Chapter 4591 — Half a Master

When Wei Zhao thought of those two such formidable and terrifying beings, the Five-Poison Wyrm and the giant electric eel—one now fallen, the other most likely to fall as well—he could not help but sigh at the fickleness of the world's affairs.

Had those two still been alive, and especially had that Five-Poison Wyrm still been alive, the whole order of the Southern Continent would likely look vastly different. At the very least, the Vermilion Bird could never have run rampant and done as it pleased the way it did now; the tragedy that had befallen the Five-Slaughter Dragon's master would have been very hard to repeat upon it. After all, the creature's strength was unreasonably savage—even by the Vermilion Bird's means, it might not have been able to do anything to it.

As Wei Zhao sighed and lamented, the shattered memory fragment in his mind crumbled further still, until at last it turned to powder and dust, scattering utterly into nothing, as though it had never been there at all.

The surrounding waters suddenly fell calm—calmer than they had ever been, without a trace of that mountain-crushing oppression Wei Zhao had felt before. Wei Zhao was struck momentarily dumb. The sliver of obsession the giant electric eel had left behind had vanished!

"Could that memory fragment have been its obsession—and now that the fragment is shattered, its obsession has vanished with it?" Wei Zhao stood frozen for a long while, carefully replaying what had just happened, before the realization dawned on him belatedly. "Does this mean I've inherited its legacy?"

"Of course it counts. It didn't give you strength outright, but memory itself is the most precious legacy—and on top of that, you've comprehended a martial art like the Five-Element Killing Qi from it. I have to say, you lucky brat, even I'm a little jealous." Ghost Thing affirmed, half in jest.

"So that's how it is." Wei Zhao drew a deep breath and nodded with some regret. "Seems I really do owe this senior sea beast my thanks. It and the Five-Poison Wyrm both count as half a master to me—only I don't even know what race it was. One day, if I want to pay my respects, I won't even know where to begin. What a pity..."

"There's nothing to pity," Ghost Thing said dismissively. "That you could comprehend the Five-Element Killing Qi from the obsession it left behind—that's your own ability and your own fortune. If anything, it ought to be thanking you."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.

"If you hadn't stuck your oar in, brat, that obsession of its would have gone on existing forever, sunk in eternal torment with no release—I needn't spell out how miserable that is. But now, with the obsession wholly dispersed, it has a beginning and an end. Wouldn't you say it ought to thank you?" Ghost Thing laughed.

"All right, so there's a saying for that too." Wei Zhao smiled at that, but still bowed deeply to the giant electric eel's vast corpse. However one looked at it, he was the beneficiary; he would always be grateful to this top-tier sea beast, and he dared not cast this debt of legacy behind him.

"It's only a pity that this creature's primal spirit has perished, reduced to this last scrap of obsession. There's nothing substantial left to pass on to you—only memory fragments for you to intuit for yourself. Otherwise, brat, your haul this time would surely have been greater still—a true great opportunity, a true great fortune!" Ghost Thing, on the contrary, felt the loss on Wei Zhao's behalf. To let such a once-in-ten-thousand-years chance slip through one's fingers—it made a man want to beat his breast.

A mere broken scrap of memory had been enough for Wei Zhao to comprehend the Five-Element Killing Qi from it. And if it had been a complete legacy, like the one the Five-Slaughter Dragon had received—what a sight that would have been!

"Ha, that's impossible. If this senior sea beast really had a complete primal spirit, why would it pass it on to me for no reason? I'm not a sea beast, and I'm not its disciple. For all I know, its first instinct would have been to seize my body and be reborn..." Wei Zhao only laughed aloud, feeling no regret at all. There had never been any "if" in this world, and he was not in the habit of indulging in idle fancy.

"That's true enough." Ghost Thing smiled faintly. Thinking of itself was enough to understand: even without any thought of seizing a body and being reborn, no one would ever seek their own death by passing everything on to a human they had never met. A wretched life beat a good death; lingering on in a broken primal spirit was still better than dying.

Even as Wei Zhao and Ghost Thing were speaking, the vast corpse right before him, close enough to touch, suddenly collapsed with a thunderous roar for no discernible reason. The colossal thing, once as grand as a hill, crumbled to pieces in but a moment, turning into a great heap of powder that swiftly dispersed with the ocean currents.

It happened without the slightest warning. Staring at the empty stretch of ground before him, Wei Zhao was struck dumb, unable to string together a whole sentence for a long while.

"This... what in the world is going on?" It was a good while before Wei Zhao finally got a sentence out, and he nearly bit off his own tongue.

"Just what it looks like—the corpse fell apart," Ghost Thing said, evidently unsurprised.

"Uh, but isn't that a bit too fast? It was perfectly fine just before—how does it just fall apart at the drop of a hat?" Wei Zhao said, gaping. He had even tried prying off a scale earlier; though the attempt had been cut short by the sudden influx of the memory fragment, the corpse had been exceedingly solid—of that there could be no doubt.

"Its obsession hadn't dispersed before, so it could still hold the corpse together. But now that the obsession—that umbrella of protection—is gone, this corpse is like an unearthed artifact suddenly exposed to the light of day. Isn't that a common sight in your mortal world? Think about how many years this corpse has lain here—even if not a thousand, by the look of it, several hundred at least. Without the obsession clinging to it, it would long since have been bones and nothing more; seawater is far more corrosive than dry land," Ghost Thing explained.

"All right, so that's what it was. I thought I'd accidentally triggered some taboo!" Wei Zhao let out a breath of lingering fear, then his face fell with regret. He had been meaning to get some treasures off this corpse—with the giant electric eel's terrifying power, anything plucked from it would surely be a peerless treasure unmatched in the world. But now that chance was gone.

"Heh heh, stop dwelling on this and that. I'd advise you to get up there quickly, brat—linger here a moment longer and we'll likely be keeping this thing company," Ghost Thing suddenly warned with a strange chuckle.

Wei Zhao's heart tightened at once, and only then did he realize this was no place to stay. Earlier, the giant electric eel's oppressive aura had kept every other sea beast from daring to come near, but now that the obsession was gone, that umbrella of protection had been taken away with it—this place would soon turn into a land of lurking peril. (To be continued..)