Stealing The Heavens

An immortal tune rang out from within the great hall as soon as Wu Qi and Feng Hou were sent out of it. A moment later, a resplendent chariot rose into the sky, pulled by six flood dragons and attended by a host of men consisting thousands of ancient immortals and tens of thousands of deities, soaring ever higher as splendid rays and clouds came spilling out of it. Sitting in the chariot with a grim face, Xuanyuan had changed into his outfit of the emperor. A vast pressure gushed out from all over him, making no one could lay eyes on him. The entire Xuanyuan Peak trembled to his terrible aura.

A ring of golden light hung behind the back of the Yellow Emperor’s head, radiating a bright light that shone as far as tens of thousands of miles like a sun. Half of the sky was engulfed by the plumes of roiling purple mist that came pouring out of it. It was a magnificent sight that could not be described with words.

When the chariot was about hundreds of miles from the ground, fleets of chariots wreathed in purple clouds zoomed up from all directions, forming into four teams that flanked it from all four sides. Each of the teams consisted a hundred thousand chariots, and in each of the chariot there were two drivers, a deity captain, twelve deities, and thirty-six soldiers. It was a mighty army with over twenty million fearsome soldiers.

Wu Qi sucked in a breath. He could hardly relate the old man he had just met, the one who was clad in a linen cloth and wore a pair of boots woven of weeds, to this man he was looking at right now. ‘Attended by tens of millions of deities and illuminated the sky with the golden light of virtue… this is how the Sacred Emperor of the human race should look like,’ he thought. He had seen what it was looked like when the Sovereign of the Myriad Immortal Alliance and those Buddhas of the Buddhism League made their appearances—auspicious light and glorious clouds blotted the sky for hundreds of miles, but those could not compare to what he was witnessing now.

The fleet of chariots soared high up into the sky. Wu Qi could see through his keen eyes that all the various natural hazards in the high altitude melted away as the chariots made their way through them. Everything vanished, no matter it was the astral wind, the thunderclouds, the dark ices, or the deadly beams. Wherever the golden light shone, the layers of natural hazards that locked down the sky of Pangu Continent dissolved like how the snow melted away when someone poured hot water on it, and the natural energy turned as calm as a mill pond.

As he was staring at the departing fleet in a daze, Wu Qi felt a pull at his pant. He turned around, only to see Feng Hou glared up at him. “Wake up, lad! His Majesty is only traveling light this time,” the little old man said with a grin. “This is nothing comparing to the army who followed him in those years when he was fighting our foes. I bet you will have your soul scared out of your body if you ever have the chance to see all the hundreds of millions of deities charging hot at his heels.”

He jumped up and kicked Wu Qi in the shins. “Hurry up now, I need to teach you the Fiend Slaying Sword Formation,” he said, shaking his head and stroking his long, white beard, “and after that I will have a drink with my old immortal friends. Aye, since His Majesty has gone looking for Empress Wa, I can take this opportunity to rest a little. Hey, do you have quick wits? It’s going to take a long, long time for you to learn the formation if you are stupid.”

Wu Qi was not stupid, of course. His innate Chaotic Divine Soul was equal in essence to that of a Primordial expert, except that it was not as strong. All the same, his divine sense was much stronger than any peak-level Gold Immortals, as he had devoured many evil spirit and soul fragments. Therefore, he had quick wits, and basically everything he saw was immediately understood by him.

But not the Fiend Slaying Sword Formation. As the formation the Yellow Emperor had used to slay the people of Chiyou in ancient times, it was full of endless mysteries, and more complicated than the so-called celestial formation, which was constructed with the power of tens of thousands of the stars in the universe at the most. This formation used not only the power of the stars, but also took into consideration the changes of all the natural energies in the surroundings, the utilization of terrains, underground energy veins, and many other factors.

It was not a fixed sword formation. The more elements one used to construct it, the more powerful it would be. If one could merge the various Great Daos of the universe with it, the formation would have the mighty power to break the chaos and destroy one entire realm.

In other words, if you fused it with the power of the stars, it could unleash sword energies powerful enough to crush a planet; if you fused it with the energies of the earth, water, fire, and wind, it could produce the true forms of the Four Sacred Beasts ¹ using the power of the Four Quadrants; if you fused it with the law of time and space, you could shatter the void at will, if you fused it with underground energy veins and terrains, you could change the landscape as you please.

In addition to these Natural Heavenly Daos, humans, deities, immortals, ghosts, and other living beings could be used as part of the sword formation, giving it all kinds of strange powers.

And the foundation of such a massive and complicate sword formation was the 108 Kunwu Swords. To be able to evolve virtually all the Great Daos of the universe with only the swords, this formation was far more complex than Wu Qi had anticipated. Under Feng Hou’s teaching, even with his powerful divine sense, it had taken him seven days and seven nights to memorize just the fundamental diagrams of the formation.

He could only memorize them, and was unable to conduct any further study. A sea of profound knowledge filled his divine soul. He felt as if he were a fat man who had devoured too much food, with a dark veil fluttering before his eyes and beads of sweat breaking out all over his body. His divine soul was so congested that he almost forget his own name. It was a frightful formation that could not be constructed smoothly before reaching the realm of the Primordial, an all-inclusive formation that combined virtually all the essences of formations in the world.

By comparison, the essences of formation Wu Qi learned from the Scroll of Stealing was the tree roots, while the Fiend Slaying Sword Formation was a great tree that grew from the roots, a tree that encompassed almost all the variations of formation. As long as he could fully master it, no formation constructed by any of the almighty experts of the present time could be a challenge to him anymore.

