Stealing The Heavens

Dong Hai border, a nameless city…

Among several other provinces in this region, this was the most under-developed ninth-grade province, with a population of less than ten million. The city, which was only about three miles wide, and the towns and villages near it, had only a few hundred thousand people, and its garrison was only about a hundred.

It was natural that such a small city had no strong defense, and the garrison of a hundred men was actually ten percent of the province’s army. At the moment, they were standing sparsely on the walls, howling furiously and fighting 9,000 soldiers of Ling Dynasty, who were attacking the city.

The commanding general of Ling Dynasty was standing less than three miles from the city wall with several guards and generals, watching the battle while laughing and discussing the situation with his confidants. He seemed to think that they could win the battle easily. Behind him, in the encampment, an army of a million men was enjoying itself. From some of the tents came shrill cries, uttered by Great Yu’s women who had been taken hostage along the way and were being tortured or raped by Ling Dynasty’s military officers and soldiers.

War, regardless it was launched in what name, behind that grandiose cause was dark and bloody, filled with the blood and grief of countless innocent people. Wherever the armies of Ling Dynasty passed, or the cities of Ling Dynasty captured by Dong Hai, the crime was exactly the same. This was something even Wu Qi could not control.

Wu Qi stood by a mountain outside the city. Princess Zhang Le was on his left, squinting and sneering. Qixia was on his right, her hands wrapped around his arms while her body twisted like a caterpillar and she hummed a little tune, smiling at the bloodshed on the walls.

Seven days ago, Wu Qi himself had come to the front to supervise the war. For seven days and seven nights, he crossed almost the entire border from south to north, destroying nearly a hundred enemy armies of one million men, about a thousand armies of hundreds of thousands of men, and countless armies comprising of tens of thousands of men. The small city in front of him now was the northernmost, remotest, and weakest city in Dong Hai’s defensive lines that was still at war. All the armies of Ling Dynasty south of this city had stopped marching west and were retreating in panic.

He raised his hand, and his palm gave off a hazy, chaotic glow. With that, a long, shrill, and savage howl rang out. A red heavenly ghost shouted ‘Long live the Emperor!’ as he rushed out of the chaotic light. Standing a thousand feet tall and covered with countless sharp bone spikes, the heavenly ghost, clad in the fine armor Wu Qi had forged for him, charged at the enemy like a madman, with a scimitar in each hand.

He was followed by tens of millions of heavenly ghosts, who were tall and burly, with monstrous killing intent. They swept over the land like a tide, filling up the vacant lot around the city. The army of Ling Dynasty was immediately surrounded by heavenly ghosts ten times their number. Laughing evilly, the ferocious and savage heavenly ghosts stormed toward them.

Sharp claws tore the soldiers’ bodies; sharp teeth chewed their flesh, internal organs, and bones; rolling ghostly energy constantly devoured their souls. There was nothing left wherever this army of heavenly ghosts passed. Ling Dynasty’s million-strong army held out for no more than a quarter of an hour before these heavenly ghosts, attacking from all sides, the sky, and the ground, killed them all.

For these heavenly ghosts who could move through the void at will, no defense, restriction, or formation could stop them. In a very short time, they riddled the enemy encampment as if it was a sieve and turned a million soldiers into ghosts.

On the wall, the wounded garrisons gawked at the army of heavenly ghosts attacking their enemies. When they saw that this terrifying army was simply ravaging Ling Dynasty’s encampment without invading their city, they raised their weapons and cheered at the top of their lungs.

After killing all the enemy soldiers, the heavenly ghosts raised their claws and shouted ‘Long live the Emperor!’.

A great power of faith poured into Wu Qi’s body and was gradually absorbed by his emperor aura. Originally, after he had founded a kingdom in the world inside him, the emperor aura he had gained was pure purple. But a few days ago, he had a whimsical idea, so he founded another kingdom with the heavenly ghosts who had been bred in him and named it ‘Yellow Spring’. As a result, his purple emperor aura suddenly turned purplish-red. The purple was mixed with a strong aura of blood, causing the dignified, solemn emperor aura to turn into overbearing, evil, and gloomy.

Wu Qi did not know what it should be called now. Nevertheless, as the aura strengthened him more than emperor aura, he did not bother to separate the aura of blood from it. Moreover, its total volume was several times greater than the original emperor aura, which gave him no reason to remove the aura of blood. After all, heavenly ghosts reproduce several times faster than humans. Over the years, both heavenly ghosts and humans had been multiplying in the world inside him, but the total population of heavenly ghosts was now more than thirty times that of humans. The power of faith they could offer him was far too great to ignore.

Amidst the thunderous cheers of the heavenly ghosts, the commanding general of Ling Dynasty, whose cultivation base had reached the peak level of the Second Pangu Heaven, was beheaded by a heavenly ghost of his equal strength, who was not afraid of death and paid the price of having one of his arms and legs chopped off. With a dazed look, the head flew high into the sky and then fell heavily on the ground, before being seized and eaten by several heavenly ghosts.

Wu Qi stepped forward and stood at the edge of the cliff at the top of the mountain. The sun shone on him, gilding him in his black robe. All the heavenly ghosts, tens of millions of them, fell to their knees in perfect order and worshiped him. The sound of their kowtows roared like thunder, shaking the earth.

