Chapter 4910 — Do You Remember Half-Moon Lake?

How long it lasted, Wei Zhao could not say, but at last he dragged himself through that third bolt of lightning in a sorry state indeed. His whole body was scorched black from head to foot, no different from a miner crawled out of a coal pit—and a ragged, broken-down vagabond at that. The sight was enough to break the hearts of all who heard of it and draw tears from all who saw.

"Didn't I tell you? You'd survive it, kid. Keep at it!" the ghostly thing cackled.

"Oh, come on! Senior, don't mock me—a few more of those and I really will die. If you've got some trick, please just use it, I can't hold on much longer..." Wei Zhao said, his voice weak with exhaustion. He was certain that with the ghostly thing's abilities, it could not truly be at its wit's end; if it would only lift a hand, there was surely a way out!

To his surprise, the ghostly thing merely pursed its lips and said, "What trick would I have? If I had a trick, I'd have taught it to you long ago—why would I let you suffer like this? We're on the same side, after all. I'm no deranged lunatic; why would I just sit and watch you get struck for nothing..."

Wei Zhao was speechless and rolled his eyes. Frankly, he strongly suspected the ghostly thing was a deranged lunatic. He had never asked for particulars, but he was certain this creature had lived at least a thousand years—and had eked out its existence in this neither-human-nor-ghost form for so long. If it had not a single psychological problem, that would be the real wonder.

"Still, to be honest, after watching the show this long, I've finally made out something," the ghostly thing said suddenly, its tone turning strange and quiet. This was a matter of life and death, after all; it could not truly sit by and do nothing. For Wei Zhao to escape this place on his own was, at bottom, a fool's dream.

"Made out what?" Wei Zhao's spirits lifted at once.

"This place is no small matter," the ghostly thing said gravely.

Tell me something I don't know! Wei Zhao rolled his eyes again. This was the legendary City of Thunder Burials, and he had already been struck three times in a row—his whole body was nearly cooked through. Could this possibly be some ordinary place?

"This is no idle talk. Have you forgotten, kid—though I have no physical body now, I have been nourished inside this jade pendant of yours for so long that my primordial spirit has long since recovered to its peak, and has even advanced beyond what it was! Yet this place can still cut off my divine sense. Do you know what that means?" the ghostly thing said, its tone heavy.

"What does it mean?" Wei Zhao asked quickly.

"It means this place is no formation at all. Never in all of Cloud Terrace Island has a formation been able to cut off my divine sense completely—even the most profound formations I have ever witnessed could at most constrain my divine sense. They could never render it utterly useless, as it is now," the ghostly thing said with feeling.

"Then what is it?" Wei Zhao was struck with awe, though he scarcely understood. Since this was the City of Thunder Burials, the most natural logic was to conclude that some exceedingly formidable formation here was entirely blocking his divine sense—but that conclusion had now been refuted by the ghostly thing. With all its knowledge, it truly could not think of any other possibility for the moment.

"Do you still remember that Half-Moon Lake on the North Island?" the ghostly thing asked instead of answering.

"Of course I remember!" Wei Zhao nodded at once. That Half-Moon Lake was arguably the most staggering thing he had seen since coming to Cloud Terrace Island—the entire lake was the true body of a single spirit beast. What manner of horrifying thing was that!

To be honest, when he first heard of it from the ghostly thing, even with Wei Zhao's courage and temperament, he could not help but feel a lingering dread that turned his legs to jelly. Before that, he had even traded blows with a human-shaped puppet of that creature's making, and had even won the Ten-Thousand-Year Tree Crystal from it—looking back, it was simply inconceivable.

At the time, it was only because the ghostly thing could bluff the creature that he had escaped by sheer luck; otherwise, even ten thousand Wei Zhaos would have died inside for certain!

Though the journey to the South Island had shown Wei Zhao the might of the spirit beast clan—not to mention the ghostly thing, the former Azure Dragon, the Vermilion Bird alone stood at the very pinnacle of the spirit beast clan—and afterward he had even witnessed beings beyond the Sea-Splitting Stage such as the Five-Venom Wyrm and the giant electric eel, the thing that still felt most horrifying and most staggering to him was Half-Moon Lake.

To this day Wei Zhao still did not know exactly how powerful Half-Moon Lake was. But surely it was not much inferior to those mighty spirit beasts of the South Island. And now, looking back, that such a being had been hidden in the back mountains of the North Island—truly a place where dragons lay concealed and tigers crouched.

"Senior, why bring that up all of a sudden?" Wei Zhao was somewhat at a loss. But then his expression changed and the corner of his mouth began to twitch. "Don't tell me..."

"When I was inside that creature's body, my divine sense was as useless as it is now. That was the only time," the ghostly thing said quietly.

"Oh no!" Wei Zhao nearly dropped to the ground in shock. When he looked around again, his expression was no longer natural at all, and he drew a sharp breath. "Senior, you mean... this whole City of Thunder Burials is like that Half-Moon Lake—a top-tier spirit beast that has cultivated into a spirit?"

"I never said that. That's your own wild guess. A basin this big being a single spirit beast—do you think that's possible?" the ghostly thing said dismissively.

"If Half-Moon Lake could be, then of course the City of Thunder Burials could be too!" Wei Zhao said with conviction.

"No, the two are not the same at all. Half-Moon Lake's true body is actually that giant cedar in the middle—the lake around it is merely an offshoot formed by its vast root system. So it is a proper living being, and given sufficient opportunity, it could naturally cultivate into a spirit. But look at this City of Thunder Burials—does it look like a living being?" the ghostly thing countered.

"Well... no, it doesn't..." Wei Zhao shook his head. A giant cedar cultivating into a spirit was still understandable, but if even this City of Thunder Burials, made of earth and stone, had cultivated into a spirit, then his worldview and his whole outlook on life would collapse together.

After a brief pause, Wei Zhao pressed on. "But how do you explain the current situation? From what you just said, Senior, your divine sense only fails when you're trapped inside some powerful creature's body, right?"

"You could put it that way. So I suspect that although this place is not quite the same as Half-Moon Lake, it must share something in common with it. Don't you think the resentment all around us is absurdly strong?" the ghostly thing asked in turn.

"It really is absurd. Even a top-tier lightning-attribute spirit beast like the Thunder Dragon shouldn't be able to pour out resentment from thin air and fill this whole place with it, unless..." Wei Zhao trailed off.

"Unless what?" the ghostly thing asked.

"Unless after death it became a vengeful ghost, its wronged soul refusing to disperse!" No sooner had Wei Zhao said it than he felt it was unreliable, and he contradicted himself: "But there are no vengeful ghosts in this world. There must be some other explanation." (To be continued.)