Stealing The Heavens

Wu Qi did not ask Liu Bang to tell him what the Heaven’s plan was.

The Heaven had joined forces with Buddhism League, and even the entrance to Empress Wa’s palace was blocked by someone. Whatever the Heaven was going to do, the situation was irreversible now. Empress Wa, one of the creators of the human race, the owner of Myriad Spirit Cauldron which was the source of the souls of all the living beings in the world, the almighty expert who had stepped into Dao Fusing realm with her immense merit back in the days when the Shadow was still a little mouse, was trapped in her own palace by someone. One could only imagine how muddy and deep the water was.

Wu Qi was not interested to jump into such muddy waters now. Whether Great Yu would collapse, or whether Pangu Continent would fall into the hands of the Heaven and Buddhism League, it had little effect on him. If Great Yu remained strong, he would still be the Marquis of Province; if Great Yu decayed and the Heaven gained control over everything, he would become the Sect Leader of Underhand Sect. As a Primordial Immortal, he could always secure himself a high position in the Heaven. At the worst, he just needed to change a face. It was nothing troublesome.

So, he did not bother himself to ask what the Heaven’s plan was. He was only curious about Liu Bang’s background. After all, this fellow was a character he had read about in history. Everything about him was so interesting.

Liu Bang had an unsightly expression. But, in the face of Wu Qi’s threat of violence, he could do nothing but gnash his teeth and tell his background.

Liu Bang was the natural son of Crimson Emperor, who was also the Heaven’s Great South Celestial Emperor. As the supreme commander of all the various divisions of Heavenly Patrols, Crimson Emperor was a very powerful figure in the Heaven, and was responsible for wiping out dissident powers across the whole universe. In other words, most of the time the Heaven handled the powers against them with the manner of ‘those who submit will prosper, those who resist shall perish’, and he was the executor of this policy.

Born three eons ago, Liu Bang already possessed the overall strength of a peak Heaven Immortal at birth, and it did not take him long to step into Gold Immortal realm. He had been clever and capable since he was a child. However, as his mother came from a lesser clan and was only an ordinary consort, the more capable and gifted he was, the more he was marginalized and bullied.

In the end, he made a mistake under the design of his own brothers, and was severely punished by Crimson Emperor—he was given the most unappreciated task, to reincarnate as a mortal and eliminate any forces that might pose threats to the mortal worlds.

One of such threats was the Emperor of Qin, Ying Zheng, who rose to power on Earth and dragged everyone into wars under the design of Prince Chang Qin. His success had forced the Heaven to immediately send immortals to shake Great Qin’s foundation. It was then Liu Bang was reincarnated in the mortal world. He staged an uprising, threw Great Qin into chaos, and eventually killed Xiang Yu, who was backed by King Yang Shan.

Afterward, Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty with himself as the founding emperor. Through it, he gathered the energy of the Human Emperor in the mortal world, which was subsequently collected by Crimson Emperor with an immortal artifact and used to temper his own natal immortal artifact. According to his punishment, Liu Bang would have to reincarnate for tens of thousands of times and live tens of thousands of lives in the mortal worlds, establish tens of thousands of dynasties to gather a huge amount of such energy, only then would Crimson Emperor forgive him.

But after he finished living the life of his last incarnation and returned to the Heaven, he took the opportunity to quickly establish a connection with the Crown Prince of the Heaven, who later had convinced Crimson Emperor to cancel the punishment. Soon after, he was assigned as the Heaven’s special emissary to Great Yu, and was tasked to secretly carry out some collusive works. Had Liu Bang not acted quickly, he would have entered transmigration once again.

Liu Bang, with a bitter smile on his face, stared at Wu Qi and said, “That’s who I am, a poor man who is not loved by his father and has to struggle all by himself. If it hadn’t been for my acquaintance with the Crown Prince, I’d never have a chance to be free from misery in this life.”

‘A poor man who has to struggle all by himself?’ Wu Qi had to laugh. If a man, who had become acquainted with the Heaven’s Crown Prince and borrowed the Sky Veiling Flag of Chaos from the North Celestial Emperor, was considered a poor man, what about the other immortals who had no backers at all? Should they just kill themselves so that they could stop all the sufferings?

He gave a cold snort and waved a hand. Immediately, 108 Kunwu Swords flew over to him and returned into his body. The formation was retracted. The void turned darker as the countless stars the formation had conjured disappeared, leaving only beam-sized stars flickering faintly in the far distance.

In the void hundreds of miles away, Buddha Futu was jumping up and down furiously, growling, “Bastard! You really destroyed the planet and its moon? Oh dear, the Heavenly Dao in this part of the world is crumbling! You damn worm!”

Wasting no time, Buddha Futu screamed an epithet, then sped forward with his pagoda in a beam of golden light to the area where the planet had been. There he sat down cross-legged, and in the next instant energy began to pour out of him, condensing into a huge planet suspended in the void. With his own power, Buddha Futu had created a planet to temporarily replace the original planet’s place in the countless mortal worlds, and managed to temporarily stop the chain reaction caused by the disappearance of the planet.

Wu Qi laughed. After waving at Liu Bang, who was watching with an open mouth, he produced his Dark Yin Celestial Tower, which broke through the void and brought him, Ao Buzun, and the others away.

Liu Bang shot a venomous look in the direction where Wu Qi had disappeared into, his face flickering. Then, he lifted his hand and pointed a finger at the void over him, chanted a few incantations under his breath. Suddenly, a dot of golden light flashed in the distance. Accompanied by a muffled thunderclap, hundreds of huge golden chariots, pulled by golden flood dragons, came flying toward him. Dozens of Heavenly Generals clad in golden heavy armors stood on each chariot, and their leader, a burly man whose body shrouded in purple flame, emanated a strong aura that almost shattered this mortal world to pieces.

