Sage Monarch

Yang Qi had truly benefited from this disaster. The Shepherd couldn't have made more of a critical mistake than sending Proud Heaven's version of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth into Yang Qi.

After all, Proud Heaven had cultivated the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth to a far, far higher level than Yang Qi. Normally speaking, even a bit of it would have been too much for anyone to defend against. And if Proud Heaven himself had unleashed that energy, it would have been backed by his will, and Yang Qi would have been killed instantly.

However, that energy had been inside the Shepherd for years, during which time he had worked very hard to refine it, and ultimately shed himself of it.

Just as he did, Yang Qi showed up and tried to take the jade medallion. Therefore, he decided to use that energy as a coup de gras. Unfortunately, the opposite happened and he ended up saving Yang Qi's life.

The moment Yang Qi's version of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth combined with Proud Heaven's, dramatic and unpredictable transformations occurred.

The energy art that Proud Heaven had so meticulously refined with his own will was now flowing through Yang Qi.

Most important of all, Proud Heaven's version was very different, and contained numerous profound mysteries. For all intents and purposes, Yang Qi may as well have just acquired a second God Legion Seal. The moment it happened, the true energy of his that the jade medallion had been absorbing was returned to him.

Suddenly, Yang Qi felt his psyche reach a more consummate level, and his psychic scale began rising.

Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.... When it reached eight, it finally stopped. Yang Qi had just risen from three to eight.

Someone with ordinary Terrifying will would have a psychic scale of one. As they practiced their cultivation, they would climb to higher levels. And each level on the scale was double the strength of the previous. As a result, the Terrifying level was broken up into three major sections, with the highest being on the same level as god-spirits.

Most of the Terrifying experts Yang Qi had seen were under the level of ten, and people like that couldn't even come close to comparing with the Shepherd.

As the Shepherd looked at him, Yang Qi felt like he was going to melt.

Quickly thrusting out the jade medallion, he used it to block the man's gaze.

The psychic power in those eyes was the kind that would spell doom to anyone they looked at. Even if it was a more powerful person than Yang Qi who was gazed upon by the Shepherd, they would be chopped into mincemeat.

However, the powerful gravitational force exerted by the jade medallion instantly absorbed the Shepherd's psychic power.

The medallion began to glow brightly, the light entering Yang Qi, flowing to the psychic power in his mind, cleansing and bolstering it.

His psychic scale began skyrocketing yet again.

RUMBLE!

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.... Eighteen! Only then did it stop, and only because the Shepherd had reined in his gaze, having been cowed by the jade medallion.

'This medallion is a real treasure. The Mahātmā Jade really lives up to its reputation. That said, it's dangerous to work with, as it could theoretically absorb whoever gets too close to it!' Taking advantage of the moment, he summoned a vortex behind him and jumped into it.

Without that Mahātmā Jade to absorb the psychic power of the Shepherd, he wouldn't have lasted for a moment, and probably wouldn't have been able to escape via the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.

RIP!

The Shepherd leaped forward and thrust his palm out, but all he managed to do was grab a bit of Yang Qi's garment. However, that scrap of cloth contained traces of the aura of the gods, provoking a very unsightly look on the Shepherd's face.

"The Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth?" he growled in a grating voice. "And not the kind that Proud Heaven used...."

SPLAT!

As soon as Yang Qi was in the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, he vomited up a huge mouthful of blood, dropped the jade medallion, then flopped onto the ground. On his back was a smoking palm print, the power of which had spread to cover nearly all of Yang Qi's skin, turning it pitch black.

"What happened!?" the immortal-slaying clone asked, rushing over and pouring some true energy into him. As a result, some of the blackness spread to the clone. Obviously, Yang Qi had been hit with some sort of extremely powerful poison. Without hesitation, the clone severed his own arm, then watched as it was consumed by the darkness and melted into a black liquid.

The clone sent numerous types of fire out to try to refine and absorb the liquid, but none worked. "Such a powerful poison!"

He quickly opened a way out of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart and sent the poison away to parts unknown.

"I'm fine," Yang Qi said, settling into a seated position. "But don't get near me. The Shepherd's poison is far too powerful. He hit me right before I got here, and although I'm not sure what energy art he used, I do know that I can eventually extrude it with the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth and the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body."

He drew on his energy arts, and after a bit of time, coughed up a conglomeration of toxic energy that turned into a black śarīra. "A toxic śarīra of immense power! Luckily my psychic scale has risen to eighteen, otherwise that poison would have been impossible to get rid of! Now that I have the poison under control, I need to go into seclusion and stabilize my psychic power."

"Sounds like you came out on top," the clone said, picking up the jade medallion. He sent some true energy and psychic power into it to examine it, but nothing happened. Inside the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, not even the Mahātmā Jade could absorb the clone's life or psyche. It was too deeply connected to the chart, to the point where he was one with it.

On the other hand, the clone couldn't actually do anything to the jade. It was only Yang Qi that could do so with the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body.

Yang Qi went on to focus on his cultivation. Unfortunately, even though he seemed just on the verge of reaching the Terrifying level, he still couldn't achieve the breakthrough. In terms of psychic scale, he had long since reached the point of being able to break through. But for some reason, he couldn't.

Rumbling sounds echoed out as the power of tribulations coursed through him, and the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth caused the trumpeting of megamammoths to fill the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart. Proud Heaven had gone all out in his attempt to kill the Shepherd, and the fact that the man had lived through it went to show how profound his cultivation base was.

Conversely, Yang Qi could sense how profound this aspect of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth was. And now it belonged to him and him alone. Even if he lost his God Legion Seal, he wouldn't lose this.

"Bow of Chastisement. God-Wrath Arrow!" He fired an experimental shot up into the air, which became a streak of golden light pulsing with the quintessence of the will of fighting.

'Now I understand,' he thought. In that moment, he came to realize the core meaning of Proud Heaven's version of the God Legion Seal. It contained the most supreme will of fighting. That was a contrast to his own, which was focused on supreme power. Presumably, the God Legion Seal from the Primeval Age contained the supreme psyche.

When they were combined, the supreme psyche would exercise control over the supreme power and unleash the supreme will of fighting.

Because of that, although Proud Heaven was still very strong, he hadn't reached godly ascension yet. He had neither power, nor the psyche to strengthen his ultimate essence. He could rock all of creation, transform the greater scene of things, and wage war on the Primeval Age and the Immortal Dao Age.

But he could not reach the level of the legion of gods.

'Ah, Proud Heaven,' Yang Qi mused. 'Just exactly how strong are you when you're fighting?' He chuckled. 'If I continue to use and study your fighting will, combining it with the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body will surely lead to unprecedented fighting quintessence. I have the supreme power, plus fighting will. And now I have some Mahātmā Jade. With all of that, I can guarantee that you're going to end up dead, Proud Heaven.'

"Yang Qi," his clone said, "that's definitely Mahātmā Jade. Why aren't you using it to power up?"

"Because I just nearly died to get it. I don't want to use it before studying it further. I have the Three Lives Stone and the sheepskin scroll. What I need to do next is capture an enemy and force them to cultivate the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body. Then I can test out what the Mahātmā Jade can do."