Stealing The Heavens
chapter-212

Shrill cries of alarm could be heard ringing out from everywhere, while blinding light pillars were being shot out from the surrounding city walls where the upheaval was breaking out. From a far distance came the heavy and muffled trampling of soldiers, getting louder and louder like the roaring of thunder, giving the dark night a strong touch of restlessness. Many blue shadows kept soaring up into the sky, as the Sky Patrolling Eagle Guards had taken control of the surrounding air. Beside these Sky Patrolling Eagle Guards were many wheeling sword beams, as some cultivators had begun deploying restrictive formations.

Yu Wende's coach exploded, revealing a large sheet of golden energy barrier, pure and dense like molten gold, that shone brilliantly but not blindingly upon looking. Both Yu Wende and Yu Qianqian were now standing behind this golden barrier. There was a cluster of about thirty bolts, each the size of ordinary bolts but a few times longer, glinting in a pale golden hue while hovering amidst the golden barrier. The bolts were spinning at high speed, trying their best to grind through the obstacle while generating whizzing noises that made one's ears hurt.

A bolt had penetrated deeply into Yu Wende's right chest. It was trapped by the golden barrier and hovered right inside of his chest. The rapid spinning bolt had brought a severe damage to Yu Wende's body, as a large hole the size of a bowl was opened up on his right chest. The strong wind created by the spinning of the bolt kept ripping away thin layers of flesh from the wound.

Yu Wende had been living a comfortable life since young. He never suffered from any hardship before, and perhaps never knew the pain of having even a needle prick his finger. As a result, the severe pain coming from the wound on his chest had made him pass out instantly. If not for Yu Qianqian holding him from the side, he would have already collapsed to the ground. While holding a glinting talisman which looked like it was made from a golden flame, Yu Qianqian yelled furiously in exasperation, "You treacherous rascal of Great Qin, I'll never stop fighting you until one of us is dead!"

Wu Qi placed all the ballistae back into the ring, then took out a cape to wrap around himself, and a pair of gloves that he wore immediately, covering up every inch of his exposed skin. After that, he grinned hideously and said, "What a tough mouth you have, little girl! I'll look forward to how you are going to fight me when the mighty army of Great Qin is here! Hehe, I wonder if your little mouth will still be this tough at that moment!"

He kept letting out evil and lascivious laughs while exerting all his energies in exercising two Fire element False Cores in his Seven Stealing Heavens Meridians. The massive energies contained in all the other eight False Cores and the Fake Core inside his dantian immediately rushed into two Fire element False Cores, and in a blink of an eye, transforming all the energies in Wu Qi's body into the purest Fire element energies. A towering flame burst out from his body, then transformed into a strange sign of Gold Core realm that stretched several tens of feet wide behind his back.

Following the thought in Wu Qi's mind, the strange sign behind him slowly took its final shape -it was a lively flaming Qilin with vivid scales all over its body. Upon its debut, the thirty feet long fiery gold Qilin kept rubbing its fists and wiping its palms amidst the raging flame. A pair of red horns were mounted on its head, and silver whiskers were dangling down near its mouth, emitting a brilliant glow that brightly lit up the surrounding land. Wu Qi gave a wild laugh, took a step and crossed a distance of one thousand feet. Then, he exercised the energy circulating technique found in Dragon Transformation Script and punched his fist out, smashing onto the golden defensive barrier in front of Yu Qianqian.

A body strengthening technique such as Dragon Transformation Script allowed the body to unleash an offensive strength several times stronger than the base strength. Just like Bai Qitian when he was fighting Wu Qi that day, although he only had the overall strength of Gold Core realm, he was able to burst out a tremendous strength not weaker than the Dharma Body of an Earth Immortal. Wu Qi had already attained some small achievement in the cultivation of Dragon Transformation Script, and now was able to condense all his strength into one explosive force, exerting it with the strength controlling technique found in Dragon Transformation Script. His fist punched out like a falling star, thrusting down together with a force of one million kilograms.

Suddenly, a golden light flashed, as a row of purple colored runes, each the size of a water bucket, flashed and blinked amidst the golden energy barrier. Then, an enormous backlash soundlessly transmitted over to Wu Qi, causing the skins on his right arm to crack open with a few bloody lines. Impacted by this massive backlash, terrible cracking noises could be heard coming from his bones and muscles. Wu Qi gasped with astonishment as he glared at Yu Qianqian, who was enveloped by the golden energy barrier. The power of her talisman was actually comparable to the strongest Thunder Talisman made by Heavenly Spirit Sect, while being able to burst out with a defensive strength equal to a magical treasure controlled by an early-stage Nascent Divinity cultivator.

