Stealing The Heavens

An invisible and incorporeal yet perceptible evil power swept across the entire great hall. Even with their cultivation bases of Dao Breaking experts, Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le were shuddered by it. It was a power very different from the various energies that pervaded Pangu World, full of death and evilness. In the memory of Wu Qi’s previous life, it existed only in some recognized lands of death in the Chaotic World.

How much evil would it take a creature to possess such power? Wu Qi finally understood why the forbidden clans were hunted down by the human race. They no longer had the least bit of human traits; they were utterly alien, not accepted by the Laws of the Heavenly Dao in this world.

The old man in the little fire mirror suspended over the bracelet, who looked like an old goat, let out an eerie laugh and said, “Aye? That didn’t kill you?”

Wu Qi gritted his teeth and stared at the mirror. ‘The South Emperor! I’ll remember what you did today!’ He would have rushed up to the Thirty-three Heavens and skinned the South Emperor alive if he did not know that the hidden power of Heaven was not something he could challenge right now. The tactics of these Celestial Emperors were too harsh. After this lesson, Wu Qi finally learned one thing—’never believe anything, not a word, from anyone in Heaven.’

Princess Zhang Le slowly raised her right hand and gently waved her two fingers at the mirror. Wisps of black smoke gushed out of her fingertips, outlining a delicate and exquisite pattern of a Rotting Heart Grass. After that, with a flick of her fingers, the dark grass burst into flames and dissolved into a tendril of black smoke, spraying onto the mirror.

The old man’s face in the mirror suddenly turned very cautious as he murmured a word in a low voice. A few fine, twisted strands of wool on his forehead floated into the air and were burnt to ashes, turning into a wisp of blue smoke that hovered in front of his forehead. In the next moment, a tendril of black smoke appeared out of nowhere and slammed into the wisp of blue smoke. Princess Zhang Le grunted as her forehead suddenly split with a tiny gash while the old man shrieked, and his whole body was thrown backward by an invisible great force. After tumbling and crawling for some time, the half a face of the old man reappeared in the mirror in a fit of rage.

“Very well! I’ll remember you!” He smiled grimly and said, “From today on, don’t close your eyes when you sleep. You will die! Little woman, your divine arts are very clever, very interesting! I’ll never forget you!”

Amidst the old man’s wild laughter, the fire mirror turned into a small flame and shot into the sky, vanishing in the blink of an eye. At the same time, the bracelet melted like an ice cube, and the storage space inside completely disintegrated, leaving Wu Qi with not even a single energy stone.

As the liquefied metal from the bracelet dripped to the ground, Wu Qi burst into laughter. “What a South Emperor! I’ll remember what you’ve done to me today, you just wait and see!” His eyes sparkled, and he bowed his head in calculations. There was a sudden blurring of his figure, as if his body had undergone an essential change in that instant and merged into the void.

In the blink of an eye, Wu Qi had used a great deal of mental and spiritual energy to calculate a lot of things with various divination techniques.

The Heaven Secret had been disturbed. It was as if an otherwise crystal clear stream had suddenly been trampled by thousands of buffalo, and so much mud and sand had been mixed into the water that it was filled with an infinite number of unpredictable factors. No one could clearly grasp the circulation of Heaven Secret now. But, with the miraculous power of Primal Purple Energy, Wu Qi managed to suppress a small piece of messy Heaven Secret, from which he obtained some interesting information.

“Return to Dong Hai and prepare for war!” After a slight pause, Wu Qi gritted his teeth and said, “Divide the army into small teams and order them to attack everywhere! We can’t let them get away with it!”

The sudden curse had caused Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le to lose a scapegoat puppet each, which meant that the old man was a formidable elder of the forbidden clans. From the aura he gave off, he was no longer a human; he had completely transformed himself into an alien.

This added to Wu Qi’s resentment, as well as fear, of Heaven. The trick the South Emperor had played today showed that Heaven would employ any means and disregard honor in order to achieve their goal. If he were not careful, he would probably fall into their traps one day. That was not a good thing.

As for the forbidden clans, Emperor Haozun would deal with them. Wu Qi only had to keep the important people around him alive. Of course, if the forbidden clans dared to appear before him, he would not mind chopping them up and feeding them to the dogs.

The seven regiments of Dong Hai City finally returned to Dong Hai City after sweeping more than ten thousand provinces in the east.

All the Prefecture Overseers and County Governors in these provinces were replaced by men of unquestionable loyalty. Slightly more than half of them were loyal to Great Yu, and about forty percent of the provincial officials were loyal to Wu Qi. On top of that, many of the officials were actually the descendants from the imperial clans and aristocratic clans of the six states. Through them, Wu Qi kept these provinces and counties under tight control.

