I Shall Steal the Heavens 140 Chapter 139: The Wrong Guy

Only the third sentence meant anything to me, because I sure as hell didn't know what stage I was at, and I didn't care.

"I know. That's why…run!"

I slammed my palm down on the ground and conjured a huge glacial wall between us and the stunned Yan Qing Wu. Spinning around, I gestured frantically toward a shocked Zhu Jiao, whose mouth was hanging open.

"What are you waiting for? Hurry up!"

"…right!"

Snapping out of his stupor, Zhu Jiao obeyed, scrambling after me in the direction where I emerged from.

CRACK!

"Trying to make a fool of me?! I'm going to kill the both of you!"

With a single black saber slash, Yan Qing Wu smashed through my ice barrier, screaming furiously.

"What the fuck did you do to piss her off so much?!" I hollered at Zhu Jiao – at that time, I was still unaware of what he did.

"I, uh…saw her naked?"

The vein in my temple twitched and I slapped my forehead in annoyance.

"I shouldn't have come to your rescue."

"Hey! It wasn't on purpose, all right?!"

"You did more than that!" Yan Qing Wu shrieked, chasing the both of us like a howling banshee. "You…you violated me! You took my first time! I'll fucking kill you!"

"Hey! That wasn't on purpose either! And if you want to put it that way, you took my first time too!" Zhu Jiao shouted. Despite the urgency of the situation, I couldn't help but gape at him.

"Seriously, dude…what the fuck did you do?!"

"Long story…please don't ask…"

Zhu Jiao looked sick, but I couldn't help but hazard a guess. Especially since the words Zhu Jiao and Yan Qing Wu left a lot to the imagination.

"I thought you already have a girlfriend! Won't Bai Ning Xue kill you too if she finds out about this?"

"I know…" Zhu Jiao moaned, his complexion turning as pale as his ghostly master. "Please don't tell her, I beg you…it really wasn't deliberate! I swear!"

I had no intention of ratting out on my friend, but I knew how ripe the situation was for drama that Bai Ning Xue finding out about this would be inevitable.

Apparently, Qi Lin seemed to realize it too, but he had a different perspective. Grinning as he floated above Zhu Jiao, he offered what he believed were encouraging words.

"Don't worry. If your girlfriend really loves you, then she'll accept the idea of you having a harem."

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" I yelled at the ghost. Not that he knew it was directed at him, but that didn't stop me from being pissed off.

What kind of fucking logic was that?! So Bai Ning Xue should forgive Zhu Jiao for cheating on her and having sex with multiple women if she really loved him? That sounded extremely sexist and patriarchal to me. Furthermore, if Bai Ning Xue was the one who suddenly informed Zhu Jiao that she would be having a harem of men, I was pretty sure that Qi Lin would tell him to dump "that whore" immediately. This was clearly double standards.

Gender equality, people. I was an advocate of gender equality.

Unfortunately, I was too busily trying to escape a vengeful prodigy as she sought to slaughter both me and my friend. At that moment, I regretted my decision to help Zhu Jiao out. While I was suffering at the hands of Yan Qing Wu's senior, Li Xue Wu, and enduring the extreme cold of the Nine Thousand Yin Ice Hell Formation with great risk to my life, he was having a lucky sukebe moment and losing his virginity while taking a beautiful girl's virginity.

It was only natural that a side character (or mob character) like me would be envious of his protagonist-level fortune.

"Trust me, you don't want the trouble that comes with it!" Zhu Jiao assured me, as if he had read my mind.

"Stop right there!" Yan Qing Wu hollered behind us, as if to prove his point. I sensed a surge of qi overflowing from her body and instinctively dove to the left.

"Get down!" I shouted. I was gratified to see Zhu Jiao take my advice, my good friend throwing himself to the side.

"Not this time!"

"Huh?!"

Evidently Zhu Jiao remembered the previous time when I was the one who saved him from the Tian Sha Sect disciples, at the cost of trapping myself with them. He didn't even ask how I escaped, but he didn't want me to suffer the same ordeal as before, especially with a murderous maiden right on our heels.

So when she unleashed her Black Moon Slash or whatever, he flung himself at me, knocking me right into one of the corridors to ensure I didn't get trapped again.

