Chapter 963: The City Gates Catch Fire

In the audience hall of the Ling Dynasty, an executioner in red chopped off the head of a monarch from a small state.

Celestial Lord Yiqi, the imperial pen-holding subject of the North Emperor who was secretly sent to the Ling Dynasty by Heaven, frowned as he extracted a thread of purple emperor aura from the monarch. Slightly less than three feet long and as thin as a thumb, loosely held together and not having the shape of a dragon, the aura swirled restlessly around the celestial lord’s fingertip like a tiny catfish.

It did not look at all like the emperor aura that a monarch who ruled over a land tens of thousands of miles wide and hundreds of millions of people should have. Even the power of faith gathered by the leaders of the tribes with only hundreds of thousands of people in ancient times was stronger than this.

Yiqi simply crushed the emperor aura with a pinch of his fingers.

Sitting in his throne with a glum face, Zhang Tengyun said in a deep voice, “My lord, we had destroyed countless states and turned their monarchs into captives over the past three years. However, the strongest emperor aura I managed to extract from them is this…And three years ago, some of them did not even have a wisp of emperor aura in them. They are simply hollow!”

Liu Bang said darkly, “My lord, this has undermined Heaven’s grand plan. Please find out what has caused it as soon as possible.”

The celestial lord walked around a dozen monarchs of small states, who were kneeling in the hall and trembling all over with fear. With only a flick of his sleeve, their heads flew up and their blood-stained souls were sucked away by the strange force that filled the void. Then, he made a gesture, causing a dozen threads of emperor aura to swim out of the headless bodies. As expected, they were all weak and small like tiny catfishes. He hefted them with one hand as he narrowed his eyes and murmured an incantation. With the sound of his voice, the emperor aura broke down into tiny specks of light, swirling around his palm.

“These emperor auras have only been produced in the last three years, which is why they are so weak!”

While frowning, Yiqi explained to Zhang Tengyun and Liu Bang about the strangeness in the emperor aura. Normally, the emperor aura of a state was inherited from generation to generation, and it would only grow stronger with the expansion of the state’s land and people. Clearly, the emperor aura in these monarchs had been completely extracted by someone three years ago, and what was in them now had only been produced in the last three years, which explained why they were so weak.

Zhang Tengyun trembled with rage as he cried out, “Who on earth dares to oppose me!”

A sneer appeared on Celestial Lord Yiqi’s gloomy face. “I’m afraid that they are not opposing you, Your Majesty, but Heaven.”

Standing by Zhang Tengyun’s elbow, Lu Buwei said coldly, “Some almighty experts must have extracted the emperor aura from these monarchs to prevent His Majesty from gathering enough of them and fighting with Great Yu, so that they can undermine His Majesty’s plan of ascending the throne of the Human Emperor. This is not the work of Great Yu’s courtiers, because they are not so clever.”

Liu Bang nodded thoughtfully and said, “I agree. The courtiers of Great Yu are only good at fighting with their knives and swords, and they are not known for doing something as sinister as cutting the ground on which someone stands. Heh, apart from us, the Heaven, who else knows the importance of emperor aura? We will surely suffer losses in the war with Great Yu if Your Majesty cannot suppress Emperor Haozun in terms of emperor aura.”

Everyone in the hall exchanged a glance and looked to the west at the same time.

Lu Buwei, who already held great power in Ling Dynasty and was in charge of finance and intelligence, said in a cold voice, “I’ve received a piece of information that a state called ‘Jing’ suddenly rose to prominence in the western region of Great Yu some time ago. Its national strength is very strong, and had wiped out tens of thousands of states. It is now fighting with the army of Youxiong led by Ji Ao, the King of Weishan of Great Yu. According to our spies, the army of Youxiong has suffered a few defeats.”

Celestial Lord Yiqi’s face turned extremely unsightly. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked around the corpses in the hall as he sneered, “The state of Jing…There is no such state in the plan drawn out by Heaven and Buddhist League. All the states in outer heavenly realms had been carefully vetted before they came to Pangu Continent. I remember that I did not see the name of ‘Jing’ in the official paper submitted to the six Great Celestial Emperors.”

Zhang Tengyun’s face darkened as he said, “So, someone has deceived the six Great Celestial Emperors. Who has the ability to do this?”

Pointing a finger at the corpses sprawled on the ground, Liu Bang said, “Not only did they have the ability to deceive the six Great Celestial Emperors, they had even extracted the emperor aura of these monarchs before us, so that His Majesty could not absorb their emperor aura to boost Ling Dynasty’s fortunes. There kinds of dirty tricks seem to be something that only…”

Everyone looked up at the same time to the sky in the far west, where the Gridhrakuta Mountain was located.

Yiqi’s face was as pale as death. “That seems to be it,” he said in a flat voice, “and I can understand why. The man who can invest deities on behalf of heaven and the man who will become the Human Emperor are too important to ignore. They must have sent their own agents to fight for these two positions. Heh, what a scheme!”

He thought for a moment, then frowned at Zhang Tengyun and said, “So, Your Majesty is not safe either.”

