Sage Monarch

Yang Qi was exasperated, but helpless to do anything about it.

Star Swordlife was now an Inheritor of the Great Necropolis, which changed everything. Even without that status, his cultivation base had been extraordinary, and his cultivation of the sword would have eventually led him to stupendous heights.

Now that he was an Inheritor, though, everything was different.

Yang Qi was actually inclined to try acquiring him as a subordinate. After all, his dao of the sword was extremely powerful, and would only continue to grow stronger. However, he knew it would be very difficult to recruit him. Star Swordlife embraced a philosophy of peace, and would interfere whenever he saw someone about to kill another person.

The Sage Monarch Society controlled an entire immortal world, but considering the day and age, it was only a matter of time before it would be forced to get involved in bloodshed and fighting. So it obviously wasn't a suitable place for Star Swordlife.

In any case, Star Swordlife couldn't have shown up at a worse time. He came to pay a formal visit to the Profound Killing Dao Sect right when Yang Qi was about to kill Profound Valor. Obviously, that meant the two of them were now enemies.

And Yang Qi never showed mercy to enemies.

Unfortunately, Star Swordlife was fantastically skilled with the sword, which he only used to save people, instead of harm them. The mighty will of that kind of sword technique was deeply connected to the life force that existed in heaven and earth, making it exceedingly powerful.

Life force existed in all the nooks and crannies of the universe, even within the dust itself. And the power of life could suppress the power of death, otherwise nothing would exist in heaven and earth. Heaven and earth only existed because of life force. Truth be told, the universe was fundamentally like a living being, as were immortal worlds, and even vital energy.

Existence was predicated on life.

The rain of sword light continued toward Yang Qi, filled with the energy of life. When one fused with the life force that existed within all heaven and earth, it created a virtually unstoppable natural force. After all, upon being born, living beings would breathe in and out, which was one reason why life force proliferated endlessly. How could something like that be blotted out?

The sword was fundamentally a tool for killing, yet in this case it had become an instrument of life.

Star Swordlife's sword was the antithesis of King Life-Killer's sword, which was lifeless and destructionless.

In fact, Yang Qi quickly drew on King Life-Killer's sword technique, causing another rain of swords to appear, the kind that could bring nirvanic extermination to all living things, and summon that which was lifeless and destructionless from the void, neither touching nor stirring the chains of cause and effect.

"Stand on the Bridge of Futility and forget the past; be consigned to eternal tribulation that defies reincarnation; arrive at pāramitā lifeless and destructionless; what joy be in life, what suffering in death?"

That was the ultimate meaning of King Life-Killer's dao of the sword.

Being put up against Star Swordlife's technique, King Life-Killer's sword erupted with power. It was almost as if the will of the sword itself had been awakened, conforming to the old saying: seeing others hunting, one is excited by memories of the thrill of the hunt.

According to King Life-Killer, there was no true joy to be had in life, nor was there true suffering to be found in death. Lifeless and destructionless. A void lacking even the void, completely annulled and without form.

This dao of the sword was what the ancient King Life-Killer had used to push his cultivation to the Unbounded level, and begin gaining enlightenment of the Annulled level.

When it came to the sword, King Life-Killer's techniques reigned supreme among the seventy-two monarchs. Not even King Immortal-Slayer or King Heaven-Devourer would serve as assisting forces. When the boundless secrets of the joy of life and the suffering of death were unleashed, they were unparalleled under heaven.

When the two sword techniques met, Yang Qi himself was like a sword, cleverly redirecting the two streams of sword rain to land on the shell of the Great Necropolis that was protecting Profound Valor.

BOOM!

The shell exploded, and Profound Valor was caught up in the combined effects of both Star Swordlife and Yang Qi's techniques. Countless streams of sword energy stabbed into him, filling him with intense pain.

He had become the battlefield within which the two powerful sword techniques clashed!

"Aaaiiiieee!" he screamed, drawing on the seed of power within his sea of energy in an attempt to defend himself.

RIP!

The godpower seed appeared on his forehead. It was like a fledgling version of the Great Necropolis, powerful and tough to the extreme. As he poured his quintessence-blood into it, the true energy inside of him became rock hard, and the color of the Great Necropolis itself. As a result, the two sword techniques were forcibly ejected from within him.

Yang Qi knew he had to take advantage of the moment, so he unleashed another palm strike, slapping Profound Valor as hard as possible with the Hand of the One God, hoping to rip him to shreds.

'Not good!' Star Swordlife thought. Sending out a stream of powerful sword energy, he said, "From Within the Dao of Life, Slash of Nature! Save and Redeem!"

Sword energy filled with life force poured into Profound Valor's meridians and instantly healed him. Meanwhile, Star Swordlife turned to Yang Qi and said, "So, we meet again. Your cultivation base has increased quite a bit. Please refrain from trying to kill people in my presence. Last time, you killed Cipher Rite-Heaven, and now you're trying to kill Profound Valor? There's simply no way I'll let you do that."