I had to admit that I appreciated his actions, because the black saber qi passed through the space where I had dove to milliseconds ago. If Zhu Jiao hadn't saved me when he did, I would have been cut into pieces.

On the other hand, the black saber qi exploded against the ground, its shockwaves hurling both of us in different directions. The good news, however, was that Yan Qing Wu's attack also smashed the ceiling and walls, obliterating them and sending rocky debris falling over to seal the entrances to the corridor we were running along earlier.

Crash! Wham!

Shaking the dust off my face and clothes, I slowly rose to my feet and coughed. Trying not to breathe in the dust that had billowed from the destruction, I looked around for my friend.

"Zhu Jiao?"

Panic gripped my heart when I couldn't locate him. Don't tell me he was trapped on the other side, stuck with the rampaging Yan Qing Wu? I came all the way here to help him, but I ended up cutting off his escape routes?!

"I'm fine! How about you?!"

A faint voice came from the other side of the rubble, but it didn't sound right. For one thing, it was coming from the wrong direction – not the direction where we were running away from, where Yan Qing Wu occupied.

"I'm not hurt. What about you? Are you still trapped there with Yan Qing Wu?"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Zhu Jiao burst out laughing. I sighed in relief. If he could afford to laugh, that meant he was all right.

"That crazy bitch brought down the ceiling and sealed her corridor off from ours! Even though she's powerful, even she will require some time to dig through or blast through all this debris! We'll be long gone by now!"

As if to punctuate his explanation, Yan Qing Wu's shrieks floated from the other direction, where we were fleeing from earlier.

"I'll kill you! Get back here! Get your ass back here! I'll kill you!"

Boom!

A futile display, given how Zhu Jiao chuckled despite the violent tremors that dislodged more clouds of dust and sand from the rubble.

"Well, we had better get moving before she finds us. Let's keep moving. All these tunnels and corridors are connected somehow, so we should be able to link up if we keep going."

"The same applies for Yan Qing Wu," I reminded him. Zhu Jiao gulped, but then he managed to calm down.

"Given how angry she is, I think I'll be able to sense her presence and qi from a mile away and move accordingly. And I don't think you have to worry…you're not her primary target, after all."

I wondered if I should tell him that I had just effectively killed Li Xue Wu and the elite disciples of the Tian Sha Sect, which was more than enough reason for Yan Qing Wu to target me. Even if she didn't like Li Xue Wu or wasn't close to her fellow sect disciples, she was still honorbound to avenge their deaths.

Assuming she knew that they were dead, of course.

Neither Zhu Jiao nor Yan Qing Wu had any knowledge of the fate of the other Tian Sha Sect disciples, and I would like to keep it that way. Hell, nobody knew what happened between me and them, and I didn't want to enlighten them.

At least not yet.

"All right. Let's start moving then." I glanced nervously at the shaking debris when Yan Qing Wu unleashed another of her Black Moon Saber arts to chip away at them. At this rate, she would get through the artificially created barrier in no time at all. On the other hand, I was a little sour that these rocks were sturdier than my ice barrier.

Well, ice was more brittle and fragile than stones…

"Yeah. I'll see you later!"

It seemed that Zhu Jiao had also come to the same conclusion, for there was a tinge of urgency in his tone that wasn't present before. Sensing him move down the other corridor, I mirrored his actions and turned toward the only path open to me before hurrying down.

*

I had passed through several winding corridors and ended up in a new network of paths before something unexpected happened.

Before that, I ran into quite a few people. I recognized none of them, save that they were probably from the campsite of martial artists and tomb raiders who came in search for treasure. They hurried along, still in search for unexpored regions in hopes of finding promising valuables and other precious Spirit Artifacts.

All of them moved past me without sparing me even a second glance. That was fine with me. As long as they didn't bother me, I wouldn't bother them. I didn't have time or energy to waste on getting into meaningless fights.

Good thing I had a bag where I stored the Ultimate Yin Dragon Saliva, the Azure Lotus Sword and the sphere-shaped spirit artifact that was yin-based, or people would notice the treasures I carried on me and attempt to rob me.

