Stealing The Heavens
chapter-241

The silver beam brought Xiang Yu's body away, piercing through over thirty lofty mountains along the way while leaving behind large holes with the diameter of several dozen feet. He only stopped after reaching about one hundred miles away. The skins and flesh on his upper body were all gone, leaving behind only a skeleton with pale, dark, half-transparent bones, and some internal organs, blood vessels, and meridians that were tangled and dangled from the bones.

As the starlight shot out by the Heavenly Star Positioning Disk rubbed rapidly with the air, a huge amount of heat was produced. The intense heat transferred to Xiang Yu's bones, causing white smoke to keep rising up from them. All the skin and flesh on his head, including both eyeballs, had turned into nothingness by the extreme temperature. The pale dark skull turned and looked straight into the direction of Meng Fortress, then suddenly opened its mouth and gave out a soundless roar, which rang out in the soul of all the people in that direction.

Just with this furious roar alone, among all cultivators in Meng Fortress, at least ten thousand with the lowest cultivation base immediately dropped to their knees while coughing blood. Their souls had suffered a tremendous impact. A few of them even had their souls forced out from their bodies, and were nearly wiped out by the bright sunlight and strong wind.

Then suddenly, countless tiny blood vessels began to grow on the pale dark bones of Xiang Yu, while blood-red flesh crept and twisted rapidly, quickly rebuilding his internal organs and muscles. Amidst the hissing and whizzing noises that could make one's flesh creep, a dense layer of muscles quickly covered his bones. Meridians and blood vessels had also been growing and spreading throughout his newly grown muscles. All the freshly grown muscles, blood vessels and meridians took a hue of dark purple, shining like a metal and looking evil.

The natural energies within the circumference of one thousand miles were rolling and surging towards Xiang Yu with a loud rumbling. His body was like a black hole that kept devouring the tremendous amount of natural energies. His body turned these natural energies into new blood, flesh, and internal organs at an incredible rate. His newly grown heart was pounding vigorously, and the heartbeats sounded like the rolling of war drums, shaking the surrounding air and generating loud booming noises. The ground was shaking violently following the beat of his heart as well.

Standing on top of the wall, Wu Qi gasped with great astonishment. "Can he still be considered a human being?" said Wu Qi while twitching his lips.

Princess Zhang Le looked at Xiang Yu astoundingly, who was one hundred miles away and had his body transforming like a ghost or demon. The five colored divine rays suddenly spread out from behind her back, as she pointed both hands toward Xiang Yu and cried out sternly, "To all living beings under the heaven, follow my will! The Divine Seal - Shackle of Spirit!"

Following Princess Zhang Le's cry, a force that felt similar to the force of principle began spreading out from her body, and it immediately gave Wu Qi a great fright. Shockingly and wonderingly, he stared at Princess Zhang Le, while quickly sending his divine will over to her, sensing the strange energy ripples emanating from her body. It was a very mysterious force that pointed straight to the principles of Heaven and Earth, similar to the Dharma Words used by Li Si and the Dao of Primordial Talismans used by Xu Fu. However, compared to them, it was a force closer to the source of the world, a force that was much more primitive and ancient.

Wu Qi frowned, as he felt this force was very similar to the force of the Primordial Runes that was recorded in the Book of Ancient God which he inherited from within Scroll of Stealing. They were both ancient, primitive, filled with an awe-inspiring aura that no one dared to offend. But, it was too bad, as Princess Zhang Le's cultivation base was too weak, so she could not bring the full power of this force into play. Nevertheless, it still gave him a great fright.

A faint spirit light could be vaguely seen emitting from the area between Princess Zhang Le's brows. If not for the Mystic Eyes of Universe that allowed Wu Qi to see things that ordinary cultivators could not, he too would not be able to detect the trace of this spirit light. Through this spirit light, the power of Princess Zhang Le's spirit will was transformed into that mysterious force, quickly spreading and blanketing the area within the circumference of one hundred miles around them.

