Chapter 4957 — True Qi Transforms into Spirit!

"Hmph, no need for cheap provocation. I can't beat him, true—but you think this one move of mine makes much noise? Hahahaha, open your eyes and look outside, you fool." Chang Minghui laughed and laughed, and to let Wei Zhao see clearly, he even deliberately weakened the tornado by no small measure.

At those words Wei Zhao glanced outward. He had assumed that since the man had unleashed so mighty a technique as a tornado, its reach must be vast—yet what met his eyes shocked him. The tornado was confined to the space between himself and Chang Minghui; beyond that boundary there was no earth-shaking spectacle at all, but perfect silence and utter harmlessness. Not so much as a grain of sand had been lifted.

The sight gave Wei Zhao a genuine fright. It meant that what he was seeing now was far from the man's true strength—quite possibly not even a tenth of it. This was no more than a cat toying with a mouse, a bit of sport with a mere little mouse like himself.

"How about it, boy? By now you should have a clear picture of where you stand. To live or to die—make up your own mind. My patience is very limited." Chang Minghui's figure advanced slowly.

"Is that so? My patience, on the other hand, is excellent. One so rarely meets a fine late-stage Kaishan expert like you—how could I let things end so hastily?" Wei Zhao smiled with easy composure, and then, giving the other no time to react, suddenly drove a palm strike forward.

Accompanied by a solemn dragon's roar, a wisp of Five-Phase Killing Qi such as had never been seen burst into being. Even Chang Minghui, watching from behind, was badly startled and could not help crying out: "True qi taking form? No—true qi transforming into spirit!"

Strictly speaking, the Five-Phase Killing Qi of moments before had already been true qi taking form. For a Xuansheng cultivator that was rare enough, but the Eastern Continent teemed with prodigies, and those who could master such a skill were not few.

Yet this new wisp of Five-Phase Killing Qi had not merely shaped a dragon's form—it had both form and spirit, and was in truth a living flood dragon!

Not only was its shape utterly faithful to a flood dragon; the crucial point was that something inexplicably profound circulated within it, as though life and vitality had been breathed into this flood dragon wrought of Five-Phase Killing Qi. Look closely and one would find that this something actually formed an exceedingly arcane pattern—the Fuxi Eight Trigrams.

True qi taking form merely conjured true qi into a shape; however much it resembled a flood dragon, it was a mere semblance. But true qi transforming into spirit was different—once this arcane vitality was poured in, this was a true Eight-Trigram Flood Dragon.

Were Wei Zhao strong enough to keep replenishing it with true qi, this Eight-Trigram Flood Dragon could even endure in the world forever, and in time it would become a wholly new and mighty spirit beast.

Such arcane and profound craft—know that even Chang Minghui, a late-stage Kaishan expert, had never mastered it. At most he had reached the stage of true qi taking form; as for true qi transforming into spirit, he had never even dreamed of it.

Chang Minghui was struck dumb on the spot, while Wei Zhao himself was wholly unaware of it. In truth he had no notion what true qi transforming into spirit was. The new shape of this Five-Phase Killing Qi had startled him badly too, but to his eyes it was merely an advanced version of the seven-attribute Five-Phase Killing Qi—the eight-attribute Five-Phase Killing Qi.

To be precise, it should be called the Five-Phase Eight-Trigram Killing Qi. This was what he had been turning over and over in his mind ever since his clash with Zang Zili, until a flash of inspiration had finally produced it: arrange the eight attributes one by one in the order of the Fuxi Eight Trigrams, thereby balancing the mightiest lightning attribute against the other seven, and finally unleash it in the form of Five-Phase Killing Qi. Thus had come the awe-inspiring spectacle before them.

The instant the Eight-Trigram Flood Dragon appeared, it pierced clean through the tornado. Wei Zhao, overjoyed at the sight, scrambled and clawed his way out after it with all his strength.

"Courting death!" Only now did Chang Minghui finally snap to his senses. That instant of stupefaction had made him relinquish control of the tornado; otherwise, mighty as this Eight-Trigram Flood Dragon was compared to the earlier seven-attribute Five-Phase Killing Qi, it could never have pierced through it in a single breath, and Wei Zhao could never have escaped so easily.

The wild wind howled. In his shame and fury Chang Minghui no longer cared whether he alarmed Zhuang Yifan of the Alliance branch, nor did he still want Wei Zhao to testify against Zhuang Yifan for him. He had only one thought now: kill Wei Zhao.

So long as he killed Wei Zhao at the first opportunity, then even if Zhuang Yifan was alarmed, it would not matter. Zhuang Yifan would hardly come to blows with him over a dead man—and besides, if it truly came to a fight, even if Chang Minghui could not beat Zhuang Yifan, he still had some confidence of escaping with his life.

Chang Minghui's speed was now several times greater than before. Wei Zhao, who had only just opened up a bit of distance, was overtaken in an instant—and at that very moment the Eight-Trigram Flood Dragon from before did not vanish into thin air, but suddenly struck from the flank and rear, hurtling straight at Chang Minghui's heart.

Against anyone else, this would have meant a serious loss—but Chang Minghui did not so much as turn his head. Wind blades rose in all directions around him, and the Eight-Trigram Flood Dragon never even got close; in the blink of an eye it was shredded to pieces.

Not only that, Wei Zhao himself did not escape unscathed either. A stray wind blade grazed his left shoulder, cutting a wound so deep the bone showed, and nearly shearing the whole shoulder clean off.

Chang Minghui, wrapped in his raging wind, abruptly appeared before Wei Zhao, a savage lust to kill on his face. Wei Zhao could trade blows evenly with a Kaishan early-stage cultivator like Zang Zili, but before a late-stage Kaishan cultivator such as this one, he was in truth frail beyond resistance.

"I'll cut you to death slowly, one slash at a time. I wonder how long you can last—a hundred cuts, two hundred, or three hundred?" Chang Minghui sneered, then glanced at Wei Zhao's expression and added: "Don't imagine you can alarm Zhuang Yifan. Even if you did summon him, it would only make you die faster. Hahahaha!"

"Is that so? Are you truly so certain I can't escape the palm of your hand?" Wei Zhao simply stopped in his tracks. Not a trace of fear showed on his face—instead there was a strange sense of relief, as though he had completed some important plan.

"You think you can escape? At the very brink of death and still you don't know it—how does the world come to have a self-styled clever fool like you?" Chang Minghui cast him a look of feigned pity, his fingers twitching slightly, and at once countless formless wind blades came shrieking toward Wei Zhao.

"A small correction: the self-styled clever fool may not be me—perhaps it's you, Town Lord Chang." Wei Zhao smiled with easy composure, standing his ground without dodging or evading, arms folded, watching him like a spectator at a play.