Stealing the Heavens

Despite Wu Qi’s seclusion in the spirit cave, the information of the outside world was steadily fed back to him through Princess Zhang Le.

The emperor of New Yu had passed away, and all its imperial clan members and important courtiers were killed by Wu Qi. Led by the black-clad daoist who called herself Mingsha, the dynasty somehow managed to find a boy who was said to be the emperor’s b*stard son, and made him the new emperor.

Since almost all the courtiers were dead, at Mingsha’s behest, a group of barely usable people was chosen from their clans to fill the empty court. It was the same for the generals protecting the borders—taller men were chosen from among dwarfs and urgently sent to various fortresses and cities.

But, something strange happened. No matter how hard Mingsha struggled, New Yu’s armies were constantly defeated on the battlefields. Often, whenever Great Yu’s armies arrived, they immediately fled or simply surrendered. Within a month, Emperor Haozun’s army, along with the two armies led by the deities who served the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor, had recaptured seventy percent of New Yu’s lands. And now, they were marching straight for its capital—Youxiong.

Just two months after Wu Qi went in seclusion, Great Yu’s army reached Youxiong. Mingsha went out to fight them with a large number or Primordial experts, trying her best to defeat the enemy and save New Yu. But, what she faced was Emperor Haozun, who had broken through to the realm of Dao Breaking and was armed with the true Xuanyuan Sword. As a result, she was severely wounded by a single sword strike. Fortunately, the eight Apsaras had laid down a formation in time to block Emperor Haozun, allowing Mingsha to escape under the protection of the group of monks and daoists.

After that, Great Yu captured the capital and completely overthrew New Yu. All the people in the city were degraded as sinners and given to those who had rendered outstanding services as slaves. Meanwhile, all the officials were executed along with their clans. In addition, countless immortals and cultivators from hundreds of immortal sects that had submitted to New Yu were killed, their bases washed with blood, and even their immortal birds and spirit beasts slain.

Even the Supreme Oracles who betrayed Great Yu seemed to have taken the wrong medicine. Under Emperor Haozun’s fierce attack, they were simply too vulnerable. It was as if they had lost their minds, and the result was that they were all slaughtered at will by the enemy like lambs. According to the information brought back by Dong Hai spies, oracles from both sides were still fighting in the sky three days after the capture of Youxiong. From time to time, Supreme Towers fell to the ground with billowing smoke, crushing huge mountain ranges and blocking countless rivers.

Seven days later, there was no more fighting in the sky. Then, Great Yu’s Supreme Oracles returned one by one. They suffered almost no losses, but New Yu’s Supreme Oracles were all killed; their clans, like all the other aristocratic clans, were executed by the army. Even the babies in the cradles were killed with soul-wiping spells.

The war skyrocketed Great Yu’s reputation. Taking the opportunity, Emperor Haozun issued a decree, ordering all mortal kingdoms to submit, or he would personally lead the army to wipe out all these lesser kingdoms.

All of a sudden, Great Yu, who was already showing signs of decline previously, regained its morale and began to expand its army aggressively in preparation for the conquest. Emperor Haozun’s decree had thrown the mortal kingdoms in a state of panic. At the behest of the immortal sects supporting them from behind the scenes, they, too, were exhausting all their resources to build up their military power and prepare for the war.

In terms of the total population, all mortal kingdoms from outer heavenly realms together made up about eighty percent of Great Yu’s total. If they were combined into one force with the immortals from Heaven and Buddhists from Buddhist League, they would be strong enough to fight against Great Yu.

According to the intelligence brought back by Dong Hai spies, Ling Dynasty’s attack on the mortal kingdoms was at least ten times more aggressive after receiving Great Yu’s decree. There were even times when Zhang Tengyun himself appeared on the frontlines to boost the morale of the soldiers and capture several powerful kingdoms. The spies also saw with their own eyes how he slew the enemy emperors right in the middle of the blood-covered battlefield and in front of the countless generals and soldiers, extracted dragon-shaped purple energy from their bodies, and swallowed it.

Wu Qi nodded to himself as he went through the intelligence. It seemed that this emperor aura was indeed very useful. At the very least, New Yu was wiped out in just two months after he killed the emperor and robbed him of his emperor aura.

In the spirit cave where energy was so abundant that energy crystals were already forming spontaneously, Wu Qi sat cross-legged beneath the Heaven Refining Cauldron. His vast divine sense revolved around his divine soul like a nebula. Every tiniest particle of his soul was quivering, contacting and communicating with the Laws of the Heavenly Dao in search of information about emperor aura.

The Heaven Secret was already messed up by the seven Buddhist Patriarchs and nine Dao Patriarchs, and later it was further disrupted by the eighteen Saints. As a result, it was now in a very chaotic state such that no one could sort out how it worked. So, Wu Qi only blended his divine sense into the tumultuous currents of Heavenly Dao and let it carry him aimlessly around. When he occasionally came into contact with the information about emperor aura, he immediately stored it in his divine soul.

Bits and pieces of information were constantly being stored. Wu Qi picked the wheat from the chaff, and with the hint of intuition of his divine soul, pieced together those that pointed directly to the essence of emperor aura and gradually restored its true nature.