Not all of them were from the orthodox sects, after all. I recognized a few from the demonic sects, particularly from their murderous auras and killing intent. They passed by me, dismissing me as someone without anything of value, and I encouraged that conclusion by keeping my head down and plastering a sullen expression on my face.

If I looked like someone bitter about having not found anything, the demonic sects would believe that I didn't find anything, and they would move on to more promising targets. Particularly those who were unable to conceal their delight at stumbling upon rare finds.

I wasn't a hero who could protect everyone in the world, and I certainly couldn't afford to fight every demonic sect disciple I came across, so I avoided them instead of picking meaningless fights with them. Their poor victims would have to defend themselves on their own. I might sound callous, but I just didn't have the power to go around saving the world. I was a martial artist who learned martial arts for self-defense and to protect the people important to me. That was already taxing me to my limits. I couldn't afford to stretch my protection to others I didn't know.

Of course, if the robbery happened right in front of me, then I would do my best to stop it. But I certainly couldn't go around attacking demonic sects based on the assumption that they would rob other people if I hadn't actually seen them rob other people with my very own eyes. I could be mistaken about their qi or aura, after all.

"Huff…"

Either way, it didn't matter. I finally found an isolated path devoid of human presence and went down it. At this point, I didn't care about linking up with Zhu Jiao. Knowing the bastard, he was probably having another lucky encounter with a new harem member or conveniently stumbling upon spirit artifacts or treasures.

It was time for me to a bit more selfish and look for something that benefited me. Not that I actually needed it, since I already found what I needed to. But I still hoped that I had some modicum of luck left…

"Finally."

"?!"

Just when I thought I was truly alone, a familiar voice spoke up.

The ghost of Qi Lin hovered beside me, his hands on his hips as he glared at me in disapproval.

"I thought you would never be able to escape that mad bitch! But judging from the lack of qi bursts, it seems that you've finally disengaged from battle and escaped successfully!"

"Yeah, well…" I shrugged nonchalantly as I leaned against the wall. "To be honest, she helped us escape by accidentally destroying the entrances and sealing herself off from us." I chuckled and shook my head. "She essentially shot herself in the foot."

"I see." Qi Lin nodded and grinned. Then he blinked and gave me a hard stare, as if he hadn't noticed I was present.

Then…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"WHOOOOOOAAAA!"

I jumped in fright and shouted when Qi Lin suddenly screamed. Wait, why the hell was a ghost so afraid of a living human like me?

"What the hell, man!?" I snapped, patting my chest and trying to calm my throbbing heart from the shock. "Don't suddenly scream like that! You scared the hell out of me!"

"You…you can see me?!" Qi Lin spluttered. I shrugged again.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be able to see you?"

"H…how?!"

Good question. Even though Qi Lin did his best to conceal his presence and minimize his ghostly whispers as much as possible so that only Zhu Jiao could hear him, I was still able to hear him. To be more accurate, I didn't so much as hear him as I sensed him. The reason was most likely because I learned Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps, which made me extremely sensitive to all forms of qi, even that of ghostly qi.

Or perhaps it was my affinity with the shadow or ghostly element. But that would mean other shadow-element practitioners would be able to sense Qi Lin's presence too. Maybe it was a combination of both factors.

"Ah…I see…you do indeed practice a mystical technique."

Even though I kept those thoughts to myself, Qi Lin, continued to prod and analyze me with his ghostly senses.

"Can you not pry into other people's privacy?" I asked, crossed. Qi Lin grinned sheepishly, and shook his head.

"Normally people would be afraid to see a ghost, but you…you seem like you're used to seeing ghosts…"

He then cleared his throat.

"Ah, forgive me for my rudeness. I'm…"

"Qi Lin, the former sect leader of the Golden Kirin Sect. And the current master of Zhu Jiao. You are grooming him to be the next leader of the Golden Kirin Sect so that he can rebuild it and restore it to its former glory."

"How the fuck do you know that?!" Qi Lin roared. I smiled mysteriously.

"I know a lot of things."

"That brat! I told him not to…"

"Oh, Zhu Jiao didn't tell me anything. He probably doesn't know that I know of your existence. He obeyed your command to keep your existence a secret, and he also didn't reveal anything about the Golden Kirin Sect to anyone at all, until you gave him permission to."

