Chapter 4532 — An Unexpected Turn

When had the ghost-thing ever known regret? Not even when he had fallen to his present wretched state after descending to the mortal realm, not even when the Vermilion Bird had seized the opening to snatch the position of Azure Dragon Elder from under him—through all of it he had never felt the smallest pang of regret. But now, with Wei Zhao's life at stake, he could not help but be overcome with bitter remorse.

If not for his wish to learn what on earth had befallen the spirit beast clan, he would never have pressed on into the heart of the Anluo District after successfully frightening off the Old Sect of the Western Hills; he should have searched at once for a way out and fled this danger-ridden Southern Island. Had he done so, Wei Zhao would never have landed in a predicament that now seemed all but certain to end in death.

Put plainly, if Wei Zhao died here today, it would be the ghost-thing who had killed him.

For all his habitual arrogance and freewheeling airs, a man of that stamp was always fiercely protective of his own. In the ghost-thing's eyes Wei Zhao was already one of his own—and now, through his own doing, the boy was about to die. How could he not blame himself and burn with regret?

"Senior, life and death are fated. Without you, I would long since have been captured by the Old Sect of the Western Hills and made into a puppet. Besides, this is a place I chose to come to myself. You mustn't blame yourself." Wei Zhao had of course guessed what the ghost-thing was thinking, and he hastened to console him with a smile.

"You really are a cool one, kid..." The ghost-thing could not help but regard Wei Zhao with fresh respect. A moment ago the boy had been tense and at a loss; now it had all dispersed like mist and smoke, and he was calm and composed as ever. This lad, it seemed, had truly been born for the great and terrible moments of the world.

Infected by Wei Zhao's composure, the ghost-thing quickly regained his own. He had come around to seeing things plainly: at worst, they would fight to the death. He had been reduced to this sorry spectacle in the mortal realm and had never been broken; he had held on stubbornly until now. And now that he was back on the spirit beast clan's own territory, was he supposed to bow his head and grovel?

Wei Zhao and the ghost-thing were no longer tense—but the fatal crisis still loomed before their eyes. Meeting death with equanimity was one thing; it did not mean that such resolve would spare them from dying.

The dreadful pressure of several spirit beast guards descended upon Wei Zhao at once. Before he had made the slightest move, the grass beneath his feet abruptly sank by a great measure, and everything visible within three zhang around him was in an instant crushed flat; blades of grass and bits of stone burst with a bang into dust too fine for the eye to see. This was the terrifying pressure of beings who stood above even the titans of the Mountain-Splitting stage!

Back at the Qingtian Escort Agency, the Divine Nun of the Eastern Sea had crushed Cheng Qitian, a late Gold Core cultivator, to death with nothing but the weight of her aura. Now Wei Zhao faced the same peril as Cheng Qitian—and the pressure bearing down on him was far more intense. These were, after all, beings above the titans of the Mountain-Splitting stage, and several spirit beast guards were acting in concert.

Any accomplished Gold Core cultivator—even a demonic cultivator suppressing his strength, like Cheng Haonan—placed where Wei Zhao now stood would have been doomed beyond question. If not struck dead on the spot, they would at the very least have been gravely wounded. Yet Wei Zhao did not so much as utter a sound, and bore that inhuman, crushing force head-on, holding on for dear life.

"The kid's got backbone!" The spirit beasts present, who had until then regarded a minor figure like Wei Zhao with disdain, all silently applauded him in their hearts. They knew precisely how powerful the spirit beast guards were; even they themselves would have found it hard to withstand such pressure. Yet this youth, with nothing but Gold Core cultivation, had managed to hold out.

Still, the spirit beasts' grudging esteem would not alter Wei Zhao's fate. What good was backbone? Having provoked the Vermilion Bird Elder, he could not escape death in the end—and besides, the boy's answers had indeed been highly suspect. Killing him was only fitting.

Seeing that neither the Vermilion Bird nor the Azure Dragon, those two paramount elders, made any move, the spirit beast guards understood at once: they were to err on the side of killing rather than let him slip away. True, the odds that this Gold Core youth was a human spy were vanishingly small, but what was to be announced today was a matter of great consequence; should word leak out early, it could easily stir up trouble. It had to be guarded against.

Since both the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon meant it, the spirit beast guards would naturally not defy their superiors for the sake of a Wei Zhao they had never met. Their killing intent surged forth at once, and they made to wipe him out on the spot.

The shadow of death enveloped Wei Zhao from head to toe; his blood seemed to freeze solid in his veins, and he could not move. Against such foes, with his present strength, it was not merely a matter of resisting or fleeing—he could not so much as twitch. Against the Old Sect of the Western Hills he had still been able to stake everything on a transcendent Butterfly Microstep; now even that was a vain hope. He could only wait for death with his hands bound.

Unwilling! Anyone cut down for no reason in a place like this would be unwilling, and Wei Zhao was no exception. But when the gulf in strength was this vast, what could he do but wait to die?

Just as he was about to breathe his last, a hoarse voice suddenly came from atop the high platform, and the spirit beast guards froze in their tracks.

"Let him go. This king sees that he appears to be one of the Great Fire Lion clan, and indeed they dwell over by the Lufeng Forest. Besides, on a fine day like today, to harm a fellow clansman out of hand would be inauspicious. Let us all return to the matter at hand and discuss proper business—there is no call to waste everyone's time on trivial distractions." The speaker was none other than the Spirit Beast King, who until now had not said a word.

He was called the new Spirit Beast King, in theory the absolute protagonist of the spirit beast clan, yet from the start until this moment this king had been utterly without presence. The focus and the authority of speech had rested wholly with the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon. He was a puppet of a figure.

And yet this very puppet, this mere ornament, had chosen this moment to speak—and was prepared to pardon Wei Zhao. That genuinely astonished every spirit beast present!

The Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon were struck dumb, and so were Wei Zhao and the ghost-thing.

They had never met this new Spirit Beast King; indeed, the ghost-thing even suspected the fellow was an impostor, not of the Spirit Beast King's bloodline at all, but merely a sham trotted out by the Vermilion Bird to dupe the masses. And now this deeply suspect creature had spoken up so abruptly on their behalf. What on earth was going on?

"Yes, sir!" The Vermilion Bird was the first to recover. A faint, obscure shadow flitted across those long, narrow phoenix eyes, but his face wore the utmost deference. "We shall obey the king's command. You may withdraw."

The spirit beast guards exchanged a glance. The words of this puppet Spirit Beast King they might ignore—but the Vermilion Bird's words could never be defied. They bowed slightly toward the high platform and melted back into the ranks of spirit beasts, and the mountain-toppling, sea-emptying pressure that had weighed upon Wei Zhao dispersed into nothing.