Sage Monarch

'The primal-chaos aura here is so strong,' Yang Qi thought after passing through the Primal-Chaos Gateway. His vision swam, and everything became a gray blur in which the sun, moon, and stars spun wildly. Everything was primal-chaos, and felt profoundly dangerous. He sent his divine will out, only to find himself blocked by primal-chaos of some sort.

Normally speaking, his divine will could pierce through numerous immortal worlds, but now its range was limited to what seemed like only a few dozen meters. Shivering, he thought, 'What's going on here? This place seems huge. How am I supposed to find the Live Forever God Tree?'

Wahhhh! Wahhhh!

After taking only a few steps, he heard a piercing cry that resembled both an infant and a crow at the same time. He felt a thump from behind him, and spun to find a tiny snake gnawing through his defensive empyrean energy.

The empyrean energy shield was normally impenetrable, but the venom from the little snake was slowly piercing through it toward Yang Qi.

'An infant primal-chaos elder-snake?' Although Yang Qi was initially shocked, he quickly recovered. Reaching out, he grabbed the snake and drew on the power of King Heaven-Devourer's talismans, sending a stream of true energy into it.

Pop!

The infant primal-chaos elder-snake exploded, and he quickly absorbed the remains.

He quickly assimilated its venom to prevent it from spreading through his body.

The little snake was extremely venomous, enough to easily kill anyone under the level of a seventh division Godmyth. Not even defensive empyrean energy would be of much help, as the snake's venom could quickly erode it. And once the venom touched one's true energy, death was the only end of things.

Thankfully, Yang Qi had some of King Heaven-Devourer's talismans, thus the situation wasn't even remotely a threat.

The beasts that were found in primal-chaos were terrifying, and only those creatures which were native to primal-chaos itself could survive there. Even the tiniest worm could be fatal to interlopers.

Obviously, exploring the primal-chaos of thirty-third ranked immortal worlds was a very dangerous undertaking.

It was almost like an unarmed human venturing into a mountainous forest of demon-devils.

'No wonder casualties are so high,' Yang Qi thought, shaking his head. 'A tiny primal-chaos elder-snake that bit a fifth division Nirvanic God would definitely kill them, much less a ninth stage Dao-Demolisher.' Yang Qi suddenly heard screams coming from up ahead.

They seemed like they were only about three thousand meters ahead, so he flew into motion, keeping his true energy converged tightly around him to make sure that none of the primal-chaos beasts could harm him.

Before long, he reached the source of the screaming. A group of young men and women were lying on the ground, covered with swarms of venomous insects.

These bugs were different from the kind of creatures one would find in the immortal worlds. They were thumb-sized, and pulsed with primal-chaos energy. At the same time, they were immensely powerful, and even the flick of their wings would send out clouds of venom.

'Those are primordial chaos mites!' Yang Qi murmured. He remembered reading about primordial chaos mites before, and knew that they fed on the immortal energy of immortals. Once they bit someone, they would never let go, and were very difficult to get rid of.

Whirrrrr.

As soon as Yang Qi touched down nearby, the primordial chaos mites could sense his immortal energy and a cloud of them flew in his direction. Slamming into his defensive empyrean energy, they began eating their way inside, as if they were specifically designed for that purpose.

"Looking to die, huh?" His empyrean energy shields suddenly began rippling like a meat grinder, instantly crushing the venomous pests. Then he waved his hand, sending out flames that burned their remains into ashes.

As for the young men and women, he did nothing to save them. They were dead, and their souls and bodies were quickly devoured by the primal-chaos ground itself.

That seemed to be the fate of anyone who died, to be eaten by the ground itself. Even anyone who was wounded or weakened, then sat on the ground, might be sucked inside.

'What's the deal with the ground?' he thought. He chopped his hand down, as sharp as the sharpest sword, and it cut a huge furrow in the ground. Inside, he saw a complex network of roots that looked like devilish tentacles sucking up the corpses.

'What exactly is going on here?' he thought, an ill premonition rising up within him. The Wheel of Fate spun above his head and he saw several powerful streams of destiny being dragged underground.

'Even destiny itself is being devoured?'

Destiny was a most illusory and mysterious thing. Usually, when a person died, their destiny would just fade away and become part of heaven and earth again. Yang Qi had seen and experienced many things in life, but he hadn't come across very many things that could devour destiny. One of the few that he knew of were King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions.

Destiny was one of the most fundamental aspects of a person. In fact, not even one's soul, flesh, or blood could be considered even one one-millionth as important.

