Sage Monarch

The intruder was Yang Qi.

This fragment of the Cruiser of Civilization had full power reserves, plus vivicreation systems, but unfortunately for them, Yang Qi was a Tempered God now, making him vastly stronger than before.

He had allowed himself to be sucked into the spacecraft, but then he used the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions, and the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart to skip through space until he was right outside the main bridge. Just as he had been preparing to launch a sneak attack, General Samman actually opened the hatches and let him walk right inside, presumably with the intention of springing his own trap.

Of course, Yang Qi believed that true confidence stems from superb skill, and didn't hesitate to enter the main bridge. Extending his hand expectantly, he said, "General Samman, please hand over King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions. And give me control of this piece of the Cruiser of Civilization. You don't stand a chance against me if we start fighting."

General Samman and the future warriors sized Yang Qi up, furious at his outrageous words. One of the future warriors even walked up to him and said, "Very arrogant of you. Now die!"

POP!

He slammed his fist into Yang Qi's chest, only to find that it had no effect whatsoever. Suddenly aware that this person obviously had some powerful energy arts, he resorted to a killing move.

"Consummate Fist of the Army's Path, First Stance: Behead the General Guarded by Ten Thousand Troops!"

He formed a knifehand and sliced it through the air, creating an image of what looked like an enormous heaven-god slashing a saber through the neck of his enemy. It really was like killing a general surrounded by ten thousand troops.

Gong!

The knifehand landed on Yang Qi, but most certainly did not take his head. Instead, it hit his forearm.

Crack!

Yang Qi grabbed the future warrior's arm. "So, a real fighter, huh? Well, go fight to your heart's content in hell!"

RUMBLE!

Boundless power swept out of Yang Qi and into the future warrior, who rapidly inflated like a balloon until he exploded into a rain of blood and gore. A scream echoed out, and the blood and gore struggled to form back into a body, but before it could, the shadow projection of a hell appeared and gobbled it up. Not even General Samman could do anything to stop it from happening.

"How dare you kill one of my men in front of me!" General Samman said, taking a step forward and glaring viciously at Yang Qi. "Who exactly are you?"

"I'm the person you're looking for," Yang Qi replied. "Tell me where Proud Heaven is. Did he really go to the Primeval Age, or is he still attending to matters in the future? I know that you're in the top military council, so before I kill you I want you to tell me everything you know."

"Are you telling me you're Yang Qi?" General Samman said, a grim, mysterious smile appearing on his face. "Magister Proud Heaven's son? In that case, we can forget about how you just killed that warrior of mine. Magister Proud Heaven wants me to bring you back so that you can eventually accept the legacy of the future world. What do you think? Are you really going to refuse an offer as incredible as that?"

"That's a pack of lies," Yang Qi replied, clasping his hands behind his back. "Even if Proud Heaven came here in person and made that offer, I wouldn't fall for it. Much less when it comes from you." With his divine will, Yang Qi could sense the photonic computers around him thrumming, trying to suppress the power of the spacecraft fragment he possessed. The vivicreation systems really were quite powerful.

Thankfully, Yang Qi hadn't been too aggressive moments ago. The future warrior had approached and attacked him with deadly intent, and he had defended himself. Otherwise, it was hard to say what a fully charged fragment of the Cruiser of Civilization would have done.

Furthermore, Yang Qi was getting the sense that there was more to this General Samman than he had assumed. Although he was about as strong as an eighth division Buddha God, there was a power and will within him that Yang Qi could tell was very dangerous. Although he hadn't unleashed it, it was definitely there, waiting. For some reason Yang Qi felt like Samman was actually toying with him.

"I'm going to destroy the future world," Yang Qi continued. "Personally. Don't babble some crap about me not being able to do it. You're not a match for me, Samman. So hand over the things I want. Also, I want information about my mother, my Aunt Susu, and my Master. Where are they? Tell me, or suffer a dismal fate."

"So that's what you want," General Samman said. "Young Master Yang Qi, you really should change your surname to Proud. You are Magister Proud Heaven's son, after all. Although he actually has many sons—probably a few trillion—you're definitely in the top three thousand in terms of importance. Magister Proud Heaven gave me explicit orders to find you and bring you and your God Legion Seal back to the future world. I can't just abandon my mission. So what do we do now?"

