Chapter 4907 — The Difference Between Thunderbolts

Better to risk a run for it than to sit here and wait for death. Even if the escape drew other dangerous beings down on him, that still beat being struck by the bolt overhead.

With Wei Zhao's present strength, his Butterfly Microstep was now far faster than before—to ordinary eyes, no different from teleportation. Yet no matter how he ran, that near-violet bolt kept circling above his head.

Wei Zhao's heart shook with terror, and he could only clench his teeth and keep sprinting madly, bringing out even his ultimate movement technique, the Extreme Butterfly Microstep. It was useless. However fast he was, he could never outrun the near-violet bolt overhead—the thing really did seem to have locked onto him!

Ever since he had gained his formidable lightning attribute, Wei Zhao had been delighted with it, and this time especially, when the lightning attribute had taken the lead in fusing the unprecedented composite eight spirit roots, he had been overjoyed. But now he found it a genuine headache. The lightning attribute was powerful, yes—but this lightning-rod trait of his was a fatal nuisance!

So it was true that every blessing carried its curse. To think one could hog all the good things for oneself was pure folly.

Boom! With a thunderous crash, the near-violet bolt that had been circling overhead finally came down—and struck Wei Zhao square on the crown of his head!

The strike froze Wei Zhao where he stood, his whole body convulsing and struggling as though pinned in place, arcs of electricity and sparks crawling over him in a horrifying display. Had anyone been watching closely, they would have seen that the current had lifted him clear off the ground—he was being held aloft purely by the lightning.

An ordinary lightning tribulation could do Wei Zhao no harm at all; even a tenfold tribulation he could grit his teeth and endure. But this near-violet bolt nearly blasted his soul out of his body, for its power was at least comparable to a fiftyfold lightning tribulation!

"Mother of hell!" Wei Zhao roared in agony, nearly stunned unconscious on the spot. Luckily a sliver of awareness remained; had he blacked out, he would have been dead beyond any doubt.

With that powerful lightning attribute inside him, Wei Zhao was now essentially a giant human storage battery—able not only to discharge but to store charge. An ordinary tribulation he could simply absorb outright. But this was a full fiftyfold tribulation, far beyond the limit he could withstand!

Never mind a living, breathing man—had he truly been a storage battery, it would surely have burst on the spot.

For an instant, Wei Zhao stood a hair's breadth from death.

Fortunately, after a spell of dizziness, Wei Zhao realized he had actually pulled through. Though his body seethed with exceedingly dangerous lightning force, luckily it had not run wild—it had been drawn in and held around the composite eight spirit roots, with the lightning attribute at their core. Otherwise ten lives would not have been enough to save him.

It felt as though a bomb of immense power lay buried in his body, ready to blow him to dust the moment it went off. But by good fortune it was a time bomb: so long as he did not jostle it carelessly, he had a little time left to defuse it.

The vast lightning force stirred restlessly within Wei Zhao. The only thing he could do now was refine it before it ran out of control—and because it so far exceeded what he could bear, the whole process was exceedingly difficult, every fraction refined feeling as though it would burst his dantian and meridians apart.

Without a willpower far beyond the ordinary, refining all that lightning force by sheer endurance would have been out of the question—even holding on to the last shred of consciousness would have been a vain hope. But fortunately, Wei Zhao somehow miraculously held on.

Feeling the unprecedented, surging abundance of lightning force within him, Wei Zhao gave a wry, lingering laugh. His whole body was on the verge of total collapse from exhaustion.

His clothes, soaked through again and again by cold sweat and dried again and again, were now so crumpled and clammy that he was thoroughly miserable. Had this place not been so perilous and unpredictable, Wei Zhao would certainly have rushed off to bathe and change—it was simply too unbearable.

But then, this was Wei Zhao. Anyone else would have been blasted to nothing but dregs, reduced to ash and scattered to the winds—even the luxury of feeling uncomfortable would have been denied them.

Still, the ordeal had not been for nothing. Survive a great calamity and good fortune follows: not only had he kept his miserable hide, but the lightning force within him had grown several times stronger.

True, only a small portion of it had been completely refined by Wei Zhao; the greater part could only count as temporarily tamed—like that lightning strike before, comparable to a minor tribulation, it was a one-time consumable, gone once used. Only the small portion he had fully refined could merge into his spirit roots and renew itself endlessly.

Even so, Wei Zhao had gained no small harvest this time. The process had been rather harrowing and full of twists, but the outcome could still be called a happy one all around.

"Senior, did you notice anything strange about that bolt just now?" Wei Zhao asked as he recovered his condition.

"Strange how?" the Ghost Thing asked, puzzled. His experience was far broader than Wei Zhao's, but he had never come into direct contact with that near-violet bolt; the clue Wei Zhao could sense, he might not be able to detect.

"I once received the inheritance of a giant electric eel, and I've been through a lightning tribulation too. Thinking back carefully, I realize that although both are powerful lightning, there's a fundamental difference between them," Wei Zhao said, frowning in thought.

"Oh? Explain it in detail," the Ghost Thing said.

"It's not just a difference in the intensity of the lightning—the crucial thing is that the intent contained in each is utterly different." Wei Zhao thought it over carefully, then analyzed: "A lightning tribulation is the power of heaven and earth, so it is pure lethal severity, with no emotion whatsoever. But the giant electric eel is different—its lightning strike seemed to carry a certain emotional coloring."

"Is that so?" This time even the Ghost Thing was shocked—not at Wei Zhao's discovery, but at the keenness of his insight. He himself, never having been skilled with lightning, knew little of such matters, but one thing he could figure out with his toes: this was not something an ordinary person could possibly perceive.

Powerful willpower, keen insight, and a resilient nature that stayed calm no matter the circumstance—this brat's hard talents, like his spirit roots, were peerless, and even his hidden talents were terrifyingly strong. That he had achieved what he had today was truly no stroke of luck.

"Mm. At first I thought it was my imagination—I used to think lightning was just a kind of force, so how could it carry emotion? But after that bolt just now, my notion has been confirmed." Wei Zhao's expression turned very grave.