Qi Lin gaped at me for a few moments, and I could see the stone rock behind his translucent mouth.

"You even know about that?! How?!"

"To be honest, I've known about you from the beginning. I was there when you first revealed yourself to Zhu Jiao and offered to teach him the Golden Kirin Sacred Beast technqiues. Hell, I heard you diss me about my One Star Constitution and lack of talent…"

"Sorry." Qi Lin didn't look apologetic at all, but he certainly seemed a little abashed. Scrutinizing me, he nodded and sighed. "You did surpass my imaginations and prove me wrong, so I offer an apology for being so condescending."

"Well, that's the harsh truth. Don't worry about it. In any case, I've always overheard you talking to Zhu Jiao, at least during the moments when I'm around. I don't know everything, and I didn't see you train him, so you can rest easy that I don't know anything about the Golden Kirin Sacred Beast techniques."

I saw no reason to withhold the truth, so I told him everything.

"And it seems that I'm the only one other than Zhu Jiao who can hear you. Even Zhu Jiao doesn't know that I've been somewhat overhearing your conversation with him this entire time…especially when we first began our exploration of the ancient tomb."

"Ugh…I was careless. I let my guard down…"

Qi Lin moaned and shook his head, covering his face with a wrinkled hand. I frowned as I stared at him.

"But the question is…why are you here with me instead of Zhu Jiao? I hardly think you would end up following me by mistake."

"That's what I want to know too!" Qi Lin yelled. "How did I end up here instead of with my disciple? I should be tethered to his golden amulet!"

I blinked and suddenly felt my pocket. As if confirming my suspicions, I felt something hard that wasn't there previously. Extracting it, I saw the golden amulet that Zhu Jiao owned, and held it up in the air for Qi Lin to see.

"How did this get on me? I don't remember Zhu Jiao passing this to me."

"How would I know?!" Qi Lin snapped. "The last thing I remember was the both of you running away from that mad bitch, and then…she attacked, and everything exploded, and the next thing I knew, I was here."

I considered his words for a few seconds, replaying the scene in my head, and then it hit me.

"Ah!" I struck my left palm with my right fist. When Yan Qing Wu attacked us, Zhu Jiao had barreled into me so that I wouldn't get hit by her saber qi. His golden amulet must have fallen off him and landed in my pocket somehow during that collision.

Qi Lin seemed to have realized it too, and he groaned.

"I should have known something was amiss when I temporarily blacked out…"

"Oh well." I shrugged again. "So what do we do now? I'll return this golden amulet to Zhu Jiao, and I think it's better if he doesn't know about this. So maybe you shouldn't tell him about this conversation."

"I dunno. No harm in letting him know. He does need a friend to share his greatest secrets and stuff with. And you seem quite trustworthy, if you knew about everything from the beginning yet didn't tell anyone."

"I don't want Zhu Jiao to get into trouble," I pointed out. Qi Lin burst out laughing.

"Now that's what I call a true friend."

Heaving a deep breath, I slowly got off the wall and glanced around. "That aside, I should get you back to Zhu Jiao as soon as possible…"

"Oh, what's the hurry? Now that we're here, I might as well help you out a bit. Treat it as me owing you for looking down on you all those years ago."

I raised an eyebrow, but I certainly wasn't going to say no to a free gift, so I merely nodded.

"Please do. I'll be relying on you then."

"For starters, you're going down the right path. You've the right idea. Follow along this passageway and you'll find something that you might find useful."

"Okay."

Having rested enough, I proceeded down the deserted corridor. At the same time, I wondered why no one else had entered. Surely someone would notice that this region was still unexplored and try their luck with it?

I didn't have much time to ponder over it, for I found myself in a vast space filled with countless pillars that were clearly not made from stone. They seemed…metallic somehow. And they were so tall they seemed to stretch to the heavens – the space was so vast that I nearly couldn't see the ceiling of the cavern.

"What is this place?"

Blinking in bewilderment as I tried to take in the new scenery, I suddenly stumbled across something sticking out of the ground. Thanks to my footwork, I immediately regained my balance, but I stopped to glare at the object that caused me a brief moment of embarrassment.

"What the hell is this?!"

