saved myself. That’s how the life force of heaven and earth works, in its mysterious and enigmatic nature. If you’re enlightened about the eternal nature of life force, you’ll be eternally blessed. Because I gave the Flower-Seizing Marauder a chance at life, heaven and earth saw fit to do the same for me.”

Star Swordlife’s explanation actually did seem to make sense, but at the same time, those listening felt that there was something odd about it, although no one could say exactly what.

They could tell that it was fallacious reasoning, but couldn’t think of any way to refute it.

As for Yang Qi, he thought, ‘Star Swordlife really has begun to tread a path of evil. It's too bad. He wants to seek the way of life, but he's lost his balance and it’s going to lead to more people getting hurt. His mere act of saving a life is going to lead to more people being murdered. If he follows this course, he might reach godly ascension, but in the end, he’ll be a wretch-god.”

Many wretch-gods started out in that way. They wanted to save the world, but to do so, they resorted to evil, to the point where they actually destroyed worlds. Some even attempted to purge all worlds, even ones that were completely innocent.

That was how wretch-gods thought.

There was no doubt that Star Swordlife would eventually turn into such a wretch-god. Yang Qi could already see how it would play out.

That said, within Star Swordlife’s thoughts, Yang Qi could actually see elements of the path he knew he had to walk. All of a sudden, his psychic power stirred and he broke through to the level of twenty-one.

The truth was that although Star Swordlife had a one-track mind, the fighting and debate with him had inspired Yang Qi and given him new enlightenment. There were numerous aspects of himself that he suddenly understood better.

“In that case,” he said, “I'm going to attack the Flower-Seizing Marauder again. Let’s see if you can stop me.”

“Don’t blame me for getting in your way,” Star Swordlife said, and slashed out with his sword.