Stealing The Heavens

After ordering Huang Liang and the others to remain where they were, Wu Qi flew out of the ship.

Once outside, he pulled a dark cloud over and wrapped it around his body, then began to slowly descend until he was about one mile above the ground, where his feet were almost touching the top of the mountains on either side of the valley entrance. However, just as he was approaching the peaks, his body swayed suddenly and he was nearly drawn toward them. The dark mountains around the valley, although not high, had a strange suction. Even with his current overall strength, Wu Qi almost made a fool of himself.

He gave a rough estimation of the strength of the suction force and concluded that there was no way those heavenly ghosts down below could pass safely through the mountaintops with their overall strength. If they dared to enter the valley from the top of the mountains, they would certainly be drawn to the mountain and lose their ability to move, probably even have their internal organs crushed by the incredible suction.

He then realized why the heavenly ghosts in the valley were only guarding the narrow passage which was less than a hundred feet wide, while those outside had only been shouting and making all kinds of threatening gestures at the other end of the passage, but none dared to take another route into the valley and attack from the back.

He carefully studied the two groups of heavenly ghosts. The group in the valley had softer body lines, and the bone spikes poking out on their backs were sharper and smoother like polished jade, which made them look strangely beautiful. In addition, their eyes gleamed with intelligence, and the way they guarded at the end of the passage in a neat formation appeared somewhat like the embryonic form of an army.

However, the group outside the valley had bodies like misshapen rocks that had just been mined from the mountains, with their muscles all twisted together in a strange way; their bone spikes were rough, with some seeming to have just broken off and not yet grown back. Their eyes were cloudy and filled with the savageness of wild beasts, and their mouths were dripping with water while generating deep, mean growls from time to time.

At the moment, these heavenly ghosts were running back and forth outside the narrow passage restlessly. They seemed eager to rush into the valley, but seemed to be afraid of something at the same time. Their messy ranks made them look like a pack of wild beasts, unlike those in the valley.

At last, after hesitating for a while, over a hundred heavenly ghosts threw their heads back and roared, then stormed into the passage that stretched for dozens of miles like a gust of wind. They ran at top speed, with some dashing across the steep rock walls perpendicular to the ground. Panting, mouths bubbling with water, and eyes shot with blood, the group headed straight toward those in the valley while letting out meaningless growls and roars.

As these heavenly ghosts had large bodies, only four or five of them could walk abreast even at the passage’s widest part, which was only about two hundred feet wide. It was even harder for them to keep their ranks when they were running at such a high speed. As a result, when they were in the middle of the passage, these intruders could only advance in single file, losing their aggressive momentum of charging in a group.

Deep roars were echoing out among the heavenly ghosts in the valley. As soon as the first enemy rushed out of the passage, a dozen of them immediately leaped forward at the same time, launching a fierce attack against the intruder like a well-trained team. Some thrust their sharp claws, some swung their powerful tails; a miserable shriek rang out as the intruder was ripped to pieces in almost no time. Then, the dozens of heavenly ghosts who struck quickly rolled off to the side uniformly whilst the trembling elders behind them puffed up their chests and opened their mouths to spew out plumes of green flames.

The flame was the heavenly ghosts’ natal ghost flame, the same one that had given Wu Qi and others a hard time in Ji City many years ago, a flame that was extremely filthy and destructive. Accompanied by the jarring howl of ghosts, numerous plumes of ghost flames, each about a hundred feet thick, poured into the passage and almost filled it completely; engulfing hundreds of heavenly ghosts at the same time. Although the flesh of these seemingly weak and old heavenly ghosts had begun to shrivel up, the natal flames stored in their bodies were actually many times stronger than their younger kind.

Hundreds of heavenly ghosts who made their way into the passage were now struggling amidst the towering flames, and not one of them was spared. Although the flames were produced by those who were of their kind, they were still lethal. It was not long before many of them were reduced to mere gores and bones. Apart from the dozens of heavenly ghosts in the back who managed to escape in a flurry with flames dancing all over their bodies, more than thirty of them at the forefront had been burned into a pool of pus.

As if a spark had fallen into a barrel of oil, the puddle of pus was quickly ignited, making the flames in the narrow passage burn more violently. Wu Qi was shocked to see that the rock walls on either side were intact even when they were being burned by such a fierce flame. It seemed the rock walls were not ordinary either, for not only they had such a strong suction, they could even resist the burning of the ghost flames.

For a moment, the heavenly ghosts outside the valley let out furious roars into the sky, all burning in a frenzy of rage. Then, they hastily leaped forward to help put out the ghost flames that enveloped their companions, who were scorched but managed to escape from death. When they were done, they returned to the mouth of the passage and began to growl and provoke wildly once again. But those in the valley were unmoved, and just maintained their positions.

