Stealing The Heavens

Wu Qi could sense his bones gradually transforming, and he could not help but burst out laughing in wild joy.

A Gold Immortal’s every move was enough to destroy heaven and earth. As Wu Qi laughed heartily, his voice rumbled like thunderclaps, and the sound waves stacked up into a terrible energy shockwave that swept across the surroundings. The cave where he was hiding was near the foot of a huge mountain, and with his laughter towering into the sky, the mountain that was over ten thousand miles tall suddenly crumbled and collapsed with a boom. In just the blink of an eye, the lofty mountain crushed into countless rocks that flew in all directions.

The laughter quickly spread far and wide into the surroundings, uprooting numerous hills along the way. As the white sound waves rolled across the land, a layer of rock, about dozens of feet thick, twisted and cracked before being forcibly lifted up from the ground. Measuring hundreds of miles across, the rock formation groaned unpleasantly as it was brought up into the air, and shattered into pieces as the sound wave swept past it. Broken stones of all sizes shot whistling through the air in all directions, leaving countless white smoke tails behind them.

Wu Qi’s laughter had caused a devastating change to the landscape within thousands of miles. With him at the center, a crater over three hundred miles deep and thousands of miles wide appeared out of nowhere, with rock walls as smooth as a mirror. The sound wave had polished the walls so smooth that even flies could not land on them.

A thousand miles away, a hundreds of miles wide river had also suffered. The laughter brought the water up into the sky, and countless ferocious and ugly-looking fishes and aquatic creatures were blown into pieces in midair. The river water was soon stained with the blood of myriad colors, which gave it a somewhat eerie look.

The laughter lasted for a full quarter of an hour before it came to a rest. When Wu Qi had stopped laughing, he could not help but glance about in horror. He was only laughing to his heart’s content, and yet it had caused such a devastating result. Was this the overall strength of a Gold Immortal?

As they had been soaked in ghost energy for ages, the mountains, hills, rocks, and sand in the Ghost Realm were tougher than ordinary Heaven Immortal artifacts. In here, even a peak-level Heaven Immortal could only smash a hole about a thousand feet across with all of his or her might. But, Wu Qi was able to create a thousands of miles wide crater on the ground just with his laughter alone. And, he only had the cultivation base of a fifth-tier Gold Immortal. If this were to spread, it would definitely make many people’s jaws drop.

Shaking his head, Wu Qi gave Ao Buzun a slap, who was laying atop his head, dizzy and close to faining from the deafening laughter. “I never expected the power of a Gold Immortal to be so devastating,” said Wu Qi in a low voice. “It looks like I have to be more careful in the future. No wonder Great Yu has forbidden mighty immortals from visiting Pangu Continent. Well, if they did, and if a Gold Immortal went to any of the cities and burst out laughing, he could have everyone in the city killed easily!”

Ao Buzun stuck out his tongue, his saliva dripping down from his mouth and quickly absorbed by Wu Qi’s hair, making them looked glossy and emitting a faint fragrance. “You’re right, that’s the reason!” the dragon murmured, “I can still remember how I killed thousands of guards in the White Emperor’s palace when I was peeping on his daughter taking a bath…”

As Ao Buzun was boasting about his past glory, a hundreds of miles wide dark cloud suddenly emerged in the sky over the horizon. Bringing with it a gusting evil wind, the dark cloud rolled straight toward Wu Qi’s direction. With his keen eyes, Wu Qi could see two tall and skinny men standing on the dark cloud across the distance of a thousand miles. They both wore black robes and cone-shaped black hats, one holding a black iron medallion in his hand and the other a black iron chain.

Their faces were deadly pale, and their bodies were shrouded in gusting evil winds, with fleeting white ghost flames darting out of them from time to time that transformed into ghostly shadows and danced behind them. Instead of eyeballs they had flickering devilish green flames, stretching dozens of feet out of their sockets and smearing the void thousands of feet around them ghastly green. Just looking at them would make one’s flesh creep.

Wu Qi carefully scanned the two strangely dressed men with his divine sense and what he found out gave his heart a jerk. Although they looked so skinny as if a gust of wind could have easily blown them away, the ghost energy in their bodies was as vast as an ocean, and their cultivation bases and realms were several times stronger than his. At least, with his current overall strength, Wu Qi could not determine their actual level of cultivation.

However, the pressure he felt from them was weaker than that of the Sovereign and Prabhutaratna Buddha, which meant they had yet to enter the realm of Primordial Immortals, and they were just two extremely strong existences of the Gold Immortal realm.

But, this was the Ghost Realm, where the world was filled with only strong ghost energy and all kinds of evil energies. The natural energy and the energies of the five elements the immortals could harness did not exist here. If an ordinary immortal entered this world, his cultivation base would be greatly suppressed, leaving him with less than ten percent of what he had. On the contrary, the cultivation bases of ghost immortals and heavenly ghosts would become stronger when they were in here. A ghost immortal of the Heaven Immortal level could easily unleash the strength of a Gold Immortal here, while ghost immortals and heavenly ghosts of peak Gold Immortal level could even fight against Primordial Immortals.

