Stealing The Heavens

King Yang Shan’s face became extremely unsightly. He covered the fist-sized hole in his shoulder with a hand, gritted his teeth, looked up into the sky and cried out, “It’s you… King Wei Shan! How can you be in cahoots with them? Y-yo-you… it should be anyone but you!”

As King Yang Shan’s cry rang out, a tall man in a lavender silk robe landed silently on the deck. The man’s face was solemn and composed, and his long eyes were slightly narrowed, making him looked hard to read, unpredictable, and dangerous. In his hand was a wooden bow almost ten feet tall, its thumb-sized, transparent string vibrated faintly. Clearly, it was this bow that had seriously injured King Yang Shan just now.

The man, who was called King Wei Shan, twitched his lips in a scornful smile and plucked at the bowstring with his fingers, causing it to produce a dulled buzzing noise. Grinning disdainfully, he said, “Why can’t it be me? If there are so-called rebels in You Xiong Army, why can’t it be me?”

King Yang Shan shook his head, heaved a long sigh in disbelieve and said, “For generations your clan has been protecting the imperial palace, you…”

“Seven generations ago, the King Wei Shan of that generation was from the Buddhism League,” said King Wei Shan, smiling. “The King Wei Shan of seven generations ago was the incarnation of Bodhisattva King Mystic Treasure, the King Wei Shan of six generations ago was the incarnation of Bodhisattva King Victory Treasure, the Indestructible Vajra of the Buddhism League, the King Wei Shan of five generations ago was the incarnation of Bodhisattva King Light Treasure…”

As King Wei Shan revealed the truth generation by generation, King Yang Shan’s face grew uglier, and Ji Ao’s eyes grew wider and wider until they almost popped out of their sockets. Seven generations of King Wei Shans had served three generations of Human Emperors, including Emperor Haozun, but nobody knew that these commanders of the imperial guards, who supposed to be the most loyal to the Human Emperors, were actually the incarnations of Bodhisattvas!

Clans like King Wei Shan, when each of their heirs was born, the Oracles from Directorate of Celestial and Secret Palace always carried out thorough examination over their souls to find out anything unusual, fearing that these heirs might have an incomplete soul or being possessed by someone. And yet such a strict examination had failed to detect the incarnations of those from the Buddhism League. What had gone wrong, actually?

Wu Qi’s scalp was tingling. Was this the means of the Buddhism League? How exactly did they reincarnate the souls of these Bodhisattvas into King Wei Shan’s clan? This was not only because the Buddhism League could interfere with a part of the Six Paths of Reincarnation’s power, but perhaps also because some members of King Wei Shan’s clan were working in secret with them.

King Wei Shan sighed softly. Shaking his head, he said, “As for me, I’m the incarnation of the Golden Boy who serves Amitabha, the Lord Buddha. Once I completed my work in this life and accumulated immense virtue, I’ll be able to step on the lotus throne when I return to Lord Buddha. By that time, I’ll be given an indestructible avatar of Buddha, commanding all the Buddhas of a realm and holding three thousand Buddhist Kingdoms. I’ll be living a carefree life from then on!”

King Yang Shan was about to say something when Baihuang Zongling’s voice rang out from the black skull, “Stop wasting time and kill them now, King Wei Shan! And don’t forget to bring me that girl. If you keep talking like this, I fear that the Human Emperor may find out something is amiss. We’ll be in big trouble if he sends the sinecures of the Secret Palace here!”

King Wei Shan smiled. He bowed apologetically to King Yang Shan, then slowly took out an eight-foot-long bone arrow that was as thick as a thumb and placed it on the bowstring. A thunderous boom echoed out as King Wei Shan drew the huge bow in his hand; the bowstring let out a loud noise like a thunderclap as the arrow shot toward Wu Qi’s forehead in a beam of strong light.

Wu Qi’s reaction was extremely quick. He reached out a hand and grabbed the arrowhead. As soon as his palm touched the arrow, he realized that it was incredibly powerful. With his current overall strength, even though he had broken his own bones to pretend he was seriously wounded, he could still crush a few planets easily with a mere grip of his hand. But the arrow did not budge. It spun rapidly and rubbed against his palm, sent up a shower of sparks, before piercing toward his forehead with a hint of murderous aura.

A large piece of skin was torn off of his palm, and a few threads of his flesh was taken away by the arrow. He had mustered all his strength, but he could not stop the arrow.

Wu Qi bent back reflectively, and the arrow flew past his forehead, leaving behind a tiny gash. Blood sprayed out from the wound, and as soon as he straightened up, they trickled down slowly across his face.

King Yang Shan came standing before Wu Qi with a Kunwu Sword in his hand and cried out in a low voice, “The longbow in this guy’s hand is called the Skyblast Bow, which is an artifact crafted by Ku, one of the five Ancient Emperors. It has the might power to bring down stars. Be extremely careful, King of Dong Hai Province, you cannot fight it with force.”

Wu Qi answered in a low voice, then opened his mouth and unleashed the Natural Phenomena Medallion. A great plume of smoke gushed out of it and spread out around them, quickly forming into a ring of smoke about hundreds of feet in circumference. Inside, mountains, hills and rivers could be vaguely seen. At a glance, there were hundreds of layers of clouds and smoke, as well as hundreds of layers of mountains, hills and rivers. The short distance of hundreds of feet was turned into a void that measured tens of thousands of miles across by Wu Qi, using the divine power of the Natural Phenomena Medallion.

