Sage Monarch

A ghostface monkey-god had appeared on the scene.

He was so aggressive and domineering that he was less of a monkey and more of a gorilla. He was burlier than the average monkey, and his fur was thicker. As for his face, it was incredibly ugly, so covered with scars and pockmarks that he looked like an outright monster. He had vicious, yellow teeth that would cause any human who looked at him to get goosebumps.

That said, the godpower he radiated was nothing to look down on, and his godhood gave him control of everything around him.

A beautiful woman. An ugly monkey.

And both were demon-gods.

"What happened, snakewoman? Did this boy destroy your incarnation? How come you seem so weak?" Almost as soon as the monkey appeared, he scanned the entire mountain looking for women, revealing just how depraved he was.

"Bring out all your women, boy, and let me pick my favorite. Wait, no. Give me all of them. The hotter the better.

"Oh really?" Yang Qi said. "What makes you think you've broken my spell formation? How come I didn't notice?"

"What?!"

The two demon-gods swiveled to look at the hole in the formation, only to find that it had stitched back up. Meanwhile, the sound of ancient buddhist chanting could be heard in the air.

"That's a dhāraṇī incantation! A devil-subduing art from the buddhist schools!" The ghostface monkey-god was visibly taken aback. "You're stronger than I imagined. Unfortunately, you're not a god. Did you really think that someone as weak as you could trap two demon-gods like us?"

"That's right. I lured the two of you in here on purpose. Now that you're on my mountain, you won't be leaving. I can earn good merit points by simply killing your disciples. Do you know how much two living demon-gods will get me?" He opened up his Great Classic of God Ordainment and flipped to the pages describing the merit point rewards.

As it turned out, killing a demon-god and bringing the corpse to the sect would give a reward of ten merit points.

And a living demon-god would be worth a hundred.

That meant that these two demon-gods were worth two hundred merit points. Of course, if Yang Qi wanted merit points, he could simply create imperial caliber godstones. That said, he couldn't do that continuously without attracting attention.

Handing in two living demon-gods would also attract attention of some sort, but Yang Qi wasn't just going to pass on the opportunity.

"You're a lunatic, boy," the snake goddess said. "A raving lunatic." Her eyes were as cold as ice, making her seem like the picture of a cold-blooded animal.

"I'm not crazy at all," Yang Qi said. "Come on, you two. I know that one of you has a godhood rating of one and the other has a rating of two. You might be able to slaughter hundreds, or even thousands of Quasi-Gods, but sadly, you're still weak as gods go."

The atmosphere quickly became very tense. As for the disciples, they didn't dare to show their faces, and remained hidden in locations further down the mountain. They knew how deadly a fight between gods could be.

Quasi-Gods were like martial arts experts in the impure lands, who could come and go as they wished among the ordinary people. But actual gods had the power to move mountains and fill in seas, could manipulate space, alter astrological phenomena, and change the weather.

And of course, gods could easily suppress Quasi-Gods. Never before had two gods actually shown up in the mines. Normally speaking, it would have led to everyone present being slaughtered.

"In that case, let's see how strong you are. You've certainly talked yourself up." Gods maintained a certain level of dignity, even demon-gods.

The ghostface monkey-god lashed out with his palm, causing the image of a ghost face to appear, almost like that of the masked face Yang Qi had encountered some time ago. However, it couldn't match up to the boundless nature of that original masked face. That said, it was powerful, and in the blink of an eye, it opened its mouth and emitted a howl that transformed into countless threads that shot toward Yang Qi's acupoints.

"When the ghost face appears, a thousand ghosts illuminate the night!"

RIP!

Yang Qi hardly looked at it. He thrust his hand out, five fingers in the shape of a lotus, causing the head of a buddha to appear. The buddha was chanting zen songs, and when the power hit the ghost face, the face shattered and its godpower dissipated.

Backing up, the ghostface monkey-god stabbed his fingers out in front of him. "Ghost-God Strike!"

The finger contained flames of demon energy that shot out and engulfed the buddha head. However, the buddha head didn't dissipate, but continued through the flames, even sucking them in. And its zen chant grew louder. "Daga-yaya... jili-gulu... lobo-miloba...."

Crack!

The buddha head exerted such immense pressure on the ghostface monkey-god that he couldn't move at all. His hands flashed out as he drew on another demonic divine ability, causing streams of smoke to shoot out and attack the buddha head. However, the buddha head seemed as mighty as a mountain, and didn't even budge.

