Stealing The Heavens

The immortals at the top of the hills were looking at Wu Qi, but he paid them no heed.

He gave the huge chasm a quick glance, then slowly closed his eyes and performed a hand incantation gesture before pointing at his eyes while intoning a strange spell under his breath. The clear sky suddenly darkened; cold winds kept blowing down from above as sand and dust swirled in the void. Whirlwinds that were about a foot high wheeled rapidly around him, throwing leaves and grass into the air.

King Yang Qiu looked approvingly at Wu Qi, and the military officers standing next to him were exchanging glances in shock. He was indeed a freak who cultivated magic and fleshly body at the same time! According to rumors, of so many kings and dignitaries of Great Yu, only a few of the oldest kings now had experts like him serving them, and all of them were the supreme experts in Great Yu. But now, King Yang Qiu had found himself such a freak as well!

Unconsciously, all the military officers and Oracles around King Yang Qiu had their backs straightened up. It was too valuable for King Yang Qiu to be able to find someone like this to serve him. Only his confidants knew that even at the top-level of Great Yu, there were constant struggles for power among the kings which were unknown to the outsiders. In fact, the dispute between King Yang Qiu and his brothers never stopped.

“I must do whatever it takes to get him to improve his cultivation base quickly, even if it drains me of all the resources I have at hand!” King Yang Qiu clenched his fists and made up his mind. But at the same time, he felt a little headache. The fact that Wu Qi was cultivating both magic and fleshly body at the same time was likely to become known to the others in no time. Although he had decided to help him as much as he could, some people were going to do everything they could to kill Wu Qi.

A murderous gleam flashed in his eyes. King Yang Qiu was unmoved in the face of those immortals’ provocation, but now, he had crushed one of his teeth. Warm blood soon filled his mouth; he slowly swallowed the shattered tooth with the blood before murmuring, “All of you are wrong, and I am right! I’ll stop you from committing foolish acts!”

Streams of thick, grayish white air plunged into Wu Qi’s body like some flood dragons. Amidst the shrill howling of ghosts, he slowly opened his eyes. His eyes had turned gray, and his pupils were replaced by two tiny ghost heads. Two extremely fine and weak, grayish white rays shot out of the ghost heads, traveling thousands of miles through the faint fog that blanketed the chasm ahead.

This was one of the eye techniques of the Directorate of Celestials, the Eye of the Thousand Ghosts, which gathered the power of the ghosts into the wielder’s eyes, allowing him to see through all the energy pulses and energy flows, including those in the underground energy veins. When it was cultivated to the mastery level, the wielder could even look into the yellow springs. Legends had it that someone cultivated this technique to an unimaginable level, and when he opened his eyes to look at the ground, he actually saw the ghosts struggling and roaring in the wheel of transmigration beneath the yellow springs.

Wu Qi did not cultivate this technique to a very advanced level. It was only two years or so since he began cultivating all sorts of magic he obtained from the Directorate of Celestials, and he simply did not have enough spare time to practice them. However, with his Chaotic Divine Eyes as the foundation, he could push this technique to a very powerful level.

Through the two tiny gray rays, the faint fog deliberately produced by the immortals in the chasm could no longer block Wu Qi’s view. In the blink of an eye, he could see everything clearly in the chasm, which stretched for thousands of miles.

The map King Yang Qiu used was also a very special treasure, and it allowed him to spy on the enemy’s movements from hundreds of miles away. But, its power was limited, and with just the fog, the immortals of the alliance were able to effectively interfere with its surveillance. It was not until Wu Qi used the Eye of the Thousand Ghost to look at the chasm that he realized there was a significant difference between what he saw on the map and what he saw inside.

Right in the middle of the chasm, a circle of twelve mountains, each standing a hundred miles tall, surrounded a small lake and some magnificent pavilions built around it. These mountains were hidden in a very special way. They were actually being compressed by someone into twelve beautiful artificial hills, no more than one hundred feet high each!

Outside these twelve mountains was another circle of 108 hills, each standing sixty-four miles tall. They corresponded to the thirty-six stars of the Celestial Dippers, and the seventy-two stars of the Nether Evils. They were constantly attracting the star power down from the sky, using it to conjure the true forms of the 108 Celestial Lords. All sorts of spirit beasts, such as flood dragon, Pixiu, Qilin, python, bear, wolf, and so on were wheeling and roaring above them. As these spirit beats were conjured with the star power and their bodies carried a trace of the Celestial Lords’ divine power, once they were activated, they would be able to unleash an incredible power.

The Celestial Lords of the Celestial Dippers and Nether Evils were the leaders of all Celestial Lords conferred by the Heaven, each of whom possessed very strong divine abilities and power. Legend had it that the Formation of the Celestial Dippers and Nether Devils built outside the Heaven was so powerful that it could trap even the strongest Primordial Immortal. And now, here in this chasm, the formation that Wu Qi saw was actually attracting a trace of these Celestial Lord’s divine power! In other words, its power was by no means insignificant! Although it was unlikely that it could trap a Primordial Immortal, it could easily trap hundreds of Gold Immortals.

The 108 hills were also concealed by someone with a divine ability. They looked just like lumps of dirt scattered randomly across the ground, and there were even some ordinary-looking cottages and houses built beside them to divert unwanted attention. Apparently, the immortal who constructed this formation harbored very evil intentions, for everything he did seemed to indicate that his sole purpose was to lure more people into the formation and kill them!

Beyond these two circles of mountains and hills were the 36,000 rocky hills that Wu Qi had seen on King Yang Qiu’s map, each a thousand miles high. Similarly, they were all corresponding to the stars in the sky, and each was guarded by an itinerant cultivator whose cultivation base was at the Nascent Soul realm or above, while the most important rocky hills were guarded by Heaven Immortals or above.

