Chapter 4912 — The Search

Just as he was probing ahead, another bolt of purple lightning came crashing down from above. Wei Zhao was ready this time—he flung out a lightning strike of his own, and what followed was a repeat of that earlier spectacle of frenzied convulsions.

To his surprise, this purple bolt was not much stronger than the last. With the previous experience under his belt, he actually weathered it smoothly—though he must have looked a sorry sight, he suffered no real serious injury.

"Could this be its limit?" Joy surged in Wei Zhao's heart. These repeated temperings by lightning had improved him considerably since he entered—not only had his lightning strikes grown more powerful, but even his flesh had grown more resistant to electricity.

In his present state, were he to walk out now, ordinary lightning tribulations would be nothing; even a fivefold tribulation he could likely endure without so much as a change in expression, and a tenfold one would at most wring a stifled grunt from him. After all, the weakest he had withstood these past few times was fiftyfold, and the last two had likely approached a hundredfold.

"It would seem so. The power of its purple lightning already rivals a Mountain-Opening expert; anything stronger is hardly possible," the ghostly thing agreed.

"Why is that? If it truly is lodged in one of those top-tier lightning-attribute spirit beasts, wouldn't it be unsurprising for it to surpass the Mountain-Opening stage?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.

Top-tier lightning-attribute spirit beasts like the thunder dragon and the lightning eagle were certainly not much inferior in strength to the top experts of other spirit beast clans—otherwise no one would ever have regarded lightning-attribute spirit beasts with any respect. That is to say, even if the mightiest among them fell short of the four top elders, at the very least they possessed Earth-Rending strength; anything less would make no sense.

"It isn't strange, but you must understand that even if a wraith's primordial spirit lodges in their corpses, it cannot bring out the full strength they had in life—there is bound to be some diminishment. Dropping a full major realm is entirely normal. An Earth-Rending spirit beast in its hands will usually only display Mountain-Opening strength, and it is very hard for it to be any stronger," the ghostly thing explained.

"So that's how it is. Senior, you should have said so earlier—you had me on tenterhooks all this while…" Wei Zhao finally breathed a sigh of relief. From earlier until now his nerves had been wound taut, and he had truly believed himself a hair's breadth from death this time. But after hearing the ghostly thing's words, he could at last put his heart back in its place.

"Heh heh, how could I guarantee something like that? Even if its strength is reduced by a major realm, what if that corpse was originally Sea-Splitting stage? Wouldn't you still be a dead man, boy?" the ghostly thing said with gloating laughter.

"But Sea-Splitting cultivators can already contend for a place among the four great elders of your spirit beast clan—where would so many Sea-Splitting ones come from? I've seen little, Senior, so don't you go fooling me!" Wei Zhao said, curling his lip.

"Sea-Splitting spirit beasts are indeed few, but who told you there are none among the lightning-attribute ones? They were once a formidable power in their day. Had the Spirit Beast King not burst upon the scene and visited upon them a fate much like that of the Ghost-Eye Eagle King, forcing most of them to cower on this Thunder Plains Island, they might well have counted among the four great elders," the ghostly thing said with a trace of lament.

"So in that case, the Spirit Beast King practically reshuffled the entire power structure of your spirit beast clan!" Wei Zhao sighed with genuine feeling.

"Nonsense—he is the only one in all history who could forcibly unite all spirit beasts into a single clan. To him such a thing was no more than a trifling matter," the ghostly thing said, feigning indifference.

He did not even realize it himself, but at the mention of the Spirit Beast King his tone changed involuntarily. Wei Zhao smiled inwardly—to command such heartfelt reverence even from a creature like the ghostly thing, the Spirit Beast King truly lived up to his name.

Even as the two communed through their primordial spirits, Wei Zhao kept swiftly probing his surroundings. The various carcasses and bones he had passed numbered no fewer than a hundred. Had the situation not been so dire, he would certainly have slowed his pace to broaden his horizons—this place was nothing short of a museum of lightning-attribute spirit beasts, bewildering in variety and grotesque in form.

Before long, amid the incomparably vast resentment pressing in from all sides, another purple bolt came crashing down from above. Wei Zhao, now thoroughly practiced, casually flung out a lightning strike to counter it, and then it was time once more for his midair break-dance. Truth be told, he was beginning to get used to it.

"Heh heh, the intervals are growing shorter and shorter—looks like we'll soon find the real culprit!" the ghostly thing said, rubbing his hands in rising excitement.

"Finding it doesn't mean we can beat it, Senior—what are you so excited about?" Wei Zhao could not help but feel speechless. Though his earlier deductions were probably sound, the question remained: once they found the thing, what then? Even if it only had Mountain-Opening strength, a mere early Mystic Ascension cultivator like himself could not beat it.

After turning it over and turning it over again, Wei Zhao concluded that the only good news was his growing resistance to lightning—the foe could not kill him with lightning alone, at least not for a while. Had it been a Mountain-Opening entity of another attribute instead, he might well have been annihilated in a single exchange!

Of course, if that had been the case, he would not have been fool enough to go looking for the foe of his own accord; he would have fled as far as he could and never dared let himself be caught.

"How could you not beat it?" The ghostly thing was dismissive, curling his lip. "It isn't a true Mountain-Opening spirit beast—at most it's a puppet corpse, riddled with flaws. Just the thing for a boy like you to practice your moves on."

"Really?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. From the ghostly thing's tone, the foe was not worth fearing at all—but no matter how you put it, it was at least a Mountain-Opening existence. Could it really be so easy to handle?

"Guess," the ghostly thing said with a chuckle.

Guess my ass! Wei Zhao was so exasperated he wanted to spit blood. Paired with a creature like this, he truly did not know what to say. He could only lower his head and keep searching onward; whether the ghostly thing's words were true or false would be clear enough once they tried.

Two more purple bolts followed. With Wei Zhao's rare physical talent, each strike remade him anew—but even so, taking hit after hit without pause was wearing him down. A few more and he might exceed his limit and keel over dead from a stopped heart.

Fortunately, a vast and exceedingly blurry shadow finally appeared ahead, and in an instant Wei Zhao sensed something different: the thing was moving.

They were now only some ten zhang apart, but because of the dense, layered mist, Wei Zhao could not make out the foe's true appearance at all. The first thought that sprang into his mind was actually: Is this one dead or alive?

If it was dead, then without question it was the wraith's primordial spirit's host!