Stealing The Heavens

The Thunder Tribulation of Primordial, the most feared of all tribulations. Once upon a time, a peak-level Gold Immortal had made the breakthrough after years of laborious cultivation, but because he did not have a good treasure to deal with the thunder tribulation, the unlucky fellow was killed in both soul and body, and even the planet he was dwelling in seclusion and all his disciples were smashed to pieces.

Catfish had been fond of fresh flesh since she was very young, and had devoured heaven knows how many mountain spirits and water demons in Meng Mountains. Occasionally, there were cultivators accidentally intruded into her territory, and she never spared them either. As a result, she was surrounded by an extremely heavy evil karma, and even entangled with the fire of retribution. If it had not been for Wu Qi washing away her sin with virtues, it was almost impossible for her to step into the realm of Primordial in this lifetime.

Even with her root cleansed by the virtues, the golden halo floating behind her head that showed she had transformed from an evil being to a respectful figure, but as her sin in the past was too serious, the thunder tribulation she was about to face did not weaken. Judging from its appearance and power, it was clearly the most terrifying thunder tribulation—the Yin and Yang Thunder Tribulation. It strikes only once, but the power was equivalent to a full force attack of a sixth-tier Primordial expert. If she could endure it, she would step into the realm of Primordial, otherwise, she would perish in both body and soul.

Luckily, Wu Qi was here. When he was only a Gold Core cultivator, he had been able to steal the power of thunder tribulation to temper his flesh and soul. Now, as he had become a Primordial expert and learned the Myriad Harmonization Grand Magic, a tribulation of this level was nothing but a piece of cake for him. As soon as it began to gather, a plume of hazy smoke burst out from the top of his head.

Arranged in a Formation of Nine Halls, nine souls of Taotie opened their mouths and began to suck at the gathering purple-and-red tribulation cloud in the sky. Bolts of lightning were devoured by them, one after another, and then sent into Wu Qi’s body. The energy contained in a tribulation like this was the purest and strongest in the world; behind its extreme power of annihilation was a boundless life force, which gave it the name of Yin and Yang. It was a dream for all the supreme Primordial experts to obtain even just a little bit of such energy to temper their flesh.

It was a pity that such a tribulation only appeared when a Gold Immortal committed all kinds of evil was breaking through the realm of Primordial, and as it was so powerful, even a first-tier Primordial expert, such as Amitabha, dared not to absorb it when someone was transcending it. It was no different than looking for death.

But Wu Qi was different. Even before the thunder tribulation was formed, he had begun to steal its power. No matter how fast it gathered, it was no match for his speed. As a result, although purple-and-red clouds kept appearing directly in the void, the tribulation could not take its final shape. At best it just stayed around a thousand feet in circumference.

He absorbed the power of tribulation as much as he could, while his chaotic energy carried the thunder power and circulated rapidly through his meridians. Under the extreme power of annihilation, his internal organs, flesh, and bones crumbled and broke apart, but then restored completely in the blink of an eye under the boundless life force. As the integral parts of his body were swinging between the states of life and death rapidly, his flesh gradually became tougher. It was as if a smith was hammering him a thousand times in a flash, making his body much stronger than before.

This continued for a day and a night, during when Catfish’s body was transforming rapidly and the thunder tribulation in the sky never took shape. After twenty-four hours, the thunder clouds that kept rushing over finally exhausted the last bit of energy, all sucked into Wu Qi’s body. He threw his head back and roared with laughter, then thrust his palm out and sent a thread of the thunder tribulation’s power into Catfish’s body. “Cat, if you still don’t take your final form, you are going to miss the delicious King Bai Shan!”

A strange long roar, sounded like that of the dragon but a little hoarser, high-pitch and filled with an immense lust for food, rang out from the purple-and-golden light that shrouded Catfish. Ao Buzun and others bore the brunt of the roar and were throw flying away. Then, the bright light faded and vanished. Catfish, who had succeeded in stripping her fish form and obtained her body of the True Dragon with the help of the thunder tribulation’s power, strode out.

Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le studied her from head to toe, and the princess even touched her head curiously.

She was about four feet tall, and looked like a girl of eleven or twelve; the complexion of her silky smooth face was slightly dark, apparently due to her natural dark skin tone when she was a fish. Nonetheless, she had very beautiful facial features. Over her slender and petite body she wore a short armor transformed from a dragon skin fallen off when she took her human form. Her arms and lower legs were exposed. They looked skinny like that of an undernourished girl, as if the first strong wind would break them into a few segments.

And yet, a girl so tiny and skinny was dragging an extra large hammer with both hands, which Wu Qi had specially crafted for her.

Just its shaft alone was thirty-six feet long and as thick as a man’s head. The hammerhead was one whole square metal ingot, six feet long, thirty feet wide and tall. As black as pitch with no decoration or carving on its surface, the hammerhead was in fact, a chunk of Dark Nether Silver Iron Essence Wu Qi took from a neutron star in some outer heavenly realm. Like Yuan Qing’s staff, it was embedded with countless weight-reducing runes arrays, which had barely reduced its weight to about 108,000 kilograms. However, once it was struck on an enemy, the arrays would disappear instantly and replace by weight-increasing runes, making it weight as much as a star.

