Chapter 3673 — Two Mysterious Figures
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Not bad. But it isn't as though every powerful spirit beast is willing to join South Island. After all, once they do, you human cultivators won't dare set your sights on them anymore, but they'll also have to submit to all sorts of restraints. So there are still plenty of extraordinarily powerful spirit beasts that don't belong to the Spirit Beast Clan at all—just as there are plenty of low-born, unaffiliated human cultivators who refuse to join a sect."
He paused, and Ghost Thing's tone turned somewhat grave: "From what this old man can sense, there are quite a few powerful spirit beasts in these back mountains whose strength would qualify them for South Island—several of them the equal of the Spirit Beast Clan's finest fighters. The fact that they've stayed here means they've no wish to join South Island. And that is a loss to the entire Spirit Beast Clan."
"The equal of the Spirit Beast Clan's finest fighters? How powerful would that be? How do they compare with that Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle from before?" Wei Zhao asked curiously.
"The Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle? Hah—its natural gifts and strength are decent enough, and if it keeps growing there'd be no problem, more or less, with it joining South Island. But compared with the few I mentioned, it isn't even on the same level." Ghost Thing gave a mocking laugh.
"Really?" Wei Zhao was dumbstruck for a moment. After the firsthand experience he'd just had, a vicious bird like the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle already seemed to him a being of tremendous power—and yet in Ghost Thing's mouth it seemed utterly beneath mention?
"Boy, the few I'm talking about are all in the deepest core of the back mountains now. As for their strength—put it this way: all you'd have to do is walk up in front of them, and if they so much as blinked, you'd be dead." Ghost Thing gave a strange, rasping chuckle.
"Uh..." Wei Zhao simply froze. Though he felt Ghost Thing was laying it on a bit thick, he couldn't help a shudder of dread, the hairs on his neck pricking upright.
A single blink and he'd die? Instinct told Wei Zhao that Ghost Thing was not lying. In the innermost core of the back mountains there were very likely creatures of precisely such monstrous power lurking. Which showed that the Three-Tier Pavilion had good reason for laying down layer upon layer of prohibitions in the back mountains—otherwise, if someone with more nerve than sense blundered in, they'd die without ever knowing how.
"Senior Ghost, then how would your strength in your prime compare with theirs?" Wei Zhao asked, a trace of hope creeping into his manner.
"Those few, placed here on the Heaven-Tier North Island—yes, their strength is genuinely formidable. But as for South Island—heh heh, this old man was an elder of the Spirit Beast Clan, ranked among the top five in strength. What does that tell you?" Ghost Thing answered his question with another.
"An elder ranked among the top five in strength? Then you'd have been among the very mightiest in the Spirit Beast Clan?" Wei Zhao had long since guessed that Ghost Thing's origins were extraordinary, but he had never imagined they could be extraordinary to this degree.
His identity was actually a core figure of South Island—that practically made him the equal of old man Xu Lingchong. This was a personage Wei Zhao, as things stood, had to look up to with reverence. And to think there was one right here at his side!
In that case, if the first one he'd encountered back in the mortal world had been Ghost Thing in his prime, wouldn't the fellow have snuffed him out without so much as blinking? He'd have been dead on the spot.
Recalling the circumstances of their first meeting, Wei Zhao felt a surge of relief. Thank goodness the thing he'd run into from the start was only this damaged primordial spirit—otherwise his bones would have rotted away long ago.