Chapter 4288 — Someone Blocks the Way

"Quite right, Brother Chang has thought this through more carefully than any of us." Hearing this, the others nodded one after another in convinced agreement. If there was no teleportation array here, then they would have to budget their time for getting out, and could not afford to linger in this place.

At once, with Chang Daoping leading the way, the group strode into the small palace before them. The interior was exceedingly vast and empty—in this respect, at least, it matched their expectations closely enough.

Any teleportation array is a complex and exquisite formation, which means it is bound to stand out conspicuously. Sure enough, the moment the group entered the small palace, they spotted the teleportation array at once, situated squarely in the center.

"There really is a teleportation array—now we can relax." Cao Shishi and the others felt their hearts ease immediately at the sight, and each of them rubbed their palms and flexed their fingers, eager to get out and hunt for treasure.

Yet when their gazes fell upon Chang Daoping, they could not help but freeze—for at this moment his expression had turned unprecedentedly grave!

Nor was it only Chang Daoping. Wei Zhao, taking in the scene before him, also felt his eyelids twitch violently. He had sensed all along that something was off about these ruins of a dead city, and now it had indeed proven true.

The others, still uncomprehending, followed Chang Daoping's line of sight, and their gazes came to rest at last on either side of the teleportation array—where, facing each other in correspondence, sat two figures in azure robes, upright and proper.

Earlier in these ruins, they had seen no end of all manner of statues—including that inexplicable spirit beast over by the altar—so at first glance they had not paid these two figures any particular mind, assuming them to be merely two more statues.

But looking again now, the group nearly wet themselves in fright. These two were no statues at all—faint traces of living breath emanated from their bodies. They were living people!

"Ah!" Cao Shishi shrieked in terror and fled, pale-faced, to hide behind Chang Daoping. Huang Xiaotao was nervous as well, unconsciously tightening her grip on Wei Zhao's hand.

At first, the two azure-robed figures sitting upright seemed still to be resting with eyes closed, giving off only the faintest hints of living breath. But after Cao Shishi's shriek, the aura around these two abruptly surged with mad violence, and the formidable presence of late Nascent Soul masters was laid bare before everyone in an instant!

Such a blood-chilling, ferocious aura—even compared with Chang Daoping at their side, it was no weaker, only stronger. The faces of the group turned ashen one and all. One such foe might be manageable, but the problem now was that these were two full late Nascent Soul masters!

"You... you are..." This time even Chang Daoping, ever the picture of an expert, was badly startled, and his words came out stammering.

Wei Zhao watched this with some astonishment. He had assumed Chang Daoping at least would have known about this in advance—after all, the man had inside intelligence from a steward of the spirit beast clan, and every step before this had been prepared so thoroughly. He had not expected that this time Chang Daoping would be as helpless as the rest of them.

"Heh heh, so the lot of you have come sightseeing in our spirit beast clan's scenic spot. Now that you're leaving, don't you think you ought to leave something behind? Not only do you skip the admission fee, you've gone and looted the souvenirs. Just walking off like this—that doesn't seem quite right, does it?" The two azure-robed figures rose to their feet with cold laughter.

Only now could the group finally make out the two men's features. One could not call them hideous, yet there was something indefinably sinister about them; when their gazes swept over, it felt as though one had been fixed upon by two exceedingly dangerous, ferocious beasts. Their scalps prickled and a chill ran down their spines—this was hardly the bearing of human experts.

Yet for some reason, when Wei Zhao heard these two voices, he did not feel the same horror as the others. Instead, they struck him as strangely familiar, as though he had heard them somewhere before—though what exactly the connection was, for the moment he could not recall.

Beyond that, what troubled Wei Zhao more was what the two had just said.

"Ah? Could you be..." Chang Daoping had caught the implication in their words too, and grew all the more panicked.

"That's right—we are of the spirit beast clan, of course. Heh heh heh heh..." The two azure-robed men laughed in eerie unison, their gazes upon the group brimming with mockery and derision, as though none of them—including Chang Daoping, a Nascent Soul expert—was regarded as worth the slightest concern.

At these words, Chang Daoping's heart sank utterly to the bottom. For this expedition to the ruins he had made such thorough preparations, and the whole way through things had indeed gone abnormally smoothly. Little did he expect that, just as they were about to leave, they would run into two such formidable figures—or more precisely, two such powerful spirit beasts in human form!

To be sure, Chang Daoping himself was a genuine Nascent Soul expert, but from the mere fact that his aura was suppressed on every front, it was enough to judge that either one of the two before him was plainly stronger than himself.

Though they were all Nascent Soul experts alike, and all of the same tier, the spirit beast clan was innately endowed with formidable racial gifts—powers that human cultivators could never hope to match—and with the difference in constitution as well, humans were naturally a notch weaker. And on top of that, the other side held absolute superiority and had them two against one...

Against late Nascent Soul spirit beasts of that caliber, everyone on Chang Daoping's side besides himself did not even count as cannon fodder. If it truly came to a fight, a casual flick of one hand from the enemy would wipe them out clean, and no number of them would be enough to keep from being slaughtered at will.

Besides, none of them were fools; in a situation like this, even if Chang Daoping ordered them forward, they would not dare to go.

"Hurry up—are you leaving or not? If you don't want to leave, then go back and keep playing. Leave once you've had your fun—don't waste our time!" one of the azure-robed men cursed impatiently.

"Ah???" Chang Daoping was stunned on the spot, and the rest of the group exchanged baffled glances: go back and keep playing? What was that supposed to mean?

Taken at face value, it seemed these two great masters of the spirit beast clan had no intention of taking their lives—they might even be allowed to carry on treasure-hunting in the ruins of Aoduo Cultivation City, and these two would apparently not interfere?

But how could that possibly be? However easygoing they might be, they were not simpletons; a fool could see there was no such easy bargain in this world. There had to be some other scheme behind it!

"Then... might I ask the two of you, how may we get through?" With no other choice, Chang Daoping cupped his hands and asked. (Everyone is welcome to join the mobile QQ interest group—The School Beauty's Personal Bodyguard; Yunhai Shuku often drops by to discuss plot points with everyone, and there are frequent events with free book vouchers and Q coins given away!) (To be continued)