Sage Monarch

The Live Forever God Tree was a single tree that contained seemingly endless worlds and planes of existence. It really did have planets growing on it, and when Yang Qi looked closely, he saw that they flourished with civilizations. Not immortal dao civilizations, but rather the kind that existed in the mortal world. There were martial artists, imperial dynasties, and the like, with people living and dying constantly and generations coming and going without end.

'This thing is miraculous!' Yang Qi thought, sighing. 'What exactly is it, though? Some creation of the legion of gods? Incredible. Those leaves are full of massive amounts of power, such that not even I could make use of it or absorb it. However, amidst the leaves are fruits! And those are what I need to get!'

Sure enough, within the sea of leaves of the tree were countless fruits that were many times larger than planets from the mortal world. And they abounded with godpower and destiny. Furthermore, in the water vapor which surrounded them were countless deadly spell formations that protected them.

'Whatever. I'll just try to pick some of the fruits and see what happens!'

After all, the thirty-six young patriarchs were already flying toward the tree to start harvesting the 'god dao seeds'.

Those enormous fruits, which were the god dao seeds, were more than enough to push a ninth stage Dao-Demolisher into the Godmyth level. In fact, most ordinary people—the kind who weren't considered geniuses—actually wouldn't be able to absorb the godpower without exploding to death.

Even as the thirty-six patriarchs approached, an ancient voice spoke from within the tree.

"Heretical divine will! You people do not have primal-chaos talismans! You do not qualify to acquire god dao seeds! How dare you come here! Prepare to be exterminated!" Dazzling light erupted from the tree, followed by countless vicious primal-chaos beasts.

"Hmph! The Live Forever God Tree is nothing more than a tool. How dare it try to stop us! We don't have talismans from the Primal-Chaos Gateway? So what!? We're here to steal god dao seeds and the brewing true godhood!"

"Attack!"

The thirty-six patriarchs bunched into a tight formation resembling an enormous wheel with thirty-six segments. As it rolled forward, it crushed anything that got in its path.

"Foolish humans!" the will of the tree shouted. "Primal-chaos god-generals! Come forth!"

RUMBLE!

A host of mighty figures appeared. Some had three heads and six arms. Some had four heads and eight arms. Some were all arms, with a thousand heads and a thousand eyes. All of them were at least fifth division Nirvanic Gods, and it was without hesitation that they lunged toward the thirty-six patriarchs.

Booms began ringing out as the god-generals exploded, yet didn't die. In fact, they arranged themselves into formations that destroyed all of the primal chaos around them from the sheer force of their blows.

Meanwhile, many of the leaves on the Live Forever God Tree twisted into the shapes of huge bows, with arrows formed of primal-chaos itself.

"Primal-Chaos Devil-Exterminating Arrows!"

In conjunction with the voice, the arrows flew forth in a hail of destruction onto the thirty-six-sided wheel.

'Incredible,' Yang Qi thought. 'Without these thirty-six patriarchs taking the brunt of the assault, I doubt I would be able to sneak in and take any of those god dao seeds.' He was shocked at what those thirty-six patriarchs were capable of. They must have been blessed by the will of Leaf Dao-Denier, who had partial control over the essence of the Tusita Heaven. Now that Yang Qi had a better idea of what the tree was capable of, the time had come to take advantage of a crisis for personal gain.

Keeping off to the side, he slipped closer to the tree, heading toward one of the enormous fruits that was a god dao seed. Combining with King Heaven-Devourer's talismans, he transformed into a primal-chaos elder-snake. Considering that he had an aura of primal-chaos just like the other beasts that lurked in the tree, he encountered no resistance.

Crack!

Opening his mouth wide, he swallowed up the fruit. However, it was in that exact same moment that something like the power of a wormhole erupted from behind him.

'Something is trying to teleport me away? Why?! Oh, right. The primal-chaos talisman is designed to take an examinee out as soon as they get a god dao seed. That must be what's happening. But I don't want to stop with just one of these things!'

"Be broken!" he growled. The godpower of the wormhole was shattered and he continued onward in his primal-chaos elder-snake form.

For the moment, he didn't consume any more of the god dao seeds, but rather focused on assimilating the one he had just taken. As he did, pulses of virtual godhood coursed into his dao heart.

Creak. Groan.

With that sudden influx, his fateless dao fruit was suddenly repaired, losing all of the five lineaments that had previously existed on it!

WHIZZZ!

With no warning whatsoever, Yang Qi fell down to the very lowest level within Dao-Demolishing! He didn't achieve a breakthrough, he experienced a regression!

'How could this be happening!?' he thought. Inspecting himself, he realized that although his cultivation level had indeed fallen, he hadn't grown any weaker. In fact, he was at least thirty percent stronger than he had been with five lineaments.

'So, that's how it is. God dao seeds make your dao heart stronger, and that process closes up the lineaments. Most ordinary geniuses who consumed one of these god dao seeds would have their dao heart swell up so rapidly it would explode, pushing them right into the Godmyth level. But my fateless dao fruit is just too strong. Adding lineaments isn't going to work, so I guess what I need to do is consume so many god dao seeds that my dao heart just explodes! Otherwise, I could spend a million years practicing cultivation and never become a Godmyth!'

Yang Qi was actually feeling a bit depressed at the development. However, he continued his effort to devour the god dao seeds.

Moving on to a second one, he opened his mouth wide to chomp it up, but the second one wasn't as easy to eat as the first. As soon as he got close, a host of primal-chaos beasts flew in his direction and the will of the Live Forever God Tree echoed out, "Greedy human! You already took one god dao seed, so get out of here! If you don't, I'll punish you severely!"

"Bullcrap!" Yang Qi snapped. There was no way he was just going to give up right now. Opening his mouth wider, he called on the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, combining the godpower of megamammoths with the strength of King Heaven-Devourer. With all of that, he gobbled up the god dao seed.

As he did, power flooded through him, heading directly into his dao heart, which began expanding and growing stronger.

Instead of gaining more lineaments, it grew larger and smoother, but at the same time it was so strong that it didn't seem possible it would break.

The only thing to do now was continue devouring the god dao seeds.

Before long, he had consumed dozens of them, and his fateless dao fruit was fully three times as strong as it had been before.

Unfortunately, the larger his fateless dao fruit got, the sturdier it seemed. Furthermore, it was possible to see designs on its surface that resembled buddhist vajra curses of incredible toughness.