Chapter 3674 — The King of Spirit Beasts
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Uh..." Wei Zhao was stunned. What kind of place was Nakajima? It was the mightiest of the five Cloud-Tier Islands. Even if the deputy island master's strength fell short of the island master's, to be killed in a single blow—that was truly...
"As for where they came from, no one knows, because nobody on the island has ever seen them! I only heard one of them call the other 'uncle,' so the two are probably related!" said Ghost Thing. (To learn the identities of these two, one may read *Faint Light of Old Dreams.)
"Uncle? Related?" Wei Zhao was all the more baffled. But since even Ghost Thing didn't know the answer, he naturally had no way of finding out either.
Ghost Thing went on: "After the King of Spirit Beasts vanished, the Spirit Beast Clan—once as solid as an iron plate under his suppression—began to fracture bit by bit. The several elders each went their own way, ambitious to become the new King of Spirit Beasts."
This much was not hard to understand. Any top-tier expert was bound to harbor ambitions of his own; while the King of Spirit Beasts was present, they had not dared to show it, but once that overbearing presence was gone from above their heads, ambition woke in them as naturally as instinct.
After all, how could anyone with the strength to contend for the highest seat be content to live beneath another?
"The several elders are all roughly matched in strength, and none will submit to another, so they've split into several factions, each carving out its own territory on South Island! As things stand, with internal division gnawing from within and so many human sects eyeing them like tigers from without, the Spirit Beast Clan will inevitably fall apart at this rate. This old man has thought it over, and I fear the key to breaking this deadlock still lies with the King of Spirit Beasts himself," Ghost Thing said slowly.
"The King of Spirit Beasts? But hasn't he already vanished?" Wei Zhao said in surprise.
Ghost Thing shook his head. "That's right. The King of Spirit Beasts did indeed vanish, but he once left a bloodline behind in the mortal world. All we need do is find his descendant and find a way to awaken the power of that bloodline—then that descendant can become the new King of Spirit Beasts and command the entire Spirit Beast Clan!"
"That... is that even possible?"
Wei Zhao felt Ghost Thing's plan was somewhat wishful thinking. "Even if you, Senior, find the King of Spirit Beasts' descendant, he was born in the mortal world after all. Even if there's a way to awaken his bloodline, his strength couldn't possibly be directly on par with the King of Spirit Beasts, could it? And if his strength won't do—how could he ever make these ambitious spirit beast elders submit?"
This sort of scenario was just like what happened in dynasty after dynasty of Huaxia, when the emperor died and the regent ministers installed a child emperor: even if everyone openly acknowledged the little emperor's status, in truth the power remained in the hands of those regent ministers, and the little emperor was nothing but a puppet to be pushed around.
And in Wei Zhao's view, without sufficient strength, even if Ghost Thing found the King of Spirit Beasts' descendant, in the end the fellow likely wouldn't even manage to be a puppet emperor.
Because there was every chance these spirit beast elders simply wouldn't acknowledge his status at all—and as for commanding the Spirit Beast Clan, that was even further out of the question.
"That's where you're ignorant. Between spirit beasts there's a hierarchy of suppression—you must have heard of that before, boy?" Ghost Thing answered a question with a question.
Wei Zhao nodded. "I've heard a little. They say that between one spirit beast and another, beyond mere strength, there's an innate hierarchy of suppression—each tier suppressing the one below, and no one ever speaks of fighting across tiers."