Chapter 4911 — The Wraith's Primordial Spirit

"Uh…" Wei Zhao was struck dumb for a moment, but he quickly grasped what the ghostly thing meant and asked in astonishment: "Senior, you're saying—?"

"The primordial spirit! We may not be inside the body of a living creature like at Half-Moon Lake, but we are inside an enormous primordial spirit—that is the only way to explain all of this." The ghostly thing's tone was utterly certain.

"That makes sense!" Wei Zhao nodded emphatically. First the ghostly thing's spiritual sense failing, then the powerful resentment pressing in from every direction—put those two conditions together, and this seemed the only explanation. But a moment later he was puzzled again: "Then what sort of thing could have a primordial spirit this vast? One that can shroud the entire City of Thunder Burials?"

Though Wei Zhao knew little about primordial spirits, he understood some basic common sense—for instance, that a primordial spirit generally retains the appearance of its original body; even if not, it would at most condense into a ball of ghostly mist like the ghostly thing. It wasn't impossible for one to scatter in all directions like this, but wouldn't that only heighten the risk of the primordial spirit being utterly annihilated?

After all, a primordial spirit was a thing that could not easily exist out of thin air. Even the ghostly thing, a former Azure Dragon, had once been on the verge of drying up entirely; stripped of the support of flesh and blood, it was like a tree without roots or water without a source, destined only to dissipate bit by bit. And an enlarged primordial spirit would clearly only hasten that process!

"What is there the most of in this place?" the ghostly thing asked in return.

"Since this is the City of Thunder Burials, then naturally the most plentiful are dead lightning-attribute spirit beasts…" Here Wei Zhao's heart suddenly stirred: "Senior, you mean this primordial spirit is made of dead lightning-attribute spirit beasts?"

"Precisely. And from the look of it, it's not just one or two—it's a bizarre entity formed from the primordial spirits of countless lightning-attribute spirit beasts. This is a wraith's primordial spirit!" the ghostly thing declared with certainty.

"A wraith's primordial spirit?!" Wei Zhao was seized with horror. An evil primordial spirit formed from the death-resentment of countless lightning-attribute spirit beasts—the mere thought of such a thing made his scalp crawl.

"Mm, that's the only explanation. Perhaps at first it was merely the primordial spirit of some single lightning-attribute spirit beast, but that alone could not sustain it for long, so it had no choice but to devour the primordial spirits of other lightning-attribute spirit beasts, evolving and growing ever stronger, until it became the monstrosity it is today. It really is a monster." The ghostly thing sighed in wonder.

"But if it's only a wraith's primordial spirit, why can it strike me with lightning?" Wei Zhao could not help asking. By all reason, a primordial spirit had no means beyond spiritual sense—it could not employ any other offensive or defensive martial arts, and lightning was naturally no exception.

"I was puzzling over that very question at first, which is why I never considered this possibility. But just now it struck me—if it can find a temporary host, then even a wraith's primordial spirit can indirectly wield the abilities the host possessed in life. Any lightning-attribute spirit beast corpse lying around here would let it command the power of lightning!" said the ghostly thing.

"So that's it!" Wei Zhao finally understood. After a brief daze, something suddenly occurred to him, and he asked with a strange expression: "Then if I die, Senior, would you do the same thing?"

"Guess!" The ghostly thing chuckled, refusing outright to answer directly.

"I guess you would…" Wei Zhao said with a bitter smile. Close as they were, he truly could not bring himself to praise the ghostly thing's moral integrity too highly. After all, when they had first met, this thing had already harbored thoughts of seizing his body. Once he kicked the bucket, it certainly would not sit by and wait for death—taking over his flesh was almost inevitable. To expect this thing to regard his corpse as something sacred and inviolable would, in the ghostly thing's eyes, be nothing short of lunacy.

Still, come to think of it, Wei Zhao had never counted on such a thing in the first place. If he really did die, then everything would no longer concern him, and letting the ghostly thing borrow his body would count as a favor to one of his own—rich water never flows into an outsider's field.

"All right, enough idle talk. I take it you know what to do next?" The ghostly thing returned to the matter at hand.

"Of course." Wei Zhao nodded gravely. Since it was confirmed that this was no formation, there was naturally no such thing as a formation core. There was only one way out of this place: find the corpse that this wraith's primordial spirit was temporarily inhabiting, then destroy it. There was no other way.

The resentment saturating the surroundings was growing stronger and stronger, which meant the fourth lightning strike was not far off. Though he had weathered three bolts in a row, Wei Zhao still had not the slightest confidence in facing the fourth and fifth to come—because from the behavior of this wraith's primordial spirit, it was plain that the stronger the resentment, the stronger the lightning!

So Wei Zhao had to race against his opponent. He must find it before it launched an even more ferocious attack—only then could he claw back a sliver of a chance at life. Otherwise, he would surely die today.

But such a thing was easy to say and hard as climbing to heaven to do. Never mind what to do after finding it—in the present circumstances, merely locating the corpse it inhabited would be extraordinarily difficult.

Sight was obstructed, spiritual sense useless—everything had to be explored on foot. To find a single skeleton in the City of Thunder Burials under such conditions, how could that be anything but a needle in a haystack!

But Wei Zhao had no other choice. This was the only way before him. Never mind searching on foot—even if he had to kneel, he would grit his teeth and kneel his way to the end. Otherwise, it was death.

After exploring for a while, Wei Zhao suddenly halted. Beneath his feet lay a skeleton of gleaming white bone—by the look of it, some kind of thick-set canine spirit beast, though exactly what kind was unclear.

Wei Zhao glanced at it once and pressed on. This skeleton could not possibly be the wraith's primordial spirit's host. After all, the thing had been dead for ages and had rotted down into pure white bone; some of the bones even showed signs of weathering. Never mind whether it could still host a wraith's primordial spirit—even if it did, whether it could move at all was another question, let alone anything else.

There was another important reason besides: how much power a wraith's primordial spirit could exert was largely limited by the strength its host had possessed in life. To unleash the kind of purple lightning from before, an ordinary lightning-attribute spirit beast could never manage it—only those few lightning-attribute spirit beasts standing at the very apex had even a sliver of a chance.

So what Wei Zhao was searching for now was not so much a lightning-attribute spirit beast corpse—to put it more precisely, he was not looking for an ordinary lightning-attribute spirit beast corpse. The range of targets was in fact quite limited: nine times out of ten, it would be either a Lightning Eagle or a Thunder Dragon.

Although this was the City of Thunder Burials, with only a little care one could find piles upon piles of lightning-attribute spirit beast bones almost every few steps.