King Yang Shan and Ji Ao greatly rejoiced. It was true that the Skyblast Bow was a divine artifact crafted by one of the five Ancient Emperors, but the Natural Phenomena Medallion was also the legacy of Zhuanxu, who was also one of the five Ancient Emperors. With this treasure protecting them, even if King Wei Shan’s cultivation base surpassed King Yang Shan and the Skyblast Bow’s power was incredible, King Wei Shan might not be able to fulfill his wish today.

The black skull’s mouth opened, but no words could come out of it.

King Wei Shan’s face went black. He stared fixedly at the Natural Phenomena Medallion hovering over Wu Qi, and only sighed heavily after a long while. He clenched his jaw and said, “Damn it, although I’ve only used ten percent of my strength, I can’t believe you managed to dodge the attack from Skyblast Bow! Are you too lucky, or are you just too tough to kill?”

Wu Qi gave a strange laugh. Pangu Sacred Energy began to roll over from all directions and fuse with his body. The sound of bone mending and recovering could be heard coming out from within him. While absorbing Pangu Sacred Energy and pretending he was healing his injury, Wu Qi negated the damages the mystic escape art had caused to his body. All his bones were recovering rapidly, and his aura became more and more menacing like an unsheathed sword.

Princess Zhang Le let out a soft cry, and the five-colored divine ray spun crazily behind her back. It happened that there was a dense forest under the flying ship. Suddenly, all the trees within thousands of miles began to sway wildly, though there was no wind. Accompanied by the loud rustle of leaves, streams of rich green life force sprayed out from the forest, converged into a great green torrent and soared up into the sky, and poured into King Yang Shan’s body through the top of his head.

King Yang Shan’s left shoulder was pierced with a fist-sized wound, but now the flesh and bone at the wound suddenly grew back at an amazing speed. Wrapped under the rich green fluid, it only took a few breaths of time for his wound to fully recover. King Yang Shan touched his shoulder hard, then looked at Princess Zhang Le in surprise and said with a smile, “Splendid! I can’t believe I’ve recovered seventy percent of my overall strength!”

The princess smiled reservedly. Standing behind Wu Qi, she said, “Now let’s see how long it takes them to kill us!”

King Yang Shan and Ji Ao roared with laughter. They nodded in agreement and said, “Indeed, let’s see how long it takes them to kill us!”

King Wei Shan’s eyes were red with anger as he pointed a finger at the void covered in smoke and shouted ‘Go!’. Accompanied by Baihuang Zongling’s shrill screech, thousands of pitch-black skeletons and three thousand elites of You Xiong Army dashed into the ring of smoke sprayed out by the Natural Phenomena Medallion.

As soon as these men and skeletons stepped into the cloud, their bodies shrunk rapidly, and in the blink of an eye they all became as small as needle tips and were trapped within endless mountains, rivers, cities, and towns. Wu Qi’s Natural Phenomena Medallion had fused with the essence of the Shen pearl, giving it the ability to conjure endless illusions. As those skeletons behaved according to their instincts, they were not affected, but as soon as the three thousand soldiers entered the cloud, they were immediately confused by the illusions.

Wu Qi chuckled as wisps of green ghost flame burst out of his eyes. All kinds of cardinal vices including wine, women, avarice, and pride emerged in the illusion formation. The lust of the soldiers had ignited a wisp of inner flame in their hearts, which was then fanned by Wu Qi with an evil art. Very quickly a fire broke out from their feet, and in just a short period of time their bodies were burned to ashes. The air rang with cries of agony as all three thousand elites of You Xiong Army were burned clean by Wu Qi.

As for the thousand-odd black skeletons, they were destroyed by Princess Zhang Le with lightning. Countless tiny electric arcs bolted back and forth amid the cloud, which transformed into numerous bolts of lightning and fell whistling down. Although all the skeletons possessed cultivation bases not weaker than that of Second Pangu Heaven, and their bodies were condensed with an evil craft, under the brutal attack of countless bolts of lightning, they lasted less than ten minutes before they were completely blown to pieces.

King Yang Shan laughed, and then nodded to King Wei Shan and said, “It seems like killing me is not an easy job, isn’t it?”

Suddenly Baihuang Zongling said, “Golden Boy, don’t waste any more time. The Human Emperor has found out that something is wrong. He is assembling the sinecures of the Secret Palace around him, and he has dispatched a eunuch to inform the group of old fogies dwelling in the Secret Palace. I’ll do everything I can to buy you time. Kill them quickly and don’t let them enter Liangzhu, especially that King of Dong Hai Province. He knows too much!”

King Wei Shan snorted coldly, gritted his teeth and snapped, “Well, it’s only the Natural Phenomena Medallion. Let’s see how are you going to defend against my natal Blood Soul Arrow!”

Accompanied by his loud cry, the vein on his right wrist suddenly burst open. A huge amount of blood sprayed out of it, and in the blink of an eye half of the blood in his body had rushed out and condensed into four blood-red arrows, which hovered in front of him, emanating an immense ominous aura.

Carefully, he placed all four arrows on the string of Skyblast Bow, then mustered all his strength and slowly pulled the string back.

Just now, when he wounded King Yang Shan and Wu Qi with the bow, he had only pulled the string back about an inch. Now he had pulled it back to half-draw, and the strength he used was at least a thousand times stronger. And that was not all. He bit the tip of his tongue and sprayed a mouthful of blood on the bowstring. Gradually the string radiated a faint red light, and slowly two long runes emerged from it.

“Skyblast Bow, pierce the void and slay the fiend! Go!” King Wei Shan mustered so much strength that his skin split with countless fine cracks.

As his loud cry echoed across the void, he released the bowstring. Four blood-colored arrows thundered away.

The arrows flickered, and then appeared directly in front of Wu Qi and others, shooting straight toward their chests.