Stealing The Heavens

Not long after Wu Qi had left through the teleportation formation, Buddha Futu, whose face was pale like ash and fat body shrunk significantly, returned to the sky over the Arctic Pole along with a gust of scented wind. His lower body had been regenerated, but it had consumed a great amount of his energy. Therefore, he looked all shriveled up now like a dried bamboo shoot, no longer as plum and smooth-skinned like before.

“Evildoer! Vile spawn!” Buddha Futu trembled with rage as he pointed a finger at the formation which had silently dissolved into ashes. Clearly, Wu Qi had returned to Pangu Continent through the formation, and he had immediately activated the formation’s counter-restrictive mechanism, causing it to self-destruct.

A gust of breeze came blowing by, and a little monk suddenly appeared next to Buddha Futu. He had rosy lips and pretty white teeth, looking about thirteen or fourteen years old, and wearing a white monk robe. With a smile on his face, the little monk gave the surroundings a glance, which had turned into ruins after the fierce battle. He shook his head and sighed, then gently waved his hand to send out a sheet of bright light that spread out far and wide. In just the blink of an eye, the entire Arctic Pole had been restored.

“Listen up, Futu!” said the little monk while chuckling. Hastily, Buddha Futu stood still in reverence while staring at the little monk with his blinking eyes. “What happened today is a lesson for you. If you still don’t cultivate your true form to human form, you will have to suffer again in the future. The body you have now is nothing but the condensation of a thread of true spirit I’ve conjured. Although you have the cultivation base of a Buddha, your body is too frail. Without cultivating your true form into a golden body and fusing it with the true spirit, you’ll never be able to compete with a real almighty expert!”

The little monk sniffed and narrowed his eyes as if in thought, then shook his head before sighing, “An enemy who is merely as strong as a Gold Immortal can wound you like this. It would be embarrassing if that got out.”

Buddha Futu answered with a distressed expression. A beam of golden light rushed out from the top of his head, and the pagoda which was over a thousand feet tall made its appearance once again. He looked up at the pagoda and scratched his head helplessly. This pagoda was his true form; although he assumed the form of a human now, it was merely condensed from his true spirit. Only by putting a hard effort in cultivating his true form—the pagoda—into a golden body, and fusing it with his true spirit, could he then become a true Buddha.

But, his true form was extremely tough, and it would take him a lot of hard work to cultivate it into a human form. Buddha Futu had been converted by Amitabha for eons, and he had already spent several eons of hard efforts to cultivate his true form. And yet, the pagoda was still the same, not showing the slightest sign of transforming into the human form.

The little monk darted a look at Buddha Futu, who was visibly distressed, then gently pressed a palm against the top of the latter’s head, sending a stream of pale golden light together with a whiff of exotic scent into his body. Immediately, Buddha Futu’s shriveled body bloated up like a balloon, and in just the blink of an eye, he was back to his original look, the fair and smooth-skinned, fat monk. The energy he had lost due to his lower body being cut away by Wu Qi was fully restored, becoming even more abundant than before.

Buddha Futu placed his palms together respectfully and bowed deeply to the little monk, then said, “Thank you, the Revered One of the World.”

The comely and harmless-looking little monk was none other than the supreme leader of the Buddhist League, the spiritual leader of all the Buddhists in the universe, and the strongest almighty expert of the Buddhist League, Lord Buddha, Amitabha. With his eyes narrowed, Amitabha said in a deep voice, “Alright, let’s put this matter aside for now. At this point, things have to move on according to our plan. Even if someone intervenes, what can be changed?”

He gave a cold snort, then dissolved into a gust of breeze and vanished, leaving behind only a faint voice that lingered in the air, “Carve and polish your foundation, Futu, for it is what will bring you the enlightenment. If anyone likes to stir up troubles in the worlds of mortal, let them be. In the current situation, we don’t have to pay any attention to those trifling matters. Once we are done with our plan, the days of glory for the Buddhist League will be at hand. At that point in time, we will settle all the scores with them!”

Amitabha’s voice gradually faded away in the air and ended with a faint sigh, which sounded as if he was somewhat hesitating, even filled with a hint of trepidation. But, no one heard Amitabha’s sigh, and even if they did, they would not believe what they had heard. Amitabha was hesitating? Amitabha was in a trepidation? How could that be possible? What could make him hesitate? And would frighten him?

Buddha Futu gave a laugh. He glanced at the surroundings, then perform a double-handed incantation gesture and cried out a word in a deep voice, “Forget!” With the word, a beam of golden light swept across the entire earth, wiping out all the memories and records related to the previous battle. With the memories wiped clean, the people in this mortal world continued to develop in an orderly fashion according to the will and rules that the immortals and buddhas had set in place.

…

After Wu Qi rushed into the teleportation formation, he quickly transformed into a beam of light that shot toward Pangu Continent. He was shrouded in a rapidly-blinking silvery green starlight, one that was left on him by the Mirror of Kunlun, which boosted his speed by countless times. With it, it had taken him only a breath of time to complete the long, hard journey to Pangu Continent.

As the pressure weighing down on him was lifted, Wu Qi found himself standing in a valley filled with green grasses on Pangu Continent. Before giving the surroundings a glance, he hastily placed a palm against the formation and activated its self-destruction mechanism, causing the formation in Arctic Pole to self-destruct. This was something Prince Chang Qin had specifically told him to do, that if anyone found out he was using the formation, he would have to destroy it immediately.

Wu Qi could understand the importance of this. Great Yu exercised a strict control over the Pangu Continent. Any ordinary immortal who wished to enter Pangu Continent would have to go through the immortal passes jointly set up by Great Yu and the Heaven, and could only stay here temporarily after going through a strict inspection. But, the teleportation formations Prince Chang Qin and the others had constructed could bypass the surveillance of the immortal passes, so it would be a disaster if any of these formations were to be controlled by the immortals.

