Stealing The Heavens

Above the Thirty-three Heavens above Pangu Continent, a great hall shrouded eternally in a dazzling light was held up by clouds. Golden dragons and colorful phoenixes circled gracefully around it, and pairs of white cranes flew slowly over it with ganodermas in their beaks. Shone by the dazzling light, the golden glazed tiles of the hall reflected a rich golden light, making the red pillars and red walls look particularly majestic.

Thousands of heavenly generals stood with their heads held high on the 1,080 cloud platforms nearby, and 3,600 white clouds were flying back and forth between them, on which stood either thirty to five hundred heavenly soldiers each.

In front of the great hall was a vast square paved with jade. An extremely long jade step extended from the thick cloud and connected to a nine-story jade platform erected in the square. Heavily armed heavenly generals manned each story, but on the highest story was only a pair of strange-looking men. One of them was glancing down with golden light shining from his eyes, while the other man with a pair of huge ears was listening to something attentively.

In the majestically decorated hall, golden light and purple smoke veiled six middle-aged men dressed in the raiment of kings.

In the middle of them, sitting on the throne at the far end of the hall and surrounded in a purple halo transformed from a stream of purple smoke pouring down from the sky, was a white-faced man. He was none other than the present Great Celestial Emperor of Heaven, Emperor Ziwei Lingying. The other men seated on either side of the throne were the Five Celestial Emperors of Five Directions.

All six of them, unmoving like clay sculptures, were squinting at a mass of whirling golden light in the middle of the hall. The hazy light was divided into seven parts, showing the seven regiments of Wu Qi’s Dong Hai Army. When the five men from the forbidden clan suddenly inflated and then exploded, eroding the mountains for hundreds of miles around into a huge crater, the Great Celestial Emperor snorted softly.

“A bunch of trash, wasting all my years raising them!” The Great Celestial Emperor, whose face was as fair as the finest jade, gently fingered his long beard that hung down to his chest and said, “What do you think, my imperial brothers?”

The five emperors glanced at each other. Crimson Emperor, the South Emperor who wore a crimson robe, said in a flat voice, “The scabies are too small to harm the overall situation.”

After a long silence, the Great Celestial Emperor suddenly chuckled as he shook his head and sighed. “I’m just embarrassed. After all, I’ve sacrificed my son for our plans. No one in Dao League is going to say anything, but…I’m afraid those bald donkeys will use this to shame me.”

The five emperors exchanged glances once more. Crimson Emperor nodded and said, “What does Your Majesty think we should do?”

Ziwei Lingying pondered for a moment. “Although he had consumed a lot of Huo Wu’s strength with a group of people, the fact that this King Dong Hai was able to seriously injure Huo Wu shows that he does have some amazing skills and ability,” he said with a faint smile. “We can’t let him think that Heaven is incompetent! After the last apocalypse, we have been conserving our power and accumulating so many talented people…How can we let a punk like this be so presumptuous in front of us?”

Crimson Emperor laughed. “It’s just as well! In any case, it’s an undeniable fact that King Dong Hai had killed Lord Bowang. With this excuse, no matter how hard we strike, Great Yu can only accept it. A mere King Dong Hai will not affect the overall situation. We can kill him.”

The North Emperor, dressed in a white robe and surrounded by a chilly wind, asked dryly, “Who are we sending?”

The six emperors glanced at each other, and then five of them pointed to North Emperor at the same time. “My imperial brother, you have a lot of fearsome fighters serving under you,” said South Emperor with a smile, “So, it’s up to you to pick three to five experts to do this. Ask them to kill King Dong Hai and leave the others alone, be quick about it, and leave no traces behind that others can hold against us.”

When he mentioned the word ‘traces’, all six emperors looked up at the ceiling of the great hall at the same time, and then nodded to each other in tacit agreement. After a few moments of consideration, North Emperor gestured and said, “Celestial Lord Seven Killing, Celestial Lord Vanquisher, Celestial Lord Greed, I want you to go to the lower realm now. Kill King Dong Hai and bring his soul back. Celestial Lord Sun and Celestial Lord Moon, you two bring up the rear and stop any pursuers from Dong Hai. Don’t kill too many people.”

The great hall filled with a sudden burst of starlight as five voices answered the call. In the sky, five gleaming stars radiated a brilliant light at the same time, and then five very fine streaks of light shot toward Pangu Continent. Three stars with sharp starlight flew at the front, and two others—one red and one white—followed close behind. The two waves of stars separated by hundreds of thousands of miles as they sped across the void, exuding a mighty force that shook all the other stars in the sky.

