Chapter 5060 — The Arrogant Primordial Spirit

Bang! Sun Baimei toppled straight backward, his face scorched black, eyes wide open in death.

A strange silence fell over the room. Senior Brother Yin and Fei Yangsheng stared woodenly at Sun Baimei's body on the floor, frozen for a long moment with no reaction at all.

At last the two of them lurched a step back, turning in perfect unison to face Wei Zhao as though confronting a mortal enemy, gasping in shock. Senior Brother Yin held up reasonably well, but Fei Yangsheng was struck dumb with terror on the spot—when had this primordial spirit grown so formidable?

"Peak late Foundation Establishment! You dared to deceive me?" Senior Brother Yin fixed his eyes on Wei Zhao and ground out through clenched teeth. Sun Baimei had clearly said the fellow was only at the peak of early Foundation Establishment—how had the gap become so vast all at once? The two realms meant utterly different things. After all, he himself was only at the peak of late Foundation Establishment.

"N-no... that's not it, I didn't know either! He really was only at the peak of early Foundation Establishment before—otherwise Brother Sun and I could never have escaped with our lives last time..." Fei Yangsheng stammered. Barely half a month had passed; he could not for the life of him fathom why this primordial spirit's strength had suddenly surged, vaulting straight to the peak of late Foundation Establishment.

In truth, they were not the only ones who could never have guessed—even Wei Zhao himself had never imagined such a thing. A single unremarkable lump of charred coal had not only let him re-condense his primordial spirit body, but restored his strength with such astonishing speed. Had he known earlier, he would never have let Leng Leng go.

Of course, Leng Leng could never have guessed the coal's immense value either. A treasure of the Star Ink Coal's caliber falling into the hands of a mere early Foundation Establishment cultivator was a pearl cast before swine; for it to truly serve its purpose, she would have to reach the Mystic Ascension stage at the very least. Whether such a level even existed in a place like the Ancient Minor Jianghu was anyone's guess—let alone her advancing to Mystic Ascension through her own strength.

Then again, if the Ancient Minor Jianghu truly did harbor Mystic Ascension cultivators, a treasure like Star Ink Coal would not normally have ended up in her possession at all. Her sect might not even have understood what the thing was—hence their reckless bestowal of it upon a mere early Foundation Establishment disciple like Leng Leng. Otherwise, they would have been openly courting her ruin.

"And I have you two to thank for all of it." Wei Zhao smiled coldly at Sun Baimei, who lay on the floor with his eyes still open in death. One way or another, enemies like Sun Baimei—those who posed such a grave threat to him—had to be eliminated. Not just Sun Baimei, but this Senior Brother Yin as well. To the Wei Zhao of today, men like them were natural predators; there could be no coexistence between them.

"What an arrogant primordial spirit. You don't imagine that killing Junior Brother Sun settles everything, do you? Do you take me—a cultivator at the peak of late Foundation Establishment—for a dead weight?" Senior Brother Yin sneered.

Their lineage specialized in subduing spirit-beings like primordial spirits; ordinarily they could crush even opponents of the same level with ease. A materialized primordial spirit at the peak of late Foundation Establishment was certainly no trifling matter, but in his eyes it was nothing more than that.

He was even secretly rather pleased. With Sun Baimei dead, no one would compete with him. He could devour this powerful primordial spirit all by himself—a stroke of fortune he could not have wished for.

"Whether it's arrogance or not, we'll know soon enough once we fight. Hurry it up—the commercials are on right now, and I'm in a rush to get back to my show." Wei Zhao shot him a faint glance. The strength of a primordial spirit body was far inferior to his true body, and fighting above his level was not the easy, pleasurable affair it was for his true form. But if he could not even handle a cultivator of his own level, then he would not be Wei Zhao.

"Courting death!" Senior Brother Yin, stung into a fury, was barely three paces away facing him. Unseen, a short blade appeared in the hand concealed beneath his sleeve, and he lunged at Wei Zhao.

"What sect are you people from, anyway? Every last one of you loves a sneak attack, and you all love hiding things in your sleeves. Not a shred of originality." Wei Zhao laughed softly and slipped aside.

Light as his tone was, he was not the least bit careless underneath. This Senior Brother Yin was indeed considerably stronger than Sun Baimei, wielding that short blade like a phantom. More importantly, the blade carried a faint, elusive aura—evidently tailored specifically against primordial spirits and the like. A single graze could have unimaginable consequences.

"Hmph, you think you can escape me?" Senior Brother Yin snorted and gave chase like a shadow. With nothing but a short blade, he conjured a momentum vast and overwhelming, his attacks crashing down like a violent storm.

For a moment Wei Zhao was in genuine peril, like a small boat tossed amid raging winds and towering waves, liable at any instant to capsize and end up with no place even for his bones.

But what left Senior Brother Yin speechless was this: after a long, frenzied assault, every time Wei Zhao looked a hair's breadth from death, he somehow pulled through unscathed. By the time his mad offensive was itself beginning to falter, he had still not touched a single hair on the other's head. The result was enough to make a man's heart clench with frustration.

"No way? Done for already? It hasn't even been three minutes. As a man, don't you feel ashamed?" Wei Zhao watched him abruptly break off his attack and immediately unleashed a merciless round of mockery.

"You—!" Senior Brother Yin nearly choked up a mouthful of blood. He had indeed given it everything just now, but this primordial spirit's speed was absurdly fast, and it seemed able to anticipate his moves—every sudden change of technique that should have been impossible to dodge was avoided in advance. How was he supposed to fight this?

This could not go on. Senior Brother Yin suddenly thought of the Blood Spirit Cats. Whatever Sun Baimei could do, he could do as well; he had merely refrained from summoning them earlier out of fear of the other's pill fire.

But now there was no choice. To kill Wei Zhao, he could not rely on himself alone—he had to summon a few Blood Spirit Cats to harry him from the flanks. If he could just seize one opening, he could reduce this primordial spirit to pieces with ease.

At the thought, Senior Brother Yin immediately summoned three Blood Spirit Cats. Fewer in number than Sun Baimei's, perhaps, but each was far stronger individually. Once such creatures were destroyed, he would suffer a backlash against his own primordial spirit—quality over quantity!

"What are you standing there dazed for? Get in here with me!" Senior Brother Yin snapped at Fei Yangsheng, who had shrunk back to watch the show.

"Oh..." Fei Yangsheng answered weakly, but his feet might as well have taken root—he dared not come closer, merely striking a pose from a safe distance.

Even Sun Baimei, a late Foundation Establishment cultivator, had been killed by Wei Zhao in a single strike. If he, a mid Foundation Establishment cultivator, stepped in, he would be nothing but cannon fodder—Fei Yangsheng knew this perfectly well. So no matter how Senior Brother Yin cursed and shouted, he would at most put on a show; there was no chance he would risk his life for real.