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Zhang Tengyun flared up. He slapped the armrest of his throne and growled, “You mean they will kill me?”

“No, they won’t have the courage to do so,” Yiqi said in a deep voice, “but they will steal the emperor aura inside you. If I may ask, Your Majesty, how well can you use that Supreme Artifact of Primal of yours, the white lotus flower? If you can use thirty percent of its power, few in this world can hurt you. Anything less than that, I reckon at least eight hundred people in their sects can take away all your emperor aura without even alerting you!”

The celestial lord said brusquely to Zhang Tengyun, “Without the emperor aura you have painstakingly accumulated over tens of thousands of incarnations, what use are you to Heaven?”

Zhang Tengyun’s face turned pale, and he shuddered uncontrollably as if he had just thought of something terrible. He looked at Yiqi as he smiled bitterly and said, “My lord, please tell me what I should do to avoid this disaster! I will certainly repay your kindness when I rise to the top in the future.”

A satisfying smile appeared on Yiqi’s face as he nodded and said, “Fine! Your Majesty can use the Universal Natal Celestial Medallion to summon the natal star power of all 84,000 Celestial Lords. You will not use it to attack the enemy, but to fuse your divine soul and the emperor aura into one. Protected by the natal star power of 84,000 Celestial Lords, no one will be able to hurt you, save for the few Patriarchs.”

Zhang Tengyun slapped himself on the forehead as if he was suddenly enlightened. “Right, I should have thought of that!” he said with a smile. “It may not be a bad idea. I should properly protect myself before I plan on other things. Hehe…Now that they have taken away the emperor aura from these monarchs, they have done the most tedious part of work for us. When we breach the capital of Jing and kill their monarch, all his emperor aura will be mine!”

…

After working hard for slightly over three years out there, Wu Qi had finally stolen the emperor aura from all the monarchs of those little mortal kingdoms. He now had the emperor aura of countless monarchs in him, and it was almost seventy percent as much as Great Yu’s when the dynasty was at its peak.

Emperor Haozun had just defeated New Yu with his mighty army and reunited Great Yu. But, as the emperor aura in the emperor of New Yu was stolen by Wu Qi, his emperor aura was only half that of its peak. If he wished to restore it to its former glory, it would take him a very long time to win back the heart of the people.

As a result, Wu Qi was now the man with the most emperor aura in the world. After he returned to Dong Hai, the morale of the soldiers had risen significantly for no apparent reason, and even crop yields and the number of babies born had increased dramatically in the coming months. Moreover, almost every baby was fit to practice the body-tempering technique of the human race, and on an average, one in every thousand was fit to practice the magic of oracles.

The greatness of a man would always lend glory to a place. Wu Qi, with the enormous emperor aura he had gathered, did indeed bring about many wonderful changes in Dong Hai.

As they had not seen each other for years, when Wu Qi saw Princess Zhang Le, he did not explain what he had done but brought her into a room and did the husband and wife thing immediately. The couple spent days together, paying no mind to the war between Dong Hai and Ling Dynasty. Over the past three years, both sides had won and lost some battles, and none could overwhelm the other. The war had come to a stalemate; during this period, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died on both sides, which was the only loss.

However, as both sides had vast territories and countless people, the loss of hundreds of thousands of soldiers was not even worth a drop in the ocean, so no one would take it to heart.

In a pavilion on an island near Dong Hai, Wu Qi leaned against Princess Zhang Le as she was lazily feeding him fresh wild fruits.

The moon was shining gently and the stars were flickering in the night sky, while the sea breeze sent waves were lapping at the shore. Wu Qi yawned as he just had a long romantic session with Princess Zhang Le. Then, the stars in the sky dimmed all of a sudden.

Startled, Wu Qi walked out of the pavilion with Princess Zhang Le and looked up into the sky. The light of all the stars had faded away, and with their enormous divine sense, the couple could perceive that the 84,000 ancient stars were brewing a terrifying force. Before long, 84,000 very fine silver rays shot down from the sky toward the capital of the Ling Dynasty.

As he was in a daze, wondering what was happening in Ling Dynasty, the soul-locking seal on his back, which was sealed with the Celestial Escaping Technique by Guigu’zi, suddenly sprang into action. An excruciating pain stabbed through his head, causing him to grunt and turning his vision dark.

Over the past few years, although Wu Qi was traveling here and there to steal the emperor aura, he had not neglected the damned soul-locking seal on his back. With years of painstaking effort, he had managed to remove ninety percent of it. He was at the brink of removing it completely when the power of all the stars suddenly gathered in Wanling, leaving none for him. As a result, the Celestial Escaping Technique disintegrated, and the soul-locking seal sprung into action.

The pain was not the worst compared to the signal that spread out of the seal. No one knew where the fiend was, but as soon as the signal was emitted, she appeared in front of Wu Qi.

“Yo, yo…After years of looking for you, I have finally found you!” The fiend grinned before laughing shrilly.

A look of shock appeared on Wu Qi’s face. He quickly sent a message to Princess Zhang Le with his divine sense, then turned and transformed into a beam of light, speeding away.

Without so much as looking at Princess Zhang Le, the fiend chuckled and chased after him.