Sage Monarch

Just like that, the will of an immortal vanished, and Yang Qi incited the power of the God Legion Seal.

The truth was that, moments ago, when the will of the immortal wrapped him up, he actually had plenty of energy left to fight. However, he had intentionally enticed the will of the immortal into his forehead so that it would encounter the God Legion Seal.

There was no way the God Legion Seal would allow the will of an immortal to stir up trouble in its presence. In fact, the God Legion Seal hadn't even fully activated; it had only stirred, sending out a bit of golden light into his sea of consciousness that was more than enough to vanquish the will of the immortal and seriously injure Ghost Emperor Yama.

Yang Qi closed his eyes and focused inwardly, and realized that somehow, the God Legion Seal seemed more powerful than before, and the golden imp seemed larger and more complete. As his cultivation base improved, it was as if golden light from somewhere out in the void was collecting into the golden imp.

Just as Ghost Emperor Yama had speculated, the God Legion Seal had actually been broken at some point in the past, and was resting within Yang Qi to recover and recuperate.

Once he reached a certain extremely high level in his cultivation, the seal would not only become complete, Yang Qi would also receive the full blessing of the legion of gods, and could give rise to countless planes of existence, breathe life or death into the universe, and illuminate anything and everything.

Deep within the seal were countless magical laws of the gods, to the point where not even Yang Qi knew the extent of their secrets.

He had the feeling that, eventually, the seal would become strong enough to leave him.

Therefore, he needed to work hard at his cultivation, and break through all obstacles that got in his way. One day, he wouldn't have the God Legion Seal to rely on, and would be forced to face everything alone.

In any case, his current goal was to complete the God Legion Paradise.

And thus it took form, backed by his soul, true energy, will, psychic power, nascent divinity, and everything else that made up his essence.

One day passed. Ten days. A month.

Slowly but surely, his personal domain grew more and more complete. The beehive that was the greyspace of the domain looked almost like porcelain tiles, covered with magical inscriptions. Each line of text described the glory of the legion of gods, although not even Yang Qi was able to understand it all. It was a product of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, and the process of completion was mysterious to the extreme, the same way that the work of a master blacksmith would seem incomprehensible to an outsider when he forged a powerful sword.

At the same time, countless elemental fays appeared, their fluttering wings causing the greyspace to tremble as they imparted to it the power of space-time tempests. Also within the domain was the Hellfire Crucible, which burned with porcelain flame of intense heat.

"The Hell Portal uses the blood of devil-gods to forge the pure land of the legion of gods; the God Legion Paradise is built upon the corpses of the horde of devils; only by eradicating the hellish devils can anything be pure; eternal radiance and light will illuminate everything from the ancient to the future."

Yang Qi was currently reciting a scripture as he sent the Hell Portal into the depths of the personal domain, and then began to summon fiend-devils.

"What's that!?" Nie Chaoguang gasped, his eyes wide. To his shock, an enormous giant snake from the Hell of Nagas appeared, a Half Sage with nine heads, and a body that pulsed with immense power.

It was the exact same giant snake that had attacked them not too long ago in the space-time wormhole, and yet, Yang Qi was summoning it to act as simple fuel for his Hellfire Crucible.

After experiencing the Hellfire Crucible, the giant snake was reduced to a devil core, a dragonpearl that Yang Qi set into the greyspace of his domain.

Next were hellish fiend-devils, asuras, bronzeblaze fiend-devils, rageflame devils, six-armed silver-devils, eight-headed gold-devils, euphoric true-devils, bloodshadow ghost-devils… and more. Yang Qi summoned them with impunity and reduced them to corpses, which he then used to bolster the God Legion Paradise.

During the month which passed, it was impossible to say how many fiend-devils he used.

His Hell Portal had become almost completely real, like an ancient structure made of stone, infused with the five phases, and yin and yang. It was a true magical treasure, which he could use to summon extremely powerful fiend-devils even from distant planes.

Fiend-devils from hell, fiend-devils flying in the void, and even fiend-devils in hell monsoons could all be targeted. As long as they weren't powerful Great Sages, he could grab them.

Even low-level Great Sage fiend-devils weren't really frightening to him, and could be defeated with some fighting.

He summoned a glittering, golden devil, who existed in a state of liquid metal, similar to the powers of the golden swordbreaker. It was none other than a golden paleo-devil from the Hell of Melting Gold.

Zzzzzap!

Supposedly, the Heaven-Dominating Golden Swordbreaker had been forged by a Great Sage of the past, in the Hell of Melting Gold. Therefore, using the power of the golden swordbreaker in his domain, he drained the golden paleo-devil of all of its golden power.

Yang Qi snatched countless fiend-devils out in the void, each of them with their own powers and characteristics. Each and every hellish plane was similar to an immortal plane, and in fact, many of them were more powerful.

Unfortunately, because he wasn't at the Great Sage level, he couldn't reach the true depths of hell to summon the most powerful devil-gods.

As for the fiend-devils he was currently able to summon, they had pure bloodlines from hell, but were not actually born in hellish planes. Most were born in hell monsoons, and were, at best, infant devils.

