Sage Monarch

It was a moment of profoundly deadly danger.

Yang Qi had fallen into the clutches of a Great Sage, and had no surefire way to escape.

The only thing he could do was put everything on the line, to flee like mad and hope that the chaotic power of space-time itself would somehow ensure his safety. After all, at least that way he would have a chance of surviving.

He was like a person who had been chased to the edge of a cliff, and in the face of certain death at the hands of his enemy, had chosen to jump.

However, the Great Sage apparently realized what he was planning to do, and was attempting to stop him.

Godly might emanated off the enormous hand, smashing its way through the devil-ghosts Yang Qi had summoned, transforming them into nothing more than dust. Then, the heaven mote in the hand unleashed a gravitational force that caused all of the space in the area to ripple and distort.

To Yang Qi, it looked as if the void around him were being crumpled up, making him like a bird in a cage, or a fish in a net, completely unable to escape.

The power of the heaven mote roared forth, destroying Yang Qi's true energy and piercing deep into the Grand Emperor's Pagoda.

BOOOOM!

One of the dimensions inside the pagoda was outright destroyed, causing several of the pagoda's shields to shatter.

Yang Qi's true energy trembled as the power of the heaven mote severely damaged his sea of energy and many of his meridians. He came very close to coughing up a mouthful of blood, but didn't.

"Myriad Reversals; Rebirth of the Sovereign Lord."

Suddenly, a new stream of true energy erupted from his sea of energy, like a raging fire, but at the same time, a sweet dew that healed all of his wounds. Sovereign Lord True Energy made him like a phoenix rising from the ashes, eternally indestructible, able to recover even after being hit by the heaven mote of a Great Sage.

As he recovered, he sped onward into space. As for the countless fiend-devils in the area, they had no idea what was happening, and thus, attacked him on sight.

But then, the Great Sage's palm appeared again, unleashing more heaven motes that destroyed any fiend-devils they got near.

Spinning, Yang Qi used all the strength he could muster to summon an enormous spear, many kilometers in length. It was almost like a mountain, and it was none other than the Infernal Deity Spear. It was made from true energy, and bolstered by the power of the hell monsoon. In fact, it was so powerful, that it destroyed any nearby fiend-devils and sucked them into itself.

Yang Qi was about to unleash the most powerful attack he could muster using this spear.

Looking like a mighty heaven-god, he hefted the spear, and then hurled it out with all of his might toward the incoming hand. It was said that the infernal deities of hell could hurl their spears high into the sky, to destroy the planets that represented the legion of gods, and Yang Qi was attacking in that very same fashion right now.

The massive spear shot forth, and in the blink of an eye, it was bearing down on the enormous palm. Not even the heaven motes could stop it.

"Eee?" a voice echoed. Then, the Great Sage controlling the hand caused its index finger to curl up, and then flick Yang Qi's Infernal Deity Spear.

BOOOOM!

Cracks spread out across the surface of the spear, and then it fell apart; the light from the legion of gods vanished, and the massive amount of true energy faded into nothing. At the same time, a shock wave rippled out into the surrounding space-time.

Yang Qi coughed up a huge mouthful of blood because of the injuries.

'I have to get out of here!' A sagely-grade spirit stone appeared in his hand, and he drained its power to heal himself. At the same time, he and the Grand Emperor's Pagoda continued to fly further away from the greyspace of the Western Continent.

"You're not going anywhere!" echoed the voice of the Great Sage. "It doesn't matter that you're out in that distorted space-time, I can still make it impossible for you to escape."

Rumbling sounds echoed out as the enormous hand shot out past the greyspace and toward Yang Qi.

By this point, Yang Qi was far from the Western Continent's greyspace, and was out in chaotic space-time, surrounded by a wild wind, and the howling of ghosts and the wailing of gods. The forces assailing him seemed no less than the attack of a Never-Dying Legendary, and the sight that met his eyes was impenetrable darkness.

