Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)
chapter-718

The fight between Young Master Leaf, whose name was Leaf Dao-Denier, and the six Warriors of the Great Dance, had reached a fever pitch.

Leaf Dao-Denier had lost patience and was unleashing his most powerful attack, Monarch of Myriad Monarchs. As the attack rumbled out, the power of monarchs shot out from the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart and filled the entire battlefield.

As the power of the deadly move converged, it turned into a glowing ball of energy that slammed into God Dancer. God Dancer collapsed, and Void Dancer, along with the other five Warriors of the Great Dance, all tumbled out with expressions of profound shock on their face as they turned to look at Young Master Leaf.

Striding toward them, Leaf Dao-Denier said, “I wanted to work with you people to uncover some of the secrets of the Dragonfolk elders. But instead you joined the Mechfolk to oppose me? And you thought I would just let that slide?”

“Back in formation!” Void Dancer shouted, alarm flickering across his face. Unfortunately, before they could, Leaf Dao-Denier flicked his hands out and caused a host of chains to pop into being, which slammed down onto them.

Clenching his hand into a fist, he said, “First, I’ll dig your hearts out of your chests. From what I've heard, all of you people from the future have your hearts replaced with reactors to ensure you have constant sources of power. And of course, without them, you’ll die.”

Leaf Dao-Denier’s hand shot toward the six Warriors of the Great Dance with such speed and ferocity that it seemed impossible to evade. All they could do was watch as death approached.

“Six Dances Reincarnation; Six Glowing God Planets; Link to the Future!”

In that moment of crisis, the six warriors finally drew on the deadly power of the future world, causing them to suddenly melt.

“Bodily Destruction; Space-Time Rebirth; Mutual Destruction; Shared Extirpation!”

Bam!

Void Dancer was the first of the group to transform into a power double. It was a nirvanic rebirth in which the physical body burst into flames then became an enormous planet.

All six of the Warriors of the Great Dance became planets, which settled into a spell formation that opened a wormhole linking directly to the future world. All of a sudden, an indescribably powerful godpower appeared that shot forth and slammed into Young Master Leaf.

“A summoning ability? You’re calling power from the future world? You scum! I'm going to slaughter my way to the future world and force everyone there to grovel beneath my feet!”

Young Master Leaf didn’t seem worried at all about the power they were summoning. Drawing on King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions, he said, “The Immortal-Slaying King, Great Monarch Conqueror; Second Stance: Myriad Worlds, Myriad Monarchs!”

RUUUUUUMBLE!

A myriad of worlds popped into being around him, within each of which was a monarch. They flew forward and met the summoned godpower of the six Warriors of the Great Dance. Apparently, Young Master Leaf’s madness infuriated the godpower from the future. All of a sudden, the trumpeting of a megamammoth erupted from the wormhole and the image of millions upon millions of hells appeared above Young Master Leaf.

Crunch!

Young Master Leaf’s move of Myriad Worlds, Myriad Monarchs was crushed out of existence.

In the blink of an eye, Young Master Leaf was smashed into a bloody pulp. After screaming in agony, he let out a furious roar.

“What energy art is that? Is that really something from the future world?” A tremor passed through Yang Qi as he wondered if he could trust his own ears. He was convinced that, along with the appearance of the sand-like mass of hells, he had heard the trumpet of a megamammoth. In fact, he was absolutely certain that it came from the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth.

There could only be one explanation; this attack originated from whatever almighty entity of the future that possessed the God Legion Seal. That person had released some of the power of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, and that tiny fraction completely surpassed anything Yang Qi was capable of.

However, after crushing Young Master Leaf into a mass of gore, the connection to the future world faded away.

Suddenly, the weakened voice of Void Dancer could be heard. “It took all of our power to summon just a tiny fluctuation of the great leader’s power. Now that Young Master Leaf is injured, let’s make our escape!”

“No, we need to take advantage of the moment to kill him!”

“This is impossible! He’s not dead? Incredible. The great leader struck him from the future, but he survived?”

“Let’s go!”

“This Young Master Leaf is too terrifying! Summoning that scrap of power completely drained us. We definitely aren’t strong enough to fight now. We have to flee!”

The six planets turned and began flying off into the distance.

All of a sudden, Yang Qi burst out into the open.

