Stealing The Heavens

Lord Changmu’s attack caused the void some ten thousand miles around the daoist to collapse and compress to mere ten feet in circumference, densely filled with green energy. Then, countless trees and vines emerged out of nowhere, slithering toward the daoist who had been shrunk to the size of a sesame seed and was trapped in the compressed void.

Each tree represented a law manifested by either innate or acquire wood-element energy, such as wind, thunder, loud noise, or toxic gas. And as both types of energies were interlocking with one another like the two spirals in the taiji symbol, infinite mysterious power burst out from them.

A loud rumble rang out as bolts of lightning darted out in all directions amidst the green energy and plumes of fire rose into the air. Then, clumps of green soil emerged in the flames and moved through the void at each other, as agile as breezes as they gathered into a mountain. It then compressed into a thumb-sized seal and silently pressed down toward the daoist’s forehead.

In this small void, everything originated from the innate and acquire wood-element energy. Therefore, the soil was fused with the breeze’s agility, the fire’s nimbleness, as well as all the other amazing laws the energies could manifest. As the insignificant seal quietly branded on the daoist’s forehead, a striking green stamp seeped deep into his skin.

The tiny square stamp only contained a twisting pattern, called the ‘chaotic script’ among Chaos Fiend Gods, which was a kind of writing without physical form but waves of divine sense. Figures who could turn these formless chaotic scripts into tangible things were all supreme existences among Chaos Fiend Gods no one dared to provoke.

And this twisting green chaotic script that had taken its physical form represented only one meaning: poison!

On the surface, Lord Changmu was a Primeval Chaos Immortal who controlled wood-element energy, but the essence of his power was poison, a toxicity that was extremely horrible and irresistible. Like the other Chaos Fiend Gods, not many people knew his true form. But as soon as he made his appearance, he had held all the living things in the universe in awe with his vicious, incredibly powerful poison.

The daoist shuddered as he turned green all over, and sticky, green pus soon began to ooze out of his pores. He now looked more like a chunk of rotting meat than a poised, mighty figure.

Before he could cast a spell to counter Lord Changmu’s attack, Yao Ling chuckled and gently waved her fair, delicate finger across the air in front of her. A terrible ripping noise was heard, and then the compressed void that had trapped the daoist split open suddenly. The crack happened to run across his body, slicing him in half from his forehead.

The daoist had just performed a hand incantation gesture when the void around him crumbled and disintegrated. His body shook and burst with a blue light, and in the next instant, he was out of the shattered void. A fine line streaked from his forehead to his abdomen, gleaming with a faint earthy yellow light that could also be seen on his back. He was sliced in two from the middle. For a Dao Fusing expert, an injury such as this was not lethal, but it still caused a great damage to his vitality.

With a sway of his body, an exotic aroma filled the air. Tendrils of purple smoke swirled around the daoist as plumes of green smoke and shafts of yellow light rushed out of him ceaselessly. A little frustrated, he pointed at Yao Ling and cried out, “Do you really have to be so fierce, spirit of earth?”

Yao Ling, who looked like a beautiful teenage girl in her fourteenth or fifteenth year, frowned sadly at the daoist, then sighed softly and said, “Why are you revealing my true form? Yes, I am a spirit of earth, and I know you are one old bat with a pair of long eyebrows! Why can’t I be fierce to you when you are not one of us?”

With a fierce gleam flashing in her eyes, Yao Ling suddenly teleported next to the daoist, stabbing him hard in the ribs with her hands that had transformed into bones. “So, you are allowed to bully Empress Wa by blocking her front gate, and we can’t even teach you a lesson? What kind of logic is this?”

As he was poisoned by Lord Changmu, the daoist’s reaction had become a little slow, such that he could not stop Yao Ling’s sudden attack. Sharp as blades, the palms went deep into his ribs and, amidst a sickening bone-breaking sound, crushed all his rib bones to pieces.

The old man grunted; with a sway, his body transformed into a clump of blue smoke and soared into the sky while his hassock disintegrated amidst shrill whistles into 49,000 pliable and tough green blades of grass. Each of them was glowing brilliantly, interwoven into a thirteen-story pagoda over him. The pagoda emanated a boundless blue light, which were actually countless fine rays that were visible to the naked eyes, each carrying 33,333 true words of the Dao League. As soon as it took shape, the void became stagnated and Yao Ling’s movements slowed down abruptly.

He then casually pulled out a yellow handkerchief embroidered with the pattern of eight trigrams from under his sleeve and tossed it out. A gust of yellow wind rolled up, from which a giant hand reached out, grabbed Yao Ling, and flung her away. Yao Ling gave a shocked cry and slammed headlong into the Origin Tree of Fire. Her body was rather tough, for the impact had knocked a large hole some thousands of feet in circumference on the tree while she was stuck in the wood with her limbs twisted in weird angles, head reeling.