Behind him was an enormous continent hanging in the middle of chaotic space-time, with a curved heaven and a flat earth. As for the transparent barrier that blocked the chaos around it, it was the continent's greyspace, which was the heaven of the continent. Without such a protective membrane, meteorites, energy flows, chaotic fluctuations, and other destructive forces would smash it into oblivion.

At the moment, Yang Qi couldn't see the Rich-Lush Continent, nor could he sense it with the Grand Emperor's Pagoda. Having left the greyspace of the Western Continent, he was lost, and had no idea how to get home. And the chaotic churning of space-time was backed by such power that any cultivator in this situation would count for almost nothing.

Of course, Yang Qi had not extricated himself from danger. The enormous hand was still closing in on him, surrounded by a host of glowing halos that suppressed the spatial tempests.

Only Great Sages qualified to leave a plane, to exit the greyspace of a continent and enter the chaos of space-time to travel to other continents or higher planes.

"Angel Wings!" Yang Qi barked. Considering the mortal danger, he needed to use every possible option to try to flee, and thus, true energy flowed out to create two massive wings.

They were dozens of kilometers wide, and each wing consisted of numerous subsidiary wings, thirty-six in total. They radiated holiness and light, and when they combined with the spatial powers of the Grand Emperor's Pagoda, it actually calmed the chaos of the surrounding space-time, and made Yang Qi feel as comfortable as a fish in water.

Not only did the surrounding chaos not affect the wings, it actually seemed to bolster them, giving them additional speed.

Yang Qi's wings had long since been upgraded from Fiend-Devil Wings to Angel Wings. However, after acquiring the Grand Emperor's Pagoda, he hadn't been afforded many occasions to use them. After all, the Grand Emperor's Pagoda allowed him to pierce through space before reaching the Space-Void Transformation, and that meant he could achieve speed that surpassed what he could with his wings.

Therefore, it was actually quite a surprise to him that his Angel Wings were this strong.

They could absorb the power of spatial tempests and convert it into something he could use. They made him like a sea bird in a storm, able to flit about with great ease.

In fact, it was to Yang Qi's shock that the combination of the Grand Emperor's Pagoda's spatial power, plus the Angel Wings, boosted him to ten times his previous speed.

The wings flapped, causing cyclonic winds to spiral out, and at the same time, sucking in more of the space-time chaos. As it swirled through Yang Qi's meridians and sea of energy, it caused the Angel Wings to glow even more brightly.

In the depths of space-time, there were spatial tempests that even Great Sages would flee from. But now, Yang Qi wouldn't need to fear them at all.

However, at the moment, he still needed to escape.

BOOOOM!

The Great Sage's hand smashed down into nothing, but the resulting explosion caused the space-time for five hundred kilometers in every direction to evaporate and transform into a vacuum.

'I can't believe my Angel Wings can do this. It's too bad I'm not a Space-Void Legendary; the wings would be even more powerful! I could move so quickly people could hardly see me!' To his delight, it now seemed much more likely that he would be able to make his escape. How could he ever have guessed that, during the time he had gone without using the Angel Wings, they would improve this much?

A sensation of rage emanated out from the hand of the Great Sage, and was accompanied by a grim snarl from the greyspace of the Western Continent. Then, a mighty force erupted out, causing the hand to immediately grow to ten times its previous size. The power of the heaven motes shone with such brilliance that space-time rippled as surely as the sea would when a monstrous whale breached the surface.

"Heaven and Earth in my Palm…." an ancient voice said.

Then, Yang Qi saw the chaos around him suddenly transforming into a vast blue sky, at the end of which were five enormous pillars that represented the essence of the world.

'Not good!' he thought. Obviously, he had fallen into the hand of the Great Sage.

He flapped his wings, which propelled him forward to smash into the pillars.

"Angel Wings. Glory of the Lord…."

Drawing on his true energy, the power of spatial tempests, and a sagely-grade spirit stone, he shot up, smashing into the blue sky. In the blink of an eye, he was back out into space-time.

1. The word used here is not the traditional Chinese phoenix (feng huang), but rather an idiomatic reference to the western style of phoenix that never dies because of how it cyclically regenerates.