In the regiment of Great Qin, Guigu’zi and Zhang Yi, who were gazing up at the stars from the observation deck of Ying Zheng’s battleship, were startled by the sight. While frowning, Guigu’zi said, “The stars are coming down to the lower realm? And three of the killing stars are coming together? What is going on? Interesting…”

He drew a mahogany sword from his waist, made from the heart of an old mahogany tree that had grown in You Xiong Plain for hundreds of millions of years, and sprinkled a handful of divination scales made from the shells of dragon turtles who lived in the West sea. Then, he began to perform a weird dance with odd steps, his body twisting left and right. Even then, he swung and stabbed the mahogany sword in midair, as if drawing some ugly runes. With that, a glimmer of starlight soon began to gather on the tip of the sword.

Guigu’zi’s face flushed as he chanted an old incantation, dancing strangely and waving his mahogany sword as if he were insane. After a while, the stars in the sky suddenly lit up.

Suddenly, a dense curtain of starlight appeared in front of the three Celestial Lords who were speeding toward Pangu Continent. Caught unprepared, they ran headlong into the curtain. Amidst a loud rumble, they were thrown tens of thousands of miles back. They never dreamed that someone would be able to perceive their movements through the changes of the stars, and would even use the power of the stars to prevent them from going to their destination.

The three Celestial Lords were so angry that they almost coughed blood, especially when they heard the feigned cries of alarm let out by the other two Celestial Lords from behind. Throwing their heads back, they roared at the same time. “Retract your natal star power now, or we will visit you one by one someday!”

Immediately, all the stars in the sky dimmed. Guigu’zi, who was doing a strange dance to stop the three Celestial Lords, lost his balance and leaned awkwardly forward, hitting his forehead on the railing of the observation deck. He struggled to his feet while trembling and gritted his teeth in anger. “Bast*rds, scoundrels! Why are you using such shameless means when I am fighting you with my power? How could you retract all the star power? This… this…”

While stroking his long beard, Guigu’zi told Zhang Yi, who was standing next to him, “It seems that the art of stars is useless in battles against those from Heaven. The entire power of the stars in the sky is under their control. Well, the only way to deal with them is by using the power of the earth veins. If we can muster all the power of the earth veins across the entire Pangu Continent, these Celestial Lords are nothing!”

As he looked up at the sky, Guigu’zi, full of pride, put away his mahogany sword. He then gritted his teeth and said, “One day, I’ll certainly repay the humiliation you’ve caused me!”

The curtain of starlight in front of the three Celestial Lords exploded into streaks of light and dissipated. They glanced at each other for a while, looking a little embarrassed, then cursed at the same time and flew on toward Pangu Continent. Their faces were slightly red, and they gritted their teeth while swearing in their hearts that after they had killed King Dong Hai, they would find and kill the man who had dared to cause them trouble.

The three Celestial Lords shot a fierce look at the source of the power that had caused a strange change to the stars just now, and then flew off in the direction of Dong Hai’s main force, where Wu Qi was at. They thought that it was weird. They were still in the void of outer heavenly realms, so far away from Pangu Continent that even those Supreme Oracles who specialized in astrology in the Stargazing Temple of Great Yu’s Directorate of Celestials could not find their whereabouts. How was anyone able to stop them with magic?

Could there be such a powerful figure among the itinerant cultivators and immortals on Pangu Continent?

With a mind full of doubts, the three Celestial Lords and the two who followed them concealed their auras, covered their traces with the starlight, and sped toward Pangu Continent. This time, even Guigu’zi could barely detect that there was something ominous hidden in the starlight, but could no longer perceive their movements.

After a few moments of consideration, Guigu’zi said in a deep voice, “Zhang Yi, pass this on right away. It isn’t a big deal for the Celestial Lords of Heaven to come to the lower realm. However, they are no ordinary Celestial Lords, but the Vanquisher, Seven Killing, and Greed—the three killing stars. I fear they are out for no good. Inform His Majesty and all the other emperors and courtiers of this matter at once!”

Zhang Yi answered and took his leave hurriedly.

Wu Qi had ordered his army to return to Dong Hai and informed the other six regiments of what had happened to him. He had also asked them to return to Dong Hai and told the emperors and courtiers of the six states to guard against the curses of the forbidden clans. The invisible curse was extremely bizarre, unpredictable, and lethal. If anyone of them was hurt, he would be heartbroken.

After an hour or so into the returning journey, as the fleet was heading toward the west, three beams of silver light suddenly flashed through the void.

A loud rumble echoed out as three Jade Armor Dark Turtle flying ships in the vanguard were broken in half. Razor-sharp streaks of silver starlight swept across all directions, slicing the huge ships into pieces. All the soldiers on the ships, tens of thousands of them, were vaporized by the immense starlight before they could even cry out.

Three figures, clad in strange armor and shrouded in purple-and-green flames, stood in front of the fleet. At that moment, a cold and cruel voice rang out, “Where is Great Yu’s King of Dong Hai? Come up here and face your death!”