Chapter 4090 — Fleeing and Returning
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"What do you mean by that? Thinking of surrendering now? Let me tell you, it's too late!" The middle-aged man was briefly taken aback. When he grasped what had happened, a smug, savage sneer twisted his face—but the very next moment his expression stiffened, and a flush of embarrassment and fury at having been played for a fool rose visibly to his cheeks.
[Wei Zhao] had never intended to hand those three Myriad Crossing Golden Core Fruits to him at all. He flung them straight into the depths of the dense forest, wearing the look of a man who has decided that if he cannot have them, then neither will anyone else.
Oh, the agony! Watching the fruits of his dreams disappear into the woods, the middle-aged man was so enraged that his face began to twitch. He would have liked nothing better than to hack [Wei Zhao] to pieces on the spot.
Yet he no longer dared to keep hounding [Wei Zhao]. Though he was two hundred percent certain he could kill the boy, the pressing matter at hand was to hurry and retrieve the Myriad Crossing Golden Core Fruits. Even knowing full well that [Wei Zhao] meant to use the distraction to escape, he had no choice but to walk tamely into the trap.
After all, countless powerful spirit beasts still lurked within the forest. If he simply left the fruits lying there and came back after finishing off [Wei Zhao], those three Myriad Crossing Golden Core Fruits would likely have been eaten by some passing beast long before.
The reason those five high-grade spirit beasts had not devoured the fruits earlier was that the fruits were not yet fully ripe, and the beasts could afford to wait a while longer. But now that they had been plucked, they would wither quickly if not eaten. The beasts were no fools—if they found the fruits, they would swallow them without hesitation.
If it came to that, killing [Wei Zhao] to vent his spleen would change nothing. The middle-aged man would be left with nothing to show for all his efforts.
"Hmph. I'll let you live a little longer, then. Once I've recovered the Myriad Crossing Golden Core Fruits, you die today all the same!" The middle-aged man spat the words through his teeth, then turned and rushed off toward the fruits without a moment's delay. Those fruits, he was determined, would be his.
Plunging headlong into the dense forest, he raised his domineering aura to its absolute peak, driving every spirit beast within miles into panicked flight. Doing such a thing in a place like this was practically asking for trouble, but to ensure the fruits were not eaten by beasts, he had no choice but to resort to this crude measure.
"Damn him to hell! Where did the brat throw those fruits?" Watching [Wei Zhao] slip away in the confusion behind him, the middle-aged man ground his teeth in fury—yet there was nothing he could do but swallow his rage and recover the fruits first.
The Myriad Crossing Golden Core Fruits were nothing if not eye-catching, but dropped here in the dense forest, even an immortal would be hard-pressed to find them quickly. After all, unlike humans or spirit beasts, the fruits gave off no discernible fluctuation of aura.
The middle-aged man's only option was to do as any ordinary person would: part the undergrowth again and again, searching inch by inch with his own two eyes.
So it went for the better part of half an incense stick's worth of time before he finally caught sight of the fruits. They had been shot into the trunk of a giant tree—yet they were entirely undamaged, a sign that [Wei Zhao] had used a clever touch and deliberately shielded them with true qi.
Overjoyed at the sight, the middle-aged man hurried forward and reached out to take them—only for a vague sense of alarm to rise inexplicably in his heart.