Chapter 2470 — The Third Fragment
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Stop turning all this over in your head. First tell me—are you letting them go or not?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Let them go?" The ghastly thing repeated the two words, then abruptly fell silent.
"What exactly do you mean?" Wei Zhao frowned at the thing's silence.
"Let me ask you something..." the ghastly thing said suddenly.
"What?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Nothing... never mind." The ghastly thing withdrew the question.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Wei Zhao was baffled.
"I can let you all leave—that is possible. But you must agree to one condition of mine," the ghastly thing said, suddenly stating its terms.
"And why should I agree to any condition of yours?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Just as you said—granted, you want us both destroyed together, but you cannot finish me off in a short time, and I cannot finish you either. You may be able to recover your strength and true qi without pause, but killing me will also take time," the ghastly thing said slowly. "I fear your elixir fire, true—it consumes the energy of my primal spirit. But it cannot extinguish me in a moment or a little while. In any case, I have only a few decades left before I wither away on my own; a few years more or less makes no difference. If you will not agree to my condition, then let us destroy each other! I believe you can recover your strength and true qi, but your friends—and this one before us—cannot live long without food. When you win in the end, you will leave alone, and all your friends will be dead."
"......" Wei Zhao was speechless for a moment, yet he did not doubt the ghastly thing's words. There was no need for it to lie to him about such things, and the fact that it could lay all this out openly proved that it truly meant to negotiate.
"Moreover, if you agree to my condition, I will give you some fine things in return," the ghastly thing added, seeing Wei Zhao silent, and began to tempt him with profit. Those things were, to it, little better than refuse; better to bring them out now and sell a favor.
"What things?" Wei Zhao asked after a moment's thought.
"Come with me. I will show you," the ghastly thing said.
"Fine!" Wei Zhao nodded and agreed. He could now condense elixir fire, so he was not afraid of being tricked, and besides, it was plain the ghastly thing wanted something from him—it would not joke about such a matter.
With that, the ghastly thing drifted forward, and Wei Zhao followed close behind with Wang Xinyan. Her gaze was still hollow, as though her soul had been bewitched, but Wei Zhao had set his mind at ease: the ghastly thing surely bore her no ill will for the time being.
They went forward some four or five hundred meters—not far at all—yet the scene before them changed abruptly. By rights, this place should have been visible from where they had stood before, and yet it had not been. Clearly this whole region lay under the ghastly thing's control, veiled by some spell akin to an obscuring art.
"Here we are," the ghastly thing said flatly.
Wei Zhao stepped over and looked down. On the ground lay a skeleton, its flesh long since rotted away; it looked to be of some age. Beside the bones was a small bundle, made of some material he could not identify, neither rotted nor spoiled, wholly intact.
"Is this it?" Wei Zhao pointed at the bundle on the ground.
"Indeed. This was a ** who blundered in here meaning to steal, and I struck him down. These are his remains," the ghastly thing said.
"Oh? His remains?" Wei Zhao bent down and opened the bundle. Inside he saw two things. One was an enormous inner core of a spirit beast—the moment his fingers touched it, he could feel the vast, boundless energy stored within!
The quantity of energy it contained was almost inconceivable, far, far surpassing the several spirit-beast cores Wei Zhao had obtained before. He could not help but be astonished: "A spirit-beast core?"