"So you really do want to die, eh?" Yang Qi replied. He sighed. "And here I thought you were some sort of genius. Instead, you're nothing but a rude idiot. Did you really think I wouldn't notice you'd been blessed and conferred with power by some top expert? It will take only a moment for you to unleash power to defy a demigod! Sadly for you, that won't be enough to deal with me."

In that moment when General Samman realized that Yang Qi could see inside of him to his most deeply-kept secret, he realized that this was an opponent he couldn't take lightly. He was vastly stronger than he had previously assumed.

"Photonic computers, activate!" he shouted. "Slice and segment the infinite universes. Stack them and combine! Die!"

In the blink of an eye, heaven-rending, earth-crushing power surged out as numerous beams of light formed a host of parallel universes and space-time hyperdimensions. Then the hyperdimensions combined and the main bridge vanished, leaving behind a sprawling plane of existence filled with dense mist.

As the mist swirled around Yang Qi, he suddenly felt like he was spinning. Reaching out, he grabbed a strand of mist, which caused him to feel vaguely intoxicated.

Yang Qi's own fragment of the Cruiser of Civilization quickly analyzed it.

[God-Intoxicating Vapor. High-level science and technology, designed to pierce through spatial dimensions and intoxicate the enemy. Powerful enough to intoxicate even Chaos Gods.]

Roar!

An enormous morphling appeared that looked like a tiger, but was as large as an elephant, with leathery black wings that seemed like an evolved version of Yang Qi's old Fiend-Devil Wings. The morphling opened its mouth and roared, sending out a bevy of power spheres in an attack.

Yang Qi killed the thing with a single blow. However, looking out into the God-Intoxicating Vapor, he saw even more morphlings, too many to count. They were organized into teams as they rushed toward him in attack. Some of them were even in formation.

"You're attacking me with a sea of beasts? That's fine. If you want to play it this way, I guess I'll call my fiend-devils out. When I became a Tempered God, my ability to summon hell-born fiend-devils improved. I can now summon sixth division Revisionist Gods. But first, let me deal with this annoying mist. Otherwise my fiend-devils are going to get massacred."

Looking around, Yang Qi inhaled deeply.

RIIIIP!

The mist flowed into him, along with some of the morphlings, until the area was much clearer.

Then rumbling sounds echoed out as seemingly endless Hell Portals appeared. From the look of it, there were probably about ten thousand of them. Armies began pouring out, seemingly as numerous as the eternal sands of the sea, bursting forth from all sorts of hells.

There were asuras, infernals, bleachbone fiend-devils, bronzeblaze fiend-devils, giant nagas, freshblood paleo-devils, stone devils, steel fiend-devils, and more. They swept out of the portals and immediately unleashed carnage on the morphlings.

Yang Qi stood by and watched, using the Eternal Heavenly Aria to bless his troops. Of course, in the end, the forces of hell were virtually without limit. Even if you took the population of all the immortal worlds and multiplied it many times over, it would only be equivalent to one one-billionth of the forces in hell. That was one of the reasons why the forces of hell could resist the legion of gods.

Rumor had it that the vivicreation systems of the Cruiser of Civilization could produce endless waves of morphlings. One powerful battle tactic was to create waves of beasts to overwhelm the enemy. Unfortunately, compared to the forces of hell, the "sea" of beasts was pathetically small.

Even if it were the ancient Lord of Civilization who had encountered the armies of hell, he would have fled.

Only the Sovereign Lord and his armies of angels could possibly directly contend with the forces of hell.

"Hell Portals?" General Samman murmured. He'd shifted the main bridge to another location and was now in hiding, hoping that Yang Qi would be overwhelmed by the sea of beasts.

But now he saw a host of Hell Portals, and the armies of hell rushing out to devastate his morphlings. Instead of his enemy slowly starting to run out of energy, it was his own fragment of the Cruiser of Civilization that was starting to suffer.

1. To kill a general surrounded by ten thousand troops is a saying that comes from a story in .