After pondering for a moment, Wu Qi sent a voice transmission to Huang Liang.

Inside the ship, Huang Liang shouted orders to all the soldiers. Shortly after, tens of thousands of tiny windows opened on either side of the ship; soldiers stood behind them with crossbows in their hands, aiming at the thousands of heaven immortals who were howling and growling crazily several miles down below. The crossbows they used were a kind of standard weapon of mass destruction for Great Yu’s armies called the ‘Bone Piercing Crossbow’. This weapon could shoot thirty-six bolts at a time, which were made from the bones of the demon beast ‘Red Feather Birds’; and could fly incredibly fast, more than ten times faster than the sword beam of an ordinary Heaven Immortal.

The great speed, combined with numerous runes of penetration etched into the finely honed bolts, made the Bone Piercing Crossbow, as its name suggested, extremely penetrative. Even ordinary Heaven Immortals behind protective immortal artifacts would not be able to defend themselves against such bolts, let alone these heavenly ghosts.

At Huang Liang’s command, ten thousand Bone Piercing Crossbows were fired at the same time. 360,000 bone bolts, each as small as ten hairs combined and no longer than one foot and two inches long, left the crossbows silently and pierced through the distance of a few miles in just a flash, densely covering the area several miles wide down below.

The movement of thousands of heavenly ghosts came to a sudden halt, with tiny arrows of blood jetting thousands of feet up into the sky from all over their bodies. It looked as if a thick forest of flax had suddenly grown out of their place. Gradually, their bodies began to sway, and they slowly collapsed to the ground, which shook violently with dust and sand sent flying everywhere.

With a wave of his hand, Wu Qi rolled up all the bolts and put them into his sleeve. This was the first time he had witnessed ten thousand Bone Piercing Crossbows being fired at the same time, and his scalp went numb at lightning speed and terrifying penetration of the bolts. Although they were tiny, these bone bolts could easily penetrate more than three miles into the ground here in the ghost realm, which was at least dozens of times harder than steel. The destructive force was simply amazing!

And this was the result after the soldiers did not yet inject their energy into the crossbows they used. If a warrior with cultivation base above the First Pangu Heaven could fully activate the runes of penetration etched on the bolts by injecting the Pangu Sacred Energy in his body into the crossbow, the penetrative power of the bolts could be increased by more than a hundred times!

What a horrible tool of war! No wonder Great Yu was able to besiege Heaven Immortals with just ordinary soldiers.

After ordering Huang Liang and others to stand by in the sky and stay out of sight, Wu Qi patted Ao Buzun on the head. The latter took the hint and let out a deafening roar as he transformed into a black dragon that was a thousand feet long, with clouds and black smoke rocking violently beneath his four legs. His eyes shone with blinding golden lights, and the air rang with jarring whistles as his two dragon whiskers, each stretching for hundreds of feet long, twitched and ripped through the void.

What a vigorous and ferocious divine dragon!

Sitting astride on Ao Buzun’s body, Wu Qi slowly pushing through the clouds and descended toward the valley. He exercised the Dragon Kill and grew his body to about a hundred feet tall, with two dragon horns stretched out of his foreheads and dark dragon scales densely covering his entire body. A blood-red cloak was wrapped around his waist as he landed before those heavenly ghosts, his body shrouded in dancing black flames and a towering evil aura.

The hundreds of heavenly ghosts in the valley watched in horror as Wu Qi and Ao Buzun made their descent.

A ferocious dragon, a strange, evil and cruel-looking dragonman, coupled with the dragon python sisters, who had transformed into two 200-feet-long dragon pythons and were coiling around Wu Qi’s neck…His appearance looked almost identical to some legendary ancient evil god.

Wu Qi flicked his sleeve and pointed to the narrow passage.

A few heavenly ghosts exchanged a glance, then ran cautiously down the narrow passage and took a look outside the valley. Immediately, they saw the thousands of heavenly ghosts lying dead on the ground, their blood puddled into a small lake. The few heavenly ghosts came running back screaming in terror; scrambling up to an old heavenly ghost who had lost his tail, an arm, and a leg; and stammered a few words.

The old heavenly ghost was taken aback, then he raised his only arm and growled into the sky before kneeling down before Wu Qi with hundreds of heavenly ghosts.

As the old heavenly ghost kowtowed respectfully to Wu Qi, he said in a fluent human tongue, “It’s our honor to have the Exalted visiting here! Is there anything that we can do for the Exalted, if I may ask?”

Wu Qi shuddered at the old heavenly ghost’s fluency in the human language! How could this old heavenly ghost speak such a fluent human language? He even had a little accent of Pangu Continent!

“Are those outside the valley your enemies?” asked Wu Qi in a low voice.

To Wu Qi’s surprise, all the heavenly ghosts kneeling in front of him burst into tears at the same time as soon as he asked that question.