Chapter 4591 — Half a Master
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
When Wei Zhao thought of those two such formidable and terrifying beings, the Five-Poison Wyrm and the giant electric eel—one now fallen, the other most likely to fall as well—he could not help but sigh at the fickleness of the world's affairs.
Had those two still been alive, and especially had that Five-Poison Wyrm still been alive, the whole order of the Southern Continent would likely look vastly different. At the very least, the Vermilion Bird could never have run rampant and done as it pleased the way it did now; the tragedy that had befallen the Five-Slaughter Dragon's master would have been very hard to repeat upon it. After all, the creature's strength was unreasonably savage—even by the Vermilion Bird's means, it might not have been able to do anything to it.
As Wei Zhao sighed and lamented, the shattered memory fragment in his mind crumbled further still, until at last it turned to powder and dust, scattering utterly into nothing, as though it had never been there at all.
The surrounding waters suddenly fell calm—calmer than they had ever been, without a trace of that mountain-crushing oppression Wei Zhao had felt before. Wei Zhao was struck momentarily dumb. The sliver of obsession the giant electric eel had left behind had vanished!
"Could that memory fragment have been its obsession—and now that the fragment is shattered, its obsession has vanished with it?" Wei Zhao stood frozen for a long while, carefully replaying what had just happened, before the realization dawned on him belatedly. "Does this mean I've inherited its legacy?"
"Of course it counts. It didn't give you strength outright, but memory itself is the most precious legacy—and on top of that, you've comprehended a martial art like the Five-Element Killing Qi from it. I have to say, you lucky brat, even I'm a little jealous." Ghost Thing affirmed, half in jest.
"So that's how it is." Wei Zhao drew a deep breath and nodded with some regret. "Seems I really do owe this senior sea beast my thanks. It and the Five-Poison Wyrm both count as half a master to me—only I don't even know what race it was. One day, if I want to pay my respects, I won't even know where to begin. What a pity..."
"There's nothing to pity," Ghost Thing said dismissively. "That you could comprehend the Five-Element Killing Qi from the obsession it left behind—that's your own ability and your own fortune. If anything, it ought to be thanking you."
"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Wei Zhao asked, puzzled.
"If you hadn't stuck your oar in, brat, that obsession of its would have gone on existing forever, sunk in eternal torment with no release—I needn't spell out how miserable that is. But now, with the obsession wholly dispersed, it has a beginning and an end. Wouldn't you say it ought to thank you?" Ghost Thing laughed.
"All right, so there's a saying for that too." Wei Zhao smiled at that, but still bowed deeply to the giant electric eel's vast corpse. However one looked at it, he was the beneficiary; he would always be grateful to this top-tier sea beast, and he dared not cast this debt of legacy behind him.
"It's only a pity that this creature's primal spirit has perished, reduced to this last scrap of obsession. There's nothing substantial left to pass on to you—only memory fragments for you to intuit for yourself. Otherwise, brat, your haul this time would surely have been greater still—a true great opportunity, a true great fortune!" Ghost Thing, on the contrary, felt the loss on Wei Zhao's behalf. To let such a once-in-ten-thousand-years chance slip through one's fingers—it made a man want to beat his breast.
A mere broken scrap of memory had been enough for Wei Zhao to comprehend the Five-Element Killing Qi from it. And if it had been a complete legacy, like the one the Five-Slaughter Dragon had received—what a sight that would have been!