With the sudden appearance of these purple runes, all thirty bolts that were spinning rapidly in the golden light were shattered into powder without making any noises.

Yu Qianqian bit the tip of her tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood onto the talisman. In an instant, the golden light in the talisman glowed stronger, and numerous twisting golden beams began to shoot out from it. These golden beams converged together and gradually transformed into a vague figure hovering over Yu Qianqian's head, about three inches tall and carrying a peculiar sword in its hand. In the next moment, the tiny golden humanoid figure raised the sword up and swung it casually down at Wu Qi, thrusting out a sheet of golden flame that flew right into Wu Qi's face.

The sword beam came so fast that Wu Qi could only see a flash of gold, when it had already reached right before his face.

If it were before Wu Qi began cultivating the Dragon Transformation Script, he would have failed to dodge this sword strike. Fortunately, as he had attained some minor achievement in Dragon Transformation Script, he quickly moved his feet, using a movement technique in Dragon Transformation Script that was created specially for fighting enemies in a melee battle - the 'Cloud-walking Technique'. His body suddenly turned into several dozens of twisting afterimages that spread out with loud whistling noises. The golden sword beam swept across the afterimages divided from him, turning a large part of his cloth on the chest into ashes. The golden sword beam continued thrusting straight through the street, impacting onto a stretch of city wall a few miles away, which had been brightly lit up with the strong light of defensive formation, and then crashed it into a pile of rubble.

As the dozens of layers of the city wall in Ji City were the integral parts of a complete defensive system, when one part of the wall was destroyed, the defensive formation on the other layers of city walls immediately responded with transformation. A bright flame burst out and soared high up into the sky, while a huge amount of restrictive spells began emerging from the destroyed city wall, gradually forming into a glowing city wall that was entirely made up from the purest magic spells and natural energies.

Yu Qianqian's face turned slightly paler, but she still gave a cry and spat out another mouthful of blood on the talisman.

Wu Qi snorted coldly and then yelled out, "You are one lucky little girl for having that powerful talisman treasure, eh? Hehe, who is the old fool that wasted his prime blood essence and made this talisman treasure for you? Next time, I'll kill every single man and woman in your Yu Clan! Hehe, as for you, my little girl, I will bring you back to our field headquarter and offer you to my emperor so he can make a pet of you!"

After letting out a few strange laughs, a flame of fury suddenly surged straight up into Wu Qi's mind, as he suddenly thought of what Yu Qianqian said to her father just now. He could not believe that this girl actually had her eyes on him! "You don't have a beautiful face, and you don't have a good body figure. Even if the light is put out in the darkest night, no man will want to touch you. A so-called talented lady like you, only my mighty and bold emperor would not mind making you a pet once or twice. This is the greatest kindness I can give you, and remember to thank me when the time comes!" said Wu Qi viciously.

Yu Qianqian's face turned pale green with extreme anger. She was a girl with no beautiful face and no good body figure? Only the mighty and bold Ying Zheng would make her a pet once in a while? Wu Qi's words had simply destroyed Yu Qianqian's pride of being a girl. Her face twisted, and relying on the power from the blood essence she spat out a moment ago, she once again unleashed the mystical power containing in the golden talisman.

A huge amount of golden electric arcs burst out from the talisman and condensed into a golden ball of thunder the size of a human head, hovering right above Yu Qianqian.

Right at the moment Wu Qi revealed his true self from the many afterimages, Yu Qianqian's eyes had immediately locked down on him together with a subtle divine will. In an instant, together with deep and muffled roars, the ball of thunder transformed into a thunder hammer about one foot long, smashing down at Wu Qi's head while emitting countless blinding electric arcs.

Just as the thunder hammer thrust out, a few drawn-out angry cries were heard coming from the direction of Imperial Palace. From there came a staggering bright long beam, in which were the seven formidable cultivators of Great Yan Dynasty: five demon kings, Mo Di and Xun Kuang. Bringing together a fearsome aura that made one suffocated, they rushed at a top speed. The Tailless Owlet, Huo Wuyu, was the fiercest and cruelest among all five demon kings. After he was appointed as Great Yan's Imperial Advisor, he had taken this place as his own territory. Wu's action of assaulting the leader of Yu Clan in his territory had simply ignited Huo Wuyu's insane killing intent.

