Sage Monarch

'This guy in yellow really is a good person,' Yang Qi thought. 'Yeah, he ambushed me, and ran his mouth quite a bit, but he brought me some really good fortune. Nine mammoth tusks? And from Demolisher dracomammoths? Once I get them, what other cultivators in my level could possibly beat me in a fight? Besides, I can also use them to get out of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.'

He almost couldn't hold back from just heading over and openly thanking the mysterious young man. Not only was this fellow opening the way to the outside world, but he was also offering a wonderful gift. What other term could be used to describe him other than 'good person'?

Around this time, the Azure Heavens Grand Spell Formation began to really pulse with power.

"Eternal Heavenly Aria. Hand of the One God!"

WHIZZZ!

As the formation built up its power, Yang Qi drew on all of his energy arts to attack. As he did, he split the power of the Hand of the One God into nine parts, sending one to each spell formation eye. Of course, this was the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, thus the godmammoth energy conformed perfectly to the tusks.

Immediately, a crackle of thunder echoed out. These nine tusks were holy items, the type that ordinary people normally couldn't use. Even the yellow-garbed young man had only done so by means of King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallion, and by burning massive amounts of immortal stones. But Yang Qi was different. As he made contact with the tusks, they absorbed the power of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth and, at the same time, sent a spectacular expression of will into his soul and sea of consciousness.

Inside of himself, he saw the images of nine ancient mammoths, covered with draconic scales. They were dracomammoths, expressions of the will of the very demon-immortals that these tusks had once been part of. And they seemed defiant.

'Refusing to submit? Your original ancestors, the godmammoths, were created by the legion of gods! Your wills cannot possibly resist me. Acknowledge allegiance!' A majestic expression of will rose up from his forehead, shattered the wills of the nine mammoth tusks, and added a branding mark from Yang Qi onto them, connecting them to his soul.

In the blink of an eye, the change affected the spell formation.

Mysterious transformations occurred, and the path to the outside world was thrown into chaos. The spell formation suddenly stopped moving and remained hovering there, almost as if it were stuck in the greyspace between the monarch chart and the outside.

"What's going on? What happened? How is this possible? DAMNATION!" Looking quite flustered, the young man in yellow shot to his feet and looked around at the chaos in the spell formation, which was when he caught sight of Yang Qi and Sword Seventeen, right in the middle of the sixty-square-meter God Legion Paradise.

"It's you two swine! I've already sworn an oath to end your lives, so I'm going to kill you like the dogs you are. How dare you damage my spell formation! You deserve to die ten thousand deaths!" Howling in rage, he rushed forward as fast as lightning, using King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallion, sending out beams of dragon-like immortal light like a tempest of destruction that headed directly toward Yang Qi and Sword Seventeen.

"God Legion Paradise: Superlative Defense!"

The immortal light slammed into the Superlative Defense, and didn't so much as scratch it.

"You showed up out of nowhere and tried to kill us!" Yang Qi said. "Just consider this tit for tat. I'll take these nine mammoth tusks of yours. After all, it's a big waste for you to have things as precious as that. Only I can release their full potential. By the way, I'd like to offer my thanks for all your help. Now I can get out of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart without any spell formation. Godworms, come forth!"

Boom, boom, boom, BOOM!

Successive explosions rang out as Yang Qi wrenched the nine mammoth tusks out of the formation, then shrank them down and tossed them into his God Legion Paradise. At the same time, his two godworms shot out and began digging a wormhole out into the void.

Crack!

The wormhole vanished, and the enormous hole that had been punched into the greyspace quickly healed up.

"Die! Both of you must DIE! My Azure Heavens Grand Spell Formation! Immortal Slayer Medallion: Immortal Slayer's Power!" In his fury, the yellow-garbed young man spat a mouthful of blood onto the legacy medallion, then shot up into the air and vanished.

As of this moment, Sword Seventeen and Yang Qi were no longer within the world junction, nor were their auras present anywhere in the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.

Outside, the starry sky looked familiar, and the vital energy was back to normal. There was no interference from the magical laws of space.

Looking around, Sword Seventeen shook his hands out a bit and said, "We're out? We're free? No more Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart?"

He waved his hand, and before he realized what was happening, a tempest of spatial power erupted forth, sending out a blast that destroyed a small nearby planet.

"We are. We're out in the mortal world! I can feel power building up inside of me. A tribulation is coming. I'm definitely going to become a Demi-Immortal!"

Sword Seventeen felt like a dragon back in the sea, or a tiger returned to the forest.

Throwing his head back, he laughed uproariously.