For some reason, they resembled…limbs. They were black, gleaming in the darkness, but I could make out articulated joints, fingers or toes. Picking one up, I studied it, noting how it resembled a human's broken limb and its tremendous weight.

It was clearly made of metal, if my training as a smith and Spirit Engraver was correct. And high quality metal at that. Despite being completely dyed in black, I noticed mysterious symbols carved into the shiny surface.

"Spirit Engravings? But they have lost their power…"

There was no sign of qi or power left inside those Spirit Engravings. Feeling a little disappointed and realizing that these were little more than scrap, I put the mechanical limb back down. It wasn't a prosthetic, that much was for sure. We had healing techniques that could regrow and restore lost limbs, so there was no need for prosthetics.

"Oh wow…you've stumbled across the remains of battle-automata! They're highly advanced battle puppets created by practitioners during the Dark Age of Technology. Their functions include security, such as guarding homes, and they are fully capable of combat."

Qi Lin hovered next to me, gazing at the broken limbs with an expression of longing awe.

"So an ancient type of battle puppet, huh?" I mused.

"Well, there are many different classes of battle puppets, but I think the broken limbs strewn around here aren't even from a low-class battle-automata. Probably defective products or failed experiments, unfortunately. It's a pity…if you can find even a maniple of low-class battle-automata, you would gain insurmountable firepower equivalent to a regiment of Imperial Guard."

"Are we talking about Warhammer 40,000 or a xianxia story?" I asked dryly. Qi Lin glared at me, assuming that I was joking.

"What are you talking about? Don't underestimate these battle-automata! During the Dark Age of Technology, they used to field entire armies of this thing! Even now, there are a few mysterious sects in the Great Zhou Empire who continue to specialize in controlling cohorts of cybernetica forces. The high-class battle-automata in particular, are extremely terrifying. I once saw six of them working in concert to tear a Nascent Soul Stage practitioner apart."

"If you have the right numbers, then even a thousand Qi Gathering Stage practitioners can rip a Nascent Soul Stage practitioner apart," I replied with a roll of my eyes. Just because you were at a higher realm didn't mean you were suddenly immune to attacks from lower realm practitioners. The real world didn't work that way.

"Don't be an idiot!" Qi Lin chided me, but I paid no attention to his tantrums and rose to my feet. Glancing at the left path, I embarked toward it before the ghost could tell me anything. From his silence and lack of objection, it seemed that I had taken the right path. No, not that "right". Right as in the correct path. Ugh, you know what I mean.

"Whoa!"

Along the way, I stumbled across more broken battle-automata. Unlike the broken limbs I saw earlier, these battle-automata were fuller. That wasn't to say they weren't in pieces – clearly a fight had taken place here, and someone had smashed them to smithereens a short time ago, but I could see traces of their full glory.

They were largely humanoid, as I had suspected, but other than that, they were pretty featureless, looking much like the creepy test dummies that Wu Ling Academy used.

Clink…clink…

As I moved deeper, I suddenly encountered the few battle-automata that had apparently survived the skirmish. They resembled skinny, emaciated human beings, their slender limbs moving haphazardly and erratically. They couldn't lift a candle to even the most basic and low-leveled test dummies and battle puppets that were mass-produced by the academy.

"Wow…"

I shook my head as they slowly staggered toward me, more reminiscent of zombies than mechanical puppets designed for combat. I realized why so many of them lay broken and strewn in pieces about the area. They were truly defective and shoddy, with nothing to show for except their immense strength.

Other than that, they were pretty easy targets. Without even using any weapons, I kicked them into oblivion, the sloppily built constructs breaking apart instantly from my attacks.

"Rather than battle-automata, these seem more like low-grade combat servitors," I mused with a shake of my head.

"You might be right. They're probably servitors rather than battle-automata." Qi Lin nodded. "I'm surprised you know so much."

Unfortunately, the knowledge I possessed about these wasn't the same kind that he possessed.

Not wanting to shame myself, I merely nodded and continued forward. After traversing a few meters, I found myself at a dead-end.

"That's weird. Where did the people who destroyed all the other servitors go?"

I blinked as I studied the place, but saw no sign of anyone having been there. Indeed, if it wasn't for the trail of destruction and broken servitor parts that I ran into earlier, I wouldn't have known that someone had been here before.

