Stealing The Heavens

Even though Wu Qi was a man of wide experience who had seen countless rare and precious treasures, he could not help but suck in a cold breath when he walked into Jiyi Clan’s treasure vault! He wondered how many precious materials had Jiyi Clan embezzled from Great Yu, and how many shady trades had Jiyi Clan completed to build up such an insane wealth?

Jiyi Clan had the gift of being a rat, just as their act of secretly gnawing off Great Yu’s foundation. Their treasure vault was a huge void buried deep under the ground. Jointly stabilized by at least twelve Supreme Oracles, the void measured almost ten thousand kilometers in both width and length, and about a hundred miles in height. It was stacked with all kinds of rare materials, some of which were unrecognizable even by Wu Qi, who had inherited the Scroll of Stealing.

Ignoring those odds and ends, there were eighteen types of pearls condensed of innate energy, a total of ninety-three of them, each of which could be used as the main material of a supreme-grade Gold Immortal artifact; forty-five extra-large tortoise shells that were used to craft Jade Armor Dark Turtle flying ships, each of which could be used to craft at least tens of thousands of supreme-grade defensive immortal armors; millions of sword embryos and embryos of various weapons, which had all been crafted to their final forms, and would become qualified lower-grade Gold Immortal artifacts as long as they were filled with new arrays.

Here Wu Qi saw a lot of Great Yu’s ordnance he had seen in the past, many of which were used by the soldiers of Dong Hai Province. For example, all sorts of powerful, large bolts that were lethal to even immortals were heaping up densely like hills here. And compared with Great Yu’s standard ordnance, which was all thoroughly tempered weapons, the ordnance kept illegally here were divine weapons that had been tempered a thousand times more.

Whether it was the materials or the crafting techniques, the ordnance here was a hundred times better than that used by Great Yu’s army. Their appearance was also slightly different; complicated and exquisite patterns were carved across their surfaces, with sockets that ready to accept immortal stones and energy stones, as well as blank space for immortal arrays. As long as the immortal artisans of the Heaven carved arrays on these weapons and embedded them with immortal stones and energy stones, they would turn into the mighty weapons the Heaven’s army could use to defeat their enemies.

Wu Qi could not help but kept sucking in cold breaths. The people of Jiyi Clan must be very determined about their betrayal that it had made them committed such a treachery deed!

He randomly picked up a small crossbow placed on a rack, lightly drew its string, and found that its draw weight was three times that of the crossbows used by Great Yu’s army! “Have the people of Jiyi Clan lost their mind?” Wu Qi could not help but curse.

Princess Zhang Le was not interested in these finished weapons. She just stared excitedly at those hills of raw materials with a charming smile on her face. Countless rare and precious natural treasures were heaping up in hills here; all kinds of metal were cast into square ingots and neatly placed all over the place. Everything was emitting an enchanting glow, and their value was immeasurable.

In addition to various metals and minerals, Jiyi Clan’s treasure vault also contained countless unrefined spirit herbs. With Jiyi Clan’s status in Great Yu, it was very easy for them to gather all kinds of spirit herbs. Predictably, these herbs would eventually fall into the Heaven’s hands, become large quantities of life-prolonging spirit pills, and then return to Jiyi Clan.

Among these spirit herbs, hundreds of them were supreme-grade herbs that could be used to concoct Primordial pills. They were hard to find even in Pangu Continent, and most of the time one would need to risk his life in those newly born primal lands around the edge of Pangu Continent, only then could he find these herbs. In order to gather all these spirit herbs here, Jiyi Clan must have paid a dear price.

As for various upper-grade and supreme-grade immortal stones, there were countless of them here. Tens of thousands of storage bracelets were fully stuffed with them, all of which were neatly placed on rows of wooden racks. When Wu Qi randomly picked up a few bracelets and sent his divine sense into them, to find out how many immortal stones were in there, his heart could not help but begin to race. It was simply too frightening. How did Jiyi Clan manage to collect so many immortal stones? The immortal stones in each bracelet were not counted in pieces, but should be counted directly in cubic kilometers!

All this now belonged to Wu Qi. With the ordnance, he could arm his Dong Hai Army to the teeth, and with all the natural treasures, immortal stones and energy stones, he could finally fulfill Hei Mo’s condition. What he had now was more than enough to free all the people of the six dynasties from the Black Celestial Forbidden Curse.

His divine sense swept across the entire treasure vault as he made a rough count of the astonishing wealth. Then, after pondering for a brief moment, he flicked his sleeve and put everything into his interstitial world. A bright gleam flashed in his eyes as he began to laugh deeply. ‘Yes… the natural treasures here are enough to free all the members from both the imperial clans and powerful clans of the six dynasties, but why should I benefit anyone for nothing?

“Ying Zheng and others should still be working hard to develop their powers and do their best to collect natural treasures. But with Great Yu now cracking down itinerant immortals and cultivators harder than ever before, it’ll be extremely difficult for them to gather enough natural treasure to satisfy Hei Mo’s huge appetite. So… if they want to be freed from Black Celestial Forbidden Curse… hehe, that’ll have to depend on my mood!’