As soon as Wu Qi destroyed the formation, a vast stream of hot current suddenly exploded out within his body.

Just now, he had cut Buddha Futu’s fleshly body in two. Little did he know that the Buddha’s body was not made of flesh, but the condensation of his true spirit and an enormous amount of power of faith from his believers. As a matter of fact, Buddha Futu’s body could be considered as a Nascent Soul, one that possessed the overall strength of a Buddha.

Therefore, the lower half of Buddha Futu’s body he had devoured did not contain any flesh, blood, or energy essence, but an enormous amount of pure willpower, and a great deal of memories. Wu Qi had only spent a brief moment in the teleportation formation, so the willpower did not have time to explode out. However, as soon as he was teleported to Pangu Continent and destroyed the formation on the other side that had been exposed, relaxing down his tensed up nerves, the golden liquid he had devoured immediately exploded.

The willpower that was more than enough to make Wu Qi’s body explode from the inside out surged violently in him. Although his chaotic energy was rapidly devouring them, they were the willpower from half of Buddha Futu’s body, which meant that they contained half of Buddha Futu’s cultivation base! Wu Qi’s cultivation base was merely equivalent to a fifth-tier Gold Immortal, but Buddha Futu was an almighty expert of the Primordial grade. Although Buddha Futu was only a ninth-tier Primordial expert, half of his cultivation base was still more than enough to rip a hundred thousand Wu Qi into pieces.

Sweats were breaking out and trickling down all over him, and Wu Qi felt as if tens of thousands of suns were exploding inside of him at the same time. He felt that both his body and his divine soul were about to be destroyed by this terrible power. For a moment, he regretted what he had done. He was too impulsive just now. How could he devour half of a buddha’s body? Wasn’t this an act of courting death?

Countless information was rushing into his divine soul. Buddha Futu’s body was the condensation of his true spirit, so as Wu Qi devoured half of the body, he had also swallowed up many of the buddha’s memories. From them, he was pleasantly surprised to find the complete cultivation technique Buddha Futu was cultivating—the ‘Thirty-three Heavens Futu True Scripture’—and the essence of the cultivation technique the Lord Buddha was cultivating—the ‘Great Light Indestructible Amitabha Treasure Scripture’.

Wu Qi felt as if a huge pie had fallen from the sky and smashed onto his head. The cultivation technique Buddha Futu was cultivating was of no use for him. Unless his true self was also a pagoda, the scripture was totally useless. But, the one cultivated by Amitabha was truly a supreme mystic art of the Buddhist League. Throughout the universe, apart from Amitabha himself, only Buddha Futu, who had been accompanying him for countless eons, owned the complete copy of this mighty cultivation technique.

All of Amitabha’s disciples, many of whom were Buddhas and bodhisattvas, cultivated only the various divine abilities branched out from the Great Light Indestructible Amitabha Treasure Scripture, which were nothing when compared with the mystic art Lord Buddha himself was cultivating.

At this critical juncture of having his body exploding due to the enormous willpower, Wu Qi could care less about what the negative consequences he might have to face once he cultivated Amitabha’s cultivation technique. So, he took a deep breath and sent all the chaotic energy in his body into his interstitial world, leaving himself with only an empty fleshly body.

Sitting down cross-legged in this remote valley, Wu Qi guided a wisp of violent willpower into the area between his brows with his vast divine will, and began to cultivate Amitabha’s cultivation technique. Soon, a fairly discernible chime rang out from his heart, and his skin suddenly turned pale golden while his forehead began to glitter with a tiny white glow.

The vast power of divine sense in his divine soul rapidly converted into the willpower of the Buddhists as Wu Qi intoned the true words of the Buddhist League silently, rotating the technique and regulating his breath according to the Great Light Indestructible Amitabha Treasure Scripture. It truly was Amitabha’s proudest divine ability, for as soon as Wu Qi began to cultivate it, the enormous willpower that could not be controlled immediately became as obedient as a flock of sheep, flowing smoothly inside of his body according to his will, and eventually all ending up plunging into the area between his brows.

Deep, powerful chimes kept ringing out from his heart like the evening drum and morning bell in a monastery, giving off a thought-provoking, profound aura.

The golden color of Wu Qi’s skin grew more and more brilliant, then gradually became obscure, and finally turned into an extremely primitive and heavy, dark gold. As Wu Qi called out a Buddha epithet, three additional faces suddenly grew out of his head, each facing a different direction. His body was shrouded in a faint golden light, and then six arms poked out of his body.

He now had four faces and eight arms, his aura was solid and smooth like that of an indestructible pearl of Amitabha, and all his energy essence was well-concealed within his body. At this point in time, he had only digested about a fraction of the enormous willpower that came from Buddha Futu, and yet, it had elevated his magic power, cultivation base, and the strength of his fleshly body to the level of a second-tier Gold Immortal! Once he had fully digested all the willpower that he temporarily stored in the area between his brows, he would be standing on the threshold of the Primordial realm!

Together with the skeleton of the ancient immortal that was being gradually digested and absorbed in his body, given time, Wu Qi’s overall strength was bound to change dramatically.

On top of that, he had now formed the golden body of the Buddhist League. The avatar of four faces and eight arms contained endless magical effects, which Wu Qi needed time to study carefully.

Wu Qi took a deep breath and retracted the avatar. While grinning, he stamped his foot and an underground energy vein surged. In the next instant he was gone from the valley with the Kuafu Step, reaching billions of miles away after a few paces.