Chapter 4893 — Spirit Medicine Turned to Cabbages

Just then the jade pendant at his chest sent out a sharp, urgent warning. Wei Zhao's eyelid twitched; in one motion he swept Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao up, one under each arm, and did not forget to kick Lu Xiaozhong sprawling behind him.

Before Wang Xinyan and the others could even react, a thick bolt of lightning came crashing down out of thin air, striking exactly where they had been standing a moment before.

The bolt was as thick as a water bucket, and its power was plainly no less than the strike Wei Zhao had taken earlier, the one that rivaled a minor lightning tribulation. Had the jade pendant not warned them and let Wei Zhao dodge in advance, there would have been no evading it at all—lightning is simply too fast. Anyone caught in it would have been crippled at best, dead at worst.

"Too close!" Lu Xiaozhong cast a lingering, shaken glance at the sky. Before he could even brush the footprint of Wei Zhao's boot off his backside, his eyes went perfectly round. Another bolt!

This time, however, the lightning was not aimed at the group. It was aimed straight at Wei Zhao.

The gap between the two strikes had been far too short. Though the jade pendant had given warning, Wei Zhao had no time to dodge again and could only shove the two women clear. Fast as he was, he could never be faster than lightning.

Boom! The bolt struck Wei Zhao square on the crown of his head, giving Wang Xinyan and the others a violent fright. Lightning of that caliber, a match for a minor tribulation, was horrifying merely to look at—take a hit like that to the body and a man was dead, plain and simple!

Yet before any of them could even put on worried faces, Wei Zhao stretched lazily as though nothing had happened. From the look of him, there was not a single wound on his whole body!

"Are... are you all right?" Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao rubbed their eyes in disbelief, while Lu Xiaozhong, who had only just scrambled up, was so startled at the sight that he dropped straight back onto the ground.

"I'm fine," Wei Zhao said with an indifferent shake of his head. He too had broken out in a cold sweat just now, but fortunately he himself was something of a hand with lightning these days; so long as a bolt did not vastly outstrip his own level, it was very hard for it to do him any real harm.

Only when Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao saw that he truly was unhurt did they exchange a glance and breathe easy. Off to one side, Lu Xiaozhong secretly put out his tongue. His old man had been right after all—this Master Lin was nothing but an unreasonable monster!

Paying no mind to the looks on their faces, Wei Zhao kept his eyes fixed on that hazy shadow in the sky, on guard against another bolt at any moment. He himself was not afraid, but Wang Xinyan and the others could not take another hit like that.

That dark shape, however, seemed rather surprised as well. It circled a few times above their heads, gave two harsh, chattering cries, and then swiftly vanished into the cloud layer.

"The strange bird's gone? Scared off by Master Lin?" Lu Xiaozhong was once again awestruck by Wei Zhao. He did not know what manner of bird it was, but of one thing he was certain: it had to be a ferocious fowl of a rarity the world had never seen. He had never heard of any bird that could conjure lightning to match a minor tribulation!

What shocked him even more, by comparison, was this: the bird had struck Wei Zhao once, seen that he was completely unharmed, and then given a couple of strange cries and flown away. Was that not to say it had been frightened off by Wei Zhao himself, scared clean away?

"Scared off by me? How could that be?" Wei Zhao shook his head in exasperation, then used his primordial spirit to ask Gui Dongxi, "Senior, what kind of spirit beast was that just now?"

"A Lightning Eagle!" Gui Dongxi's tone carried a note of wistful emotion. "The breed is extremely rare; they are no longer to be found even at the main camp on the Southern Isle. I never thought we would run into one in a place like this—though small wonder. They live in company with thunder and lightning, and one would be hard pressed to find a better roost anywhere under heaven than this Thunder Plain Isle."

"It's frighteningly strong. That one bolt was a match for a minor tribulation. If we hadn't been warned just now, it would have ended badly," Wei Zhao said, still shaken.

"In the old days a Lightning Eagle could be spoken of in the same breath as the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King, the royal blood of the eagle clan," Gui Dongxi said expansively. "It is only because their numbers are so few that they never prevailed over the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King. They are past masters at trifling with thunder and lightning. That one just now was likely near full maturity—its strength at minimum at the great perfection of the Xuan Sheng stage, if not the Kaishan stage. And especially in a place thick with thunderclouds like this, it can casually fight far above its own level."

"No wonder it was so savage. But why did it strike me once and then just fly off? Are all Lightning Eagles so easy to reason with?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.

"Easy to reason with? They are notorious as the fiercest of eagles! A single Lightning Eagle will dare to challenge four or five Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings at once. Do you really think they are the sort to be reasoned with?" Gui Dongxi could not help but laugh.

"Then why did it suddenly let us off?" Wei Zhao was all the more puzzled.

He did not for a moment believe he had overawed the Lightning Eagle. Though he had never met one at close quarters, he could sense that he was no match for this bird—at best he could use his immunity to lightning to tangle with it a while. As for Wang Xinyan and the others, they could not withstand even a casual blow from the creature.

"I'd guess it took you for one of its own kind, lad, and that's why it didn't press the attack," Gui Dongxi said with a laugh.

"One of its own kind?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. His first thought was that it was absurd, but then the sense of it caught up with him. Spirit beasts that reached the Lightning Eagle's level could naturally take human form, and besides, a creature that could take a bolt like that without a scratch was likely to be found only among the Lightning Eagle clan.

After the Lightning Eagle episode, Wei Zhao led the others onward. This time their faces were noticeably grimmer, and every step was taken with wary care.

Earlier, their new status as early-stage Xuan Sheng experts had made them a touch overconfident. But now that they had witnessed the Lightning Eagle's power, they understood at last that the road of the giants here was truly riddled with peril. The strength of a mere early-stage Xuan Sheng was no guarantee of anything; one slip, and death could come calling in an instant.

Yet before long their faces were filled with amazement once more—not because some fresh and dangerous spirit beast had appeared, but because the scene before their eyes was so utterly dreamlike. The ground was covered in heavenly treasures and earthly materials!

Wei Zhao, Wang Xinyan, Huang Xiaotao, and Lu Xiaozhong had all seen something of the world, and all of them had encountered no small number of rare treasures. Yet none of them had ever seen a sight like this: heavenly treasures and earthly materials scattered everywhere like wild grass, a whole heap of them crushed underfoot with every couple of steps.

"By all the immortals' holy breeches! Since when did spirit medicine become cabbages by the roadside?" Lu Xiaozhong's eyes were round as saucers.

"No wonder we ran into such a savage bird just now—so we've come to a treasure ground like this. Sure enough, wherever there are heavenly treasures, there are powerful spirit beasts to guard them," Wang Xinyan said with a sigh.