Stealing The Heavens

“Xing Yihuo, the Prefecture Overseer of Sen Province, has disregarded the cardinal principles of the human race. He colluded with the rebels and committed a rebellious act. He has committed the most heinous crime that is unpardonable. In the name of the Human Emperor, Xing Yihuo is to be executed together with his family, to serve as a warning to others.” Yan Bugui stood on the high steps while holding a golden scroll and reading aloud. Thousands of people, men and women of all ages, knelt in the courtyard beneath the steps, their bodies shivering and their faces pale.

When he had finished, several executioners from Dong Hai’s Punishment Court standing beside him drew their knives and slashed out. Fierce beams turned into large bloody light screens and spread across the void, cutting all the people kneeling in the courtyard in half. Blood spilled all over the ground, and the bodies, broken in two, twitched and struggled violently. The air rang with the cries of agony and pain.

Several Oracles in black robes began to chant a spell. A gust of cold wind blew out from a corner and a flash of lightning flickered through the void, sucking away the flesh, blood, and souls of the dead. Lei Meng’s sigh, thick with satisfaction, drifted out of the void. Soon afterward, a great sheet of blood-red light fell from the sky and poured into the bodies of the soldiers and Oracles who stood on guard around the courtyard.

The offering of several thousand fresh bodies and souls had increased their cultivation bases. The thrill of the surge of strength made them exhale and cry out, their voices as loud as thunderclaps, causing the courtyard to shake.

A few flying ships with the flags of Dong Hai flew over the courtyard, their undersides almost touching the top of the walls. Teams of soldiers stood on the decks and rained down arrows. Shrill cries could be occasionally heard coming from outside, and the smell of blood was drifting into the courtyard wave after wave. A sweet, suffocating smell kept squeezing into one’s nose, making one feel sticky all over and unpleasant.

Tens of thousands of soldiers in pale green armor lay sprawled in the square outside the mansion. Several flying ships circled above the square with arrows constantly falling from them. More than a thousand soldiers were still resisting in the square. They hid behind their shields, growling like wounded beasts and pushing madly for the mansion’s front gate.

Ten rows of Dong Hai soldiers, each with a thousand man, stood neatly in front of the gate. Every soldier was clad in a special heavy armor that was at least an inch thick, with a heavy tower shield that was one foot thick, eight feet high, and two feet wide in his left hand. They also held a special spear that was thirty feet long, as thick as a man’s arm, and shaped like a cone with a sharp, pointed end in their right hands each. The spears made of pure metal jutted upward, blocking the way of the charging soldiers like a dense forest.

Behind the ten thousand heavily armored soldiers were three thousand archers with specially made heavy crossbows. They fired waves of bolts in unison, reaping the lives of Sen soldiers along with the arrows that came raining down from the sky.

The few main roads leading to the square had been occupied by Dong Hai soldiers who rode various strange beasts. They were not in a hurry to charge, but stood calmly at their positions and watched the thousand-odd soldiers launching the desperate push. Each push left dozens of corpses behind. By the look of it, it would not take long before they were completely slaughtered.

With a loud, sonorous roar, a general, whose body was pierced by at least thirty specially made armor-piercing arrows, rose from the heap of corpses. Standing more than twelve feet tall, the general held up a crescent axe covered with blood and burned the last bit of his lifeforce as he bulled toward the soldiers of Dong Hai at the front gate.

“My lord, I’m here to rescue you!” The general roared as he charged forward with heavy steps.

Clad in a suit of golden armor, Huang Liang, who had begun to emanate a faint dignified air, suddenly appeared before the general. His right hand pierced the burly man’s armor and body like a sharp blade, and came out from the back. The strike had destroyed the man’s heart and gutted out the flame of his life.

“What a fierce and loyal general! It’s a pity that he had decided to follow Xing Yihuo, a rebel!” said Huang Liang as he slowly pulled his hand back. The man’s body twitched violently. Using his last bit of strength, he swung the axe in the direction of the gate before collapsing to the ground.

When the remaining hundreds of soldiers saw that their general was slain by Huang Liang, they howled in despair and threw away their shields and weapons before falling to their knees. They had given up the resistance and chosen to surrender. But, at Huang Liang’s command, thousands of Dong Hai soldiers marched forward and mercilessly stabbed them with spears before lifting their bodies high.

Three Dong Hai Oracles, who had nine golden suns embroidered on their sleeves, walked out slowly while emitting powerful waves of energy. They raised their hands and murmured some incantations. Another flash of lightning flickered across the void, sucking away all the tens of thousands of corpses, blood, and the souls of the dead soldiers who still lingered in the square. Shafts of strong blood-red light streamed down from the sky, fusing into the bodies of Dong Hai soldiers and Oracles.

Lei Meng’s voice, thick with mixed emotions, reverberated in the air over the square. “Tsk, what have you been doing lately? Aye, there are people offering sacrifices to me everywhere, and I have to spend so much energy to accept them. What a happy annoyance… Won’t you be in trouble for sacrificing so much to me?”

Huang Liang narrowed his eyes and smiled. He looked back over his shoulder at Yan Bugui, who was leading a group of soldiers out of the mansion. They exchanged a quick smile. What trouble could there be?