"You're right," Yang Qi said. But then he sighed. "The only downside is that now we can't get back into the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart for another ten thousand years. We definitely made out like bandits, though. Considering how many primeval godworm eggs we have, we're definitely the fattest cats in the whole Titan Emperor planetary system."

"Exactly. A hundred and thirty-eight! Forget the Titan Emperor planetary system. We'd be considered moneybags in the Megaplexus, Coiling Arc, Highest Clarity, and Limitless Violet planetary systems…. Combine all of those places together and we'd still be the top tycoons. That's not even mentioning the imperial snakecharms, the Mourn-Parting Heaven-Palace, and the other treasures we acquired." Sword Seventeen sighed in admiration. "Thanks to you, Junior Brother, I'm now totally rich."

"Why don't you wait until we get back to the Invincible Society before you attempt your breakthrough, Elder Brother? Not only will that be safer, but you'll have an audience. It will definitely serve to impress upon them how incredible our Invincible Society is."

"Good idea," Sword Seventeen replied. With that, the two of them looked around. "I wonder where we are. Which planetary system is this? I don't recognize any of the constellations, and I can't sense the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, either."

Without being a Demolisher, there was no way for Yang Qi to determine where the mysterious Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart actually was. And without a point of reference, he had no way to determine his current location.

"Let me see…." Sword Seventeen rifled around in the fold of his robe and then pulled out an astrolabe decorated with a complex, layered assortment of stars, heavenly bodies, and constellations. After studying it for a while, he said, "Well, we're not in the Coiling Arc planetary system anymore. Looks like we're in the Gyroscope planetary system. This is a dangerous place that isn't administered by any heaven in particular. It's a massive place where humans, devils, demons, ghosts, and the like all mix freely. It's basically a lawless, wild frontier."

"How far is it from the Titan Emperor planetary system?"

"Far. Very far. There are countless starry seas separating the two. Generally speaking, it would take a Demi-Immortal several years to get here from the Titan Emperor planetary system. Thankfully, we have our primeval godworms. If we create some wormholes, we can probably make the trip back in a few months."

"That's a long time," Yang Qi said. "In that case, maybe we shouldn't worry about getting back before you break through. You could theoretically just face your tribulation here. My main worry is that the fluctuations might attract attention. And what would happen if some monster found us that we couldn't deal with? That's not to mention that I still need to get into the Hell of Mahānata somehow."

"No, we need to get back as quickly as possible. The Gyroscope planetary system is not a good place to be." Sword Seventeen seemed to be taking the matter very seriously. "The biggest demon-devil organization here is the fabled Devil Sauvastika Assembly, which has Universal and Paragon Demi-Immortal devils. If they find out that we're in possession of primeval godworm eggs, we're dead for sure."

"Oh? They definitely sound like bad people." Yang Qi opened his Lord's Eye and looked out into the field of heavenly bodies, and could immediately see that the area was rife with devil energy.

Unfortunately, the stars and heavenly bodies seemed to go on without end, making it impossible to see anything clearly after a certain point.

However, there was one thing he was certain of. The depths of this planetary system contained a host of planets that were arranged in an enormous spell formation that resembled the character '卍'.

'The Devil Sauvastika Assembly….' Yang Qi thought, committing the name to memory.

"Let's go!" Neither Yang Qi nor Sword Seventeen had any desire to stick around in a place like this. Producing their primeval godworms, they burrowed wormholes through the spatial tempests and headed in the direction of the Titan Emperor planetary system.

However, just when they were about to vanish, an enormous hand appeared a short distance away. It was pitch black, with a bright red sauvastika character in the palm, and it headed toward Yang Qi and Sword Seventeen with lightning speed!

The fingers were hundreds of thousands of kilometers long, and they shot through the void as if it were dirt, destroying tiny planets along the way.

The hand closed and retracted, empty. At that point, a terrifying voice spoke out. "Who were they? I definitely sensed the aura of a godworm! How did they escape me? Look into the matter immediately! The Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart appeared recently. Did some godworms escape from it? With a godworm, I would finally have hope of reaching the Demolishing level!"

1. In Chinese, an is literally a "star plate/disk/tray".

2. The term sauvastika is sometimes used to distinguish left-facing swastikas from right-facing. Both symbols have been used since ancient times in religions all around the world, and are considered sacred. Note that this is NOT the right-facing, tilted swastika appropriated by certain bastards during the World War II era. For more information about swastikas in general, , and here's . Incidentally, both the left- and right-facing versions are also Chinese characters, which are pronounced the same: wàn. The "Devil Sauvastika Assembly" looks like this in Chinese: 魔卍会.