Streams of green light swirled and circled about in the square in front of Xuanyuan Palace. Following Wu Qi’s will, 108 Kunwu Swords were drawing energies of five elements to construct a formation, the most basic one. The swords could not be controlled with the magic power of the immortal. If any immortal dared to do that, the swords would kill him or her instantly. Only those who had cultivated the human race’s mystic arts could control Kunwu Swords with their own divine will or Pangu Sacred Energy.

Purple mists were rising from all over him. Like the tentacles of an octopus, plumes of purple mists stretched out from inside of his body, each grabbed hold of a Kunwu Sword to draw out one curtain of light after another around him with the energies of the five elements. Gradually, the true forms of the five elements began to take shape; numerous shadows of knives and swords, large patches of dense green trees, lofty mountains, surging lava, billowing oceans gushed out of the air with the howling of the wind and the rumble of thunder.

Each of the Kunwu Swords was as light as a goose feather, and its blade was completely transparent as if forged of crystal; all of its curves was in-line with the Great Dao of the Heaven and Earth, its length corresponded to the 360 degrees of the universe, and its width the 24 solar terms. Under Wu Qi’s control, they streaked through the air, leaving behind faint green trails of light, each of which looked like the trace of a Great Dao, giving off a mysterious yet beautiful temptation.

But, only Wu Qi, who was controlling them, knew how heavy these seemingly weightless swords had become, after he injected Pangu Sacred Energy into them. The more energy was injected, the heavier they became. With his current cultivation base, each of the Kunwu Swords he controlled weighed billions of tons, several times the weight of an ordinary planet in outer heavenly realms.

They were such amazing swords that just their weight alone was enough to crush the enemy to shreds, without the need of sharp edges. Wu Qi could not help but feel sad for the people of Chiyou who were slain by Kunwu Swords in those years. He wondered how heavy were the swords, when they were being controlled by Xuanyuan? ‘Those Chiyous must have been in a lot of pain when they were struck by these swords,’ he thought.

Bringing with them the energies of the five elements, Kunwu Swords wheeled back and forth around Wu Qi, like the fishes swimming in a clear stream. Gradually, they triggered the power of the Heaven and Earth, causing wave after wave of sword intents to sweep out in all directions. Extremely sharp and filled with heavy, suffocating pressure, they forced Feng Hou and several ancient immortals, who were watching Wu Qi practicing the sword formation in the square, to back off.

Feng Hou, who had taught Wu Qi the formation for days, squatted on the head of a green tiger and watched with a smile as Wu Qi practiced it, from rusty to skilled. He nodded lightly and whispered to the few ancient immortals beside him, “His Majesty is really good at identifying talented people. None of the boys here has the talent to inherit His Majesty’s Dao of Military Formation, but this lad is not bad, he really can master it.”

The few ancient immortals nodded and smiled. They glanced at Wu Qi, then sighed at the same time as they turned to look at a group of deity captains flaunting and comparing their muscles with each other at the edge of the square. Apart from these violence deities, there were other talented people serving Xuanyuan, who were clever and more promising. Prince Chang Qin was one of them. However, these people were not interested in the Dao of Military Formation. Who would have thought that in the end, it was Wu Qi, a lad from the outside world, inherited this Fiend Slaying Sword Formation?

One day, after immersing himself in the learning of the sword formation for half a month, Wu Qi finally took a deep breath and sucked all the purple mists around him back into his body. Kunwu Swords, who had been circling him like fishes also flew into him, hiding in the meridian nodes all over him so they could be nourished with his blood essence, while breathed in natural energy and returned him extremely pure energy that was constantly strengthening his fleshly body and divine soul.

Kunwu Swords were more than just a tool for killing. Wu Qi, who had kept them in his body, immediately felt the benefits they brought him. Even the Pangu Sacred Energy in him was cleansed by the swords and became purer.

Feng Hou jumped off the green tiger’s head. He came up to Wu Qi with small steps and said with a smile, “I’ve taught you all you should know about this sword formation. As for how to actually use it, it depends on your own ability! Aye, there’s nothing for you to do here now. Hurry up and do what you are tasked to do!”

The few ancient immortals nearby had already brought out a table and several wooden stools with smiles, and filled the table with wine jars and dishes, waiting for Feng Hou to join them. The little old man kept turning his head to look at them as he talked to Wu Qi. Obviously, his mind was not on Wu Qi at all.

Wu Qi shook his numb head, blinked his dry eyelids, and bowed respectfully to Feng Hou. “Thank you very much for the teaching.”

Feng Hou waved a hand impatiently. “Go, go, go, don’t waste my time anymore. Just remember what His Majesty wants you to do and don’t screw it up.” After saying that, he sucked in the saliva that nearly dripped down from the corner of his mouth as his little eyes fixed on the wine jars the few ancient immortals had taken out.

Wu Qi smiled. After bowing to Feng Hou again, he left Xuanyuan Peak, accompanied by a few Chiyous.

While his divine soul was still filled with the endless mysteries of the sword formation, his heart was filled with joy.

He had received a lot of things on this trip to Xuanyuan Peak. What did the Yellow Emperor meant by giving him the Kunwu Swords and teaching him the Fiend Slaying Sword Formation? Wu Qi could not help but feel a little smug. ‘I reckon not many people in Great Yu’s court are treated like this, right?’

Filled with joy, Wu Qi left Xuanyuan Peak and headed for Dong Hai Province with his divine ability.