"Good question."

Qi Lin closed his eyes and probed the area with his senses for a few moments, frowning seriously. Then he opened his eyes.

"There seems to be some kind of formation…" he swept his gaze over the area, peering at the metal pillars in particular. "Damn it, I hate these kind of annoying formations the most."

"I hear you," I agreed dryly. Shaking my head, I approached one of the metallic pillars, and then I suddenly realized something. Taking out my broken glasses, I brought them up to my eyes and peered through the cracked lenses.

As I suspected, the moment I analyzed them with the arcane mechanisms of my glasses, Spirit Engraved symbols came into view.

"What is it?" Qi Lin demanded, floating over to stare over my shoulder. I shook my head.

"Spirit Engravings. My glasses can detect them. Damn it, I almost missed them because I wasn't wearing them. Give me a second…"

Thanks to my training at the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, I was able to temporarily repair my broken glasses in a few minutes. I had originally intended to fix them or get a new pair when I returned to Tushan City, but clearly I didn't have the luxury to wait. Even though it was a hasty repair with my poor smithing skills, my glasses should hold up for long enough, at least until I leave the ancient tomb.

Once I taped them together and used qi to mend the cracks, I put them back on. As any engineer would tell you, duct tape fixes everything.

"I know this Spirit Engraving."

With a grin, I raised my hand and pressed my palm against a pillar. Closing my eyes, I concentrated and began decoding the Spirit Engraving and infusing my qi into it. The metallic pillar glowed, the Spirit Engravings flaring to life.

"Oh! Impressive! Even my disciple wouldn't be able to pull something like this off!"

Qi Lin sounded amazed, but I didn't pay any attention to him. Instead, I poured more of my qi into the pillar and activated the arcane mechanisms empowering it.

Clack! Creak!

The moment I did so, a hidden door materialized along the wall and opened to grant me access to a previously hidden passageway.

"Well done!" Qi Lin applauded. He glanced from the pillar to the door and also looked awestruck. "This is also quite the ingenious mechanism. But you're more impressive for being able to figure it out and decode it!"

"Thanks."

Feeling a little embarrassed from the praise, I scratched my head and quickly made my way toward the passageway. As expected, the door closed after I entered, but a quick glance around told me that there were Spirit Engravings on this side of the wall.

That meant I would be able to exit anytime I wanted. Feeling relieved that I wouldn't be trapped down here, and that I still had an exit strategy, I continued onward.

"…"

After a few meters, the passageway terminated, leading to a vast field that almost didn't seem like it was inside a mountain or a tomb. For some reason, it reminded me of a forest, except that it was lacking in trees. But there was moss growing on the damp walls, so it wasn't entirely lacking in greenery and organic life either.

"Whoa!"

But it wasn't the moss that caught my eye.

No, instead, I found myself staring at rows and rows of battle puppets neatly lined up in this field, their numbers in the hundreds. They were about two meters tall, and were humanoid, but they looked different from the servitors I had encountered earlier.

"These are not servitors…?"

Murmuring to myself, I approached one of them cautiously, hoping it wouldn't wake up.

As I suspected, they were humanoid, but they seemed to be wearing much thicker armor. A golden helmet encased what seemed like the head, with a smooth, black visor concealing the face from external view. About two meters tall, there was something pretty eerie about their exotic armor and the chainblades they wielded.

No…those were chainblades. They were rifles, with chainblades attached to the underside of their muzzles. Even though there were guns in my original timeline, these were like no guns I had ever seen. They seemed to be energy-based rather than projectile-based.

"They look like Thallax."

"Good eye," Qi Lin complimented me. "These are Thallax-pattern battle puppets. They are considered low-class battle-automata, but don't underestimate them. They are more than a match for a Qi Essence Stage practitioner."

"Amazing," I agreed, though I didn't care what they were a match for. An army of them was enough to eradicate anything, I was certain of that. The principle of overwhelming firepower and numbers. And there were hundreds of them.

Then a sudden idea struck my mind.

"Is there any way I can take all of them?" I wondered out loud as I stared at the army of battle puppets hungrily, greed beginning to cloud my mind.

Chapter end