Chapter 2469 — What Exactly Is It

Wei Zhao's words left the thing silent. After a moment it said, "Even if you are an alchemist, on my territory, without my leave, you absolutely cannot take her away. Your other companions will likewise lose themselves here and die here."

"What do you mean by that?" Wei Zhao asked, betraying nothing. In truth, he was secretly overjoyed, for he knew this ghastly thing was beginning to soften. It had not struck, nor said anything extreme, only that even an alchemist could not walk out of its territory.

"The meaning is simple. I let you all go—but she must come with me!" Though the ghastly thing did not say plainly who she was, Wei Zhao knew it must mean Wang Xinyan.

"Heh. That is impossible." Wei Zhao did not even give it room to bargain; he refused flatly and at once.

"Then you can all rot here in this trap. I am leaving." The ghastly thing hesitated a moment, then spoke.

"And you think you can leave? If you want us both destroyed together, I do not mind." Wei Zhao once more condensed a wisp of elixir fire in his hand. During the talk and the silence before, he had already begun using the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art to recover the physical strength and true qi he had spent compressing the true-qi bomb.

"Your strength is finite. I do not believe you can chase me forever, throwing elixir fire all the while." The ghastly thing was clearly no fool, and said calmly, "Earlier you unleashed some martial art or other, burning up a great deal of strength and true qi, did you not? By now there should be precious little left."

"Is that so?" A trace of mockery flickered at the corner of Wei Zhao's mouth, and on the instant he released the true qi from his body.

"Eh? Impossible! In so short a time you have actually recovered seventy or eighty percent of your strength and true qi—how is that possible?" the ghastly thing cried in horror. "This may be a blessed ground for cultivation, but the density of true qi here is already thinning by degrees. Even staying here, you could not possibly recover so fast. Impossible—absolutely impossible!"

"Possible or not is not for your mouth to decide. The fact is simply that it is so." Wei Zhao smiled faintly, then said, "My recovery of strength and true qi is just this fast. So if we keep wearing each other down, it is hard to say whether you will die or I."

"......" The ghastly thing fell silent once more. Plainly it conceded the truth of Wei Zhao's words; otherwise, things would not have come to such a pass.

"Now, can we talk?" Wei Zhao asked again.

"Fine......" The ghastly thing was plainly somewhat reluctant to be addressed in such a tone, and though it agreed to talk, it added, "If I did not exist in the form of a primordial spirit, an alchemist of your trifling late Earth-rank peak strength would not be fit even to carry my shoes."

"There is no 'if'." Wei Zhao was not provoked; he only shrugged. "And if I were not an alchemist, I could not make you speak with me as an equal."

"True...... there is no 'if'." The ghastly thing was briefly taken aback, then said, "The victor is king—an eternal, unchanging law! If in my day I had not...... never mind, enough of that...... You are right. You do indeed have the standing to speak with me as I am now."

"Good. Then tell me—have you decided to destroy us both, or to let us go?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Letting you go is absolutely out of the question," the ghastly thing said decisively. "I have waited so many years, and at last this chance has come! I have no time left. The spiritual qi of heaven and earth here grows thinner and thinner. I cannot wait any longer—if I do, my primordial spirit will slowly dissolve......"

Primordial spirit? This was the second time Wei Zhao had heard the ghastly thing mention that name. Could this thing before him truly be the wisp of soul left behind after the death of some supremely powerful cultivator of ancient times?

Wei Zhao had read in certain accounts of strange matters that some cultivators could, at the moment of death, preserve their primordial spirit from extinction, so that one day they might remold a body or seize another's. But he had never seen proof that such tales were true.

For in the present world of cultivation, the highest masters were Heaven-rank experts; beyond that, Wei Zhao had truly never seen, and perhaps even the little Ice-Sugar Girl did not know. So as for what those strange accounts described, Wei Zhao had never really taken them seriously.

But now, hearing this ghastly thing bring it up, Wei Zhao's heart stirred faintly.

"You are a primordial spirit?" Wei Zhao asked.

"You know of primordial spirits?" The ghastly thing was plainly startled.

"I have heard that certain high-level cultivators, at the moment of death, can preserve their primordial spirit from extinction, so that one day they may remold a body or seize another's. Is that so?" Wei Zhao set out what he knew.

"More or less." The ghastly thing did not deny it.

"You mean to seize a body?" Wei Zhao's gaze went to Wang Xinyan, and his expression shifted slightly as a terrible possibility suddenly struck him.

"......" The ghastly thing was rendered somewhat speechless by Wei Zhao's words. "You overthink. To begin with, she is no cultivator, only a mortal—if I were to seize a body, I would choose you, not her! And furthermore, seizing a body is a technique of the demonic sects. I only wish to preserve my primordial spirit, so that one day I may remold a body."

"I see......" Wei Zhao let out a breath. "Then why are you after her?"

"In her I have discovered a peculiar aura......" the ghastly thing said. "With such an aura, I can speed up my cultivation. The spiritual qi of heaven and earth here is already exceedingly thin, and my cultivation speed is far from enough to make up for the daily depletion of my primordial spirit! In other words, I am eating into my own reserves. If this goes on, in time my primordial spirit will grow unstable and scatter to the winds......"

Hearing this, Wei Zhao's expression shifted slightly. He had not expected the ghastly thing's intuition to be so keen that it could actually discover Wang Xinyan's secret! Wei Zhao had thought that secret would not easily be found out by other cultivators......

After all, at Wang Xinyan's side there was not only Wei Zhao, a cultivator, but other cultivators as well, and none of them had discovered it. Yet now this ghastly thing had, which made Wei Zhao's expression turn somewhat grim.

"Oh? It seems you have discovered this secret too?" Seeing Wei Zhao's expression, the ghastly thing knew he likely understood the matter as well. "Yes—that you recovered your strength and true qi so swiftly just now, was it not because you borrowed that peculiar fragrance?"