Sage Monarch

The sage monarch magistrates had become even more impressive, reaching a psychic scale and a godhood rating of nine hundred and fifty thousand. Their life force and genes had yet again been remolded, and thanks to having assimilated a large conglomeration of ancient angel souls, another hundred had been added to their number.

Yang Qi knew there were other angel souls in these ruins, and if he could devour more of them, he might be able to push his sage monarch magistrates to another major milestone, that of reaching a psychic scale and godhood rating of a million. At that point, they would be just as formidable as Unbounded experts.

Unfortunately, the level of nine hundred and ninety thousand was actually a bottleneck, and breaking through it would be incredibly difficult. But if he succeeded, his sage monarch magistrates would be truly invincible.

In any case, sealing all of the angel souls had provided a huge boost for his sage monarch magistrates. As for Yang Qi, his own godhood rating continued climbing.

In fact, he had risen from fifty million to sixty million.

"You seem fine, Mister Second! I guess that means you'll be taking care of any further angel souls we encounter." Similar expressions could be heard from various members of the Nine Dragons Court and the Sumeru Temple.

"Hmph! It's only natural that someone important like me would handle such matters. Of course, it also means that I'll be taking a larger share of the rewards." Then Yang Qi frowned. "Actually, never mind. Considering how weak you people are, there's no way you'll be getting any treasures worth taking. It would be laughable for me to compete with you in that regard. If the old-timers from the distant past found out, I'd become a laughingstock."

No one responded to his clearly arrogant words. After all, he obviously had the strength to back them up. However, the fact that he had shivered so visibly after sealing the souls had everyone convinced that his strength was empty.

"Let's continue exploring, Mister Second," said Grand Prince Yi. "From here, we'll split up. Anyone who runs into trouble, notify the group, and we'll meet back up. After all, sticking together may be safer, but it could lead to conflicts regarding how to split up whatever treasure we find."

"I don't have the time to waste my breath on you children," Yang Qi said loudly. "I'll go explore on my own. Just remember to call for help if you run into any trouble. I'll be sure to come save you." Now that he was here in the Bastille of the One God, he wanted to find the piece of the Mahātmā Jade. And even if he couldn't track it down, he could at least absorb the sagelight here, and possibly more angel souls.

He was fairly certain that if he stayed here for about half a year, he would end up on the same level as Patriarch Deva.

"Hold on a moment, Mister Second," Grand Prince Yi said. "Remember, you're in charge of our group. That's what Patriarch Deva ordered."

WHOOSH!

However, Yang Qi didn't even respond to his words. Instead, he turned and vanished without a trace.

Grand Prince Yi didn't dare to chase after him. This location was just too full of danger; one wrong move, and one would end up buried.

"Alright, let's go our separate ways," said the sickly young sir from the Dragonfolk.

"Let's go." The monks from the Sumeru Temple left, and within moments they were nowhere to be seen.

Grand Prince Yi looked over at the seemingly unimpressive, wooden-faced young man who was an early Paramount God. "What do we do now, Imperial Uncle? Mister Second went off on his own, should we do something about him?"

The wooden-faced young man's eyes suddenly glittered, and his aura rose to a higher level, until he was thrumming with the fluctuations of a late Paramount God.

He exhaled, and his features transformed, until he looked like a decrepit old man. "Mister Second is very impressive. But sealing all those angels was a mistake. Now they're struggling to escape, and if they do, he's going to transform into an angel. That's why he was in such a hurry to leave. He needs to find a safe place to settle down and deal with the side-effects of his actions. He's strong, but stupid. He went through all that effort just to make sure he seems like a formidable old-timer from ancient times. Well, that's fine. It's just an opportunity for me. I'll go find him. Once he reaches a critical juncture in dealing with the angel souls, I'll jump in and crush him!"

"Just be careful, Imperial Uncle."

"Don't worry. Just go about your exploring. And since I won't be here to help you, be extra careful." The imperial uncle flickered into motion, vanishing.

Meanwhile, in another location in the crumbling ruins of the Bastille of the One God, the Dragonfolk experts were planning their next move.