After scavenging Jiyi Clan of all their treasures, Wu Qi left their ancestral mansion, which had been completely destroyed, with his Dong Hai Army. A thick layer of the ground in the basin had been scraped away when they left. Jiyi Clan’s extravagant lifestyle was to be blamed for this, for they had actually paved the ground with supreme-grade jades, all of which had formed jade essence and jade paste in their cores that could be used as life-saving spirit medicines. At Wu Qi’s order, the army had taken all these jades away.

After annihilating Jiyi Clan, Wu Qi continued to travel about with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and wiped out seven or eight more clans who had betrayed Great Yu. These clans were all of the kind who did not have experts but of extremely honorable blood, who were filthy rich and held real power in Great Yu. Although Wu Qi was conferred King of Dong Hai, as he did not have an heir now, the power of clan was not of his concern now. Therefore, after these clans were wiped out, their power was divided by the other clans in Great Yu, while Wu Qi was given the wealth they had accumulated over the years. This was Emperor Haozun’s reward for him, and also the price the other clans paid for the power.

After a little more than half a month of hectic campaigns, Great Yu’s great purge of the rebellious clans was finally completed.

There was no doubt that the purge, triggered by King Bai Shan’s failed attempt to assassinate Wu Qi, was a devastating blow to Great Yu. The fact that fifteen percent of the powerful clans in Liangzhu had betrayed Great Yu had caused a great impact on both the actual strength of Great Yu and the people’s minds.

It was not known how many people from the clans of those Prefecture Overseers and Marquises of Province were involved, but it was a complex task to be carried out afterward. The betrayal of these clans in Liangzhu alone had proved that Great Yu’s foundation had been corrupted. Everyone had sensed an imminent pressure—was it true that all those who had betrayed Great Yu were accounted for? Was there any fish left out of the net?

If there were really some fishes escaped the net, who would that be? And since they could remain silent under Emperor Haozun’s spirit pressure that was very close to the peak-level of Dao Breaking, once they had any action, it was bound to cause unprecedented damage to Great Yu. But even Emperor Haozun dared not to pursue it any further, partly because there was no clue, and partly because the great purge had already inflicted serious losses to Great Yu and made the people from the remaining powerful clans worried. Therefore, he dared not to pursue it any further.

Ignoring others, forty percent of generals and soldiers in You Xiong Army alone had been purged. Any officials in the imperial court who knew how huge was the army would feel their heads reeling when they looked at this number, and could only imagine how the blood had flooded the earth and how high the corpses had piled up into.

After a little over a month of slaughtering, Emperor Haozun once again summoned his subjects to the great hall at the top of Mount Torch Dragon.

Compared with a dozen days ago, there were fewer people in the hall. Many had perished with their clans. Although some people knew nothing about the betrayal, when a bird’s nest was overturned, no egg could remain intact. As a result, they were executed along with their clans.

Emperor Haozun sat aloft on his throne, his entire body emanated a terrible pressure as he looked down on all his subjects. He cast his eyes over them with a certain suspicion, and it was only when he saw Wu Qi, Princess Zhang Le, King Yang Shan, Ji Ao, and a few others, that there were warmth and trust in them.

Everyone lowered their heads and nobody dared to look up at the emperor. Emperor Haozun, who had always been silently criticized for his incompetent, had finally reversed all his subjects’ impressions of him with a bloody purge, completely established his authority and fierce reputation. Perhaps in term of moral prestige he was far inferior to the Yellow Emperor, Xuanyuan, and other Ancient Sacred Emperors, but he was definitely the most feared Human Emperor in human history!

“Liangzhu can’t stay in chaos like this. The investigation is now at an end.”

After a long silence, Emperor Haozun had finally spoken, setting the tone for today’s council. With that, the purge in Liangzhu was over, and those present in the great hall, innocent or guilty, were safe for now.

“I want a complete purge across all the provinces in my realm,” Emperor Haozun said coolly. “Anyone who is related to those rebels, I want their whole clans to be executed. King Yang Shan, you will take charge of this task. King of Dong Hai, because of your loyalty to Great Yu, I hereby grant you permission to expand your army in Dong Hai Province by ten million soldiers, and this army is only subject to my command.”

Wu Qi’s eyes lit up as he hurried out of the rank and thanked the emperor. By granting permission to expand the army in Dong Hai Province by ten million soldiers, and declared that the army only subjected to his command, it was clear that Emperor Haozun had taken precautions against You Xiong Army, and was trying to raise another armed force that was loyal to him outside You Xiong Plain. It was naturally a piece of good news for Wu Qi. As long as he did not have to pay himself, he would never mind having a larger army.

After that, Emperor Haozun issued a series of decrees, the most notable of which was that Ji Ao had been adopted by King Wei Shan, who had died of a sudden illness, and inherited his title. Everyone knew what this ‘died of a sudden illness’ was about, but no one was going to disobey the emperor’s decree on this matter.

Filled with great joy, Ji Ao walked out of the rank to thank Emperor Haozun. Just when he had kowtowed and yet to straighten his body, a eunuch suddenly hurried into the great hall.

“Your Majesty, the crown prince of the Heaven, Lord Bowang, beg for an audience!”

A burst of cries erupted from among all the courtiers in the hall.