Stealing The Heavens

“Do you really think you can trap us with a celestial formation? What an ignorant punk!”

Among the group of men and women, a couple erupted into a burst of triumphant laughter. Starlight had filled the void a hundred miles around them; the murderous star power had transformed into a colossal silver blanket and covered everything, veiling even the heaven and earth. However, none of these men and women looked panicking, and were all laughing together with the couple.

Even Bai Zhu was roaring with laughter, although the poison had turned half of his body purple-black and he was trembling with excruciating pain. They laughed so hard as if it were a funny thing for Wu Qi to trap them with a celestial formation.

Amidst the laughter, the couple suddenly transformed into two silver rhinos, about a hundred feet tall and more than two hundred feet long. Each of them had three extremely sharp, pale golden horns standing out from the top of their heads, shrouded in golden clouds. Through their half-transparent texture, Wu Qi could see a clump of liquid rolling within these horns, and the crystal clear liquid seemed to be seeping out of the horns as well. Even Huang Liang, who knew nothing about the precious treasures under heaven, had his eyes lit up when he saw them. Evidently, the couple’s six horns were rare treasures.

In addition to the six golden horns that seemed to be full of liquid, the silver skins of the couple looked amazing as well. Countless stars could be seen flickering brightly across their skins, forming into what seemed to be a complete map of stars.

Wu Qi realized with a shock that the couple was actually a pair of Star Golden Rhinos, a kind of ancient beast.

Star Golden Rhino was the descendant of a divine beast from the ancient time. But, unlike those mighty divine beasts such as the azure dragon and the white tiger, this divine beast was an expert of astronomy and geography, born with the ability to grasp fortune and destiny through observing the stars in the universe. If azure dragon and white tiger were materials for generals, Star Golden Rhino was the perfect candidate for a strategist.

In ancient times, when Gods were still ruling the world and divine beasts were able to rule over a realm of their own, Star Golden Rhinos often served as counselors or strategists to many powerhouses of varying sizes. Some of them had even become the dominant figures of certain powerhouses, whose operations were solely based on their designs.

But, a tragic fate fell upon them when the human race rose to power later, who, together with the immortals branched out from them, defeated the Gods and ended their reign over the world. To those greedy immortals, Star Golden Rhinos were full of treasures just like the Dragon Pythons of Fire and Ice, as even their hair was the best material for writing brushes which they used to draw spirit talismans with. Therefore, just one eon after the human race occupied Pangu Continent and the immortals occupied outer heavenly realms, Star Golden Rhinos almost went extinct.

As he quickly went through the information about Star Golden Rhinos in his mind, Wu Qi smiled calmly and said, “Oh, what a coincidence! I was just thinking that my formation is missing a couple of formation flags that can harness the star power, and now, you are here! Well, I reckon I can craft at least thirty-six flags with your horns, and it is said that your bones can be used to craft 1080 celestial flags. This is great!”

While laughing, he gave the back of his head a slap. Immediately, the Nine Nether Ghost Flame transformed into a giant hand that was about a few miles wide, grabbing toward the two rhinos with a strong evil and chilly air. Wu Qi was really delighted; if he could capture these two rhinos and use their horns and bones to craft formation flags and celestial flags, the power of his celestial formation would certainly increase by at least ten folds. Every hair on a Star Golden Rhino’s body was innately the best magnet to the power of the stars, with the ability to control the power easily.

However, he then felt it would be a waste of such a precious treasure if he just captured and killed them.

Wu Qi blinked, then he nodded and said, “Well, instead of draining a pond to get all the fish, I should go for sustainability! So, I think it’s better for you to follow me back to my Dong Hai Province and produce more offspring in my pen! Hehe, I happen to have the prescription to help you ancient beasts breed. It’ll ensure you have more children than you can imagine!”

The rhino couple had been trembling with rage when they first heard Wu Qi say he was going to make them into formation flags and celestial flags, and their anger exploded like a volcano when they heard he was going to breed them in a pen like some cattle. After all, the miserable fate of their ancestors was quite famous among the divine beasts, as not many kinds of divine beasts were so unlucky as them, who almost had their entire species wiped out as a result of being constantly hunted down by the immortals.

Therefore, Wu Qi’s words were equivalent to rubbing salt on the wound of the entire Star Golden Rhino species, and it instantly made the rhino couple explode with rage.

Vast golden light spewed out of the six golden horns, flooding toward the 360 Star Pearls hovering above Wu Qi’s head in a fierce torrent. Wherever they went, the starlight radiated out of the Star Pearls grew stiff, and soon, the swaying power of the stars froze like thin sheets of ice, quickly shattered by the golden torrent. The air rang with the crisp sound of cracking, and before long, the silver void was ripped with numerous cracks, through which, the beautiful scenery of the outside world could be seen.

Star Golden Rhinos were worthy of being the descendants of the ancient divine beast. Controlling the power of the stars was as natural to them as eating and drinking, and all the formations constructed with the power of the stars were no secret to them. It would be not so easy for the rhino couple to break the formation if Wu Qi had constructed it with the energies of the five elements or even the power of the Ghost God. However, a celestial formation was as weak as parchment to them, if truth be told.

