Sage Monarch

Yang Qi had assimilated an imperial prince from the Misty Kingdom, then defeated General Metroplexus from the Great Metropolis Heaven. Those two acts caused fear to grip the hearts of many of the supreme rectors. Many of them had bits of immortal will on them, but even those wills remained silent. In the end, the supreme rectors decided to agree to Yang Qi's demand, giving him fifty percent of the faith from their planetary systems.

Furthermore, Yang Qi would establish collegiums where he would hold competitions to recruit the top experts.

The numerous planetary systems in the area would all view the Sage Monarch planetary system as their core, and treat it like a holy land of cultivation.

Of course, the planetary systems made their own demands: they wanted Yang Qi to provide protection from enemy forces, including fiend-devil invaders.

It was a common thing for fiend-devil armies to invade other planetary systems, where they would burn, loot, and devour humans. Many planetary systems were too weak to eliminate such threats, and in fact, some of them that bordered various hellish planes were always under the threat of experiencing the same fate as the Yore-Wilds had when the Hell of Euphoria invaded.

In the past, the Titan Emperor planetary system had built huge reserves of Initiation Power for the express purpose of defending against fiend-devils.

But now Yang Qi was the bane of fiend-devils, and could even force them to work for him. And when the various immortal worlds realized that, they were actually pleased by the protection he could offer.

Considering everything, Yang Qi had no reason to refuse such demands.

Before long, an actual agreement was written up, which Yang Qi and the supreme rectors all signed. At the same time, they swore official oaths to abide by the terms.

When it was all official, Yang Qi turned to certain members of the Yang Clan and nodded meaningfully. The clan had grown fast and strong in recent years, and right now there were already hundreds of thousands of crack disciples. Nowadays in the Yang Clan, there were even young children who were in the Legendary level.

It was common for young ones in the Yang Clan to reach the Great Sage level in their teen years. Even a pig that grew up surrounded by immortal energy would quickly reach a high level, much less the bright young ones of the Yang Clan.

In response to Yang Qi's summons, a host of such young elite ones stepped forward to lead fiend-devil armies to the other planetary systems, where they would establish the collegium branches and work to gather faith. Not only would they be helping Yang Qi by their efforts, but they would also gain valuable experience.

All of the elite young ones had fiend-devil Demolishers working for them, ensuring their safety no matter what dangerous situations they encountered.

Even more relevant, all of them had ensconced their nascent divinities in the Hell of Mahānata, so even if they somehow met their end they could be born again. And of course, such disciples all had primeval divine abilities from the dao of devils, which meant that if they were ambushed, the worst that could happen is they would end the fight in mutual destruction.

That said, with armies of fiend-devils at their command it seemed unlikely that any truly deadly situations would arise.

Now, all Yang Qi needed to do was wait until the faith and destiny began to roll in, and he would be able to head toward new breakthroughs.

The first task at hand was to deal with Prince Mist's god item, the Fan of Mists, as well as the new godly-class energy art he had acquired, the Void Mist Mountain and Sea Interstice.

Of course, he planned to give the latter to his immortal clone.

The clone now had a collection of five such arts. The Jade-Emperor Profound-Welkin Exalted-Celestial God-Dao; the Asiryangguk Sauvastika Devil Grand Infernal Energy; the Killing Fist of the Dao of Monarchs; the Prodigious Proto-Epoch, Invincible War-Steppe; and the Void Mist Mountain and Sea Interstice. Individually, they could be described as heaven-shaking and earth-shattering. But combined, they were even more formidable. And considering Yang Qi planned to go alone to the immortal world and leave his clone behind, it definitely gave the clone an immense advantage.

In fact, Yang Qi planned to use the new faith power he would receive to bolster his clone and put him in the position of being able to ascend to heaven at any moment.

"Fiend-devil!" he said, waving his hand to summon an enormous infernal in the Demolishing level, who immediately knelt in front of him.

Drawing on his energy arts, he tapped the infernal on the head, causing it to unleash a howl of agony.

"Fear not," Yang Qi said. "My Wheel of Fate is going to reverse your essence. According to the legends, all hell-born fiend-devils originated as creations of the primeval legion of gods. In the beginning, fiend-devils were actually angels. Now that my Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth has reached a high level, I can reverse the change and expunge the baleful energy of fiend-devils from your genes. Upon being purified and made holy, you will become an angel."

Holy light shone as Yang Qi drew on his energy arts, causing a white color to spread out over the fiend-devil's skin.