True fiend-devils were so powerful that even Great Sages who faced them in hell would be nothing more than cannon fodder.

During the month that went by, Ghost Emperor Yama worked hard to heal his vital energy. Slowly but surely, his countenance turned less ashen. 'With that God Legion Seal there, those people from the Quake-Dawn Cathedral are in for some trouble.'

Now, all he could do was wait until Yang Qi finished with his personal domain. Of course, he didn't dare to interfere. This was the second time he had nearly died as a result of Yang Qi, and therefore, he feared the God Legion Seal more than ever. Never again would he take such a risk. And he had also resigned himself to losing Great Sage Quake-Cloud's sage motes.

'So, to finish his personal domain, he needs to use the corpses and souls of numerous fiend-devils. Well, that certainly conforms to the will of the legion of gods. A pure paradise can only be built upon destruction. With the Yore-Wilds' Heart fragment as the source of power for his domain, it will be eternally stable. However, it will be hard to complete and then control. Although, I guess he'll need something like that to deal with the Crown Prince. He's got to reach the sixth Legendary transformation, or die trying. The Crown Prince is a Great Sage, which is just too much of a level discrepancy. Not even the strongest magical treasure would help him. However, if he pushes the Yore-Wilds' Heart fragment for all its worth, he might have what it takes.

'I guess I'll just have to wait. It's already been two months, so the Crown Prince should be back soon. It's going to be an epic fight, and it's hard to say who will win in the end.'

As the fiend-devil corpses piled up, the pure paradise continued to take shape, with the Yore-Wilds' Heart fragment as its source of power.

Of course, Yang Qi couldn't actually draw on the full level of power within the heart fragment. If he could, then not even a Great Sage could be a match for him. After all, it had taken nine Great Sages working together to draw the heart fragment out into the open, and they had ended up coughing up masses of blood. From that it could be told how powerful the fragment was.

Within his domain, the heart shone like the glorious sun, making it extremely difficult to fully fuse with the greyspace.

'It's time to use my sagely-grade spirit stones. Ignite!'

With that, he threw forth all such spirit stones that he possessed, releasing an immense amount of power that he sent directly toward the Yore-Wilds' Heart fragment.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of pulsing streams of light filled the domain, which shot toward the burning-red Yore-Wilds' Heart fragment, and then caused its light to fuse the pure land around it.

Instantly, the God Legion Paradise, and the honeycomb-like greyspace that covered it, began to emanate the aura of the ancient gods. At the same time, it was almost possible to hear those gods quietly reciting ancient scriptures.

A moment later, an image of a host of gods could be seen within the God Legion Paradise.

At long last, the God Legion Seal had projected an actual image of the legion of gods. Without a legion of gods, how could the domain be called the God Legion Paradise?

"Heaven and earth are indistinguishable, the sun and moon sink to the depths; the light of the legion of gods penetrates the void; paradise of reincarnation, eternal life and eternal lives!" Yang Qi catalyzed all of the blood quintessence within him, imbuing it into the pure land around him. As he did, in the middle of the domain, a godmammoth appeared, a spear in hand which it could use to stab to the depths of hell. A host of devils lay beneath its feet as it propped up the legion of gods on its back.

The power of the godmammoths could crush the void, could dominate ghosts and gods, and rout all devil kings.

RUUUUUMBLE!

Intense explosions could be heard within the pure land, as vital energy rifts opened up, space-time wormholes that unleashed masses of tribulation water to drown the domain.

It was real water, as black as ink, and wherever it went, it turned the radiance and light into pure darkness. Any person who that water touched would be infected and corroded into nothing.

"Jambudvīpa Deluge!" Ghost Emperor Yama blurted in shock. "What is that doing here? That's a tribulation for the Great Sage level, when your cultivation reaches the level of understanding the magical laws of time. I was almost drowned by it. It's the kind of tribulation that can destroy the world and drown the void. I even lost some sage motes to it. How could a Jambudvīpa Deluge be unleashed on him when he's merely working on his personal domain?"

Ghost Emperor Yama was absolutely correct. This was the fierce Jambudvīpa Deluge that normally assailed Great Sages.

In the stories, during the time of the ancient legion of gods, when it was time for the world to end, it would come in the form of the Jambudvīpa Deluge. It would roil forth from the lowest of planes, rising higher and higher until it could cover even the immortal planes. In fact, it was even possible for it to reach the halls of heaven, where the legion of gods resided.

Eventually, the world would become filled with nothing but waves of darkness, which would destroy everything.

In the following epoch, the water would recede, and the world could begin anew.

1. To quote Wikipedia: "Jambudvīpa… is the dvīpa ('island' or 'continent') of the terrestrial world, as envisioned in the cosmologies of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, which is the realm where ordinary human beings live." It could be translated "the land of Jambu trees" as jambu is the Indian Blackberry. , although keep in mind that, as I've mentioned many times before, the author is using these terms for inspiration, and isn't necessarily adhering to their original religious or mythological usages. As for why this tribulation goes by this name, that will be revealed soon enough….