Sage Monarch

BAM!

A golden rhinoceros with an enormous, razor-sharp horn charged directly toward Yang Qi.

A moment later, he had a golden demon core in his hand. Golden rhinos were demonlings that consumed metal, ensuring that their bones, blood, and muscle were all metallic in nature.

Their bodies made excellent ingredients for concocting metal-type spirit medicines, and their demon cores were perfect for insetting into spirit weapons.

With the wave of his hand, he sent the golden rhino demon core into his Heart of the Sea thumb-ring.

Currently, he stood at the top of a towering mountain, looking off into the distance, where black clouds swirled, and zombies stalked. He was now very close to the deepest parts of the Blackcorpse Mountains. His main goal in this venture was to see if there really was an alternate dimension in the Blackcorpse Mountains, that fabled Heavencorpse Dimension.

After all, there was a dimensional passageway in the Fiendcorpse Mountains near the Demi-Immortal Institute.

The Blackcorpse Mountains also contained corpse energy from the Heavencorpse Dimension, so it should contain such a passageway.

And he wanted to track down the fabled life force springwater from that dimension.

The only way to make significant progress with his Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth was that springwater. Without it, he might as well give up on any thoughts of achieving a breakthrough.

'It will only be a few more days before Yun Hailan learns about Song Haishan's death. Too bad I can't be there to see the expression on her face. Well, her agents in Yanhaven will definitely send word to her about what I did, so she'll know I'm not in the institute.' Such thoughts about the Demi-Immortal Institute continued to occupy his mind as he sped through the mountains.

Swish!

Corrosive, hypertoxic corpse energy battered his face, and the screams of zombies reached his ears. Soon, he reached a valley packed with zombies, skeletons, and even some zombified demonlings.

He waved his hand, sending out a burning blast of true energy that transformed all of them into ash and streams of corpse energy.

Every few thousand years, the Blackcorpse Mountains would explode into activity. Corpse energy would abound, and any living beings it touched, whether they be humans or demonlings, would turn into zombies, which would attempt to eat any living beings they encountered.

Therefore, the more that Yang Qi killed, the less potential for disaster the mountains would pose.

Given the level of his true energy, he was virtually invincible, and therefore, any zombies or skeletons that he encountered were instantly destroyed. He was like an emissary from hell.

Meanwhile, in the depths of his sea of energy, in his Hellfire Crucible, a bundle of toxic energy that resembled a devil-ghost was currently howling in rage.

It was none other than the energy Yang Qi had absorbed from Blightking Skulkdevil, which contained the man's life force quintessence. Yang Qi was currently using his platinum sagefire to break down the toxic energy, and extract the true energy from it.

The Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth abounded with the aura of hell.

What kind of a place was hell? It was a place where all sorts of devil-gods lurked, a place of profound evil. Even the most vicious of devil-gods could seek refuge in the depths of hell, which in itself was like an enormous crucible.

As such, it was only natural that Yang Qi could harbor some heterogeneous true energy.

By using the toxic energy to destroy the corpses and skeletons, he was thus fighting fire with fire, and at the same time, acquiring the purest form of life force quintessence possible.

By now, his energy arts were at the ultimate peak, right on the verge of reaching Quaternary Lifeseizing.

At the same time, he was hoping to find some thousand-year-old corpse king lairs; building up more life force quintessence would only help him get more prepared for his breakthrough.

And the further he got into the Blackcorpse Mountains, the more corpses and skeletons there were.

At the same time, the entities he encountered were getting stronger and stronger. Seventh phase, eighth phase, and ninth phase enemies appeared. There were even some old corpses who had been top experts for hundreds of years before their deaths.

Yang Qi also saw some who had once been famous experts in the Yanhaven area years in the past.

After all, Masters of Energy could live well over a hundred years, and if the corpse energy from the Blackcorpse Mountains reached them in their graves, they would become zombies, dig their way out, and enter the mountains to serve the corpse kings there. It was virtually impossible to say how many times such things had occurred over the years.

As such, it could well be imagined how powerful of a force lurked in the Blackcorpse Mountains.

In fact, there were far more zombies there than in the Fiendcorpse Mountains.

One reason for that was that the Fiendcorpse Mountains were a popular destination for students from the Demi-Immortal Institute to go for training and experience. In contrast, the Blackcorpse Mountains were located in the remote countryside. No one would go there for training, and thus, the forces of evil were free to grow stronger and stronger.