Usually, people who came to acquire some of King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions would have a powerful destiny. But after acquiring the legacy medallions, a mysterious power would begin devouring their destiny, and they would eventually die. And the end goal was to build up enough power to resurrect King Immortal-Slayer himself.

What he was seeing here in front of him reminded him a lot of King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions.

In other words, the so-called exam, which allowed geniuses with powerful destiny in the Tusita Heaven to have a chance at getting god dao seeds and reach the Godmyth level, was actually a big plot!

The destinies of these geniuses were being devoured by the lands around them!

There was obviously more to this exam than met the eye, and it caused a cold smile to appear on Yang Qi's face. 'A clever scheme. Good thing I'm not actually here for the exam, but rather to probe the secrets of the Live Forever God Tree, and maybe get its essence. If this Live Forever God Tree has been absorbing destiny for years upon years, it couldn't be better. How many geniuses did it absorb? Trillions? Tens of trillions? Hundreds of trillions? Quadrillions? If I take all of that, what level could I reach? It's unimaginable!'

Yang Qi realized more than ever that he needed to find the Live Forever God Tree and see what secrets it held.

Without hesitation, he proceeded along through the primal-chaos.

Before he could get very far, someone called out, "Hold on a moment, please!"

A group of eight young men and women stepped out into the open, all of whom held infant primal-chaos elder-snakes, which were slowly burning as they were assimilated and turned into true energy.

It was another group of examinees.

Yang Qi could tell that they were strong; that much alone was obvious from the fact that they had killed the primal-chaos elder-snakes. They were all as strong as fourth or fifth division Godmyths, and of course, were all Dao-Demolishers with nine lineaments.

"What do you people want?" Yang Qi said, stopping in his tracks.

"Oh, nothing," one of the young men said, walking forward to block Yang Qi's path. "We saw you wipe out those primordial chaos mites, so you're obviously a top genius. Want to join us? There's strength in numbers! As you know, the survival rate for this exam is very low. But it's a great chance to get stronger, and in fact, probably the only shot we have at becoming Godmyths. Someone as strong as you could benefit a lot by working with us."

"Sorry, not interested," Yang Qi said, provoking an unsightly expression on the face of the young man. Yang Qi had a lot of secrets to keep, and if he joined this group it would be hard to keep a low profile, even if it did help him to find the Live Forever God Tree faster.

"What gall!" a young woman said as she stepped forward. "Are you really just going to refuse our offer? Do you know what the consequences of that will be? We'll enslave you and use you as a meat shield. Think this through. We're impressed by your capabilities and would love to have you with us as we explore. But if you refuse to do things the easy way, we'll do them the hard way. And in that case, don't blame us for what happens. Right now, you have two options. The first is to be our scout. The second is to refuse, be captured, and forced to be our scout. It's your choice."

"Oh really?" Yang Qi said coolly. "I guess you people all want to die, right? Fine, I'll accommodate you. Watch and learn how stupid it is to threaten me."

WHOOSH!

He suddenly vanished, and a moment later a bloody hole appeared in the young woman's face. Then her head exploded and her destiny drifted into Yang Qi's hand.

However, in the same moment, the ground seemed to sense her death, and it trembled, sending out a massive gravitational force to try to grab the destiny out of Yang Qi's grasp!

'Perfect,' Yang Qi thought. 'I'll kill these people and use their destiny as the bait to figure out how exactly the Live Forever God Tree works.'

"He killed Lingzi! Attack! Surround him!" Howling, the surviving members of the group circled out to make a spell formation.

"Paragon of the Dao: Fatal Blow!"

A dao patriarch appeared within the depths of the formation, reaching out aggressively toward Yang Qi.

Yang Qi hardly looked at it. He lashed out with the Hand of the One God, grabbed the dao patriarch, and crushed it into a powder of vital energy.

"Aaaiiiieee!"

The group of young people all screamed and coughed up blood as the backlash of their failed attack slammed into them.

A host of arms suddenly appeared behind Yang Qi, which reached out and grabbed all of his opponents. The hands clenched down and they exploded into powder. A wave of destiny appeared that initially began dropping into the ground. But then Yang Qi's Wheel of Fate appeared above his head and began dragging the destiny back toward it.

Seven streams of destiny were all vying with each other in terms of glamor and beauty. Of course, ordinary people wouldn't be able to see it. But Yang Qi could.

Whoosh!

At a certain point, the ground couldn't withstand the force and split open, allowing a whole host of tentacle-like roots to shoot out toward Yang Qi.