The power of such a heavy hammer combined with Catfish’s terrible physical strength was astonishing. With his cultivation base of a Primordial expert and his incredibly tough fleshly body, Wu Qi would not want to be struck by it even just once. That showed how much damage could this hammer cause.

Ao Buzun laughed in a funny manner and said, “Aye, how come you are so tiny in your human form? You can even fill the slit between my teeth!”

When she heard that, Catfish rolled her eyes and prepared to give him a taste of her hammer. But Wu Qi hurriedly caught her on the neck, picked her up and threw her into the thundercloud Lei Meng had produced. “Save your breath. Ao Buzun, you and others will guard at the outside and destroy that Ten Traps Formation for me. Zi Xuan, come with me. It’s time to bid farewell to that old fogy King Bai Shan!”

Catfish gave a loud cry as she was being thrown into the thundercloud by Wu Qi. After that, the couple strode into it as well.

Amid the boundless field of lightning, Lei Meng was hard-pressed by King Bai Shan and the two Supreme Oracles. The King was chasing after him, attacking him with a pair of short-handled hammers crafted of purple-gold which emanated a gust of cold air whenever they were swung. Down below, the two Supreme Oracles were dancing and reciting some spell in front of the nine bone altars, causing the shadows attached to Lei Meng, who transformed from the twenty-seven human skins, to howl and roar wildly. These shadows did not have a fixed shape, but rolled and crept across his body like fluid, while ripping and tearing at him every now and then.

It was clear that Lei Meng was affected by these shadows. His speed had slowed down and his strength weakened. Occasionally, when he thrust his trident at King Bai Shan, he always missed by a hair due to them. He wanted to summon the lightning in the surroundings to produce electric whips and counterattack, but he failed every time. Under the constant distraction of the two Supreme Oracles, it seemed that he was having a problem with the control of his own power. Plasma was spewing out from all over him, and his energy was being constantly drawn away by the shadows that clung to him.

“Blood Soul and Fiend Corpse Curse!” Princess Zhang Le cried out in shock as soon as she saw those shadows. “They sure are cruel, casting this curse with the lives of twenty-seven experts. I’m sure they wanted to use this on us!”

Wu Qi was quick. He had only pointed out a finger, and six Blood Centipede Swords immediately pierced whistling through the air toward the two dancing Supreme Oracles. Even then, the princess clapped her hands, and at the gesture her silver lotus flower, whose color had changed completely to the five colors of her divine ray, spun out and transformed into a mass of air. It drifted across the void, stopped over Lei Meng’s head, and emanated beams of colorful light to protect him. The shadows shrieked and screamed as soon as they were touched by the light, and they struggled desperately, trying to squeeze into Lei Meng’s body.

Both Supreme Oracles gave a shrill whistle at the same time. Plumes of dark smoke rose from inside of their bodies, in which came rushing out dozens of ghostly shadows, who flew up to meet Blood Centipede Swords with all sorts of strange weapons in their hands. These shadows existed in a form that was between corporeal and incorporeal; they seemed to have physical forms but at the same time, they looked like illusions composed of light and shadow. When the swords swept through them, none were hurt.

Wu Qi was surprised. These ghostly shadows did not seem easy to deal with.

While the couple was dealing with the Supreme Oracles, Catfish, on the other side, was rushing toward King Bai Shan excitedly with the massive hammer in hands. “Hey, you, the old man with the hammers! My brother Wu Qi told me that if I can kill you, I can eat you! So, you better don’t run and let me strike a thousand times!”

She was not boasting, but truly struck her hammer a thousand times at King Bai Shan.

As he was busy chasing after Lei Meng, King Bai Shan was caught unprepared, and all he could do was raised his hammers up to block the shadow approached from above. Even then, he looked up in a hurry, trying to figure out who or what was attacking him. When he saw Catfish’s shockingly huge hammer, he could not help but cry out in a hoarse voice, “What the hell is this?!”

A loud rumble rang out as both short-handled hammers burst with bright sparks and then twisted into two jumbles of scrap metal. At the very moment the weapons collided, Catfish’s hammer sent forth a dreadful force that was as heavy as a giant planet. Even though King Bai Shan’s hammers were excellent in quality, it was dwarfed by the mighty weapon crafted by Wu Qi. Catfish roared with laughter as she struck her hammer down over and over again.

In just a brief moment, she had already struck a thousand times. The attacks came so fast and sudden that King Bai Shan did not even have time to dodge. A plume of purple mist gushed out of him, as he had no other choice but to resist Catfish’s hammer with his own flesh.

The first three hundred strikes, bright sparks flew out from the top of his head as he resisted the hammer without taking even a step back.

The subsequent three hundred strikes, flames began to pour out from his seven orifices as he struck back at the hammer with both fists. He did not show signs of defeat.

When he took another three hundred strikes, he coughed up a mouthful of blood, and since then he did not stop coughing. All the blood was mixed with tiny chunks of his internal organs.

And when the last strike of the one thousand smashed whistling down, King Bai Shan could no longer withstand the terrifying force. His head exploded with a boom.

Catfish roared with laughter. She pulled over King Bai Shan’s headless body, opened her little mouth and swallowed it.

Just like that, one of Great Yu’s imperial Kings, King Bai Shan, was devoured by Catfish.