"Ignorant rapscallion!" While he was still a few miles away, Huo Wuyu had already cried out furiously, "This is not a place where you can come and go as you please! Face your death!" Then, he opened his mouth, shooting out a green and dull energy curtain that blanketed down to Wu Qi's head soundlessly. The energy curtain had a bad smell that befouled the air, and a frightful force of corrosion and devouring. There were millions upon millions of twisting ghost faces that could be vaguely seen in it. This was actually the innate ability of ancient Tailless owlet - the 'Rotting Bones and Soul Devouring Energy', considered one of the most vicious and evil ability under the heaven.

Looking at the foul energies that came down towards his head, Wu Qi dared not to confront it with force. He let out a few strange laughs, then gave a look at the father and daughter from Yu Clan that were shrouded in the golden light, feeling not contented. But with a blink of his body he had already turned into a stream of red beam that plunged right into the ground. In the very next moment, the thunder hammer had arrived and smashed forcefully into the ground. A loud boom rang out, and a wall of thunder reached over one thousand feet tall, sweeping across all directions like a deadly tidal wave, nearly razing a few nearby mansions to the ground.

After that came the Rotting Bones and Soul Devouring Energies, as they swept across the land without making a noise and created a huge hole in the ground, measuring over one hundred feet in diameter and about one hundred miles deep. The power of Huo Wuyu's soul-devouring energies was too strong, and even though they had just lightly touched the ground, a large hole was already created on the street of Ji City that was deployed with countless restrictive spells.

Although Wu Qi had fled into the ground on time, he almost got hit by the soul-devouring energies. Fortunately, his escape art had given him a great speed. Thus, he was able to barely escape from having his body stained by the vicious energies. He was seized with terror as he turned to look over his shoulder and saw the large hole. Wu Qi inwardly recited Huo Wuyu's name a few times, shook his head and quickly traveled back towards Lu Chengfeng's coach.

The cultivation base of a demon king in the Nascent Divinity realm was indeed frightening. Huo Wuyu was also an existence who would step into the realm of Heaven Immortal after one last Thunder Tribulation. Thus, Wu Qi did not feel ashamed by running away from Huo Wuyu. With the miraculous Scroll of Stealing, Wu Qi was confident that when he attained the mastery stage of Nascent Soul realm, he would be able to fight head-to-head with Huo Wuyu. As a matter of fact, the many magical abilities and techniques he knew right now were not weaker than this Rotting Bones and Soul Devouring Energy.

After squeezing back into Lu Chengfeng's flying coach, Wu Qi quickly removed the broken cloak, took out a set of backup imperial outfit and put it on. After being done with that, he turned to look at Lu Chengfeng, whose face filled with worried expression, and said, "Be cautious when you face Yu Qianqian and her father in the future. They are not some good people. Their Yu Clan had been inciting troubles and creating confusion inside Great Yan Dynasty, and I have no idea what they are trying to achieve. I tried to kill them using the name of Great Qin, but I've failed as they are both protected by a talisman treasure."

"If Yu Clan is up to something bad, how about their Yu Academy..." Lu Chengfeng frowned and asked in a low voice.

Wu Qi shrugged and said, "We don't have any evidence, so we cannot do anything to them. We will have to find an opportunity in the future and kill everyone in this Yu Clan. I really hate rascals like this who stab someone in the back and leave no traces at all, yet everyone still thinks they are good people."

Lu Chengfeng nodded his head and agreed with Wu Qi. If not for the incredible escape art of Wu Qi, with which even Yu Qianqian failed to detect his presence with her special ability, Wu Qi would not be able to eavesdrop some secrets of Yu Clan. They would have had kept their secret really, really deep.

So, the coach quickly returned to Duke Yan Le's Mansion. And because of the incident of assassination, which no one knew was done by Wu Qi, a curfew had taken effect in entire Ji City. All the influential officials and ministers still outside were requested to make haste for their own mansion. The captains and generals of City Guard had also asked these important officials to tighten their defensive measure, as there was an assassin from Great Qin Dynasty sneaked into Ji City, and had even severely wounded the leader of Yu Clan, Yu Wende.

Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng were talking in low voices during their return journey. When they finally arrived at the front door of the main hall, they were shocked to see Yan Qijun and Qin Wuyang through the widely opened door, both sitting firmly and calmly in the middle of the hall, holding wine glasses in their hands.

The Crown Princes of Great Yan, Yan Qijun, and the Chief General of Great Yan, Qin Wuyang... Why were they here in this small hour of the day?