At the same time, the vast emperor aura in him was being extracted and gradually broken down by the Primal Purple Energy, a wisp at a time, while his divine sense fused with it. From it, he studied the various strange powers contained in the emperor aura.

Lightning seemed to flash before his eyes. When Wu Qi’s divine soul was completely immersed in the emperor aura, and when his divine sense was completely in harmony with the Heavenly Dao, countless visions flashed before his eyes.

It was a prehistoric land roamed by countless huge beasts and demonic birds. Humans were as weak as insects at that time, making them the prey for other stronger creatures. And there were formidable gods, who raised terrible storms from time to time to destroy an entire human tribe in a flash, or spread pestilence to instantly wipe out dozens of human tribes. The newborn human race was weak and powerless, and they had to struggle to survive in the most hostile conditions.

Finally, after multiplying for dozens of generations, some of the best individuals in the human race activated their bloodline inherited from Pangu and hundreds of divine beasts. Their intelligence and bodies were greatly enhanced and strengthened, and that marked the beginning of the first evolution of the human race. From then on, they had bright minds and strong bodies.

Led by the first batch of humans who had evolved, the human race built houses to shelter themselves from the wind and rain, and bonfires to scare those savages beasts away. They ate cooked food to strengthen their bodies, and used herbs to protect themselves against pestilence and heal their people. And they were guarded by mighty warriors, who used crude wooden sticks and stones as weapons to kill fearsome beasts and fierce birds, protecting mankind through the most difficult times.

Those individuals became the leaders of the tribes, and the growing tribes began to communicate with each other. As a result, many small tribes joined together and formed powerful tribal alliances. Eventually, as humans continued to multiply, develop, and grow stronger, small tribal alliances merged with one another and developed into one single tribal alliance for the entire human race, and the wisest and most powerful man was chosen as the leader of the tribal alliance, responsible for leading the entire human race forward.

A human being was weak and powerless, but when countless humans came together, they had enough power to destroy even the heaven and earth.

In the nascent human society, any invention beneficial to the human race would be bestowed with a great amount of virtues by the Heavenly Dao. The early humans were simple and honest, with an unpolluted innocence. They respected the leader of the tribal alliance who had led them to greatness, and the respect was passionate and pure—the primitive form of faith power. When the faith of countless people gathered on the leader alone, merged with the virtues bestowed by the Heavenly Dao, and combined with the indomitable and unyielding spirit that the leader had obtained through commanding hundreds of millions of people, the first emperor aura was born.

As the first emperor aura was recognized by the Heavenly Dao, it merged with the destiny of the Heavenly Dao and eventually evolved into today’s emperor aura.

The so-called emperor aura was the belief of a human nation in its supreme leader, the embodiment of the belief of hundreds of millions of people. When it was lost, the morale of the people collapsed and the nation’s fortunes crumbled, just like New Yu, which was completely overthrown by Great Yu in just two months. It was like a person’s three spiritual souls and seven physical souls had become completely disorganized, rendering him powerless against the invasion of enemies.

Therefore, before the fall of any nation, the signs of disturbance began with the emperor. The spirit of despair replaced the emperor aura, causing the court to be in chaos from top to bottom, making life a misery for the people and ultimately leading to the destruction of the nation. This was the reason why every fallen nation had a fatuous emperor, the impact caused by the loss of emperor aura.

Wu Qi nodded to himself. He finally understood that it was the combination of virtues, power of faith, and the fortunes of Heavenly Dao that created the emperor aura.

The power of faith here was not the same as that of the Buddhist League. The latter was used to temper oneself and the relics, and the one in the emperor aura came from the people’s faith in the profession of ’emperor’. In other words, even though Wu Qi now enjoyed the support and affection of many people in Dong Hai, as he had not formally founded his own nation, this power of faith could not be converted into emperor aura.

If he wanted to gain emperor aura, he must first raise the flag and tell the world that he had established a nation.

The strongest effect of emperor aura was to protect a person, both spiritually and physically. Those protected by a powerful enough emperor aura could not be disturbed and attacked by any evil or spell, and no weapons could hurt them.

Such examples were the Yellow Emperor, Xuanyuan, and the Yan Emperor, Shennong. It was true that they both possessed boundless virtues, but they also had an enormous amount of emperor aura in them, which made them immune to all spells and magic attacks. Even their bodies, protected by the immeasurable emperor aura, were almost imperishable. Their cultivation base might not be too strong, but they were almost impossible to kill. Even Dao Fusing experts would have a headache if they had to fight them.

And because they were protected by the emperor aura, even Dao Fusing experts dared not to easily hurt them, lest they suffered the backlash from the Heavenly Dao, which could get them killed. Although they were Dao Fusing experts, they would still be in danger of being wiped out if the ultimate heavenly condemnation of the Heavenly Dao was triggered.

Under Wu Qi’s careful analysis, the dragon-shaped purple aura gradually disintegrated. He narrowed his eyes and smiled, then immersed his divine sense in the vast world inside him.

“From today on, I will be the emperor of a new kingdom which I name Yanhuang ¹ , and you all will be the people of the kingdom!”

A great voice spread through the void in his body, and the countless descendants of the people Wu Qi had brought out of the mortal worlds in those years fell to their knees and kowtowed.

With that, a huge plume of purple aura suddenly took shape in Wu Qi’s body!