Chapter 4592 — The Heavenly Spirit Bird

The spirit bird was astonishingly fast. Even in this endless ocean, its speed never faltered, for Wei Zhao kept his true qi wrapped around it to hold the seawater at bay. It was, after all, a nascent-soul-stage spirit beast; there was no true chance of the sea leaving it helpless.

Wei Zhao feared being tangled up with sea beasts—but the spirit bird feared it more. The appalling burst of speed it produced in that instant left even Wei Zhao gaping. He had always assumed the spirit bird had nothing to recommend it but speed, and now it seemed that judgment still held: speed truly was this creature's stock in trade, and even this boundless ocean could not hold it back.

Wei Zhao clicked his tongue in silent marvel. At the pace the spirit bird was displaying now, many a sea beast born and bred in these waters might not be able to keep up with it. He even began to wonder whether this creature had originally been a waterfowl that had simply gone unnoticed all this time.

Amid these idle fancies, the spirit bird had already borne Wei Zhao rocketing skyward, piercing the sea's surface like a keen arrow and streaking across the vault of heaven.

The whole affair went off with absurd smoothness—not once from beginning to end did any sea beast take note of them.

For the first time in more than half a year, he had truly seen the light of day again. The stifled gloom that had weighed on him so long was finally released, and Wei Zhao felt his whole being grow lighter. Set against this scene, he cut a lofty figure indeed—the sky is high and the bird flies free!

"Dangerous, all right!" Wei Zhao leaned over and glanced below, and there, right where he had burst through the surface, several vast shadows were now prowling and circling. He could not make out what manner of sea beasts they were, but judging by their bulk, none of them would be easy to handle. Wei Zhao silently counted himself lucky that he had run fast enough—otherwise this would have been a close call indeed.

Once he had settled his feelings a little, Wei Zhao at once set the spirit bird flying toward North Island. Because the old Western Mountain sect had hunted him, he had long overrun his mission deadline, and he had no idea whether anything had gone wrong on North Island.

Wei Zhao's heart was set on home now. He was no native of North Island, but on this Cloud Terrace Island, North Island was to him nothing less than a second homeland. Everyone and everything familiar to him was there, and its place in his heart could not be matched by any other corner of the world.

The spirit bird gave an excited, shrill cry and at once spread its wings for the north. Its elation now surpassed even Wei Zhao's—not out of any attachment to North Island, but because since advancing to the nascent soul stage, it could finally test its utmost speed for the first time!

The spirit bird kind has an instinctive craving for speed. If they are not allowed again and again to try the utmost velocity they pride themselves on, they will genuinely be driven mad. This spirit bird left behind by Huang Xiaotao had been pent up for a full three months and more; let it soar to its heart's content no longer, and it might truly go insane...

"Oh? This spirit bird is rather interesting!" Ghost Thing suddenly remarked with keen interest.

"What is?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled. He himself was somewhat stunned by the speed of the bird beneath him. He had assumed this spirit bird was of mediocre talent, and that even after its strength surged, its speed would at most multiply severalfold—but now it seemed this was far more than severalfold. It was dozens of times over!

"Do you know that spirit birds are acknowledged as the most useless race among all spirit beasts?" Ghost Thing answered with a question of his own.

"Ha? Surely not?" Wei Zhao grinned dismissively. The spirit bird could not compare with the many powerful spirit beasts he had seen, true, but to call it the acknowledged most useless was rather overstating things. There were so many races of spirit beasts under heaven—surely one could find something weaker than a spirit bird.

"Those are not my words—they are acknowledged by the spirit beast races themselves," Ghost Thing said with a chuckle, then added: "And in my view, even if the spirit bird race is not truly the weakest, it is unquestionably one of the weakest. Of that there is no doubt."

"Why?" Wei Zhao still could not make sense of it.

"The reason is simple. Every race of spirit beast has its own unique racial gift, strong or weak, and of every description. But one thing is certain: all spirit beasts possess a racial gift. Only one race is the exception—the spirit birds." Ghost Thing explained.

"Ha?" Wei Zhao was struck dumb. This was the first he had heard of such a thing, though on reflection it did seem to be so.

Every spirit beast he had encountered before possessed a racial gift. Even something with zero fighting strength like the Heavenly Thunder Pig had a treasure-seeking gift unmatched in the world. Only in the spirit bird had he never seen one. Though its grade was not low, the spirit bird gave him the impression of differing little from any ordinary bird.

"If they could not also cultivate by drawing on the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, they would not even have been classed among the spirit beast races in the first place. A spirit beast race without even a racial gift—would you not call that the weakest?" Ghost Thing paused, then said: "Spirit birds have no racial gift at all. If you insist on finding one merit, the closest they come is that their speed is not bad—but only not bad. There is more than one or two races under heaven faster than they are."

"Well, that does sound thoroughly pitiful." Wei Zhao looked at the spirit bird, speechless. This creature was not merely of mediocre talent—it had no talent at all!

Had it been any other nascent-soul-stage spirit beast, it would have been a formidable fighting force not to be ignored. But now it was a spirit bird—and what did the nascent soul stage matter? Force it into battle and at best it was an oversized fowl. Wei Zhao could not bear even to picture the scene...

"Do not be so quick to despair. The spirit bird race may have no gift, but they are not necessarily without any chance of turning things around. As far as I know, they are the only race among all spirit beasts capable of cultivating speed to its utmost limit. It is only a special case, but at least it shows they are not truly devoid of potential." Ghost Thing said instead.

"Cultivate speed to its utmost limit? Did you not just say there is more than one or two races under heaven faster than they are?" Wei Zhao was utterly bewildered.

"On average, the speed of spirit birds can only be reckoned middling to good. But among them there once appeared a single fastest exception, known as the Heavenly Spirit Bird!" Here Ghost Thing's tone warmed uncharacteristically: "There is a saying in your mortal world—nothing is unbreakable but speed; when speed reaches its utmost, then even if every other faculty is zero, one can still stand alone above the world. The Heavenly Spirit Bird of that time was just such a one-in-ten-thousand exception. Against a being like that, even the top elders could do nothing at all." (To be continued) R466