Wu Qi raised his hand again. A plume of chaotic energy swept through the field, and all the heavenly ghosts disappeared within it. He took a look at the small city that had survived the calamity, then flickered into a beam of blue light and flew south, Princess Zhang Le and Qixia following him closely. The she-fiend was holding a bright, translucent blood-colored pearl about the size of a fist. She held it up to Princess Zhang Le, who shook her head with a smile. Then, the former hurriedly swallowed it.

After the one million soldiers of Ling Dynasty were killed, the best and most essential energy essence in their bodies had condensed into a mass of energy about the size of a human head, which was then purified by Qixia with her rainbow flame into a fiend energy crystal without any impurities. After swallowing it, her aura shot up.

Combined with the energy crystals she had gained from the enemy soldiers Wu Qi had slaughtered all the way north, Qixia’s cultivation base had returned to the peak of the fourth-tier of Dao Breaking realm. When it came to rapidly growing cultivation base, there was no being in the Chaotic World faster than the Shapeless Heavenly Fiends, if they were given enough victims.

Even Wu Qi could not extract energy essence from the soldiers he had slaughtered without the slightest guilt, as Qixia had done. Only Shapeless Heavenly Fiends could be so spontaneous, acting solely based on their instincts.

If it had not been for the fact that Qixia had told Wu Qi her true name, entered into a covenant that made them share life and death together under the iron law of fiends, and developed an inexplicable feeling toward him, he would not have brought her with him at all, and would have suppressed her by all means. For the first two days, he was really afraid that when he got up in the morning, he would find that all of the people in Dong Hai had been devoured by her.

Because of Wu Qi’s relentless approach, Dong Hai had quickly pushed the front tens of thousands of miles eastward. The city of Zhendong, which had already fallen, was returned to Dong Hai.

As soon as Wu Qi returned to Zhendong, and before he could tell the higher-ups what he had accomplished in the past few days, he heard the roar of dragons coming from the east, mixed with deafening drumbeats. Immediately after that, Zhang Tengyun’s furious roar shook the city walls.

He brought all the higher-ups to the wall of the east gate. From there, he saw thousands of cloud platforms, each measuring a hundred miles long and wide, floating orderly in midair about a hundred miles away. On the foremost platform loomed an extraordinarily magnificent palace. Surrounded by countless courtiers of Ling Dynasty, Zhang Tengyun stood on the high jade steps in front of the palace, overlooking the city.

At the sight of Wu Qi, Zhang Tengyun snapped, “King of Dong Hai, why are you so shameless!”

Wu Qi knew what he was here for. Dong Hai had suddenly and effortlessly annihilated hundreds of Ling Dynasty’s armies, slaughtered countless of their soldiers, leaving not even a single soldier to bring the news back. Zhang Tengyun must have thought that there must be some experts like Wu Qi taking part in the war, because only almighty experts of the Primordial realm could effortlessly annihilate so many armies.

So, he came to reason with Wu Qi. According to their agreement, Dong Hai would lose if any Primordial expert took part in the war, and then the whole province and Princess Zhang Le would be his spoils of war.

Wu Qi sneered and cried out, “What are you talking about? I swear to the heavens, Dong Hai has not sent any expert above the realm of Primordial to war!”

Zhang Tengyun snapped back, “Ridiculous! If you’re telling the truth, does that mean my armies are merely wild chicken and stray dogs, and you have wiped them all out in just seven days? If you have such a powerful military force, why did you lose so much land and so many cities, while your armies were forced some 20,000 miles back by us?”

Wu Qi snorted coldly. He was about to release the army of heavenly ghosts in the world inside him when Qixia suddenly clapped her hands and said, “My lord, this guy is so rude. Let me help you teach him a lesson!”

A charming smile emerged on her face as she reached out a hand and waved it across the void. Immediately, a rift ten thousand miles long appeared above the great army of Ling Dynasty, from which an endless stream of yellow spring of the Nether World poured down with the mournful wailing of countless spirits. White smoke rose from the soldiers as soon as they were touched by the liquid, and soon a large number of them had their flesh separated from their bones, before melting into gores and filthy liquid.

As the dreadful yellow spring continued to pour down, the bodhisattvas and arhats of the Buddhist League’s Nether Branch, led by Kṣitigarbha, flew out of the rift.

Qixia’s eyes gleamed brilliantly. Without uttering a single word, Kṣitigarbha and the many bodhisattvas and arhats formed the Six Paths Mandala Formation and charged toward the enemy, shrouded in a boundless Buddhist light. Meanwhile, a small wheel of the Six Paths of Reincarnation spun in the void, causing the souls of thirty percent of the soldiers to fly out of their bodies, which were then forcibly sucked into transmigration.

Kṣitigarbha was extremely ferocious. Wrapped in a layer of boiling Buddhist energy, he reached out a hand and grabbed one of the generals standing next to Zhang Tengyun, whose cultivation base had reached the realm of Third Pangu Heaven, and then ripped off his head.

Battle cries shook the heaven and earth. All the bodhisattva and arhats had transformed into their karmic-clad black avatars, slaughtering the enemies like evil spirits and filling the land with corpses and blood. Immediately afterward, countless Yakshas of the Yellow Spring rushed out of the rift, dealing the army of Ling Dynasty the most devastating blow.

Zhang Tengyun was so bewildered by the sudden attack that he did not know how to react.