At Wu Qi’s order, these provinces began to prepare for war. Each provincial city was ordered to have a garrison of at least 200,000 soldiers, and each county city at least 30,000 soldiers. As for the towns and villages under their jurisdiction, they must be filled with spies. Wu Qi’s order to the Prefecture Overseers and County Governors was that even if a demon rat passed through their territory, they would need to report everything about the rat immediately, including whether the demon was a male or a female.

The various departments in Dong Hai began to work in high gear. The Military Court was drilling recruits for all the eastern provinces, the Directorate of Celestials distributing Oracles, and the Punishment Court planting numerous spies around all the Prefecture Overseers and County Governors, as well as laying intelligence networks throughout these provinces. Many simple, honest native people of Great Yu were recruited into the Punishment Court, acting as the eyes and ears.

Wu Qi was well aware of the importance of intelligence networks. He put Yan Bugui fully in charge of the Punishment Court and taught him all the tricks and techniques he knew from the infamous intelligence agencies back on Earth. Under their effort, Dong Hai’s Punishment Court gradually evolved, becoming more professional and efficient, but also crueler and more ruthless.

With the help of those from the six states, Dong Hai gradually integrated the various powers in the eastern provinces and the provinces around the East Sea, making this region as solid as an iron barrel. And, stimulated by them and Wu Qi, Great Yu’s vast territory, infinite population, and immeasurable resources went through a qualitative change that was led by a quantitative change, giving birth to a terrible fighting capacity in a very short period.

As Wu Qi was consolidating the eastern provinces, landmasses were constantly falling from all directions, reuniting with Pangu Continent. More and more immortal sects and mortal kingdoms from these outer heavenly realms had arrived, which led to countless disputes and conflicts.

Often, these immortal sects dragged each other to fierce battles for an energy vein or a blessed cave abode. A large number of cultivators and immortals died every day, and this situation had won the unanimous admiration of all the civil and military subjects in Great Yu’s imperial court.

As for those mortal kingdoms, as soon as they were settled down on Pangu Continent, they began to take up arms and wage war in all directions. Countless kingdoms attacked and annexed each other. Fake and weak Supreme Oracles blotted the sky while armies, each consisting of at least a million troops, charged at each other on the ground, filling the earth with blood and broken limbs. According to the intelligence, more than ten million soldiers were killed every day in Wu Qi’s eastern territory alone.

Some of the weaker kingdoms were wiped out as soon as they arrived on Pangu Continent, and all their people were taken by others. The stronger kingdoms, on the other hand, were waging war everywhere with their armies and the banners of ‘the new emperor of the human race’, frantically plundering population and territory, turning the whole world chaotic.

Wu Qi had a very vivid description of these kingdoms’ behavior—cultivating Gu, or poisonous bugs.

These kingdoms from outer heavenly realms were the poisonous bugs, Pangu Continent was the container, and both Heaven and Buddhist League were the breeders. They let these kingdoms fight and kill each other, and eventually would obtain a strong and aggressive kingdom, which they could use to deal with Great Yu.

Perhaps King Xin Shan and King Li Shan, who betrayed Great Yu, were just another two poisonous bugs, and their fate would not be any better than these kingdoms.

At Wu Qi’s order, Dong Hai’s elite soldiers formed teams of thirty to fifty men and went deep into the eastern frontier to cause trouble. Soon afterward, among the mortal kingdoms who fought fiercely against each other, many generals were assassinated, princes beheaded, and emperors went missing for no apparent reason. Dong Hai’s intervention had added to the chaos in the eastern frontier. Often, a kingdom would collapse suddenly into dozens of smaller powers. The mess was maddening.

Wu Qi gleefully played a behind-the-scenes role in the eastern frontier, torturing all the mortal kingdoms.

Just as he was having a good time, Lao Ai sent him a message through Dong Hai’s intelligence network that left him in a bad mood.

Heaven and Buddhist League had begun executing the secret plan to expand their forces on Pangu Continent. A large number of highly qualified geniuses had been sent to unknown locations on the continent, and almighty experts from both sides, who were the experts of time-related divine abilities, had sped up time in those locations in an effort to turn these geniuses into their new force in the shortest possible time.

According to the information Lao Ai had collected, just the branch of Delightful Zen, where he was staying right now, had selected eight million highly qualified boys and girls from tens of thousands of outer heavenly realms under their control. They were now having a secluded cultivation in some secret location on Pangu Continent under the guidance of eighteen Buddhas.

The cultivation technique of the Delightful Zen was one of the fastest techniques in the Buddhist League. As long as tens of thousands of Arhats and thousands of Bodhisattva could be produced from these children in a short time, the Delightful Zen branch could then use the mortal worlds to harvest virtues and willpower, and produce hundreds of Buddhas.

This was just the Delightful Zen’s effort. In Buddhist League, there were dozens of branches who were stronger and higher in positions. This gave Wu Qi an estimate of how much Buddhist League had invested in the plan.

In addition to the Buddhist League, Heaven, Ghost Realm, Fiend Realm, and Demon Realm were also participating in the plan…