Chapter 2808 — To Go or Not to Go

"A man and a spirit beast locked in combat... and they've produced such a terrifying collision of energy?" Wei Zhao's eyes went wide, finding it hard to believe. Could a trial participant have been teleported right onto the summit, and there happened to run into a spirit beast, so the two had started fighting?

At that thought, Wei Zhao hesitated, unsure whether he ought to intervene at all.

Even without drawing close—having merely witnessed from afar the terrifying force generated by this man-and-beast battle—Wei Zhao could tell that neither combatant's strength was low. It was not that Wei Zhao could not produce such terrifying force himself, but what he produced were energy bombs; that was precisely why he found it strange that another person or spirit beast could generate such pressure.

Wei Zhao's heart wavered, his eyes fixed on the distant cave. There, the clash of energy still rose and fell unceasingly; the man and the beast must be fighting fiercely...

To go, or not to go?

Just then, another thunderclap-like boom rang out beside Wei Zhao's ear, and the mountain beneath his feet actually began to tremble along with it, making him shrink back.

"What if... the one in the cave is Feng Shihua or Li Ciba?" Wei Zhao hesitated. Of course, in Wei Zhao's view, the one in the cave could absolutely not be Ge Xian, Zhao Qilei, or Yang Qiqi—were it any of those three, they would long since have been done for. How could they fight a spirit beast so fiercely?

The cultivator in the cave must be at least an expert of the early Heaven rank.

"Go take a look!" Wei Zhao gritted his teeth. He had come this far; for one thing, he was reluctant to give up the treasures in that cave, and for another, he was uneasy about whoever was inside.

His decision made, Wei Zhao lingered no longer, but strode boldly toward the cave.

The path along the summit was fairly passable, and Wei Zhao swept toward the cave at great speed. Not far from its mouth, the sounds of battle grew clearer and clearer, and the violent surges of energy from within gave Wei Zhao a sense of oppression he had never known before.

Only now did Wei Zhao finally understand: whoever was fighting in there could absolutely not be merely an early Heaven-rank expert. Most likely it was an expert of the late Heaven rank, or even the peak of the late Heaven rank.

For even standing at the cave's mouth, Wei Zhao could not help but feel his blood run cold—that mighty pressure was simply not something he could withstand.

Drawing a deep breath, Wei Zhao wanted to give up. But having come this far, he was unwilling to leave without a single look. After a moment's hesitation, he crept cautiously toward the cave.

Arriving at the cave's mouth, the first thing to meet Wei Zhao's eyes was a gigantic spirit beast. Its bulk was extraordinarily huge—larger even than any spirit beast Wei Zhao had seen before—its body alone fully ten meters long, with four stout claws, a long tail, and a long neck, and along its spine grew a row of hard, saber-toothed spikes. Had Wei Zhao not already seen so many bizarre spirit beasts, he might have thought himself back in the Jurassic or Cretaceous period, for this was unmistakably a dinosaur.

Though Wei Zhao could not name this particular dinosaur, in both build and appearance it was a dinosaur through and through.

Then he took in the beast's strength, and it startled him: this was actually a spirit beast at the peak, great-perfection level of the late Heaven rank! A spirit beast infinitely close to the cultivation of the Heavenly Dao, and by the look of it, one possessed of exceedingly powerful attacking ability.

"Awooo—"

What Wei Zhao had not expected was that with this dinosaur's howl, a ball of flame shot from its mouth! Was this actually a fire-breathing mutant dinosaur?

Following the flame's trajectory, its target was a human cultivator—and to Wei Zhao's astonishment, that human cultivator was a young girl! With a shapely, exquisite figure and a pale yellow form-fitting short dress, she left Wei Zhao utterly dumbfounded. He had never imagined that the one fighting this dinosaur would be a female cultivator!

He watched as the girl in yellow rapidly formed hand seals, invoking some martial technique he could not identify, when all at once a brilliant light shot from her hands like a column of water, striking toward the ball of flame.

So she truly was an expert at the peak of the late Heaven rank. Wei Zhao was aghast, and he strove to recall whether, among those who had come to join the trial, there was any expert of such prowess.

But the Xuandan Sect's trial was different from the Ice Palace's. At registration, Kang Jingming had not checked each applicant's strength one by one, nor had he disclosed the applicants' identities and origins, so among the trial participants, apart from those already acquainted, few knew much about the others.

Wei Zhao was the same. Earlier he had been preoccupied with chatting with Feng Shihua, Li Ciba, Ge Xian, Zhao Qilei, Yang Qiqi, and the others, and had not observed the rest, so in his memory he truly had no impression of this girl.

"Boom—" A dull thunderous crash exploded beside Wei Zhao's ear once more. Because it was so close, the sound seemed to pass into his very body, making both his legs tremble!

Too powerful! He saw the ball of flame and the column of water collide, producing an enormous clash of energy—and that was what had given rise to the thunderous roar.

"Awooo—" The dinosaur roared again, and without pause spat another enormous orb of energy from its mouth—only this orb was no longer flame, but a ball of water!

This left Wei Zhao utterly astounded. Just what element was this spirit beast? A moment ago it spat fire, and now it spat water—was it a fire-type or a water-type?

Yet if Wei Zhao was astounded at that moment, the next moment left him utterly confounded, for the girl—the very girl who had just unleashed a water-column technique—actually pointed her right hand at the water orb, and a ball of fire burst forth from her fingertip...

"Boom—" The dull thunderous crash rang out once more, but this time Wei Zhao did not tremble, for he was already utterly confounded. The spirit beast's attribute had left him baffled, and the girl's attribute was driving him to distraction.

The water orb and the fire orb collided once more, erupting in a burst of enormous energy before slowly dissipating into nothing.

Though man and beast appeared evenly matched, the girl was secretly crying out in distress! Unleashing these few techniques in succession had already consumed most of the stamina in her body. Formidable as human cultivators were, compared with spirit beasts their weaknesses were plain—many spirit beasts possessed immense bulk, and the stamina and true qi within their bodies far exceeded a human cultivator's.