On the 36,000 rocky hills in this formation alone were 1,080 immortals guarding the formation bases.

What made Wu Qi even more shocked was that this formation was in a perfect state, with complete formation instruments! On each rocky hill was an altar, on top of which, three animals were placed as offerings; a large flag, thirty-six feet long and glinting with a silver gleam, was fluttering in the air. The flags were conjured with the power of the stars, and on their surfaces flickered the projection of the stars corresponding to the rocky hills. Likewise, they also contained a trace of divine power attracted from the corresponding stars.

In addition, these rocky hills were all surrounded by blades, spears, swords, halberds, axes, hammers, and many other weapons that swirled restlessly in the air. In fact, there was a different weapon wheeling slowly around each hill. With only a quick glance, Wu Qi knew they were all made in the shape of the weapons used by those Celestial Lords!

For example, the Heavenly Secret Celestial Lord’s favorite weapon was a Longquan Seven Star Sword, and so there was a six-feet-long, sharp sword wheeling around the rocky hill which was at the position of the Heavenly Secret Star. Another example was Nether Evil Celestial Lord, a fierce immortal who liked to hack off his foes’ heads with two single-handed axes; so, next to the hill that was at the position of the Nether Evil Star floated two eight-feet-long, bronze axes, each of which had an axe head as big as a door that was shrouded in a thick layer of blood-red aura.

In other words, there were 36,000 custom-made immortal weapons wheeling restlessly in this formation!

Wu Qi could not help but feel pins and needles in his scalp at the sight. ‘Damn! How much effort did the alliance have to put into setting up this formation?’ Through the Eye of the Thousand Ghost, he knew that these immortal weapons were just the most common thirty-sixth-grade immortal artifacts, the least powerful ones. But, even a Gold Immortal could not resist them when they attacked at the same time with the star power attracted by the formation.

Moreover, the things prepared at the top of those hills clearly told him that the formation could allow the Celestial Lords above the Nine Heavens to help the immortals here by projecting their clones. If those Celestial Lords really sent their clones here, they could easily increase the power of this formation by at least a hundredfold! Although it was still impossible to kill a top-tier Primordial Immortal, a low-ranking Supreme Oracle like Yu Gu was bound to be trapped inside and unable to escape.

Wu Qi sucked in a cold breath, then turned his eyes to the small lake in the middle of the chasm. He always thought that it was a little strange.

He stared at the lake for a while. Just as his gaze penetrated through the layer of silver starlight on the surface of the water with the Eye of the Thousand Ghost, and saw a strong light radiating from the bottom of the lake, a blazing flame suddenly burst forth from within the formation.

The flame was pale gold, and looked as quiet as melted glass without a hint of violence. But, as soon as it appeared, the two ghost heads in Wu Qi’s eyes were shattered at once; the grayish white fog around him gave off a shrill ghost howls as it dissipated in just a flash, and the whirlwinds that spun restlessly around him suddenly faded away. The sun returned to the sky, and continued to sprinkle its fiery energy.

Wearing a pale golden Daoist robe and holding a round mirror that was about a foot in diameter, a middle-aged Daoist stepped on a cloud and flew into the sky, stopping at a spot about ten miles from Wu Qi before laughing out loud, “Allow me to apologize on behalf of my incompetent subordinates who almost let you find out the secrets of this formation!”

After a few loud laughs, the Daoist shook his head and praised, “You’re using the Eye of the Thousand Ghosts, aren’t you? To be able to see right through the formation I’ve constructed, I believe you have devoted at least thirty to fifty years of hard work to this technique. Unfortunately, my ‘Dazzling Sun True Flame Mirror’ is designed to counter all sorts of ghostly spells and techniques, and I think you’ve just lost your Eye of the Thousand Ghosts!”

Wu Qi shook his head and slowly stepped back.

With a gloomy face, King Yang Qiu drove his chariot forward and snapped coldly, “Lord Wandering Immortal, you’re one of the big names in Myriad Immortal Alliance. Don’t you feel ashamed of yourself for sneaking up on a junior?”

‘So, this middle-aged Daoist was Lord Wandering Immortal from the alliance?’ Wu Qi withdrew the Eye of the Thousand Ghosts and looked at him curiously. ‘ And, he said I’ve devoted at least thirty to fifty years of hard work to this technique? Haha, what a fool!’ In fact, Wu Qi had spent only a few days cultivating the technique, and his real foundation was his Chaotic Divine Eyes. So, he was naturally not afraid of that mirror at all.

Lord Wandering Immortal burst into laughter once again. “Ashamed? Why should I be ashamed? Because of a simple formation I’ve laid out, you, King Yang Qiu, have not been able to advance an inch, and have even lost a great number of your men. You’ve hundreds of thousands of troops at your disposal, and yet you’ve failed to defeat me. So, tell me, who should feel ashamed here…you or me?”

He paused to give three loud laughs before continuing, “King Yang Qiu, you’ve lost tens of thousands of troops in this formation last time, with only a few military officials who were lucky enough to flee. Now let me ask you, do you dare to send troops into my formation again?”

King Yang Qiu made no answer; instead, he turned to look at Wu Qi.

After pondering for a moment, Wu Qi made a retreating gesture.

King Yang Qiu nodded, then raised his right fist and gave it a backward wave. He did not talk to Lord Wandering Immortal at all. Upon seeing his gesture, the army of tens of thousands of troops turned and left the place immediately.

All the immortals and cultivators in the formation were dumbfounded. That did not look like King Yang Qiu’s style at all, did it?