Stealing The Heavens
chapter-663

By the time the news of Gouchen Guang's death spread out, Wu Qi and his company had changed their appearances and were on a long journey.

Dressed in the linen clothes that the common people of Great Yu wore, they employed escape arts constantly as they made their way for Zhong Province. Wu Qi's company composed of Yan Dan and the ministers of Great Yan only. In accordance with the terms of their alliance, the people of the other five dynasties had gone to several other places. According to their previous discussions, the six dynasties would adopt different strategies so as to not cause any conflict of interests.

In just half a month, when they were two and a half months away from Zhong Province, the death of Gouchen Guang had spread throughout the entire Great Yu. Even the secretive itinerant cultivators they occasionally encountered in the wilderness were discussing the impact of his death, and those from Myriad Immortal Alliance were cursing the murderer hysterically.

The clan of Gouchen was actually the direct descendants of the Great Emperor Gouchen who served in the ancient Heaven.

The Great Emperor Gouchen had joined the Heaven in his human form. He governed all the demons under the heaven, and was the strongest figure amongst the Heaven's Celestial Emperors of Five Directions at that time. He had gone through several apocalypses, until one that was so serious that half of the Heaven was destroyed. Toward the end of the apocalypse, he had employed a forbidden magic in order to protect the Heaven's legacy and eventually resolved the calamity; but that had also claimed his life.

Because of his valiant deed, the people of Gouchen clan had a very good connection with the Heaven. The immortals whom he had saved in those years were now holding important positions in the Heaven. In Great Yu, the people of Gouchen clan, who had inherited his bloodline, were born with the ability to communicate with Ghost Gods and govern the demons under the heaven. In Great Yu's Directorate of Celestials, Gouchen clan was a powerhouse that carried a serious weight. Their influence was so strong that even Yu Clan in Liangzhu could not compete with them.

Gouchen Guang was not only the Left Minister of Great Yu's Directorate of Celestials, but also the teacher of the present Human Emperor when he was a Crown Prince. He was also the teacher of the current few most powerful Princes of Great Yu. That made him a very famous minister whose power was overwhelming, in addition to his profound cultivation base and a wide circle of acquaintances. Most importantly, his daughter was married to the present Human Emperor, and the current Crown Prince was his own grandson.

With Myriad Immortal Alliance causing troubles all over Great Yu's territory now, Gouchen Guang had sneaked out of Liangzhu to serve his duty. He was wandering in places where battles were the fiercest, eliminating formidable immortals of the alliance from time to time. In just over a year, he had personally killed nearly a hundred Gold Immortals, as well as countless Heaven Immortals and common cultivators.

But, with his status of a venerable senior, should the news of him killing juniors spread, his prestigious reputation would be stained. That was why he had been acting in secret, leaving the scene immediately after he had killed the targets and going billions of miles away. Even the Directorate of Celestials in Liangzhu was not aware that their Left Minister, the father-in-law of the present Human Emperor, and the Clan Leader of Gouchen clan had sneaked out of Liangzhu and was fighting in the war.

To make matters worse, for the sake of concealing his tracks, Gouchen Guang did not use the Supreme Tower he had been refining with his own effort, but stealthily took out a backup Supreme Tower from the store in the Directorate of Celestials.

Supreme Towers were a kind of extraordinary artifacts specially crafted for Great Yu's Supreme Oracles. Every single one of their bricks was refined by the Supreme Oracle himself with his blood essence, and each rune was carved with the blood taken from his heart. Hence, they were spiritually connected. It was able to increase the Supreme Oracle's fighting capability by dozens of times; a large-scale war machine that came with the power equivalent to that of a Primordial Immortal Artifact, as well as great offensive and defensive abilities.

But, as the backup Supreme Tower was not refined by Gouchen Guang, apart from breaking through the void and serving as a means of transportation, it had almost no offensive or defensive abilities. Nevertheless, with his formidable prowess, and since he did not fight head-on against those Elders of Divine Hall but only stealthily killed the outer members of the alliance, he had no need to borrow any other abilities of the Supreme Tower.

No one would have thought that he would encounter a freak like Wu Qi, who had hidden his aura within his body instead of facing the thunder tribulation soon after making a breakthrough, only to unleash it suddenly and attract the thunder tribulation to attack the enemy!

Was there a normal immortal who dared to do such a thing? Usually, when immortals made a breakthrough, they would unleash the aura immediately, hoping that they could quickly transcend the thunder tribulation. After all, if they hid it in their bodies and it accidentally leaked when they were in a meditation and could not move, they would be instantly killed by the tribulation! It was like carrying a bomb that could detonate at any time, no matter where they were and what they were doing. No normal immortals would dare to do that!

But unfortunately, Gouchen Guang had encountered two freaks who did exactly that, Wu Qi and Ao Buzun. Both of them had unleashed their auras and attracted the Innate Bi-Elements Divine Thunder, which caught him unprepared and brutally wounded him. Barely breathing, he dragged his badly mutilated body back to Liangzhu. However, before he could have the time to say his last words or see his clan members for the last time, he died in the wilderness outside Liangzhu.

Along their way to Zhong Province, Wu Qi and his company had heard many itinerant cultivators and immortals talking about the incident. Through them, they learned about Gouchen Guang's background, where he had died, and all the troubles that happened after his death. They could not help but twitch their mouths, all wondering who was the one with the bad luck, they or Gouchen Guang?