Buddha Futu’s furious bellow could be heard coming from the distance, “Scram! Scram! Are you trying to destroy this mortal world? Get the hell out of here, or I’ll capture all of you and send you to Yab-Yum Bodhisattva, and ask her whores to suck you dry!” Through his obscene words, you can tell how angry he was.

In the distance, Liu Bang cupped his fist and bowed to Buddha Futu. After that, he pulled out a golden medallion from his belt and waved it in front of the team of Heavenly Generals. “Track down Tan Lang, Great Yu’s Marquis of Dong Hai Province! Capture him alive if you can, otherwise, kill him and bring me all his things!”

The leader answered in a deep voice and then shouted an order. The hundreds of golden chariots wheeled around, and in the midst of deafening thunderclaps they broke through the void and plunged into the boundless space. Even then, the leader began to roar. Through some strange and unique method, his voice spread across the void, and was received by all the outposts the Heaven had constructed in the alien dimension.

As Wu Qi was flying in the alien dimension with Dark Yin Celestial Tower hovering over his head, he saw a great plume of smoke suddenly rose from an outpost not far ahead, and soon after tens of thousands of armed and armored Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals began to charge at him, shouting battle cries. Among them, the strongest one was a huge man who rode a white tiger with a sword in each hand. He was a third-tier Gold Immortal. Wordless, he went straight at Wu Qi with dragon-shaped sword energy thousands of feet long shot out of his swords. Even as he charged, he opened his mouth and spat out an object, which had an uneven surface and looked like a bezoar ¹ , and sent it shooting toward Wu Qi in a beam of yellow light.

A third-tier Gold Immortal?

Wu Qi smiled. He was not interested to get tangled up by these soldiers and generals whose cultivation bases were so weak. Casually, he thrust a punch, and the two dragon-shaped sword energy exploded with a boom, whilst the general’s swords cracked with dozens of fine lines.

Just then, the object that looked like a bezoar came smashing down at him with a refreshing aroma. It was an intoxicating scent. Weighed more than a planet, the bezoar could easily crush the heads of those with weaker cultivation bases. Looking at it, Wu Qi could not help but laugh. “Are you an ox demon before becoming an immortal? I reckon this is a natal immortal artifact you have refined from your own bezoar, isn’t it? How could you attack your enemy with something so important to you? Don’t you have any other treasures?”

Amid his laughter, Wu Qi snatched the bezoar and shoved it into his storage ring. The bezoar produced in the body of an ox demon of third-tier Gold Immortal level was a rare medicinal ingredient, which could be used to concoct dozens of supreme-grade Gold Immortal pills. He could not let it slip past.

The Heavenly General was so panic that he nearly burst out in tears. Wu Qi was right, apart from the two immortal swords and the bezoar, he did not have any other treasures. If he was a rich demon immortal, he would not have been sent by the Heaven to guard this passage in the alien dimension, a place so bleak. The bezoar was truly his natal immortal artifact. Refined from the bezoar that had formed in his body since he was young, it was basically half his life.

Seeing that his precious bezoar was forcibly taken by Wu Qi, the Heavenly General’s eyes immediately shot with blood. He threw away the broken swords and suddenly transformed back into his true form—a huge ox demon stood a thousand feet tall—and charged toward Wu Qi.

Wu Qi gave a cold snort as his body flickered to dodge the desperate ox demon, then landed a blow in his ear. A mighty force exploded and shattered half of the ox demon’s body to pieces. “As a demon immortal, you should have stayed in the Demon Realm but not working for the Heaven. Well, I understand that you are just trying to make a living, but you should not get in my way!”

By force of habit, Ao Buzun stretched his upper half body out of Wu Qi’s sleeve, opened his mouth and devoured the ox demon.

Just as he was about to praise the amazing taste of the ox flesh, a shaft of golden light flashed over from behind, and in the next moment a purple spear shrouded in raging flame pierced his neck. The black dragon gave a shriek of agony; his body twisted violently as golden dragon blood spilled and splashed everywhere, some stained Wu Qi’s body. The warm blood made Wu Qi daze for a brief moment.

The spear nearly hit Ao Buzun’s vital spot near his reverse scale. Luckily, this fellow was a slippery one, as when he caught the light on the edge of his vision, he had straightened his body reflectively, causing the spear to miss his vital spot. Even so, the flame on the spear still gave him so much pain and nearly set all his internal organs on fire, while his blood was splashing out like cheap water.

Wu Qi’s face turned gloomy. He halted abruptly and pressed a palm on Ao Buzun’s body.

One after another, a dozen of Ancient Divine Runes was sent into the black dragon’s body, including those contained the essences of ‘life’ and ‘recovery’. Vast streams of life force came billowing from the surroundings and quickly poured into Ao Buzun’s body, stimulating his wound to mend rapidly.

A golden light flashed, and a Heavenly General, clad in a golden armor and shrouded in purple flame, emerged in front of Wu Qi.

“I am True Lord Gu Yi, the Evil Slaying General serving Crimson Emperor. Surrender now, you vile spawns!”

Wu Qi gave True Lord Gu Yi a glance.

‘A body cultivator of ninth-tier Primordial level! Is this Evil Slaying General the strongest fighting force of the Heaven?’ he thought.

Without saying a word, Wu Qi threw himself toward True Lord Gu Yi, punching his scale-clad fists out.