"Prepare to die!" the snake goddess shouted. "Heaven-Snake Sword Technique; Heaven-Snake Circles the Mountain; Heaven-Snake Leaves the Sea; Heaven-Snake Diverts Rivers; Heaven-Snake Devours the World; Heaven-Snake Consumes the Sun!" She attacked, an incredibly sharp sword appearing in her hand. As she unleashed her deadly sword technique, an enormous heaven-snake appeared, swirling through the air before shooting toward Yang Qi.

Yang Qi hardly even looked at the incoming attack. In fact, he sent out a snake-like stream of energy that immediately began contending with the heaven-snake sword technique. Of course, it was a consummate technique from King Heaven-Devourer's energy arts, which was now completely a part of Yang Qi, so much so that even the original King Heaven-Devourer wouldn't have recognized it.

The snake goddess' sword technique slashed back and forth in the form of a snake as she attempted to relieve some of the pressure on the monkey-god. Unfortunately for them, her efforts had no effect, and in fact, it only seemed to increase the pressure. Yang Qi just seemed to be getting stronger, while they were already gasping for breath.

When it came to godpower, it was obvious that gods were superior to Quasi-Gods, with the former being like steel, and the latter, cotton. But Yang Qi had developed his godpower with the God Legion Seal, making him vastly beyond an ordinary god.

In fact, his godpower would actually be superior to most Lesser Gods and could rival that of Common Gods.

RUMBLE!

The snake goddess thrust out her palm, and energy spat out like a spirit snake, twisting and writhing as it headed directly toward Yang Qi's back. In response, Yang Qi threw his hand behind him to meet it. There was a bang, and Yang Qi didn't move a muscle. In contrast, the snake goddess' godpower collapsed.

It was now more than obvious that the quality of this snake goddess' godpower was far below Yang Qi's.

"You're... you're really a Quasi-God?" she said, shocked. "How can your godpower be so strong? How is the quality so high?"

Instead of responding, Yang Qi launched another palm strike. Their two palms collided again, and a mountain-toppling, sea-draining shock wave rolled out, causing everything to tremble as the snake goddess staggered backward.

SPLAT!

Blood sprayed from the mouth of the ghostface monkey-god. Throwing his palms out toward the buddha head above him, he finally managed to break free. Leaping over to stand in front of the snake goddess, he glared at Yang Qi and said, "Who exactly are you? Why would someone like you agree to be a measly official disciple of the House of God Ordainment? Your cultivation base is definitely good enough to make you an elite disciple. And once you become a god, you'll be even more terrifying."

"Why are you asking so many questions?" Yang Qi said coolly, his hands clasped behind his back as he strolled forward. "The only thing you need to know is that you won't be returning from this little attack on my mine."

"Hold on!" the snake goddess said. "I have something I want to say."

"Go ahead and say it. I'm more than happy to let you utter a few last words. Although, don't even think of asking me to let you go free."

The ghostface monkey-god snorted coldly. "I admit you're shockingly strong, boy. And I have no idea where a freak like you might have come from. But it's a bit early to be claiming you can kill us."

"There's no point in bantering now," the snake goddess said. "I know that you're not an ordinary person. And there's something suspicious about how you ended up in the House of God Ordainment. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, you're actually not from the god world. You're an Ascendant, aren't you? Only an Ascendant could be as strong and experienced as you."

Yang Qi chuckled. "An Ascendant? Ascended from where, exactly?"

"Admit it or not, I know the truth," she replied. "I know a lot about how the mortal world works. Only mighty Ascendants can reach the top, and only after fighting millions upon millions of battles. And that's what you're like. You must have acquired some magical treasures that trickled down from the god world, and that's why you don't want anyone to know how strong you really are. You want to slowly work your way up through the ranks here in the god world before revealing the truth. However, if you kill us right here, word will spread. And how will you explain it? The answer is you can't. This invasion is just too high profile. So why not turn weapons of war into gifts of jade and silk? We can pretend that none of this ever happened. What do you say?"

"I guess that could work," Yang Qi replied, closing his eyes to think. However, what neither the snake goddess nor the ghostface monkey-god noticed was that a devil embryo had appeared behind each of them. Before they knew what was happening, they were infected with the Heaven-God Hell-Exterminating Devil Embryo.

Now he controlled both of them. Two gods.

One had a godhood rating of one, the other two.