Chapter 3672 — The Elder of the Spirit Beasts

But before any of that, the most pressing business at hand was obviously to pocket the Heart-Eating Linglong Grass that lay within arm's reach.

Honestly, after the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle's ferocious gale of flying sand and shattered stone, the fact that the Heart-Eating Linglong Grass still sat here intact left Wei Zhao genuinely astonished—and profoundly grateful. Had the grass been torn away along with the rock just now, he truly would have had nowhere left to weep.

With one hand gripping the trunk to steady himself and the other moving deftly, Wei Zhao stowed every last stalk of the Heart-Eating Linglong Grass in his storage pouch. What remained, then, was the task of getting back down to the ground.

The vine rope had been snapped by the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle, but that hardly stopped Wei Zhao from climbing up. Once driven to desperation, humans as a species will do just about anything—and Wei Zhao was, after all, a cultivator of the early Foundation Establishment stage.

The cliff face was steep—no matter. The cliff face was smooth—likewise no matter.

Channeling what true qi remained in his body, he drove his fist into the precipice and smashed out a deep crater, and just like that Wei Zhao found himself an easy foothold. One step up, one punch; another step up, another punch. Leaving behind a trail of terrifying fist-sized pits, Wei Zhao climbed back to the surface just that simply.

Once inside the jade pendant's space, healing his wounds and recovering his true qi all the while, Wei Zhao said to Ghost Thing, "Senior Ghost, will you tell me now?"

Ghost Thing answered with a question of his own. "You've surely speculated about this old man's origins, haven't you, boy? Let's hear it first."

Wei Zhao was briefly taken aback, then replied, "By my guess, Senior Ghost, you must be a native of Cloud Terrace Island—and a personage of no small consequence at that. I wonder whether that guess holds up?"

Ghost Thing smiled noncommittally. "Half right, half wrong. This old man was indeed born here on Cloud Terrace Island—that much is true. But when did I ever say I was human?"

"Huh?" Wei Zhao was struck dumb. After a long dazed pause, he finally managed, eyes wide, "You—you were never human to begin with?"

"Look at me in my present state, boy—what about me looks human?" Ghost Thing said with a faint laugh.

"Well, true enough—but aren't you in a primordial spirit state? It's only natural you wouldn't look like a human being." Wei Zhao pursed his lips, speechless.

The first time he met Ghost Thing, he truly had not taken him for a man, but for a ghost. Yet even a ghost—he had assumed, on first instinct—was a ghost born of a dead human. How was he to imagine that this thing had not been human even in life?

"Then your true form must be a spirit beast?" Wei Zhao asked cautiously. Since the other was not human, he must be a spirit beast; other than that, Wei Zhao had never heard of any creature whose intelligence could match a human's.

"Quite so. This old man is indeed of the spirit beast clan. But as for what my true form is, don't go prying, boy—when the time comes for you to know, you will know." Ghost Thing paused, then shifted course. "You've been at the Welcome Pavilion a good while now. You must have heard people speak of the spirit beast clan?"

So it really was a spirit beast! Wei Zhao suddenly recalled that back in the mortal world, the puppet clone Little One that Ghost Thing had released could not activate martial techniques. At the time Ghost Thing said Little One's constitution was unsuited to it, and Wei Zhao had found that rather strange. But now that he thought about it—Ghost Thing was a spirit beast, like the Wind-Thunder Violet Lightning Beast of old; perhaps he excelled in lightning arts or in broad, sweeping external martial techniques. A mere puppet like Little One could never have pulled that off!

Wei Zhao nodded. "I've heard Senior Brother Lu and Senior Brother Ku mention it in passing when they had a moment. They say that on the southern island of Cloud Terrace Island, great numbers of high-grade spirit beasts have gathered, each one immensely powerful, and that they have coalesced into a formidable force known as the spirit beast clan!"

"That's right. But do you know how the spirit beast clan came to be? You should understand that in the beginning, all spirit beasts—no matter how powerful—each stood alone, slaughtering one another just as you saw in the outer reaches of this back mountain. They never joined forces, much less coalesced into a vast power." Ghost Thing's voice carried a sigh.

"I'm all ears." Wei Zhao pricked up his ears. This was a golden opportunity to learn about the powers of Cloud Terrace Island; it might well prove useful someday, so naturally he meant to commit it all to memory.

"The formation of the spirit beast clan traces back to a single spirit beast—the most powerful spirit beast in all history. We call him the King of Spirit Beasts."

Awe and reverence beyond all compare filled Ghost Thing's tone as he went on, "His power simply cannot be described in the pale medium of words. You need only know one thing to understand: ten thousand years ago, in order to curb his rise, the three strongest top-tier experts of Cloud Terrace Island joined forces and fought him in a single battle—and in the end, he was never once defeated."

Undefeated—which also meant unvictorious. Yet Wei Zhao still felt a solemn respect, for against the combined might of the three strongest top-tier experts of humanity, not being defeated already meant victory.

Wei Zhao was only an early Foundation Establishment cultivator, barely at the starting line on Cloud Terrace Island, with little notion of how far the strongest could truly reach—but that did not stop him from picturing that battle.

That battle must have been an epoch-making war worthy of epic.

"After that battle, no one could bar his path any longer. One by one he struck down the mightiest spirit beasts of every region, brought them to their knees beneath his feet, and led them to settle the southern island of Cloud Terrace Island, where they held sway over a domain of their own. Only from that time onward did the so-called spirit beast clan come into being," Ghost Thing said with a sigh of emotion.

Somewhat puzzled, Wei Zhao cut in, "Senior Ghost, if the spirit beast clan is all on the southern island, they should be rarely seen elsewhere—so why are there still so many spirit beasts here in the back mountain?"

"Spirit beasts are not like humans. Different species can never coexist peacefully by nature; some are even born to prey on spirit beasts of other species. Put them all together, and it would be absolute chaos. The southern island once descended into turmoil over exactly this problem, but later the King of Spirit Beasts personally put it down and left behind a single rule."

"Spirit beasts of every species may enter the southern island only after reaching a certain grade, when they can fully master the bestial instincts of their nature. Before that, they can only scatter across the lands as before. Take the spirit beasts you saw in this back mountain—they slaughter one another, or battle human cultivators, and the spirit beast clan never intervenes."

"But once they are recognized and enter the southern island, formally becoming members of the spirit beast clan, then mutual slaughter is forbidden. And if human cultivators outside dare to move against them, that is to make an enemy of the entire spirit beast clan—a feud that ends only in death."