"Exalted Buddha Testimony," said Buddha Exterminator, respectfully clasping hands to the sickly young sir. "What do we do now? That Mister Second vanished, most likely to find a place to recover from his injuries. He's obviously a real moron."

"This is an extremely rare opportunity," replied the young sir, whose name was Buddha Testimony. "We have to find him. Thankfully, I can track him by his aura. Once we reach him, we'll capture him. If nothing else, his collection of perfect caliber godstones will be worth all the effort."

They turned and left, but before they could get very far, they suddenly saw the crew-cut monk standing in front of them.

Smiling broadly, he said, "I trust you've been well since we last met, Buddha Testimony? I have to say I'm surprised that the Dragonfolk went so far as to send you here to deal with Mister Second. It seems you're really taking him seriously."

Buddha Testimony was initially taken aback, but quickly composed himself and said, "You're exactly right, Archmonk Dibarra. You're the heir apparent in the Sumeru Temple, with only one superior and many subordinates. It seems you people aren't taking Mister Second lightly either."

"Perhaps. I take it you want the lion's share of the benefit in this situation?"

"No," replied Archmonk Dibarra. "How about we work together to deal with the Deva Dynasty? If I'm not mistaken, they also sent one of their most powerful experts here, the imperial uncle. It'll be nigh impossible to capture Mister Second with the imperial uncle helping him."

"My guess is that the imperial uncle is also out to get Mister Second. You see, Patriarch Deva and the leaders of our two organizations can't act directly, so they're relying on us to deal with Mister Second. If Mister Second really is some almighty entity from the ancient past, he'll eventually break the status quo. Which we can't tolerate. So we only have one choice here: work together! We can split Mister Second's belongings between the two of us, and hopefully kill the imperial uncle at the same time. Remember, nobody can use divination techniques to find out what happens in the Bastille of the One God. We can just say that Mister Second's devilishness flared up, and he killed the imperial uncle. As long as we slaughter everyone else from the Deva Dynasty, no one will ever know the truth. It'll be a major blow to them, considering that fully two thirds of their top experts are here."

"Fine. It's a deal. The Sumeru Temple and the Nine Dragons Court will work together to deliver a crushing blow to the Deva Dynasty."

"Great. Let's go."

**

By now, Yang Qi was deep in the Bastille of the One God, his divine will fully unleashed. No one was around, so he was devouring the light with impunity.

Unfortunately, he hadn't encountered any more of the angel soul conglomerations.

Looking around at the various buildings and structures, he mused that they made the Deva Dynasty's infrastructure seem like children's playthings. And these hadn't even been a true part of the halls of heaven, which made him wonder how amazing the halls of heaven must be.

All of a sudden, he heard a familiar sound, and turned to find a conglomeration of angel souls heading toward him, several dozen kilometers across. However, this one was made of wriggling flesh and blood that was apparently the physical remains of ancient angels. Delighted, he headed over to absorb it and send it directly into his sage monarch magistrates.

As he did, he looked off in the distance and saw even more souls, as well as several hulking figures made of sagelight. They were pure white and had amazing wings; clearly, they were Paramount Gods who had been infected and transformed into angels.

'Amazing!' he thought, laughing heartily. Meanwhile, the angels caught sight of Yang Qi and flew toward him with deadly force. Of course, it took almost no effort for him to rip them to shreds, then have his primal-chaos elder-snake leap out and devour them, parsing their genes for use by the sage monarch magistrates.

Going forward, he saw more and more conglomerations of angel souls, and every one that he consumed boosted his sage monarch magistrates. He was like a rat dropped directly into a rice warehouse.

His sage monarch magistrates were transforming, reaching the level of nine hundred and ninety thousand in both psychic scale and godhood rating.

Furthermore, he now had about two thousand of them.

Sitting down, he spent about an hour assimilating everything, whereupon his godhood rating climbed to seventy million.

Then, with no warning, he quickly forced himself to look sweaty and wracked with pain, as though some immense power were inside of him, struggling to get out. That was when a shadowy figure appeared a short distance away.