Stealing The Heavens
chapter-3

The lost mountain, Machu Picchu…

Under the mountain, local police had set up barricades on the tourist’s path towards Machu Picchu. The reason was that there was an important archeology survey going on at Machu Picchu, so the public was prevented from even getting close to it.

At the border of Machu Picchu City, located two thousand meters above sea level, three capable and vigorous disciples of the Underhand Sect were watching around alertly with submachine guns mounted on their waist.

Wu Qi was sitting on the wall of a building that had no roof. He was holding a can of beer in his hand, enjoying the surrounding scenery with a smile on his face.

The surrounding mountain scenery in Machu Picchu was pretty amazing. Green hills were rolling on in undulating waves while the morning mist was rising gradually. Swayed by the morning breeze, the smoke-like mist drew out some white trails on the mountainside. This place was like a paradise that people could only daydream about.

After taking a long draught of the beer, Wu Qi squeezed the beer can and forcefully threw it far away.

Unconsciously, he touched the secret pocket on his belt. The Sect Leader Token for the Underhand Sect was now lying quietly in this secret pocket.

According to the Underhand Sect’s rules, the Sect Leader Token had to be carried by the Sect Leader at all times; it couldn’t be anywhere else. But, Wu Wang was not someone who followed the rules all the time. He was now with a group of elite disciples and was surveying Machu Picchu City. He did not want to have an extra burden with him.

He had handed over all his important things to Wu Qi, who wasn’t familiar with the survey of the historical site, and he himself had brought a group of elite disciples, busy working in the ruins.

In an abandoned temple about two hundred meters away, Wu Wang, who was only wearing underpants, stood straight up, coughing out loudly and spat out a thick sputum. There was a heavy downpour moment before this, and as the temple was filled with thick dust, the rain water and the dust mixed together to form dirty mud. Wu Wang was now covered in this mud and looked like a wild monkey.

Throwing away the sophisticated ultrasonic detector in his hand, Wu Wang took a few steps back before he suddenly leaped forward, hitting forcefully on a brick in the corner of the temple with his palm. The instrument had detected something unusual in the temple, and with the experience and judgment of the Underhand Sect’s elite disciples, it was rather easy to find out that this brick was a switch that controlled some mechanisms within the temple.

The entire Machu Picchu City trembled for a moment. Followed by Wu Wang’s forceful strike, the engraved brick slowly submerged into the wall. In a roofless hall on the east side of the temple, a few hundred exquisitely engraved bricks laying on the floor started to slide away without making any noise, quickly submerging into the ground and showing an entrance to an underground passage, which was large enough to allow three grown men to walk side by side.

Wu Qi picked up an ancient sword placed beside him. It had a sharkskin scabbard, a handle made of copper, and the locket was made with gold. Numerous gemstones of different sizes were mounted on the scabbard itself.

This was a sword that an elder from the Underhand Sect three generations ago looted from an ancient tomb underneath the Tiger Hill Sword Pool. Two words were carved in on the sword’s blade, ‘Dragon Abyss’. But, it was unknown whether or not this sword was the same Dragon Abyss sword as the one made by the legend Ou Yezi [1].

This Dragon Abyss sword was extremely sharp, and combat knives made with modern day special alloys couldn’t even withstand a single light hit from it. As Wu Wang’s only successor and the disciple with the highest status in the Underhand Sect, Wu Qi obviously had the right to use it.

Dozens of capable and vigorous youth from the ‘Greedy Wolf Group’ of the Underhand Sect carried a variety of weapons and followed closely behind Wu Qi.

The Greedy Wolf Group was an elite group. After Wu Wang joined the Underhand Sect, he spent a few years adopting orphans from different places and trained them to form a skilled team. Under Wu Qi’s lead, the Greedy Wolf Group played an important role in the battle for power between Wu Wang and Shangguan Ye.

Carrying the Dragon Abyss sword in his hands, Wu Qi took the lead and entered the underground passage.

After taking a few steps into the passage, the overexerted Wu Wang turned around and started dragging Le Xiaobai, who looked unwilling to follow.

Wearing a long robe, the neatly dressed Le Xiaobai, who looked like a noble young master who was about to attend a banquet, put out a restless struggle. He shouted loudly and said, "I’m addicted to cleanliness! I’m addicted to cleanliness! Big Brother, Sect Leader, Uncle Wu, I hate squeezing into an underground hole. Can you please not drag me along?"