The sword energy pouring into Profound Valor was none other than Star Swordlife's animadestiny quintessence vitality, and Yang Qi could see that it was rapidly healing Profound Valor and restoring his power as well. Obviously, it would be impossible to kill him once he recovered.

"Do you realize what you're doing, Star Swordlife?" he said angrily. "Profound Valor is an Inheritor, just like you. Eventually, the two of you will have to fight to the death, just like venomous insects tossed into a jar. Only the strongest will survive, yet you're saving him?"

"I don't know about any such matters. I only know that I will do everything possible to save his life. I'd do the same for you as well, if anyone tried to kill you."

"Like hell you would," Yang Qi growled angrily. "Life and death are common occurrences in heaven and earth. With every breath of time that passes, countless people come into the world, and countless people leave it. What about all the other people who die? Why don't you save them? Furthermore, blood is falling from the sky like rain nowadays, with everybody fighting each other to the death. Why aren't you out there saving everyone else?"

"I'll do my best to save everyone possible, but I obviously can't save everyone. Those who I encounter that need saving will be saved, as long as I can make it happen. And once my cultivation base is high enough, I'll see to it that there is no longer any such thing as killing." Star Swordlife was obviously firmly set in his ways, and would not be convinced or swayed by words. He had his faith, and it could not be toppled.

"What a lunatic," Yang Qi muttered, sending the two emissaries from the Immortal House of Supreme Preeminence to continue attacking Star Swordlife. Unfortunately, Star Swordlife's sword energy was so profound that it exuded from his every pore. No matter how the emissaries attacked him, the sword rain he could summon was too much for them.

As for the immortal-slaying clone, he drew on his energy arts to escape from the sword rain, then threw his head back and shouted at the top of his lungs. Winds screamed and everything trembled as power dripped from the godhood stars in the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart. Then, he clenched his hand into a fist and struck out with all his might.

Star Swordlife summoned another sword rain, but this time it was crushed by the clone's fist attack, which went on to grab Star Swordlife's head and crush it out of existence.

Star Swordlife shot backward, another head growing out of his shoulders. At the same time, he swept his sword out in front of him, summoning millions upon millions of raindrops to block Yang Qi and his immortal-slaying clone.

BOOM!

Yang Qi responded by unleashing a torrent of daoist techniques.

At the same time, the immortal-slaying clone drew deeply on the power of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart and the godhood stars, sending palm after palm out to vanquish all of the sword energy he encountered.

How could the godhood of the myriads of gods killed by King Immortal-Slayer possibly be blocked?

Yet, somehow, Star Swordlife managed to defend himself. Constant streams of sword energy shot out, preventing the immortal-slaying clone from advancing. Although his sword technique was not designed to kill or injure, it was still immensely tough and seemingly without fault.

Those who kill often end up being killed. It was an eternal truth. Star Swordlife wouldn't kill, but neither could he be killed.

Meanwhile, Profound Valor burst out laughing. "I bet you never would have guessed that someone would rescue me, did you, Yang Qi? And not only is he restoring my godpower seed, but he's helping me reach a higher level of enlightenment!"

Profound Valor could already tell that, thanks to Star Swordlife, his godpower was nearly back to normal. Some of that was thanks to Star Swordlife's life force, and some was his status as an Inheritor, which caused his true energy to be filled with the godpower of the Great Necropolis.

Right now, nobody knew how many Inheritors there were out there, but one thing was certain: if they wanted to truly advance their cultivation, they needed to kill the other Inheritors and take their godpower seeds. Only the one who survived to the very end would unlock the true secrets of the Great Necropolis

But here was Star Swordlife, freely handing over some of his Inheritor power to Profound Valor, which was not only healing him, but also advancing his cultivation. In fact, it seemed likely that he would soon be able to defeat Yang Qi with a single move. Soon, Yang Qi would have no choice but to flee.

Yang Qi knew that. However, he also knew that the more he pressed the attack, the more Star Swordlife would have to drain himself. And considering how crazy Star Swordlife was, it seemed likely that he would gladly give away his own life to keep to his ideals.

'Damn it all! Profound Valor is getting stronger and stronger. Am I really going to completely lose the fight here?' Raising his voice, he said, "Fine, Star Swordlife. If you want to fight dirty, then so be it. In fact, let's see who can fight dirtiest. If you want to risk your life to save people, then I'll risk my life to kill you!"

BOOM!

The God Legion Seal suddenly flew out of his forehead, causing everything to rumble as it shot forth and entered Profound Valor.

1. What I'm translating as the Bridge of Futility is sometimes called the Narakade Bridge, in which Narakade is a transliteration of the sanskrit word for "hell". In Chinese it is the Nai He Bridge, with "nai he" essentially being a word used to form rhetorical questions. Long story short, it could be the Bridge to Hell, but in the interests of avoiding "term crossover" (and considering it doesn't actually have the word for hell in it), I'm going with this slightly more flowery name.