Yang Qi was able to slaughter demons to his heart's content here, and the demon cores flowed into his Hellfire Crucible almost without cease.

Such demon cores would be instantly melted by the platinum sagefire, and would quickly become pure life force quintessence.

AAOOWWW!

AAAAOOOWWWW!

All of a sudden, a tomb-like mountain trembled, and a massive column of corpse aura shot into the air. In response, the nearby skeletons and corpses all prostrated in allegiance.

A thousand-year-old corpse king had appeared.

Yang Qi had been ridding the world of devils and demons with such eagerness that he had attracted the attention of one of the location's top experts. This corpse king was actually golden, with golden wings, making it uncertain if he was a human or a devil.

As the golden corpse king appeared, a gale force wind blew out, filled with streaks of gold.

It was metal-type true energy, powerful to the extreme, the type that could pierce through just about anything.

"Divine Yaksha Starmetal Aurora!" he growled. The energy art fluctuations coming off him were gloomy and cold, and constituted a deadly attack. "It's been years since someone dared to cause trouble this deep in the Blackcorpse Mountains. You've bitten off more than you can chew, brat."

"So, a corpse that cultivates the dao of yakshas." Yaksha energy arts were considered evil, and after cultivating them, they would cause the fleshly body to grow physical wings, transforming the practitioner into an actual flying yaksha.

In the Demi-Immortal Institute, it was a forbidden devil art.

After all, only non-humans could cultivate it.

As the glowing light approached, Yang Qi unleashed an energy field that caused everything to tremble so violently that mountains began to crumble, and the lands began to crack.

As for the fluctuations of the starmetal aurora, they shattered.

"I control hell, and represent all the infernal deities there. Therefore, I call upon the magical laws of hell to strip you of your power!" It was as if the words Yang Qi had spoken came from the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth itself; the vital energy of heaven and earth fluctuated wildly, completely inundating the flying corpse king.

The corpse king was overwhelmed, and could instantly sense that he was about to be wiped out of existence.

As he fell out of the sky, his body collapsing, he shrieked, "Who are you? How can you control the laws of magic? What devil art is that? It contains the power of hell, the bane of all demon-devils. Are you human or a devil?"

Eyes flashing, Yang Qi killed him.

After extracting his demon core, which was enormous, he tossed it into the platinum sagefire to begin melting it.

Platinum sagefire was like a blessing from the legion of gods and could purify all sorts of demonic, devilish, and wretch energies. And it was the exact reason why Yang Qi had been so eager to enter the depths of the Blackcorpse Mountains, and beyond them, the Heavencorpse Dimension.

The Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth was the bane of all types of demon-devils, and thus, it was no surprise it could easily be used to crush them.

After killing the golden corpse king, Yang Qi continued onward unhindered.

RUMMMBLE!

Suddenly, a mountain-top exploded, sending massive boulders flying out in all directions, as well as clouds of dust. Revealed inside was a tomb, the depths of which contained a bronze coffin.

Inside the coffin, eyes opened up, and they shone with astonishment at the fact that the mountain had just been destroyed above it.

It was a level of power that clearly surpassed the Primary Lifeseizing level.

And yet, even as the eyes opened, a hand appeared above the coffin, grabbed the thousand-year-old corpse by the throat, and dragged him out into the open.

This corpse had recently gorged himself on human blood, and was in the middle of a session of cultivation. But now, he found himself in the grip of a young man. Baring his fangs instinctively, he lunged toward Yang Qi's hand to suck his blood out.

However, when his fangs touched Yang Qi's skin, they shattered, and then his entire body exploded. A moment later, Yang Qi had another demon core, this one, blood-red.

It looked very similar to the blood demon cores from the vampires he had killed some time ago.

This was a vampiric corpse king, extremely powerful, who usually slept in the day and went out at night to hunt. It had long been a major threat to the regions surrounding the Blackcorpse Mountains, but now, Yang Qi had put an end to his reign of terror.

And of course, he had benefited in the process.

The time had come to clean house in the Blackcorpse Mountains, and put an end to as many thousand-year-old corpse kings as possible.

1. Yakshas are a type of spirit from Buddhist mythology. .

2. This 'wretch' energy could be translated as evil or vile. I'm using 'wretch' to maintain term consistency with stuff that comes up later in the novel.