Abruptly, a perfect silence reigned the surrounding area. Just like an insect trapped in an amber, everything within the circumference of three hundred miles around them was completely frozen by a strange force. The time, the space, the flow of natural energies, the movement of every single person, the vibration of the tiniest particles in the air, everything had halted for a brief moment. Within that brief moment, even Wu Qi's mind had turned completely blank, and he could not understand what was happening.

With her slender fingers Princess Zhang Le performed an incantation gesture, then, pointed at Xiang Yu listlessly and cried out, "Go!"

Immediately, the strange force that blanketed the area of three hundred miles collapsed inwardly, compressed and condensed into a tiny speck on her fingertip, about the size of a sesame seed, glinting with the five colored divine rays. After that, Princess Zhang Le gave a soft cry, and the tiny speck transformed into a stream of dim light, piercing through the distance of one hundred miles in an instant, and gently branded between Xiang Yu's brows.

While in the middle of crazily devouring natural energies, Xiang Yu's body turned stiff suddenly. The connection between his body and the external world was completely shut. No matter how his muscles kept wiggling and creeping, no matter how violently his heart was pounding, no matter how the vague shadow of the blood red celestial fiend behind his back kept roaring and jumping up and down, he could no longer absorb even a tiny bit of natural energy. The regeneration of his body had come to a sudden and complete stop. The dark purple muscles kept wiggling crazily, yet no new muscles could be grown.

"Whoa! So tired!" After showing off her invincible might using the miraculous restrictive spell that sealed off the connection between Xiang Yu and the natural energies, Princess Zhang Le had her body swayed a little bit. Cold sweats were breaking out from her body like little streams that drenched her palace dress within a blink of an eye. She rolled her eyes and fell back to the ground.

Wu Qi quickly reached out to steady her, placing both palms tightly against her back while injecting a huge amount of pure energy into her body. For Wu Qi, obtaining blood essence and energy was something really easy. Thus, although all other cultivators cherished their blood essence like it was their life, he never regarded them as something really important. He reversed the circulation of his blood essence and energy, while channeling them into Princess Zhang Le's body. Very quickly, Princess Zhang Le breathed out a heavy and long sigh, while a hue of red had returned to her deadly pale face.

She looked at Wu Qi surprisingly, then said pleasedly, "I knew it! I knew you were the man who cherished and liked me the most! For all the men under the heaven, only you will channel your blood essence to me like this." Suddenly, she flushed, and said with a low voice bashfully, "I think... you better don't waste your blood essence anymore, as that will bring harm to a man's body... If your kidney function is damaged, we might not be able to produce babies in the future!"

Wu Qi's jaw dropped. His heart was pounding so hard that he almost coughed blood. He looked at Princess Zhang Le helplessly, wondering how did she come to such topic?

What kind of family education had the princesses of Great Yan Dynasty been taught with? Although they were unschooled in the way of the world, yet they could help their husband in selecting the future concubines. Although she was yet to marry, she had started to place great concern on the health of her lover, fearing that they might not be able to produce babies in the future!

With a twisted expression, Wu Qi gave her a wry smile and said, "Don't worry, I still have a lot of flood dragon blood essence with me. I can use them to replenish the consumption of my energy. You've used too much of energy in exercising the mystic technique just now. It is better to let me give you some of my energy... Hmm, how did you learn this divine seal - shackle of spirit?"

"Ugh?" In a daze, Princess Zhang Le looked at Wu Qi. She tilted her head sideways, frowned, and said, "Nobody teaches me. This is strange, then how did I learn it? It seems I knew it since I was little, just that I can only use it after I've formed my Gold Core. Hmm, I also know many other spells, but, I can't use them now."

A term suddenly emerged in Wu Qi's mind - Bloodline Legacy! It usually existed only among the clans of some extremely powerful divine and immortal beasts. What a surprise that Princess Zhang Le had actually inherited such unimaginably queer mystic techniques from her bloodline legacy! Presumably, she had inherited those divine abilities from her birth mother's bloodline. Judging by the look of Yan Dan and Yan Qijun, it did not seem like they had any legacy of divine abilities in their bloodline.