Wu Qi remained silent as he grabbed a chunk of dirty mud from the few inches thick muddy ground in the dark, then put some of it on Le Xiaobai’s face.

Le Xiaobai’s body became stiff instantly. He stared blankly at the dirty mud water that was dripping down from his face, as his body started to tremble violently.

"Wu Qi! You ungrateful brat! Have you forgotten the one who brought you out from Africa four years ago?!" Le Xiaobai’s folding fan almost touched Wu Qi’s nose.

Wu Qi’s lips twitched a little. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Last year in Amsterdam, who was the one had no money to pay for woman and asked me to save him? You only paid one hundred U.S. dollar to buy me, yet that day, I paid three thousand eight hundred U.S. dollars for you! Even if we take the past two year’s inflation into consideration, I’ve already repaid all your favors!"

Staring at the stunned and speechless Le Xiaobai, Wu Qi teased and said, "As the chief White Folding Fan of the Underhand Sect, you actually let those petty hooligans in Netherland steal your wallet… If the grandmasters of the past generations rose from their graves, they would strangle you to death while you’re asleep!"

Wu Wang burst out in a crazy laugh. Le Xiaobai’s lips were twitching for some moments, then he suddenly stomped his feet. He accepted his fate and threw away the folding fan, undressed his long sleeve shirt and led the group forwards in low spirits.

Possessing a high intelligence like a freak and a body so thin that even the most famous catwalk models couldn’t compare, Le Xiaobai had mastered all the Underhand Sect’s books about hidden weapons and defense mechanisms within just a few years. He even innovated some new techniques. As long as he led the way, there were basically no traps that could trouble Wu Wang, Wu Qi, and the rest.

Wu Wang has strong leadership and organizational abilities.

Wu Qi had strong innate talents toward martial arts and combative ability.

But the one who really inherited the Underhand Sect’s skills of the trade that handed down from the ancestors was still Le Xiaobai.

Complaining and mumbling to himself, Le Xiaobai led all the men along the passage and slowly entered deep into the mountain. There were dozens of traps that could inflict incredible damage hidden in the passage, but they were all cracked down by Le Xiaobai with ease.

"I hate behavior that insults my intelligence!" While breaking the traps along the way, Le Xiaobai kept mumbling to himself, "Intruding someone’s ancestor tomb, breaking in by force… This doesn’t involve any intelligence!"

Nobody really cared about Le Xiaobai’s mumbling.

Wu Wang brought a few of the disciples and set up some lights and ventilations along the passage. Wu Qi led the elites from Greedy Wolf Group and carefully watched the surroundings. In this kind of a historical site, some strange things or objects might be there.

Just last year, in an underground tomb within the King’s Valley in Egypt, they met a mummy who was still alive. Wu Qi and over thirty elites from Greedy Wolf Group fought a tough battle before finally dismembering that mummy.

The mysteriousness of the Inca remains was similar to Egypt. Wu Qi was prepared to strike his sword at all times.

Luckily, no abnormal accidents happened in this place. After Le Xiaobei had cracked sixty-four traps and defense mechanisms along the passage, the group arrived at the end of the passage and stood in front of a huge metal door. The door was made of gold and silver, and there were numerous mysterious patterns engraved on top of it.

The rectangular shaped door was twelve meters tall, with a width of three meters. The door reflected a mysterious glow of silver and gold when pointed at with the searchlight.

Le Xiaobai came in front of the door, pulled out a probing needle and forcefully stabbed onto it.

"Sixty percent gold and forty percent silver, the purity is pretty high. As long as we can cut out both panels of the door and bring them back, they’ll be worth more than what we spent to get here!"

After all these years in the Underhand Sect, Le Xiaobai had been trained with an amazing assessment ability. By just slightly impaling the door with a probing needle, he had already analyzed the ratio of all the door’s ingredients. It was made with the purest gold and silver, sixty percent gold and forty percent silver. It was a huge door, and although it might only have the thickness of an ordinary door, it would still be an astonishing fortune.

Stretching his arm out and grabbing a fist-sized, polygonal sun shape golden plate with a strong influence of Inca culture from one of the disciples, Wu Wang smilingly looked at the huge door and said, "I’m really curious. Even the main entrance cost such a huge fortune to make, then what will we find on the other side of this door?"

Wu Qi too was staring at the door, and all of a sudden, he drew his sword, unleashing a watery beam from the scabbard and shooting directly toward the huge door with a jarring noise.

