Chapter 4913 — Death! Death! Death! But If It Was Alive, That Would Mean This Was a Lightning-Attribute Spirit Beast on the Brink of Death, Very Likely About to Trigger the Death Ritual of Lightning Burial—So Should He Still Charge Forward?

Wei Zhao hesitated for only an instant before the jade pendant's warning shrieked madly in his ears. Without even glancing at it, he instinctively activated the Ultra-Limit Butterfly Microstep and dodged to one side!

BOOM! What descended this time was no longer purple lightning but a very real gigantic claw—or more precisely, a colossal skeletal claw. At first glance it resembled an eagle's talon, but a slight tilt of the head revealed that the body was no eagle at all: a huge, hideous skull hung suspended in midair, and within its eye sockets glowed two chilling points of purple light that seized the soul and would not let go.

"A thunder dragon!" The words all but flew from Wei Zhao's mouth. He had never seen a thunder dragon before, but there was no doubt whatsoever that the massive beast before him was one—and one long dead. Scarcely any shriveled flesh and skin remained on its frame; jutting white bone showed everywhere, and the thick stench of death was enough to make his scalp crawl.

"Looks like our earlier guess was dead on—that wraith's primordial spirit is controlling this thunder dragon corpse. Heh heh, brat, here's your chance to shine," the ghostly thing said with a laugh, seizing the moment.

Damn it! Wei Zhao was cursing up a storm inside. After being struck by purple lightning so many times, both his spirit and his flesh were long since exhausted—and now he had to face this colossal thunder dragon alone? Was this not a setup?

Even if it was merely a thunder dragon corpse controlled by a wraith's primordial spirit, it was still an existence on par with the Mountain-Opening stage! The ghostly thing made it sound so easy—but the problem was, how was he supposed to deal with something like this so easily?!

But there was no help for it. To stay alive, he had no choice but to fight to the bitter end.

Perhaps because all those earlier lightning strikes had failed to kill Wei Zhao, the thunder dragon's desiccated corpse actually abandoned the purple lightning and launched its attack directly with its colossal body. After a shrill, ear-piercing howl torn skyward, its two enormous skeletal claws came crashing down, one hard upon the other.

Wei Zhao's eyelid twitched—take a hit like that and he would be smashed into meat paste. What made it even more troublesome was that although the thing's massive corpse was right there at hand, the surrounding mist cloaked it in an eerie, spectral quality, and its attacks came without the slightest warning. If he had to rely on his naked eyes alone, by the time he saw those skeletal claws he would likely already be dead.

Fortunately, Wei Zhao had the jade pendant's warning. Combined with the Ultra-Limit Butterfly Microstep, he could still slip past the attacks; otherwise, never mind fighting back—he would be lucky just to escape with his life.

He dodged two skeletal claws in succession, and before he could draw a breath of relief, a skeletal tail came sweeping across from the side. There was no need to experience it firsthand—the sheer momentum alone was enough to make his scalp tingle.

The sweep of that skeletal tail covered an enormous area, sealing off practically every route of retreat Wei Zhao had. In desperation he recklessly blasted out true qi, stamped down hard, and shot straight up into the sky.

Ssskraa! Seeing this, the thunder dragon's desiccated corpse let out a horrifying hiss and opened its gigantic maw to snap at Wei Zhao in midair. Wei Zhao nearly lost his soul at the sight—he was hanging in empty space with not a single foothold to push off from. How was he supposed to dodge?!

At the critical juncture of life and death, he watched helplessly as the thunder dragon corpse's maw drew closer and closer; if those jaws closed on him, his body would be shredded in an instant!

A thunder dragon, after all, was a fearsome existence standing at the very pinnacle of lightning-attribute spirit beasts. Setting aside its formidable power of lightning, its sheer physical combat strength alone was extraordinary—and even if this desiccated corpse retained only thirty percent of its strength in life, that was still more than enough to leave Wei Zhao with no place to be buried.

Yet at this desperate pass, when most people's minds would have gone blank, Wei Zhao's instead raced faster than ever. In a flash of inspiration he hit upon a brilliant trick to snatch life from the jaws of death: in the very instant the creature opened its mouth to bite, he blasted true qi from his back and launched himself headlong ahead of the bite—straight into the monster's maw!

Had this been a living thunder dragon, Wei Zhao would sooner have died than do such a thing, for hurling himself into its mouth was nothing short of delivering himself up to death. Fortunately, this was only a thunder dragon's desiccated corpse; so long as he avoided those sharp teeth, there was no great problem in getting inside its mouth.

What was more, this actually handed Wei Zhao an unprecedented advantage—because once he was inside its mouth, the thunder dragon's corpse suddenly found it could no longer reach this human insect!

"Ho ho, brat, you really are a born fighter!" Even the ghostly thing, for all its vast experience, could not help praising him lavishly. "Tsk tsk, what a waste of your combat talent, being human. If only you were a spirit beast—give you a powerful body from our dragon clan, and you could practically challenge the Vermilion Bird himself!"

Wei Zhao had no time to pay him any mind just then. Snatching life from death by getting inside the creature's mouth had won him an absolute advantage, but bringing the thing down was still a major problem.

He was only an early-stage Mystic Ascension cultivator; he truly had no means to deal with a thunder dragon's desiccated corpse of this caliber. His most lethal technique, the lightning strike, was clearly useless here—landing it on the creature probably would not even qualify as scratching an itch. After all, this was the true master of lightning; its resistance to electricity naturally far surpassed that of Wei Zhao, a mere human.

As for his other remaining methods, the mightiest by far was the Five Elements Killing Qi. Given enough time, he might perhaps create an even stronger eight-attribute martial technique—but clearly he had no such conditions now.

To hell with it! Wei Zhao had no time to keep agonizing. He raised his hand and unleashed a Five Elements Killing Qi at maximum power, aimed straight at the thunder dragon corpse's skull, which was close enough to touch. He knew attacking anywhere else was useless—this was the one spot most likely to harbor the wraith's primordial spirit!

BOOM! The Five Elements Killing Qi punched instantly through a thick layer of white bone, and the vast cranial cavity lay bare before Wei Zhao without the slightest obstruction. There, coiled and lurking, was a bizarre mass of purple mist.

Wei Zhao's body convulsed violently as a monstrous tide of resentment came crashing over him, nearly materialized into substance. Caught off guard, he was blown clean off his feet; fortunately, in his panic he managed to grab hold of a bony protrusion beside him—otherwise this would have been a total loss, and he would have had to start all over again.

"Could this be the wraith's primordial spirit?" Wei Zhao's heart stirred, and instinctively he raised his hand for another Five Elements Killing Qi—but the moment he struck, he regretted it. Since the foe was a primordial spirit, the Five Elements Killing Qi would be utterly useless against it.

Sure enough, the Five Elements Killing Qi passed straight through that bizarre purple mist without so much as the faintest sound or tremor. Not the slightest effect.