The Origin Tree of Fire was badly wounded, and it made Wu Qi, who was hiding under the ground stealing its energy essence, jump with joy. Hurriedly, he speeded up his stealing. Who could tell how much energy essence had this divine tree lost after it was slammed by Yao Ling? The score would be counted on the old daoist, and it would have nothing to do with Wu Qi.

As hot streams continued to pour into Wu Qi’s body, he was surprised to discover the tree’s energy essence contained all kinds of fire essences, from the most common fire used by the people to the primal fire seeds, which were as powerful as his Nirvana Flame. No wonder it was called the Origin Tree of Fire. As the speed of his stealing increased, thousands of different fire seeds poured into his body.

Wu Qi was grinning from ear to ear. Apart from his Heaven Refining Cauldron, the reason that the skill of pill refinement and artifact refinement of his predecessor, Lord Yuan Ling, were second to none among all the Chaos Fiend Gods was that he had collected dozens of chaotic flames as powerful as Nirvana Flame and refined them into the Yuan Ling True Flame. Now, with the help of this Origin Tree of Fire, it seemed that he would soon be able to refine a new Yuan Ling True Flame in this life without spending too much effort.

Besides, he owned the Phoenix True Flame, which was a fire seed that could not be found in the Origin Tree of Fire. This divine tree only contained the fire seeds given birth to by nature, but not fire seeds refined with blood essence. In other words, the Yuan Ling True Flame he would soon refine would be more powerful and miraculous than that of his previous life.

Filled with great joy, Wu Qi began to purify and compress the various fire seeds with the fire-refining art in Heaven Refining Grand Magic, and then carefully merged them with the Origin Tree of Fire’s enormous, almost infinite energy essence. He paid the battle out there no heed and focused all his mind in the process of refining that was too wonderful for words. With each round of refinement completed, not only were the fire seeds elevated, but his fleshly body and magic power were also cleansed and purified.

The old daoist’s casual attack that threw Yao Ling into Origin Tree of Fire had greatly offended Greathorns. Fuming with rage, he thrust his spear at the pagoda hovering over the old man and bellowed, “You stupid bat! How dare you to hurt my precious tree! I’m going to destroy your dearest artifact today! Explode!”

The spear shrouded in fingers of purple flame struck the blue pagoda and then exploded with a boom. Refined with a branch of the Origin Tree of Fire by Greathorns and nourished day and night with his heart’s blood, the spear was no weaker than an ordinary Chaotic Spirit Artifact. As soon as it exploded, the blue pagoda shattered, disintegrating into 49,000 blades of grass and wheeling around the daoist.

With a cold snort, Greathorns slowly pulled out another spear that was red as blood and transparent like crystal. No sooner had it appeared that the surroundings cooled down, for all the heat was absorbed by it.

“Damnit!” cried the daoist in shock, “Do you really want to fight me with that? Why are you taking out your natal artifact? Huh?”

While the that panicked, Wu Divinity, who had been standing aside watching the battle, suddenly transformed his head into the head of a venomous snake, opened his mouth, and sprayed a cloud of yellow mist at the daoist. Then, he performed an incantation gesture and shouted, “Strike!”

The daoist coughed out a mouthful of blood as half of his body melted into an odd-smelling meat paste. He cried out in fury while bright blue light flickered all over him, and his melted body restored to its original state in the blink of an eye. However, it melted into meat paste once again when a yellow light flashed through him. Face red with rage, he began to intone a spell, and the blue light flickered continuously, but the yellow light followed. After flickering and flashing thirty-six times, the yellow light exploded into a light rain, and the daoist’s body finally returned to normal with no sign of injury.

Wearing a gloomy face, the daoist wasted no time in talking but clenched his jaws and reached a hand into the sky, pulling out a bronze sword breaker with thirty-six sections, each attached with four spirit talismans. Brandishing the weapon, he sneered at Greathorns, who was about to thrust the spear at him, and said, “If you really attack me with that, don’t blame me for showing no mercy!”

Yao Ling staggered up from the hole in the tree as she tidied her absurdly long dress and then flew into the air. “No mercy? Do you think that will scare us? Stupid old bat! Since none of us can kill each other, let’s fight for fun! I swear I will change my name and never show up in public again if I can’t beat this old bat into a thousand different looks today!”

With that, she shook off her long dress and revealed a simple attire suitable for fighting, getting ready to jump at the daoist.

But, before she could do it, three figures suddenly appeared next to the daoist, three old men who were also clad in daoist robes.

It startled her, and she quickly retreated a few steps.

Greathorns, Lord Changmu, Wu Divinity, and Yao Ling stood in a row, exchanging glances in silence with the four daoists.

After a full quarter of an hour, the four daoists snorted coldly at the same time, and then one of them said in an indifferent tone, “Fine, I’ll let the three bastards live for now!”

A gust of white wind blew over, and the four daoists vanished without a trace.