Wu Qi was a man with astonishing talents. Under the teaching of Wu Wang and spent four hard years in training, his inner vital energy was almost at the same level as the four elders of the sect. Also, the Dragon Abyss sword was a treasure that was passed down from the ancient era. The misty green blade of the sword had a glossy surface that looked like the water. Stimulated by his inner vital energy, a three inches long beam shot out from the tip of the sword, piercing through the air and flew toward the door.

A loud boom rang through the place, and electricity suddenly flashed on the door while an electric beam with the thickness of a human arm shot out from it at an incredible speed, violently striking on the Dragon Abyss sword.

As if being struck by lightning on his arm, the right sleeve of Wu Qi was instantly turned into ashes. Tiny electric arcs were seen flashing throughout his entire body while he was sent flying away with his arms and feet swinging in midair from the explosion.

It was extremely painful, every single cell in his body had been penetrated by the high voltage. If it weren't for Wu Qi having a strong inner vital energy to support him, the lightning strike would’ve just killed him.

Standing next to the door, Le Xiaobai was struck with great fright and immediately jumped at least 2 meters backward. He shouted out with a shocked expression, "Go to hell! Those uncivilized ancient men of Inca, don’t tell me they had invented a high voltage electric net?!"

Holding the golden plate tightly in his palm, Wu Wang stared at the huge door and shook his head, "Bullshit, high voltage electric net? If it really is that, then you would be the first one it killed!"

Throwing a gaze over his shoulder at Wu Qi, Wu Wang asked anxiously, "Wu Qi, are you alright?"

After taking a deep breath, Wu Qi carefully circulated the inner vital energy throughout his body. Only then he clenched his jaw and stood up. He shook his head and said, "I’m fine, but nearly seventy percent of my inner vital energy has been consumed."

He took a glance at the Dragon Abyss sword that was held tightly in his palm. This sword truly deserved to be a famous ancient sword. Nothing happened to the sword itself even after being hit by a lightning strike. Instead, a mysterious azure blue color had appeared on the misty green surface of the sword. The mysterious azure blue color looked exactly the same as the color of the lightning that appeared earlier.

After exercising his body a little bit, Wu Qi gritted his teeth and said, "Master, we’ll need to use that golden plate. This door, I’m afraid it’s just as weird as that living mummy."

Wu Wang furrowed his brows. He held the golden plate tightly in his hands and carefully moved closer to the door.

The golden plate was unintentionally obtained by a disciple of the Underhand Sect a few months ago from a private museum in South America. With the skillful judgment of the Underhand Sect disciple, no matter it be the material or the patterns and words found on top of the golden plate, they were all determined to be a sign of tremendous value.

Therefore, this relic which originally belonged to the museum had arrived in the Underhand Sect smoothly. After it had gone through the restless research of a few internal professionals who possessed the knowledge of the ancient history and script, they followed the clues and directions found on the golden plate. Eventually, Wu Wang and others had arrived at this place.

The clues on the golden plate never fooled any of them. Putting aside everything else, just this huge door that could release lightning strikes automatically in the situation of self-defense had made all their efforts worth it. As for what was behind the door, it only made the people here even more excited.

Carefully covering his right palm with vital energy and showing extreme caution, Wu Wang inserted the golden plate into a laughing sun mask found right in the middle of the door.

Right after the golden plate was inserted, a powerful glare suddenly burst out from the door. With a backward leap, Wu Wang kept a distance of at least thirty meters. Meanwhile, the heavy door quietly opened up by sliding both door panels to the side, presenting a huge space filled with bizarre lights.

Wu Wang drew in a sharp cold breath, saying, "We’ve struck it rich this time!"

Wu Qi’s eyes kept widening as he blankly stared at the bizarre objects inside that space.

Le Xiaobei stuck out his neck while mumbling to himself unconsciously, "Maglev? Deity? Immortal? Isn’t this going too far?"

Before his words vanished completely in the air, three green beams suddenly appeared in the back of the tunnel, approaching at an incredible speed.

A few indistinct noises were heard. The green beams swept across the place like a shining stretch of silk. Aside from Wu Wang, Wu Qi and Le Xiaobai, the rest of the Underhand Sect disciples were all dead now.

Dozens of blood pillars shot up into the air as dozens of human heads rolled on the floor.

[1] Ou Yezi (Chinese: 歐冶子; pinyin: Ōu Yězǐ) was a legendary master of sword-making in the Spring and Autumn period. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ou_Yezi)