Chapter 4264 — Contested
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
The man had actually descended from a height of several dozen zhang. The gray robes he wore seemed specially made, for as he spread his limbs they billowed out like bat wings, letting him glide through the air, change direction nimbly, and flit swiftly among the dense woods.
"Ah!" Huang Xiaotao cried out in alarm at the sight. At first glance the man looked like an enormous gray-skinned bat. Having just seen the infant ginseng transform into a little golden figure, she thought this too might be no human, but another spirit beast in human form.
Wei Zhao too was secretly astonished—not, of course, over whether the thing was man or beast, but over the fact that the other party had dived straight down from a height of several dozen zhang. Was he not afraid of the layer of miasma overhead? After all, the miasma lay only several dozen zhang high!
Wei Zhao was certain this thing was surely human. But a human cultivator had no reason to be able to ignore miasma. Even if he did not fear poisoning, the miasma's interference with perception was nearly as great as the mist from before—yet within the miasma layer he could clearly sense both Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao. How terrifying must this man's strength be?
There was no time to react. In the blink of an eye, the gray-robed man came whistling down and landed not far before the two of them. Only then did they make out his features—a middle-aged man with an inherently sinister countenance.
His most striking feature was the high, hooked eagle-nose on his face, and a pair of small eyes that gathered light sharply. Along with his wicked, cackling laughter, though he was plainly a human cultivator, standing there before them he made them feel the perilous aura of a wild beast—sending an involuntary chill through them, a tremor in their hearts.
Wei Zhao's heart sank at once—not because of the man's looks, but because of his strength. He could not see through it at all, which meant this was at least a troublesome Nascent Soul figure!
With a powerful foe before them, it was by now impossible to think of fleeing. Never mind the man's formidable strength—from the mere manner of his arrival, one could tell this was surely a speed-type expert. With Huang Xiaotao in tow, Wei Zhao had no chance of escape at all.
And even if he could flee, at such close range Wei Zhao would never dare rashly turn his back on a Nascent Soul expert. That would not only be exceedingly unwise but a cardinal taboo of the jianghu—no different from courting death.
"Haha, it really is the aura of infant ginseng! This trip wasn't wasted after all!" The gray-robed man sniffed the medicinal fragrance filling the air, then fixed his gloomy eyes on Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, baring his teeth in a cackling grin. "Looks like the infant ginseng has fallen into your hands, eh? Heh heh—letting the other ants go die first while you sit back and reap the fisherman's profit. Quite the scheming minds you've got!"
"Who are you?" Wei Zhao's heart sank even further at his words. Since the man could say such a thing, it meant he had already been watching their group before this—only his strength far exceeded theirs, so that neither Wei Zhao himself nor even Chu Bubai had sensed him in the slightest.
At this thought, Wei Zhao could not help but feel a lingering dread, and at the same time he roughly understood part of the matter. The reason this man had waited until now to act was, beyond wanting to reap the spoils, most likely also because of the mist.
Evidently, the gray-robed man before them could not see through the mist that existed to shield the infant ginseng either. Otherwise, he would likely have simply struck and snatched the infant ginseng before the mist dispersed, rather than waiting until now to demand it of the two of them.