Of course, the legends were true. Originally, hell-born fiend-devils had been angels created by the legion of gods. Unfortunately, they became corrupted and fell into hell, and as epochs passed they came to fight against the legion of gods. But now, Yang Qi was using the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth to transform fiend-devils back into angels.

The fiend-devil was being reverted to its original state, its genes awakened and its baleful energy expunged. If the process went smoothly, it would end up as an angel. When that happened, its fighting prowess would increase by tenfold and it would be able to defend against all sorts of magical abilities and daoist techniques.

In ancient times, angels had been far purer, and far stronger than fiend-devils. After all, upon falling into corruption their genes had been cursed by the legion of gods.

Once that curse was removed and they returned to their original state, they would advance by leaps and bounds, reaching the point of being able to kill countless opponents.

If he succeeded in this effort, the ability to turn fiend-devils into angels would be a powerful trump card; it would make his fiend-devil army even stronger, and they would no longer pulse with devil energy and the dao of devils.

Sagelight glittered as the enormous fiend-devil was slowly purified, bit by bit. Its wings began to sprout white feathers, all of which were inscribed with shining magical symbols written in an ancient, holy script.

Soon, Yang Qi realized that there was something holy growing within the genes of the fiend-devil, proving that it had originally been a pure creature that was later corrupted.

"Wheel of Fate!"

The Wheel of Fate appeared and smashed into the fiend-devil, causing it to tremble as its devil energy converged into a śarīra. The fiend-devil transformed, becoming an entity of pure holiness, neither male nor female, an angel whose pure white wings fluttered as it hovered in the air, sending out sagelight filled with inscriptions from the legion of gods.

And its fighting prowess skyrocketed! In fact, this was no mere tenfold increase.

From what Yang Qi could tell, this fiend-devil was at least a hundred times as powerful as it had been before. The curse of the legion of gods had been completely removed, along with its devil energy.

Now it emanated the genetic power of angels.

"Fiend-devil śarīra!" Yang Qi said, and the śarīra appeared on the palm of his hand. It contained all of the corrupted devil energy, as well as an almighty curse power. In fact, if he inserted this śarīra into someone, they would immediately transform into a boundless fiend-devil, bereft of any original personality or intelligence. Not even an immortal would be able to stave off the effects.

"The curse power in these fiend-devil genes is incredibly powerful. In fact, it's like a precious treasure. What a pity that purifying a fiend-devil is such a drain on me. I definitely can't gather armies of them the way I can summon fiend-devils with the Hell Portals. I guess I'm just too weak right now. I need to reach the Demolishing level, whereupon the dracomammoths of my Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth will transform into protomammoths. At that point, my magical power will increase by a hundred times, and I should be able to purify an army of angels to lead in conquest of the immortal worlds."

Looking at the angel, he said, "I summoned you as a powerful infernal, but now you've been purified and are an angel. You are no less mighty than my immortal clone, therefore I will bestow you with a name. You will be Yang Morningstar, child of the Yang Clan"

Taking a knee, the angel said, "Many thanks, Milord. Thank you for giving me a name."

Meanwhile, perfect faith power erupted from the angel and its pure white wings, a power completely devoid of any impurities. Yang Qi was very pleased; he now had another capable person to handle matters after he ascended.

At the moment, he was waiting for the faith power of the other planetary systems to arrive. When it did, he would aim for another breakthrough, or perhaps more than one. Soon, he would be a Paragon Demi-Immortal, then a half-Demolisher, and ultimately a Demolisher.

At that point, he could ascend to the immortal world above.

Although his cultivation base was high enough to sneak into an immortal world if he wanted to, the problem was that he was just too weak. If he ran into powerful figures there, they would likely see through any disguise he used.

He needed to track down the Future One, his so-called father, Proud Heaven. In the course of his search, he would surely deal with all sorts of powerful immortals. Therefore, he needed to be absolutely prepared.

In addition, he wanted to acquire the magical laws of the dao of immortals from the Tusita Heaven, which he would use to help Eldest Brother, and others, form immortal bodies. After all, they couldn't just remain stuck in their current cultivation level forever.

Only after all of those things were accomplished could he be confident in ascending.

Right now, he entered into a state of intensive cultivation.

Days passed.

Soon, half a year had gone by.

WHIZZZ!

At that point, the power of faith began to flow toward him like an immense river. Clearly, a mystical network of laws had been put into place in the Megaplexus planetary system.

And then, in the days to come, more and more similar streams of faith appeared—thousands of them, in total.