“Running away!? You Warriors of the Great Dance have terrifying fighting prowess, and I can’t possibly let that go to waste! I'm going to transform you into dharmic guard puppets! This is perfect! If you’ve really run out of energy, I’ll just fill you back up!” He had been waiting for the moment to make his move, and now he reached out, grabbed the six planets, and pulled them into the Cruiser of Civilization, where he sealed them tight.

Then the enormous main cannon of the cruiser opened up.

[Power reserves emptied. Cannon of Civilization primed. Primary attack charge prepared… secondary attack charge prepared… fire!]

BOOOOOOOM!

Yang Qi was drawing on the most powerful attack possible. Right now, his cultivation base was insufficient to strike a fatal blow on his own. He wasn’t a Godmyth, so even his best personal effort couldn't possibly match up to Leaf Dao-Denier.

But the Cannon of Civilization could. Powering it up to the greatest degree possible, he unleashed a point-blank blast at Leaf Dao-Denier.

“AGGGHHHHHHH! What’s the level of your cultivation base!? You damaged my essence! That’s a lordly energy art!? Dammit!” Young Master Leaf had just been reduced to a bloody paste by an attack from a future world-version of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, then struck by a blow from Yang Qi that might as well have been an attack by the legion of gods.

“That's the power of the God Legion Seal! It vanquished the true energy of my legacy medallions! The future world is truly terrifying! Fine, I’ll go recover and come back later to take that God Legion Seal. Time to restore my Fortuned One body: Monarch Rebirth Magic; Good Fortune Energy!”

The godpower of good fortune suddenly rushed out of nowhere, and the pile of blood and gore turned back into Young Master Leaf.

However, as soon as he opened his eyes, he realized that he was looking right down the barrel of the Cannon of Civilization.

“No!” he shouted, and all of a sudden the power of his legacy medallions roared to life. “The Monarch Immortal-Slayer and the Seventy-Two Souls!”

This was the last move he had at his disposal, in which he summoned seventy-two souls from within the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart that spread around him in a defensive pattern. It happened just in time to meet the blast of the Cannon of Civilization.

Crack. Crunch.

The firepower slammed into the seventy-two souls, destroying them one by one until the three composite legacy medallions of King Immortal-Slayer appeared, which then collapsed into separate sections. One of the sections began speeding off in a random direction.

Delighted, Yang Qi reached out, grabbed the errant medallion, and immediately fused with it.

He now had four of King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions!

The power of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart coursed through him as he finally surpassed the level of three medallions.

Back when King Immortal-Slayer was destroyed, his legacy medallion split into nine parts, creating nine unique legacy medallions that were scattered in all directions. Originally, it was intended for three individuals to collect three each, then fight to the death to join them all together. But now Yang Qi had collected four, breaking the intended equilibrium.

“I didn't want four, though. I want five. Or six!”

Unsatisfied, Yang Qi prepared to press the attack.

However, the ancient souls were gone and Leaf Dao-Denier was nowhere to be seen. Left behind were two legacy medallions, floating there in space. Yang Qi reached out to grab them, but they exploded; they had been mere illusions.

In the moment that Leaf Dao-Denier lost one of the legacy medallions, he knew that he was in a losing position in the fight and had used a secret magic to make a quick getaway.

‘He’s really strong, that's for sure,’ Yang Qi thought, and couldn’t help but admire Leaf Dao-Denier a bit. Even after pulling out all the stops, he had still failed to kill him. He had fought with the Warriors of the Great Dance, suffered a blow from an almighty future world entity, and sustained direct blasts from the Cannon of Civilization. Despite all of that, he lived, and had only ended up losing a single legacy medallion.

It was a level of strength and power that Yang Qi knew he was far inferior to.

Obviously, there were more secrets to Leaf Dao-Denier than Yang Qi was aware of.

‘It's too bad I didn't get those two pieces of the Aeonic God Psalter from him. Otherwise I would have been able to improve my Aeonic Heaven-Dao Life-Destruction Zen Art, and maybe chase him down to get more of the legacy medallions. Well, at least he can’t get back into the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart, but I can. I have to figure out a way to kill him. If he recovers, he’ll be a mortal malady to me. Thankfully, he doesn’t know who I really am, and hopefully he still suspects the Mechfolk as the true culprits. Now to combine these legacy medallions.’

BUZZ!

The four legacy medallions clicked together and unleashed immense immortal-slaying power.

The immortal-slaying clone appeared and power poured into him, almost instantly causing tribulation clouds to appear above him. Lightning flashed, and the godpower of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth created five phases warriors and god-generals, who then assailed him.