Chapter 4545 — The Five Elements Killing Qi
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
After all, this was different from last time. The Southern Isle Forest had been extremely perilous too, but if one had the devil's own luck, there was still a sliver of a chance at survival. Yet once one fell into the Five Poisons Swamp before him, death was no longer a matter of probability—it was nailed down tight, without the slightest possibility of accident, unless the world itself had gone mad.
"Bah! He deserved worse than death—no more than he deserved, to be left without a corpse!" The Old Sect of the Western Hills spat viciously at the spot where Wei Zhao had fallen. Though it had not been by his own hand, dead was dead. This time, at long last, the goal had been achieved, and he had not been left covered in ignominy as he had last time.
The only thing the Old Sect of the Western Hills found slightly regrettable was that Wei Zhao had left not so much as an intact corpse—not even a scrap of bone remained in the end. It was rare to come across such promising material for forging a trump-card puppet, and to let it slip through his fingers like this—well, it would be a lie to say he felt no regret. One could only say that such was the will of Heaven.
Remote as this place was, it was still within the borders of the Southern Isle, and after that bloody lesson last time, the Old Sect of the Western Hills dared not linger here long, fearful of drawing the covetous eye of some powerful spirit beast. After cursing once more, he turned and swept away without a backward glance.
Nothing could have made the Old Sect of the Western Hills guess that Wei Zhao—whom he believed to be utterly annihilated, body and bone alike—was at this very moment not only alive and well under the swamp's Five Elements attack, but completely unharmed from head to toe. Not only that, but the spirit bird was the same.
With true qi wrapped tightly around every inch of their bodies, Wei Zhao and the spirit bird had been plummeting rapidly ever since they entered the Five Poisons Swamp. How long this descent had lasted, he could not tell; it felt as though the bottom were fathomless.
Long and tedious as the process was, it was not the least bit easy. Dense, concentrated Five Elements killing qi swirled on every side, and Wei Zhao could sense it clearly even wrapped in his own true qi. When he recalled the image of the Old Sect of the Western Hills' bone claw being effortlessly shredded by that Five Elements killing qi, the horror of the scene before him sent chills down his spine.
Anyone else—including a titan of the evil path at the Mountain-Splitting stage like the Old Sect of the Western Hills—would have been reduced to a heap of powder long ago in Wei Zhao's position. Yet Wei Zhao discovered to his astonishment that although these terrifying Five Elements killing qi currents had been swirling and circling around him the whole time, they showed not the slightest intent to attack him.
It was as if all the Five Elements killing qi around him had been rendered immune by the true qi enveloping him and the spirit bird. Such a strange, uncanny state of affairs—a moment's thought was enough for Wei Zhao to understand. It was likely precisely because of the Five Elements nature of his own true qi that these Five Elements killing qi within the swamp had mistaken him for one of their own.
That was the only possible explanation. After all, the gap in power between them was a thousandfold, ten-thousandfold at least. Had he not been mistaken for one of their own, then for Wei Zhao to try to withstand these Five Elements killing qi currents with his paltry true qi would have been no different from a fool's dream.
As he sank ever deeper, Wei Zhao could distinctly feel the Five Elements killing qi filling the space on all sides growing heavier and heavier. Its numbers were no longer as motley as at the start, but its intensity was now beyond all comparison.