An important and influential figure such as this should be enjoying life in Liangzhu, yet he was wandering around in the battlefields while sneakily killing people from the back. His death had enraged the Human Emperor, driving him to mobilize all the armies. Countless retired soldiers were called back to join the war. It was no doubt that Myriad Immortal Alliance was going to have a hard time, but it also meant that it would be much more difficult for the people of six dynasties to develop and expand their powers at this moment.

Before this, Great Yu had conserved many of their forces; but following Gouchen Guang's death, they had gone all out to kill cultivators and immortals on Pangu Continent. Wu Qi could only hope that Ying Zheng and the others were not so unlucky as to be discovered by the angry armies of Great Yu. They had just arrived at Pangu Continent, and it would be most unfortunate should they be treated as the vassals of Myriad Immortal Alliance and eliminated.

Because Great Yu and Myriad Immortal Alliance were at war, no cultivators or immortals were allowed to use Great Yu's official teleportation formations. And there was no way they would put Yan Dan and the others in Princess Zhang Le's interstitial world, as that would be disrespectful to them. As a result, Wu Qi and his company had no other choice but to employ escape arts as they made their way to Zhong Province. The distance between Dayan Immortal Pass and Zhong Province was far, and it would take Wu Qi three months to reach even with his speed. As Yan Dan and the others could not travel as fast as him and Princess Zhang Le, it meant they would have to spend a longer time on the road.

It was a hard journey, and along the way, they witnessed dozens of major battles between Great Yu's armies and immortals. Whenever possible, Wu Qi would have everyone under his protection and allow them to observe Great Yu's arts of war from a close distance. Yue Yi, Fan Yuqi, and a few other generals expressed their disdain at the commands that were given to the armies by their commanders. They all had the same opinion, that Great Yu's armies were too rigid and inflexible. No strategy was used in all the battles they had witnessed, as both sides were only fighting against each other head-on.

After watching how Great Yu's armies fought the battles, as well as learning about the management methods applied on the locals by Great Yu's administrative bodies, Yan Dan and his subjects were very confident that they could set a firm foothold on Pangu Continent. In their view, Great Yu's administrative bodies were riddled with loopholes which they could freely use to their advantages.

It was a country without a household registration management system and strict supervision and surveillance system. With their vast experiences and shrewdness, they could really turn it upside down! Especially when Great Yu and Myriad Immortal Alliance were at war, it was perfectly normal for a province to have its population fluctuating.

Unlike Wu Qi, who was a little worried about the situation caused by Gouchen Guang's death, Yan Dan and his subjects had become ambitious. They were eager to get to Zhong Province soon, and then use An Le County and An Yi County as the foundation. They planned to use Dong Hai County as the base for supplies and quickly establish their power, secretly invading Pangu Continent.

But when they were only half a month away from Zhong Province, even Jing Ke, the most forthright and careless of characters, found that something was amiss. Great Yu's army appeared more and more frequently. Originally, it took them two or three days to encounter a Great Yu's army; but now, they could encounter three to five armies every day, all flying past across the distance in flying ships.

In the past, strategic powers such as Supreme Oracles rarely appeared in front of people. But now, there was often a Supreme Tower crushing through the void, followed by a mighty divine sense that would carefully scan the surroundings before the tower would suddenly disappear into the void and go to another place.

At the peak, Wu Qi and his company saw seven different Supreme Towers appear in the distant horizon within the same day!

With the power of the Supreme Tower to break through the void, the Supreme Oracles hardly needed any rest and could go wherever they wanted. It only took three to five Supreme Oracles to fill the skies of dozens of first-grade provinces with the shadows of Supreme Towers.

This was not good news. These Supreme Oracles were too powerful, such that nothing could escape from their eyes. Wu Qi shook his head; it seemed that it was not going to be easy for the six dynasties to establish themselves on Pangu Continent.

What made Wu Qi even more nervous was that he and Princess Zhang Le could clearly sense the evil forces that were constantly sweeping across Pangu Continent in the void.

Every wave of force that swept through their bodies would cause Wu Qi's heart to jerk violently. Even Ao Buzun looked worried about the intrusion of this force, and no longer had the usual laziness and arrogance.

The forces came from some almighty experts of Directorate of Celestials who were casting magic to search the suspects who caused the death of Gouchen Guang. If Wu Qi had not used his chaotic energy to erase the auras left behind by the people of six dynasties, as well as the karma that linked them with Gouchen Guang, perhaps they would have been visited by the people of Directorate of Celestials a long time ago.

Wu Qi could only hope that the emperors and ministers of the other five dynasties could keep a low profile. In the face of Great Yu's fury, their strength was still too weak. If they were not careful, the thorough search would bring them nothing but total destruction.

Wu Qi could not help but feel a bit angry. He could not understand why Great Yu had to be so panicked about the death of Gouchen Guang.

But soon, what frustrated him even more happened. Just as they were about to enter Hai Province, the puppet he left in Dong Hai City sent him a warning message. Someone had sneaked into Dong Hai City and was trying to kill 'Wu Qi', who was 'badly wounded and unconscious'.

In that instant, Wu Qi's rage erupted fully.