Xiang Yu's body was hit by the divine seal. Not only had it prevented him from absorbing any natural energies, it had also temporarily restricted his ability to move. His muscles were twitching violently like taut steel strings, and kept producing loud twanging noises. However, no matter how hard he tried to struggle, he just could not move even a tiny bit.

He threw his head back and gave a furious howl, while two blood red beams shot out from his eyes several miles away. He stared angrily at Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le, who leaned against each other, exchanging glances, chatting, and joking together on top of the wall. Then, he roared out in a hoarse voice, "Wu Qi, you little twerp! Come here and fight to death with me! Wu Qi! You little twerp! Come here..."

Suddenly, a loud piercing noise rang out. As Xiang Yu was stamping frantically in anger and did not pay attention to his surrounding, a pinkish sword beam suddenly burst out from his chest. A sword had just pierced through his heart, and a large amount of blood that was burning ragingly like lava kept spraying out from his chest. Following the pinkish sword beam that came with a vast enchanting aura, they shot several hundred feet away. After that, six white shadows smote quickly down like thunder and smashed aggressively onto Xiang Yu's body, causing tiny cracks to keep appearing on his bones, while jarring noises of bone cracking could be heard coming from inside of his body.

As Wu Qi had a keen vision, he saw that the six white shadows were actually six fluffy fox tails, each about seven to eight miles long. He could not see the body of the fox, but only six long white tails that kept lashing and smashing onto Xiang Yu's body. Xiang Yu roared and howled, yet did not have any strength to counter the attacks.

Not allowing Xiang Yu to have any chances to break free from the shackle of the divine seal, an enormous black palm suddenly appeared over him. A loud rumble rang out, as a layer of rock with the circumference of about one mile underneath Xiang Yu was lifted up by another black palm. The two palms slapped onto each other viciously, turning the layer of rock with the thickness of over one thousand feet into nothingness, while breaking nearly half of Xiang Yu's bones into pieces.

The two palms then forcefully flung Xiang Yu into the sky. A white shadow flew at top speed toward him. From it, a strange looking beak of crane poked out and pierced into Xiang Yu's chest, shattering his ribs and cutting his heart the size of a toddler's head. It brought it out together with a huge amount of blood.

Then, a stream of blinding golden light appeared, as the demon king Jin Jia suddenly emerged right behind Xiang Yu's back. His body was covered with a layer of densely arranged golden scales. His hand was holding a golden square hammer that looked like one used by blacksmiths, while his body had expanded to a height of about thirty feet. Upon his appearance, he gave a long and sonorous cry, while he began wielding the huge hammer with both hands, slamming and hitting savagely towards Xiang Yu.

A series of loud clanging noises rang out. Dark purple blood and flesh were flying off from Xiang Yu's body, while more than half of his black bones were smashed and broken by the hammer.

Finally, a sharp screech was heard coming from a far distance, as a greenish misty gas of death shot down from the sky very quickly and enveloped Xiang Yu.

A fat Tailless Owlet, his body stretching for nearly ten miles, was seen hovering high up in the sky, fully covered in pitch black feathers except for his featherless butt. His mouth was wide open as he screeched at the top of his voice, while a huge amount of Rotting Bones and Soul Devouring Energy was being sprayed out, corroding Xiang Yu's fleshly body crazily.

The five Imperial Advisors of Great Yan Dynasty, the five demon kings of Meng Mountains, had joined hands in attacking Xiang Yu, and had instantly inflicted a severe injury to him.

Looking at how Xiang Yu was enveloped by the dense soul devouring energy, Wu Qi breathed out a long and heavy sigh.

"With that, you should be dead by now, right?"

Naturally, Princess Zhang Le put out the look of a legal wife, and said in all seriousness, "He better be dead now, as I'm going to take a look at that Yuji, to see if she does have a beautiful visage, and if she deserves to be your concubine. If she does, we'll accept her then!"

It was not only Princess Zhang Le who behaved in that manner, even Bai Zhu'er and Bai Zu'er standing beside her were nodding their heads, as if it were the right thing to do.

Immediately, cold sweats were breaking out from Wu Qi's forehead.