Chapter 3918 — Shangguan Lan'er in Peril
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"That's right—everything you see beneath your feet is its true body!" The Ghost Thing said with a sigh. "In terms of innate talent alone, this thing can be called uniquely blessed, a freak of nature. Even across the entire spirit beast world, those that can stand above it are few and far between. But its true body, while it guarantees its strength, also limits its movement. Otherwise, with this thing's power, it would be more than capable of claiming a place in the core of the back mountain."
According to the Ghost Thing's assessment, the few powerful spirit beasts in the core of the back mountain were beings that could kill him with a single glance. The very thought that he had indirectly crossed hands with such an existence sent an involuntary chill crawling over Wei Zhao's skin.
The mirror puppet at the start was one thing, but the faceless puppet that appeared afterward was something that carried a fragment of the other's primordial spirit—it would not be wrong to call it half an avatar. If the Ghost Thing had not acted in time, Wei Zhao would by now be a corpse.
"Then... how does this thing compare to you, Senior?" Wei Zhao could not help asking out of curiosity.
"Compare it to me? It is still far from my equal. But at its level, my pressure alone can no longer completely subdue it. And right now I am, after all, only a primordial spirit—if it truly came to a fight, I might not be able to protect you, boy. If it catches on to that, things will go badly. So this place is no place to linger; best we leave at once," the Ghost Thing said gravely.
"Understood." Wei Zhao wasted no more words and steadied himself to leave.
Just as the Ghost Thing had said, though he now seemed to have escaped to safety, the reality was that he was still standing on the other's true body. If the other side reacted, it could kill him at any moment.
Fortunately, the Ghost Thing had just shattered the faceless puppet into powder with its divine consciousness. That move was enough to overawe the enemy for a time, and it would not dare act rashly for a short while—but how long that while would last was uncertain.
Wei Zhao carefully observed the enormous dark shadow in Half-Moon Lake. Though he now roughly understood that the blood-red tentacle that had attacked him earlier must have been a vine of the Half-Moon Lake monster beneath his feet, he still could not ignore the existence of that vast dark shadow.
The Half-Moon Lake monster underfoot was terrifying enough, and that nameless giant shadow—if it was not part of the Half-Moon Lake monster's body but an independent spirit beast in its own right—then to coexist side by side with the Half-Moon Lake spirit beast, its strength could not possibly be weak.
If the two attacked at once, then even with the Ghost Thing protecting him, Wei Zhao's chances of escaping unscathed would be negligible. So he had to plan before acting.
Yet even as Wei Zhao watched, a dark figure suddenly appeared on the far side of Half-Moon Lake. It seemed unable to hold back any longer, and seizing the moment when the giant shadow at the lake bottom had moved away to the opposite end, it swiftly darted toward the giant cedar where Wei Zhao stood.
Shangguan Lan'er? Wei Zhao was startled and instinctively assumed it was her. After all, he had been inside the tree hollow for no short time—by his reckoning, a full hour and a half. It was not impossible that Shangguan Lan'er had assumed something had gone wrong and acted rashly.
Still, though the giant shadow at the lake bottom had now swum to the farthest end, to think this was the perfect chance to cross the lake was simply to court death.
From Wei Zhao's earlier observations, the giant shadow's pattern of movement was this: after swimming to the farthest end of Half-Moon Lake, six times out of ten it would swiftly turn back—and its swimming speed was terrifyingly fast!