So, Wu Qi’s face became very serious. His chaotic energy could absorb ghost energy and all kinds of evil energies in the surroundings and convert them to his own, but he did not know any techniques used by the ghost cultivators, which put him on an inferior ground when fighting with those in the Ghost Realm. On top of that, the two mighty ghost immortals in front of him had their cultivation bases boosted by the Ghost Realm. Even before a fight broke out, he knew he was no match of them.

He could only hope that they were not here to cause him any trouble.

He slowly flew into the sky, stepping on a dark cloud and hovering in midair. They were only a thousand miles from him, and for Gold Immortals, such distance was no different from two mortals standing face to face. Wu Qi did not want to flee before he had asked them of their intentions.

Soon, the dark cloud was less than ten miles from him when it began to slow down, finally stopping about a mile from him. The two black-clothed men squinted at him and the dark cloud behind them rocked as dozens of shadows bolted out of it, all staring at him fiercely.

Clearly, the two black-clothed men were human beings who had cultivated themselves into ghost immortals, and the dozens of shadows that bolted out from behind them were heavenly ghosts with strong cultivation bases. Unlike the heavenly ghosts from the valley whom Wu Qi had tamed, these heavenly ghosts all had very advanced cultivation bases. So, their appearances had transformed to ones that looked similar to the human beings. In fact, they looked just like a group of handsome men and beautiful women.

Had it not been for the row of sharp bone spikes poking out of the back of their heads, and the long glinting tails with bone spikes that were coiled about their waists, Wu Qi would not be able to differentiate them from normal human beings. Compared to those common heavenly ghosts whose appearances were no different from monsters’, the cultivation bases of these heavenly ghosts had reached the realm of Gold Immortals. Therefore, they were able to reforge their fleshly bodies, and their intelligence was more advanced.

Only heavenly ghosts who had cultivated themselves to the realm of Gold Immortals could keep the greed in their nature under control. Even though the heavenly ghosts whom Wu Qi had tamed could barely maintain their wits in Ghost Realm, once they were released into Pangu Continent and when they smelt the flesh and blood of human beings and other living creatures, they would immediately go wild in killing and devouring.

As the dozens of high-level heavenly ghosts fixed their gazes on Wu Qi, the black-clothed man with a medallion asked, “Fellow immortal, have you seen a dark-green dragon boat with a man on it? We had sensed him passing by this area a few days ago, but his aura quickly faded away. Have you seen this man?”

Wu Qi was somewhat startled. This two men had brought with them so many high-level heavenly ghosts just to search for the ancient immortal he had subdued? He looked down at the huge crater, the result of his laughter, then looked back up and said with a smile on his face, “Greetings, fellow immortals! I did not see the man you’re talking about.”

The two black-clothed men exchanged a glance, their eyes flickering. Wu Qi could see that they had suddenly become quite depressed.

The man with an iron chain gave a cold snort. Looking at the massive crater down below, he said in a cold voice, “Since fellow immortal have not seen him, forget it! Oh, does fellow immortal have the official permit issued by any of the thirteen Great Heavenly Ghost Kings or the four hundred Ghost Saints? If fellow immortal does have one, please show it to us!”

The official permit issued by any of the Heavenly Ghost Kings or Ghost Saints? What the hell was that?

As Wu Qi looked blankly at them, both men’s expressions suddenly changed, and the green flames in their eyes shone hundreds of feet longer. The man with a medallion snapped, “Who are you? How did you manage to sneak into the Ghost Realm? We are the emissaries of the Great Nether Ghost King in charge of the patrolling of this region. Now tell us who you are…otherwise, you will be killed!”

Wu Qi laughed as he suddenly retreated dozens of miles backward. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t know how I got into this place,” he said in a deep voice. “As for the green dragon boat you mentioned, I did see it from thousands of miles away a few days ago. Well, as the man aboard looked really fierce, I dared not to speak to him!”

With his finger pointing at a random direction, Wu Qi laughed dryly and said, “If you make your way down this direction for about seven thousand miles now, you might be able to find that Senior who was clad a crimson robe!”

The two emissaries seemed clearly at a loss for what to do now. Wu Qi was a stranger, and they had to take him down for questioning his intentions of visiting the Ghost Realm. But at the same time, they could not let the dragon boat escape. The task they were assigned to was to look for the boat and capture the man aboard while he had yet to gain his full consciousness. It was the primary mission the Great Nether Ghost King had given them hundreds of years ago.

However, the ancient immortal had proven to be a tough nut to crack. The two emissaries had caught his traces several times in the past, and yet he managed to escape every single time. Their Master had not been happy with their poor performance. So, when Wu Qi told them that he saw the dragon boat about seven thousand miles from here, they knew they had to check it out. But, what about this stranger in front of them?

The two ghost immortals exchanged a glance, and one of them suddenly hissed, “We had sensed the man’s aura seven days ago, so even if we went that way as you suggested, we’d not be able to find his trace. But you, fellow immortal, appear to be suspicious to us. I think you better put down your guard and come with us!”

The ghost immortal with an iron chain flicked his hand, causing the long chain to suddenly split into thousands of smaller ones. Accompanied by jarring whistles they slithered out to fill the void, forming into a huge iron net and falling down toward Wu Qi with strong suction.

At the same time, the dozens of high-level heavenly ghosts plunged back into the dark cloud, ready to strike at Wu Qi together.

Wu Qi gave a strange laugh as his body blurred into motion. In just the blink of an eye, he was thousands of miles away.