The golden light spewed out of the golden horns had frozen the celestial formation Wu Qi constructed with his 360 Star Pearls. Amidst the laughter of the men and women, the rhino couple took a deep breath each, and their bodies grew abruptly to about ten thousand feet long, with countless stars flickering rapidly underneath their skins. A billion streams of silver starlight radiated from all over their bodies, wheeling quickly like countless fireflies to form a lively map of stars around them.

But, it was obvious that the two rhinos did not have sufficient cultivation base, for the map of stars they conjured only consisted less than ten percent of all the stars in the universe. Nevertheless, it came with terrifying power. Wherever those tiny silver light went, Wu Qi’s formation quickly crumbled and disintegrated; and before long, the silver void was almost completely wiped out.

The couple burst into laughter. “Tan Lang, we have destroyed your celestial formation with merely a flick of our fingers. So, what else do you have? You’ve killed our beloved son with that Myriad Poisons Formation of yours, so you leave us no choice but to capture you today, and we’ll settle the score with the Human Emperor later!”

The group of men and women behind them roared in unison. “Indeed! Capture this little punk first, and then we’ll settle the score with the Human Emperor! Even the Human Emperor doesn’t have the right to kill our sons without a proper reason!”

A woman, who was beautiful and lean with a few faint lines streaked across her face, growled, “Even the Great Heavenly Venerate of the Heaven has refused to get involved in the nasty deed between your Great Yu and Myriad Immortal Alliance, so why are you dragging our sons into this pool of muddy water? Are you only afraid of the Heaven, and think that we, the descendants of the divine beasts, are merely patsies whom you can bully at will?”

Roaring furiously, she suddenly transformed into a giant pale golden leopard with three long tails, leaping toward Wu Qi. Her body flickered from time to time as she raced across the sky, bringing her thousands of feet further with each flicker Clearly, she possessed an ability to travel through the void, just like those Heavenly ghosts from the outer domain.

She was right in front of Wu Qi when her roar came to an end. With her mouth wide open, she bit down toward his head while her three long tails began to move in circles behind her back, unleashing numerous golden rings of light which quickly looped around his body. These rings looked hazy as if they were formed from mists, but each was as heavy as dozens of mountains combined. One after another they fell down and had Wu Qi trapped within, the pressure weighing down on him increasing by ten folds with every additional ring.

She was an Earth Spirit Leopard, a divine beast born with the ability to control the force of earth and three long tails with an incredible magical power. With them, she could draw runes and talismans in the air, harnessing the force of the earth and mountains to suppress the enemy. Legends had it that the ancient treasure, the Whip of Mountain, was made with the tail of an Earth Spirit Leopard, giving it the ability to control mountains.

Wu Qi gave a cold snort. Paying no heed to the approaching leopardess, he fixed his gaze at the two Star Golden Rhinos, who appeared to be indulging in their small victory, and said with a faint smile, “Oh, are the innate abilities of Star Golden Rhino really so powerful?”

With a flick of his finger, 360 extremely fine silver beams of light shot out from the top of his head and quickly fused with the 360 Star Pearls. The silver void, which was shattering as the result of being washed over by the golden torrent that gushed out of the rhinos’ horns, suddenly shook. Accompanied by the thunderous rumbling of the stars, silver starlight began to roll back from all directions like tidal waves, completely freezing the surrounding void in just the blink of an eye.

Startled by the sudden change, the rhino couple cried out hoarsely, “How strange? Why can’t we recognize the power of the stars this fellow is using? Which star’s power essence did he borrow? This… this…”

Without allowing them to utter further nonsense, the giant hand Wu Qi conjured with his Nine Nether Ghost Flame had grabbed the two Star Golden Rhinos, whose cultivation bases were only equivalent to a fifteenth-tier Gold Immortal, and tossed them into his Dark Yin Celestial Tower. Just then, the Earth Spirit Leopard’s sharp fangs reached his neck. However, a layer of thick black dragon scales quickly emerged from beneath his skin, causing bright sparks to fly out from where the fangs had touched. As a result, Wu Qi’s neck was unharmed, but the leopardess’s fangs cracked with fine lines.

“What a tough neck!” The leopardess gave a miserable howl and quickly retreated with blood dripping down the corner of her mouth.

Wu Qi laughed as the silver light that blotted the sky collapsed toward him, and 360 strange beasts whom none of those present had ever seen slowly revealed themselves above the Star Pearls. Amidst the whistling of the raging evil power of the stars, darkness fell upon the trapped divine beasts, and they were then thrown to different places within the formation.

Bai Zhu, who was consuming some pills to get rid of the poison in his body, gave an alarming cry as a silver vortex suddenly appeared next to him, dragging him to the heart of the formation where the pressure of the star was the strongest. Then, Wu Qi strode toward him, grabbed him up by his scalp, and began to shower him with punches.

The surrounding void trembled violently as the dozens of divine beasts transformed back to their true forms and attacked the formation with their strongest power, trying their best to break out of the dire situation.

As a result, Wu Qi absorbed whole of the backlash alone. His internal organs were shaking, and his mouth burbled with blood. With his jaws tightly clenched, he kept punching Bai Zhu, who had become weaker after being poisoned.

As he kept landing his blows on the poor fellow, he looked back over his shoulder in the direction of You Xiong Plain, puzzled.

Why hadn’t the garrison in You Xiong Plain arrived yet? Could it be that they hadn’t noticed what was going on here?