Wu Qi was conferred the title of King of Dong Hai. The so-called Dong Hai (East Sea) was the first great sea to the east of Liangzhu. If truth be told, there were countless seas to the east of Liangzhu, but Dong Hai was named as such because it was the first sea that one encountered. It was a vast sea whose surface area was the size of more than three thousand provinces, and it would take half a month for a Gold Immortal to fly from the east to the west at full speed.

Zhong Province was only the most famous first-grade province on the western side of the East Sea. Around the sea were forty-five first-grade provinces, whose status was similar to Zhong Province, each of which ruled over three hundred lesser provinces. Among the tens of thousands of provinces, about forty percent had colluded with King Xin Shan and King Li Shan.

Now that Wu Qi was ordered by Emperor Haozun to station in Dong Hai and suppress the eastern provinces, he had set the provinces around East Sea as his first targets. The Prefecture Overseers, County Governors, and all the officials who came from Liangzhu’s rebellious clans were thoroughly purged. Meanwhile, officials from provinces with which King Xin Shan and King Li Shan might be associated had been detained collectively. The other provinces, which were certain to have nothing to do with the rebellious princes, had all their armies incorporated by Dong Hai before being randomly disrupted by Wu Qi and sent to other locations.

Dong Hai Army, under Wu Qi’s direct command, poured endlessly out of Dong Hai to build numerous military towns and checkpoints around East Sea. Wu Qi had issued an order of mobilization, dragging the entire Dong Hai and all the eastern provinces into a state of emergency. In this state of war, all supplies and military forces were under his control, and all promotions and dismissals of officials were decided by him alone.

Right now, Wu Qi had the absolute power over life and death. In this case, who would know that the purged officials and their families were sacrificed to Lei Meng? Even if someone knew, who dared to leak it to others? And, even if someone did leak it, who would believe him?

If anyone dared to say a few words of justice for those who were sacrificed, he would be regarded as the traitors’ accomplice!

Everything went smoothly under Wu Qi’s almost brutal, high-handed tactics. The only one who was upset was Lei Meng. There were more than ten thousand provinces around East Sea, each governing several to thousands of counties. Sometimes, hundreds of places offered him sacrifices at the same time. Even the mere act of tearing open the void to receive the sacrifices left Lei Meng breathless. It was, as he said, a happy annoyance.

With such a large-scale blood sacrifice, the overall strength of Dong Hai’s soldiers and Oracles rose steadily, while the prowess of Lei Meng had also improved greatly. According to his own words, his prowess was about to break through to the next major realm. As for what it was, Lei Meng pretended to be mysterious and refused to tell Wu Qi, and Wu Qi did not bother to inquire about it either.

In any case, there was a blood oath, and Lei Meng had to lend his power to the Oracles of Dong Hai when needed. Wu Qi did not care how strong Lei Meng was now. He and Princess Zhang Le were strong enough to handle all kinds of problems.

After three months of cruel purging, all the provinces around East Sea were cleansed by Wu Qi. The control of these provinces fell to the first batch of Great Yu’s clans who had submitted to him, led by Bo Zhongfu, as well as the imperial clans and great clans of the six states.

At Wu Qi’s order, these provinces went on a recruiting spree. All the recruits were sent to the spirit cave beneath Dong Hai City for brainwashing and special training. Because both Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le had broken through to the realm of Dao Breaking, which was equivalent to the fifth tier of Divine Golden Immortal realm, the Dark Yin Celestial Tower was able to speed up time by thirty-thousand times. In just three months, thousands of years had passed in the spirit cave. Large numbers of well-trained soldiers filled Dong Hai’s barracks, and numerous soldiers were stationed in various military towns.

As Dong Hai’s power was growing, Wu Qi issued another mobilization order and began to attack the provinces further east. All the provinces that remained loyal to Great Yu had submitted letters of allegiance to him, while those that had joined the rebels began to rally their forces in preparation for war.

Just as Wu Qi was preparing to personally lead the army to annihilate the rebellious provinces in the east, while taking the opportunity to carry out a super blood sacrificial ceremony, Princess Zhang Le suddenly came to him. She was followed by thirty thousand pretty girls, who were all wearing the same black dress. They walked quietly into the mansion, crowding the wide square in front of the main hall.

Wu Qi, who was consulting with Bai Qi and several other generals about the route, stared blankly at her. “Zi Xuan, what are you doing?”

Bai Qi and the other generals quickly left the hall, puzzled, leaving the couple behind.

Princess Zhang Le calmly pointed out the door and said, “Take these girls before you purge the eastern provinces. They are the best girls I’ve chosen for you these days from the imperial clans and great clans of the six states. You have such a large foundation today that it is not always possible to let outsiders help you. You need your own children to help you, and I think it is time for you to have an heir!”

The princess lifted her chin triumphantly and counted on her fingers.

“There is still a month until you leave, and that means there will be thirty-thousand months in Dark Yin Celestial Tower, more than two thousand years. That’s enough time for you to sleep with each of them several times. Well, you’ll sleep with me in the first half of each month, and sleep with them in the second half of each month.”

As Princess Zhang Le gleefully counted on her fingers, Wu Qi turned pale as a sheet of paper.