Chapter 4532 — An Unexpected Turn
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
"The kid's got backbone!" The spirit beasts present, who had until then regarded a minor figure like Wei Zhao with disdain, all silently applauded him in their hearts. They knew precisely how powerful the spirit beast guards were; even they themselves would have found it hard to withstand such pressure. Yet this youth, with nothing but Gold Core cultivation, had managed to hold out.
Still, the spirit beasts' grudging esteem would not alter Wei Zhao's fate. What good was backbone? Having provoked the Vermilion Bird Elder, he could not escape death in the end—and besides, the boy's answers had indeed been highly suspect. Killing him was only fitting.
Seeing that neither the Vermilion Bird nor the Azure Dragon, those two paramount elders, made any move, the spirit beast guards understood at once: they were to err on the side of killing rather than let him slip away. True, the odds that this Gold Core youth was a human spy were vanishingly small, but what was to be announced today was a matter of great consequence; should word leak out early, it could easily stir up trouble. It had to be guarded against.
Since both the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon meant it, the spirit beast guards would naturally not defy their superiors for the sake of a Wei Zhao they had never met. Their killing intent surged forth at once, and they made to wipe him out on the spot.
The shadow of death enveloped Wei Zhao from head to toe; his blood seemed to freeze solid in his veins, and he could not move. Against such foes, with his present strength, it was not merely a matter of resisting or fleeing—he could not so much as twitch. Against the Old Sect of the Western Hills he had still been able to stake everything on a transcendent Butterfly Microstep; now even that was a vain hope. He could only wait for death with his hands bound.
Unwilling! Anyone cut down for no reason in a place like this would be unwilling, and Wei Zhao was no exception. But when the gulf in strength was this vast, what could he do but wait to die?
Just as he was about to breathe his last, a hoarse voice suddenly came from atop the high platform, and the spirit beast guards froze in their tracks.
"Let him go. This king sees that he appears to be one of the Great Fire Lion clan, and indeed they dwell over by the Lufeng Forest. Besides, on a fine day like today, to harm a fellow clansman out of hand would be inauspicious. Let us all return to the matter at hand and discuss proper business—there is no call to waste everyone's time on trivial distractions." The speaker was none other than the Spirit Beast King, who until now had not said a word.
He was called the new Spirit Beast King, in theory the absolute protagonist of the spirit beast clan, yet from the start until this moment this king had been utterly without presence. The focus and the authority of speech had rested wholly with the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon. He was a puppet of a figure.
And yet this very puppet, this mere ornament, had chosen this moment to speak—and was prepared to pardon Wei Zhao. That genuinely astonished every spirit beast present!
The Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon were struck dumb, and so were Wei Zhao and the ghost-thing.
They had never met this new Spirit Beast King; indeed, the ghost-thing even suspected the fellow was an impostor, not of the Spirit Beast King's bloodline at all, but merely a sham trotted out by the Vermilion Bird to dupe the masses. And now this deeply suspect creature had spoken up so abruptly on their behalf. What on earth was going on?
"Yes, sir!" The Vermilion Bird was the first to recover. A faint, obscure shadow flitted across those long, narrow phoenix eyes, but his face wore the utmost deference. "We shall obey the king's command. You may withdraw."